Crown Street Railway Station
Crown Street Station was located on Crown Street, Liverpool, England. The station opened on 15 September 1830 as the Liverpool passenger terminus of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the world's first public passenger line. This gave it the distinction, along with Manchester's corresponding Liverpool Road station that opened on the same day, of being the world's first two dedicated intercity passenger railway stations.
The architecture is attributed to George Stephenson. The station was accessed by a 291 yard long single track tunnel from the deep Edge Hill Cutting to the east, sometime known as the Cavendish Cutting. Together with the adjacent 1.26 mile Wapping Tunnel, these were the first tunnels to be bored under a metropolis. Stationary steam engines, located in the cutting, operated a continuous rope system to haul wagons up inclines from Edge Hill station and up the 1.26 miles long Wapping Tunnel from Park Lane Goods Depot, earlier known as Wapping railway goods station, at Liverpool's south end docks. The Wapping Tunnel runs under the Crown Street station site.
Crown Street station was too far from Liverpool city centre. Its use as a passenger station ended after only six years of use in 1836 when Lime Street Station was opened. The site of the Crown Street station was converted to a goods yard. An additional twin track tunnel was built from the Edge Hill cutting in 1846 to improve throughput to the goods yard. The goods yard closed permanently when services through the two tunnels ended in 1972. The Wapping Tunnel along with the original Crown Street tunnel also ceased to be used in 1972.
The area has been landscaped as a park with the original 1830 single track tunnel's western portal covered over. The 1846 Crown Street tunnel is now used as a headshunt for trains. Student accommodation for the nearby University of Liverpool has been built on a part of the old goods yard site. The site of the station itself is landscaped. The Wapping Tunnel's ventilation tower and plaque mark commemorates the station's place in history.
| Preceding station | Disused railways | Following station | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Edge Hill | Park Lane goods | |||
Read more about Crown Street Railway Station: Sources
Famous quotes containing the words crown, street, railway and/or station:
“A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.”
—Bible: New Testament Revelation 12:1.
“I marched in with the men afoot; a gallant show they made as they marched up High Street to the depot. Lucy and Mother Webb remained several hours until we left. I saw them watching me as I stood on the platform at the rear of the last car as long as they could see me. Their eyes swam. I kept my emotion under control enough not to melt into tears.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Her personality had an architectonic quality; I think of her when I see some of the great London railway termini, especially St. Pancras, with its soot and turrets, and she overshadowed her own daughters, whom she did not understand—my mother, who liked things to be nice; my dotty aunt. But my mother had not the strength to put even some physical distance between them, let alone keep the old monster at emotional arm’s length.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“[T]here is no situation so deplorable ... as that of a gentlewoman in real poverty.... Birth, family, and education become misfortunes when we cannot attain some means of supporting ourselves in the station they throw us into. Our friends and former acquaintances look on it as a disgrace to own us.... If we were to attempt getting our living by any trade, people in that station would think we were endeavoring to take their bread out of their mouths.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)