FROM THE MERSEY RAILWAY TO MERSEYRAIL: HOW LIVERPOOL GOT ITS MODERN METRO
Today’s metro serving the Liverpool city region is centred on an underground section below the city, largely built in the 1970s. As in other similar systems this now links with older surface railways. Its progress was crucially aided by the existence of established electrified lines and in this article we shall look at the origins and development of the present network and the characteristics which led directly to ‘Merseyrail’, a branding introduced by British Rail in 1971. The previous electric lines provided a sound basis for more recent developments, and other relevant factors were local ownership and management, along with established interconnection between the different undertakings. Let’s begin with an outline of the four pioneering installations.
• The elevated Liverpool Overhead Railway (LOR) was the earliest. Its construction on a viaduct along the line of Mersey docks, 16 feet above street level, was necessary to avoid the chronic congestion on the parallel roadway. Electric traction was boldly adopted, at the dawn of the technology, to avoid the risk of fire and to operate with reduced axle weight. Its initial section opened in 1893 between Alexandra Dock in the north and Herculaneum Dock in the south, a little after the City & South London (1890), but before the Central London (1900) and Waterloo & City (1898). To tap further sources of traffic the line was extended southwards to an underground terminus in suburban Dingle in 1896 and northwards first to Seaforth Sands (1894), and then to meet the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway (LYR) at Seaforth & Litherland in 1905. This was used between 1906 and 1914 by regular through services from the LYR, using specially designed lightweight units. Until 1956 the LOR ran services over LYR tracks, to Aintree for the annual Grand National. The line was omitted both from the 1923 grouping and from nationalisation.
• In contrast to the elevated LOR is the Mersey Railway (MR), whose tunnel below the river was the second underground railway in the world after London’s Metropolitan Railway of 1863. It was opened between James Street and Green Lane (Tranmere) in February 1886, and then to Birkenhead Park in 1888 and to Rock Ferry in 1891. In Liverpool the line was extended underground to Central (Low Level) in 1892, completing the little network. Steam-worked, from the start its repellant atmosphere was a strong deterrent to travel and by the end of the century the railway seemed doomed, in part because of the high cost of lifts, pumping and mechanical ventilation. In 1899 deliverance came in the form of the American Westinghouse company, seeking to provide a British showcase for its system of electric traction and offering to reequip the line on favourable terms. Electric traction was introduced in 1903, the first British example of
