The Groundbreaking Elevated Railway Liverpool Loved and Lost

this is footage of the world's first elevated electric railway created in one of britain's busiest port cities to solve a growing problem it ran for 11 kilometers and carried around 20 million passengers every year and it was a high-tech solution to an age-old problem and set the standard for elevated railways around the world so where did it go and why did they get rid of it [Music] at the end of the 19th century liverpool was a bustling port city with a huge dockland running the length of its riverfront the problem was it wasn't just busy it was busy busy bordering on chaotic with thousands of dock workers moving in and around the city a transport solution was needed that would serve the entire length of the docks it would need to be quick cheap and congestion free the answer the city came up with was radical daring and perfect the liverpool overhead railway throughout industrialization liverpool's dock traffic grew at an incredible rate not only did shipping increase but ships were bigger than ever before as the docks became overcrowded and in many cases too small to cope new dockland was added then more and then more with all this duckling the problem now wasn't congestion on the water but congestion on the land moving goods from doctor warehouse and vice versa created traffic then you add in the thousands of workers who had to go to and from the docks all day long and you've got a major problem with overcrowding the dockside railway was added in the 1850s to speed up the process of moving goods from ships to warehouses but initially only horses were used not locomotives and by 1860 they were ferrying passengers along as well as goods the idea of an elevated railway was introduced early on as a way of establishing an extra transportation link along the dock front without affecting the road but there were concerns steam engines were heavy and produced a lot of smoke and ash which could be dangerous for anyone walking below still the liverpool overhead railway company was formed in 1888 with the aim to further a double line railway along the city's front and rather than steam the company decided that electric trains would be the better option electrified trains weren't exactly new but they were rare and they never before been built to run elevated off the ground [Music] after nearly four years of construction in 1893 it was finished built from raw iron girders and standing almost five meters off the ground the line ran from alexandra dock to herculaneum dock a distance of around five and a half miles where it crossed wider street sections bridges were built four in total while the engineers included hydraulic lifting sections at brunswick sandon and langton docks for goods to be lifted to and from the line at stanley dock the unique double layered bridge was built to carry road and rail traffic over the leeds liverpool canal there was both a lifting and a swing bridge when smaller vessels wanted to pass both sides of the bridge would raise up at an angle while for taller vessels it was possible to swing the entire bridge out of the way power to the line was supplied by a generator at bramley moore dock fed from coal supplied directly from the railway line passing nearby to reduce the amount of energy needed carriages were specially designed to be extra lightweight the new line was incredibly popular with commuters and acquired the nickname docker's umbrella because of the shelter the overhead line offered during rain it remained popular even during two world wars carrying millions of passengers every year not only was it the first electric elevated railway in the world it was also the first to use automatic signaling electric units an electric colourful light signals it also became something of a tourist attraction with a poster from the 1930s calling it the best way to see the finest ducks in the world an extension to the main line was built at seaforth in 1905 eventually allowing for passengers to make through journeys to places like aintree and southport finally an extension in the south at dingle took the line a short distance inland i meant the overhead line suddenly became an underground line thanks to this tunnel the station at dingle was here on this corner and passengers would have the strange task of descending from street level in order to access a larger elevated railway so if it was so popular and useful why did it close well large parts of the line had been damaged in world war ii and the line was never nationalized like the rest around britain in 1948 and so suffered from a lack of funds also as motor cars became more popular traveling about the city by train wasn't as appealing to workers and shoppers alike additionally by the 1950s those strong iron girders had begun to age and in some places deteriorate the lines suffered from rust and wear and repair costs were quickly melting up facing a bill for around two million pound the liverpool overhead railway company appealed for funding but finding none went into voluntary liquidation on the 30th of december 1956 and despite much public protest the line closed forever by 1958 all sections of the line had been demolished with very few bits of evidence remaining of its existence [Music] even the stanley dock double decker bridge was replaced by this one the foundations of the original barely visible elsewhere footprints of the cast iron columns can be seen in this wall at clarence dock while the tunnel at dingle remains a tantalizing reminder of the engineering marvel that was once here although it's no longer with us today the overhead railway is a source of great pride and nostalgia for liverpudlians it's been nearly seven decades since its demolition which is a longer time than the railway even existed yet its memory is overwhelmingly a positive one for the city even if the overhead line had found its funding and survived the 1950s it's unlikely it would have sustained itself much longer as the decline of liverpool docks in the 1960s 70s and 80s meant that a number of dock workers fell steadily over this period the overhead would simply run out of customers and by the time things were looking up in liverpool a new merseyrail mainline extension had been built rendering the need for a line along the docks a bit useless now would this engineering marvel ever return probably not but as 21st century cities continue to suffer with congestion innovative and high-tech solutions are being looked at again it may not be the last we see of an elevated mass transit line on liverpool's waterfront [Music] [Music] do [Music] you

Channel: Bee Here Now

Views: 70,212

Keywords: british history, working class, industrial revolution, martin zero, abandoned, railway history, urbex, historic railways, northern history, liverpool history, liverpool, north mersey, mersey docks, liverpool docks, abandoned railway, decaying, liverpool overhead railway, electric railway, overhead railway, liverpool dock, dingle, liverpool tunnel, liverpool railway, merseyrail

Id: p7Ema25-WaY

Length: 9min 9sec (549 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 05 2022