R.o.B Railways
Liverpool Overhead Railway
Introduction: A lot has been written about the Liverpool Overhead Railway often known as the 'Dockers umbrella', but I thought it was well worth a mention here as well! The railway was opened by the then Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury in 1893. Though it was the world's first electrically powered elevated railway it was not the first Elevated railway which was on in New York, America. The Railway was well used but with increasing competition from Trams, cars and buses, it was wound up and closed in 1957 being demolished by 1958.
1). Advertising poster for the LOHR
Initial history: During the beginning of the 19th century, Liverpool's docks were expanding at a terrific rate with large amounts of people and goods travelling along the roads of Liverpool's port. It was soon obvious something had to be done. One of the earliest ideas put forward was for a freight railway to run over the street with warehouses situated below, but as the resident engineer of the time wanted to expand the docks and the railway would have made it more expensive he refused the idea. By 1870 traffic was at ridiculous levels and congestion regularly occurred especially ships berthed. What did not help was that a tramway had been built and the trams had to regularly leave the line to get around obstructions.
The Mersey Dock and Harbour Board proposed an overhead tramway probably based on the earlier idea put forward for the freight railway. Despite the idea having been welcomed by many and also 2 acts of parliament being passed nothing happened. The opportunity to have the first operational elevated railway had by now passed to the one mentioned above in New York.
2). The railway from street level
Political reasons stopped any further development of the Mersey Dock and Harbour Board plans to build the railway until a new company was formed to build and operate the railway. This was to become known as the Liverpool overhead Railway Company and it was formed in 1888 the same year as the Blackpool and Fleetwood tramways opening. The route: With their been a lack of space at ground level hence the lack of road widening to relieve congestion, ideas had to be put forward how to run the supports for a railway along the street causing the least possible inconvenience. One of the reasons for the railway becoming electrically powered was for this precise reason. Conventional railway locomotives were just far too heavy to operate over the kind of structure that would have to be built.
3). The only section of embankment on the line was at Seaforth
The city and South London railway had been using electric traction for some time by this point and had proved its worth and the LOHR saw this as the answer to their problem. So by 1891 the decision was made for electric traction to be used. This also meant that the LOHR had to build their own power station for electricity generation as the Liverpool corporation power station could not pump out the extra required power. More acts of parliament followed and the LOHR managed to find financial backers surprisingly away form the main line railway companies who they did not trust. One act of Parliament authorised the railway to run from Alexandra to Herculaneum docks.
By the end of construction there were to be 15 stations, 2 bridges at pierhead and it would take32 minutes to do the journey from the terminus at Dingle to the other terminus at Seaforth Sands.
4). The car depot with unrebuilt cars
Construction: Each of the 50ft long spans for the railway were to be built in pieces away from the site due to the limited space and then lifted in to position when reconstructed. Because of the varying lengths of streets the spans varied in length quite considerably from 30 to 75ft long. To lift the sections in to place a huge gantry was used to lift them and hold them in place. Once this was done the rails were laid on top with great ease. Because one concern was things dropping of the railway to the street below waterproof decking had to be fitted to protect passers below. This was why it was called the Dockers umbrella. The railway cost £466,000 to build which today would equate to £31million. Test running of trains was carried out successfully before the opening by Lord Salisbury and public running commenced. Decline: Maintenance of the railway was more costly than that of a conventional railway due to the maintenance of the supports and all other accessories required. By the beginning of the First World War passenger numbers would have had to have topped the 10million mark for the railway to be financially reliable so that maintenance could take place.
5). Streamlined stock
With the development of the city corporations electric tramways around Liverpool the railway started to face stiff competition. To compete with the trams journey times and relative luxury the LOHR refurbished its trains to make them smarter and faster allowing a journey time of just 22minutes though this was later increased to 28 minutes to save on fuel costs. Though the trams were slower their system covered a much wider area and their fares were cheaper so despite the LOHR running a 3 minute frequency in the rush and 10 minutes during other times the trams were soon to be the winners. Despite this by 1919 the LOHR had reached a passenger usage of 19 million people a year and managed to compete within a limited degree. However with the changes in ship building and also the introduction of telephones and cars, passenger usage started to reduce again not helped by the trams. By 1921 the usage was half that above and the railway started to feel the pinch.
6). The last remaining car, No 7
Closure: Sadly as with the tramways to follow, increased maintenance costs and lack of usage led to the eventual closure of the system in 1957. The structure was soon sold for scrap and was demolished in 1958. Though saying this, browsing through all the web sites about the system, it seems to have remained popular for many people who have photographs and memories of using the railway. Perhaps if it had had a modern integrated transport system it may have survived!