Ливерпульская надземная железная дорога: История и исчезновение

Defunct elevated railway in Liverpool

The Liverpool Overhead Railway (known locally as the Dockers' Umbrella or Ovee) was an overhead railway in Liverpool that operated along the Liverpool Docks and opened in 1893 with lightweight electric multiple units. The railway had a number of world firsts: it was the first electric elevated railway, the first to use automatic signalling, electric colour light signals and electric multiple units, and was home to one of the first passenger escalators at a railway station. It was the second oldest electric metro in the world, being preceded by the 1890 City and South London Railway. Originally spanning 5 mile (8 km) from Alexandra Dock to Herculaneum Dock, the railway was extended at both ends over the years of operation, as far south as Dingle and north to Seaforth & Litherland. A number of stations opened and closed during the railway's operation owing to relative popularity and damage, including air bombing during the Second World War. At its peak almost 20million people used the railway every year. Being a local railway, it was not nationalised in 1948. In 1955, a report into the structure of the many bridges and viaducts showed that major repairs, which the company could not afford, were needed. The railway closed at the end of 1956, and despite public protests, the structures were dismantled in the following year. Since 1977, Liverpool's needs for rapid transit and commuter rail have been served by the partially underground Merseyrail network, which was formed from local suburban lines and new tunnel formed into a network, using no former infrastructure of the Liverpool Overhead Railway.

The "overhead" refers to the railway being primarily constructed above street level, and not to "overhead line", though there is no ambiguity as the electrical supply was third rail. When the LOR was extended to the Dingle terminus the "overhead" description of the railway would have seemed an anomaly to those descending to the platform there which was underground in a tunnel. At least two alternative names for the railway existed: "Dockers' Umbrella"; and "ovee", a local slang term.

As a result of the traffic, congestion, and overcrowding of the dock roads, many proposals were made for transport solutions. Rails were laid at Liverpool Docks in 1852, linking the warehouses and docks. Initially horses were used, for locomotives were banned because of the risk of fire. From 1859, passenger services were provided using adapted horse omnibuses; the wheel flanges could be retracted to allow an omnibus to leave the tracks to overtake a goods train. By the 1880s there was an omnibus service every five minutes. An elevated railway was first proposed in 1852, and in 1878 the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board (MD&HB) obtained powers for a single line steam railway with passing loops at stations. The MD&HB applied to the Board of Trade based on this plan, but it was rejected and there was no further progress. Building began in 1889 and was completed in January 1893. The structure was to be made of wrought iron girders, positioned a nominal 16 feet (5 m) above the roadway. A total of 567 spans were erected, most being 50 feet (15 m) long. The standard gauge railway was laid on longitudinal timbers on the elevated sections. Four bridges were constructed to cross wider streets.

quote box|"I have great pleasure in associating myself in however humble and transitory a manner with this great and splendid undertaking. I am glad to be associated with an enterprise which I hope will carry still further the prosperity and power of Liverpool, and which will carry down the name of Liverpool to posterity as the place where a great mechanical undertaking first found its home I will therefore, though with some fear and trembling, fulfil the injunctions of Sir William Forwood, and proceed to handle the electric machinery which is to set this line in motion. I only hope the result will be no different from what he anticipates. "|The Marquis of Salisbury at the opening ceremony. In the early days of the railway there were a number of injuries and at least one fatality as a result of passengers and conductors overestimating the height of the railway while standing up on the top deck of open top buses. Realising that the railway was receiving low traffic outside of working hours, the line was extended northwards to Seaforth Sands on 30 April 1894 in order to reach more residential areas. The extension brought the total length of the railway to 6 mile (10 km) and cost a total of £10,000. While the passengers had previously been primarily travelling to businesses and the city, the Seaforth extension resulted in a large increase in traffic from residents of the outer areas of Liverpool. An extension southwards from Herculaneum Dock to Dingle was opened on 21 December 1896. Dingle was the only underground station, the extension from Herculaneum Dock being achieved with a 200 feet (61 m) lattice girder bridge and a half mile (0.5 mile (1 km)) tunnel through the sandstone cliff to Park Road.

The railway's contractor, J. W. Willans, was appointed as its chief engineer. He specialised in building and running electric railways, and in 1902, newer and more powerful electric motors were fitted to the trains in order to reduce service times in order to keep up with the competition from trams. In the early 20th century, the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway L&YR was electrifying its routes out of A connection was built from the L&YR station to a new station beside Seaforth Sands. The railway became popular with tourists. A 1902 Liverpool guidebook devoted a whole chapter to viewing and visiting the docks via the overhead railway, and a 1930s poster described it as "the best way to see the finest docks in the world". As of 1919, a total of 18million passengers used the Overhead Railway each year, 14million passengers per year, even during the Second World War, and 9million into the 1950s. From 1902, the journey end to end journey time was reduced to 22minutes, but due to increased power and maintenance costs, the trains were then slowed down by six minutes in 1908, and the frequency of trains was increased to one every three minutes during peak times. By 1910, the operating hours were unrivaled, providing at least one train every 10minutes from 4:45am until 11:33;pm on weekdays. From 2 July 1905, Overhead Railway trains began running through to Seaforth & Litherland, and through connections and through bookings between Liverpool Overhead Railway stations and the Southport branch of the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway were made available, with revised fares and timetables. The L&YR built some special lightweight electric stock and from 1906 began running services from Dingle to and Aintree. Regular services to Aintree were withdrawn in 1908, and after this special trains ran only twice a year, on Jump Sunday and the following Friday for the Grand National, both held at Aintree Racecourse. Through services from Dingle to Southport were withdrawn in 1914. By 1914 the railway had served over 10 million passengers. Plans were put forward to extend the line from Herculaneum Dock to St Michaels, and from Seaforth Sands to Sefton, to create a circular route, using the Hunts Cross to Southport line, however, these were never carried out. With fewer ships docking in Liverpool during the Great Depression, there was a reduction in usage of the Overhead Railway. Tourist tickets were offered from 1932, which also included visits to ocean liners that were moored at the docks, as part of a scheme to increase ticket sales, along with reduced prices, and a major advertising campaign. During the Second World War, the railway suffered extensively from bomb damage. As a purely local undertaking, it was not nationalised in 1948 with the rest of the British railway system. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the company started to modernise some of the carriages, incorporating sliding doors. The line continued to carry large numbers of passengers, especially dock workers. The Mersey Docks & Harbour Board maintained stringent controls over the operation of the Overhead Railway for the duration of its operation. The board protected its own freight transport interests by including clauses in the Overhead Railway's enabling legislation to limit the weight of parcels that could be transported, and renewing the lease on it every seven years. The board blocked an attempt by the Liverpool Overhead Railway Company to extend its line to join the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway at Seaforth for the purposes of transporting coal to Herculaneum Dock. The lack of development or rescue by the board was at least in part due to its determination to restrict its activities to those that directly impacted the dock. Despite public protest, the line was closed on the evening of 30 December 1956. The final two scheduled trains were full of passengers and were timed to meet at Pier Head, where crowds gathered. It was the first electrified urban railway in the UK to close. A small number of staff were kept to maintain the buildings and structures, and it was hoped that a way of reopening the railway could be found. More than 100 members of the LOR staff joined British Railways for work after its closure. The price of a workman's return fare subsequently increased from 8d to 1s as workers were forced to use bus services. and the only surviving first class modernised carriage, No 7, was taken on by Coventry Railway Centre. On 24 July 2012, a portion of the terminal tunnel near Dingle collapsed.

The railway used electric units with passenger accommodation and an electric motor in the same unit. Any number could be coupled together with all motors controlled by the driver. Built between 1892 and 1899 by Brown Marshall & Co, the original units had one motor, but by the third batch this had been replaced by a motor. In 1902, the motor cars were fitted with two motors, and these were replaced in 1919 by motors. Air brakes were fitted, the pressure being topped up at the termini. In the early days a single motor coach ran off peak, but the norm became a three coach train consisting of two motor coaches with a trailer coach between. Two classes of accommodation were provided, originally first and second, becoming first and third in 1905 when the L&YR began running over the railway. The cars were open with transverse seating: the central trailer had leather covered seats for first class passengers; third class passengers had wooden seating. As the voltage was 500 V, when they ran on the L&YR 630 V system the motors had to be in series mode. A three car train was modernised in 1945–47; this involved replacing the timber body with aluminium and plywood, and fitting power operated sliding doors under control of the guard. New trains were considered too expensive and six more trains were rebuilt. The Liverpool Overhead Railway operated one steam locomotive, called Lively Polly, an inside cylinder 0 4 0WT, which was originally built in Leeds by Kitson for the West Lancashire Railway. It was used to de ice the track and haul the maintenance train from its acquisition in the 1890s until it was sold to Rea Ltd, a coal merchant in Birkenhead in 1949. It was replaced by a Ruston diesel engine, which was bought in 1947. Both were fitted with the proprietary coupling used by the Overhead Railway's EMUs. An original train was kept by the Museum of Liverpool and a modernised carriage was stored at the Electric Railway Museum, Warwickshire.

The railway is featured in the films Waterfront and The Magnet (both 1950), and in the final scenes of The Clouded Yellow (1951), as the character played by Jean Simmons uses it to travel to one of the docks. Extensive archive footage appears in Of Time and the City, a "cinematic autobiographical poem" made by British film maker Terence Davies to celebrate Liverpool's 2008 reign as Capital of Culture. In 1897, the Lumière brothers filmed Liverpool, including what is believed to be the first tracking shot, taken from the railway. It was also featured in the film A Day In Liverpool by Anson Dyer.