Notes: Notes: Liverpool Exchange was on the northern side of the city centre in its business district on Tithebarn Street. It served the East Lancashire Railway’s (ELR) line to Preston, the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway’s (LYR) route to Bolton and the Liverpool, Crosby & Southport Railway (LC&SR).

The LYR route had originally been proposed by the Bolton, Wigan & Liverpool Railway Company which was formed in 1844 by prominent industrialists who wanted to create a better link with Liverpool and break the monopoly of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway (L&M). Early in 1845 these industrialists decided to extend the line to Bury and apply for

Liverpool Exchange station in 1850

The ELR line was authorised as the Liverpool, Ormskirk & Preston Railway on 16th August 1846. Work began on the line on 15th March 1847. The ELR and LYR routes converged at Walton, to the north of Liverpool. As heavy engineering works would be necessary southwards from Walton (a lengthy tunnel under Walton and viaducts into the city were required) the two companies agreed to share the route. The LYR line opened on 20th November 1848 and the ELR on 2nd April 1849. The Liverpool terminus was at Great Howard Street. From the start

Traffic levels built up to such a degree that the Great Howard Street terminus soon proved inadequate. A new terminus on Tithebarn Street in the city’s business district had been proposed even before the lines had opened.

Work commenced on the extension and the new station after July 1847; it opened on 13th May 1850. Whilst the LYR called it Liverpool Exchange Station, to the ELR it was Liverpool Tithebarn Street. It was elevated above street level on brick arches. The frontage towered 90ft above the street because the lines approaching the station had to clear the Leeds

The LYR was the dominant partner, and it was they who decided how the station would be divided. The LYR took the west side and left the ELR with the east. Even before it opened the ELR objected to the way the LYR had allocated facilities, a formal objection being lodged on 11th March 1850. This proved fruitless so they took their complaint to the Railway Commissioners, but it is not known what they decided at a meeting on 13th January 1851.

At the time of opening the LYR operated trains to Wigan, Bolton, Bury and onwards to Leeds. The ELR operated to Preston and onto its network of lines in east Lancashire. From 1st October 1850 trains of the LC&SR began to run into Exchange/Tithebarn Street station. This line opened in two stages between Liverpool and Southport. On 14th June 1855 the LYR

Although the former LC&SR had been a minor railway serving sparsely populated areas, housing developments along the route brought many thousands of extra passengers into Exchange. The line continued to grow in importance as a commuter route throughout the second half of the 19th century.

By the 1880s traffic levels at Liverpool Exchange had built up to such a degree that further expansion was needed. An Act of 24th July 1882 authorised the LYR to widen the approach lines to the station. Just over a year later a further Act dated 2nd August 1883 allowed for a complete rebuild of Exchange station. After some debate it was agreed that the station would

To minimise disruption to rail traffic the eastern side of the new station was built first alongside the existing station (on its east side). When the new station opened in part on 12th December 1886 (the eastern side) work could begin on the western side, and the remaining sections of the original station from 1850 were demolished. The new facilities opened completely 2nd July 1888. On 13th August 1888 the Exchange Hotel,which provided the frontage to the station, opened: it was owned and operated by the LYR and cost £140,000 to build.

The station and hotel fronted directly onto Tithebarn Street. It was four storeys high and built of red sandstone. At its centre two archways formed the entrance to the station for pedestrians and cabs. To the left was the entrance and, to the right, the exit. Having passed through the arches and under the hotel passengers reached a cab circulating area surrounded

There were ten platforms beneath a ridged iron glazed roof that allowed light into the station. The platforms were numbered from the east side, platform 1 being the easternmost platform and platform 10 the westernmost. The platform faces were arranged as six ‘islands’. Between platforms 3 and 4 was a wide roadway for road vehicles to collect and deliver goods and parcels. They reached the roadway from a large entrance on the east side of the station, at the southern end of the platforms.

In the circulating area, south of the platforms, were two timber booking offices, one to the east and the other to the west. The western office sold tickets for local services whilst the eastern one catered for long-distance passengers.

Beyond the platforms to the north two turntables were provided, one situated amongst the approach lines on the eastern side whilst the other was alongside the approach lines on the western side. Two signal boxes controlled the approach lines. Immediately north of the station was Liverpool Exchange No 2, with a brick base and a timber upper. Further north was Liverpool

A Royal Mail postage stamp that was issued in 1988 shows an LYR locomotive at Liverpool Exchange station in the early 1900s. CLICK

By 1900 so busy had the Southport line become, because of the spread of housing along the route, that there were 36 through trains in each direction. In addition there were more than 30 trains in each direction that ran only as far as Crosby. Southport traffic had increased to such a degree that it taxed the accommodation at Liverpool Exchange to the limit. The LYR was also concerned that it might lose business from the southern end of the line because municipal electric tramways were opening up on parallel routes. The solution proposed by Sir John Aspinall, the LYR General Manager, was to electrify the route to Southport and introduce multiple unit trains. Aspinall

The service was a great success. So popular was it that there were 119 departures from Liverpool Exchange. Many ran only to Crosby but 65 continued to Southport Chapel Street; seventeen of the 65 went as far as Crossens. On 3rd December 1906 electrification progressed along the Preston line as far as Aintree, and over the next few years it was extended twice until it reached Ormskirk on the 1st April 1913.

On 1st January 1922 the LYR merged with the LNWR, but a year later on 1st January 1923 that company became part of the London Midland & Scottish Railway (LMS). The LMS also took over the LNWR, giving them control of Liverpool Lime Street station. They also had a third share in the CLC which remained a separate company. The other two-thirds of

On 30th June 1929 an excursion train from Hull collided with the hydraulic buffers at platform 4. Thirty-eight injured passengers were removed to hospital, but of these all except two were discharged the same day; Forty others complained of injuries or shock but were not sent to hospital. A report into the accident blamed the driver for entering the station at too high a speed.

In 1939 the LMS introduced new electric rolling stock -later to be classed 502 – which was steel built, with automatic sliding doors. Work commenced on the installation of colour-light signaling at Liverpool Exchange at about the same time, but the outbreak of World War II, on 3rd September 1939, disrupted the project. Approximately half of the station had colour-

The Liverpool Blitz began on August 9th 1940. The city’s railways were a target for enemy bombers, and damage was caused to the approach lines to Liverpool Exchange. In December 1940 a viaduct north of the station received a direct hit and collapsed. No trains were able to run into the station, so extra services were provided from the CLC Liverpool Central to Southport Lord Street to convey commuters. Although the route was much longer, the extra trains helped, and they ran from 24th December 1940 until 5th July 1941. Wooden trestle bridges were built over the site of the collapsed viaduct to enable electric services to be restored. The line reopened for them within days, but no steam-hauled main line services were able to run into Exchange until 18th August 1941: they terminated at Kirkdale, passengers transferring to buses or trams. In May 1941 Liverpool suffered the worst raids of the war, and a section of the roof at Liverpool Exchange was badly damaged and had to be demolished. The roof section was at the north end of the station on the west side. After June 1941 the raids eased off, with last being on 10th January 1942. Train services at Liverpool Exchange did not return to normal until late 1942.  In 1946 the colour-light signaling scheme was completed.

On 1 January 1948 Liverpool Exchange became part of the nationalised British Railways (London Midland Region). At first services remained broadly similar to those in the LMS years. Electric commuter services remained frequent and busy, and longer-distance services to Manchester, Blackpool, east Lancashire, Yorkshire and Scotland ran from the station.

In summer 1960 there were still weekday long-distance departures to Bradford Exchange, Leeds Central, Windermere, Glasgow Central & Edinburgh Waverley, Newcastle Central and Workington. Regular services operated to Rochdale, Blackpool Central, Preston, Wigan Wallgate, Bolton Trinity Street and to Manchester Victoria. High frequency electric services

In 1965-6 trains left Exchange for Southport every 20 minutes, with extra services at rush hour. This service interval applied on all days in summer, but the winter Sunday frequency was half-hourly. The Ormskirk off-peak service ran every 30 minutes, supplemented at rush hour, and an irregular service ran on to Preston. Nineteen trains left for Wigan Wallgate, including some

On 5th March 1967 platforms 1, 2 and 3 were taken out of use. The tracks were soon removed and the area was infilled and used for car parking. This was probably due to the cessation of regular steam-hauled trains on local services. DMU’s had been introduced onto many of the non-electric services from 1960; DMU operation required fewer platforms.

By summer 1968 the Liverpool Exchange to Glasgow Central Sunday expresses were the only remaining scheduled steam-hauled passenger services in Great Britain. Many enthusiasts headed to Liverpool Exchange at this time to photograph and travel on the last services.

The last express services to Glasgow ran from Exchange on Sunday 3rd May 1970. Direct services to Preston finished the previous year. This left the station with only the electric services to Southport and Ormskirk and DMU’s to Bolton. The electric services still ran at a high frequency.

On 1st April 1969 the Merseyside Passenger Transport Authority was formed under an Act of 1968 with responsibility for the co-ordination of bus, train and ferry services within the Merseyside area, through the Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive (MPTE). (This pre-dated the Metropolitan County of Merseyside which was created in April 1974.) The

On 6 May 1973 platforms 8, 9 and 10 were taken out of use so that a contractor’s base could be established for the construction of Moorfields station. A shaft was sunk at the site of the platforms to aid the works. The closure of these platforms left only numbers 6 and 7 electrified. Two platforms were insufficient for the electric services so the lines at platforms 4 and 5 were

During the last year of passenger services there were fifteen weekday departures for Bolton. The first left Liverpool Exchange at 07:04 and the last at 21:43. On Saturdays there was an additional late departure for Bolton at 22:37. There were also fifteen arrivals from the Bolton line on weekdays, the first at 06:44, but it originated from Wigan Wallgate. The last arrival was at 22:06 on weekdays, but on Saturdays there was a Bolton train at 23:42. There was no Sunday service to Wigan Wallgate or Bolton.

There were 56 departures for Ormskirk on weekdays. Thirteen of the trains had onward connecting services to Preston from Ormskirk. On Sundays there were 22 Ormskirk departures but no onward connections to Preston. The Southport line was the busiest with trains running at least every twenty minutes on weekdays from early morning to late evening.

The last departure from Liverpool Exchange was at 23.35 on Friday 29th April 1977: a special service to mark the station’s closure. It ran to Liverpool Lime Street - which lay less than a mile away - via Wigan Wallgate. Although the station officially closed the next day its booking offices remained open until Monday 2nd May, issuing tickets for the usual destinations, but on replacement bus services.

Both Liverpool Exchange No 1 and No 2 signal boxes were manned until Sunday 1st May 1977 although no trains actually ran. The signalmen were on duty to oversee asset recovery operations. Shortly after the last train had departed on the Friday night the approach lines to Exchange were disconnected at the point where the link line diverged.

Northern Line passenger trains served Liverpool Moorfields station from 3rd May 1977, the first departure from Moorfields being for Southport at 06:07.

During the following weeks Liverpool Exchange was stripped of its remaining furnishings and track. The former main line platforms continued in their role as a car park for a couple of years until the trainshed was demolished. In the mid-1980s the station hotel was redeveloped as Mercury Court - an office complex. The frontage of the hotel was incorporated into the

Sources:

• An Illustrated History of Liverpool’s Railways – P Anderson – Irwell Press 1996
  
• Merseyrail Electrics – The Inside Story – T B Maund – NBC Books 2001
  
• Disused Stations – Lost Termini of North West England - P T Wright – Silver Link Publishing Ltd 2010
• The Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway Vol 1 – J Marshall – David & Charles 1969
• The Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway Vol 2 – J Marshall – David & Charles 1970
• Hansard – closure procedures
• Merseyside electrics – J Cadwallader & M Jenkins – Ian Allan 2010
• Seaport to Seaside – J W Gahan – Countyvise 1985
• Railway stations of Merseyside and district – P Bolger – Bluecoat Press 1994
• Railway passenger stations in Great Britain: a chronology – M Quick – RCHS - 2009
• Merseyrail pocket timetable – Liverpool, Rainford, Wigan & Bolton 3rd May 1976 until further notice – British Rail
• Merseyrail pocket timetable – Liverpool, Ormskirk, Preston 3rd May 1976 until further notice  – British Rail
• British Railways London Midland Region timetable 13th June to 11th September 1960 – British Railways
• British Rail London Midland Region timetable 14th June 1965 to 17th April 1966 – British Rail
• British Railways (London Midland Region) Timetable 17th of Sept 1956 to 16th of June 1957
• LMS Time Table July 18th to September 11th 1932

See Also
Liverpool Moorfields