The Mersey Railway was a passenger railway that connected the communities of Liverpool and Birkenhead, England, which lie on opposite banks of the River Mersey, via the Mersey Railway Tunnel from 1886 to 1948. The railway opened with four stations using steam locomotives hauling unheated wooden carriages; in the next six years the line was extended and three more stations opened. Using the first tunnel under the Mersey the line is oldest underground railway outside of London.
However the steam locomotives left a polluted atmosphere in the tunnel and passengers preferred the ferries and by the early 1900s the railway was bankrupt. Recovery came after the railway was electrified in 1903. The Mersey Railway remained independent in the railway grouping of 1923, although it became closely integrated with the London, Midland and Scottish Railway's electric train services operating over the former Wirral Railway routes from 1938. The Mersey Railway was nationalised, along with most other British railway companies, in 1948.
The tunnel and railway are still in use today as part of the Wirral Line of the Merseyrail commuter rail network.
Famous quotes containing the word railway:
“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)