Here's a real one for you. As a Crosby ( Liverpool ) kid in the 1930's &1940's (with an ex Merchant Navy Dad), I frequently rode on this rail line. One day in 1937 my Dad took me on this train to a major dock, (forgot which one ). He had some business with somebody working on a big ship there. We got off the train, walked over and got on the Ship. It was a big Battle Ship, called the THE HOOD. It was having it's Upper Deck reinforced so that ( if there was ever a War, or something ) , The ship was to become unsinkable, etc. I proceeded to walked all over this New Deck Job !... plus Dad took me down and saw all the massive Engine room stuff. All very impressive for a 7 year old kid ! ..etctera ! Then we both got back on the train and went home. 4 or 5 yrs. later, during a big famous sea battle... a single big Shell from a German Battle ship got through the deck and down into the way below, Ammunition Storage Area !.... and it blew the whole HOOD up. And it sank in about 10 minutes. 1500 + or _ , Sailors died . 3, survived,. ! .(.They stepped off the stern, as the ship went down).... and were rescued. Such are the ways of WAR. So now I'm the last person alive, who ever walked on the HOOD. FLOOKY ? .... BUT TRUE ....
A bit of memory lane for me. An Aunt took me on one of the last runs of the LOR as a 3 year old. In the mid 1970s I found out the Dingle Station still existed and helped obtain Youth Employment Subsidy funding for Roscoe Engineering's trainee mechanics. I was down for a visit like a shot. I was then involved with the tunnel collapse in 2012 supporting the Building Control Surveyors. I extracted the outline of the tunnel and station from our Historic Mapping and injected it into the modern day GIS Mapping. They then knew where issues were likely to occur at the surface and could minimise disruption. Well done Ruairidh...
May have posted this elsewhere but it has a relevance to this excellent video. Back in 1955 I went on a school trip from Manchester to LIverpool along the Manchester Ship Canal. I recall the boat we travelled on was called Egremont. Anyway we got to Liverpool and transferred onto the overhead railway - splendid! Got a train back to Manchester. All of this whole day outing for the princely sum of 13/6. ie thirteen shillings and sixpence, roughly equivalent to 68 pence in modern money. Happy bygone days!
Mum and Dad took me on a day trip to Liverpool in 1956, so we could ride the Overhead Railway, before it closed forever. A memorable time viewing the big ships in the docks. We also rode the trams, noisy and bumpy as I recall down to Pierhead. A ferry trip to New Brighton completed the day. I was 9 that year.
Featured in the Ealing comedy, The Magnet. I was sixteen in 1956 and was sent to Waterloo Dock with correspondence from the Goods yard at East and West Float, Wirral. Rode the Overhead railway, must have been just before it closed, September/October 1956.
When you look at the overhead railways in America, you see how short sighted those people were in charge of the LOR as it could have been modernised and expanded as you said. The same could be said about the trams too… all gone. The car became the king of transportation resulting in the levelling of areas in every town and city, take Glasgow as an example, to make way for the motorways to meet the demands of the car. Liverpool should bring back an overhead railway, not solely for tourism but for everyone. Oh, MerseRail have new rolling stock coming into service now… modern third rail trains.
'... you see how short sighted those people were ...' It was ever thus. When you look at the state of the roads today, you can't help but regret that so much railway infrastructure was torn up or built over.
It's no accident the car was forced on us all. When public transport exists, the rich have to set down investments for the vehicles and right of way, pay maintenance of vehicles and right of way, pay for labourers to drive and maintain the vehicles, pay out of pocket for any accidents, be accountable to government... However, if you deal under the table and "convince" ($$$ £££) the government to destroy public transit, all the rich have to do is sit back and sell you the cars you're forced to buy (to navigate cities built to exclude public transit, walking or cycling) and the fuel to run the cars and the tax to drive the cars and the insurance to keep the cars... and after all that, the poor are forced to drive themselves around, and the rich are never accountable for the avoidable deaths that are inherent to cars nor the environmental destruction. *Cars are killing us so the rich can get richer. It is a class war.*
Yes these are quite true, but the LOR also had been hit several times and badly in places due to bombing during WW2. There was some shortsightedness, but the UK iks good at shortsightedness. Just look at British Rail's Modenisation plan, pumping millions into electric and deisal powered trains that most of the time didn't work so shortsightedness is in built in the UK.
@@melina001a What railway _hadn't_ been hit? That's missing the point. Capitalism can only ever be short-sighted, even if "nationalised". That's the nature of profit.
Great video! This video should've been rated 18 for the sheer horror of witnessing a historic railway fade into oblivion. The amount of short-sighted decisions of the late 50s and 60s, to some extent the 70s, continues to astound me..
@@johnjephcote7636 … which is still continuing. Witness the mess that remains of HS2, and the fact that Rishi Sunak regards railways as nothing more than “a tax of £1000 on every family in Britain”. The shortsightedness beggars belief.
They did this with loads of old historical buildings. This happened all the way up to the 90s. It’s terrible. A good example of this is the naval officer academy at Greenwich in London.
They threw the baby out with the bath water. Anything Victorian was despised and seen as a prime target for removal at the slightest excuse. The era of modernisation, which basically meant sweeping away the past!
I've been unreasonably obsessed with this railway since I first learned of its existence 20-odd years ago. So many firsts, so much safety, yet it was left to rot and nobody was interested in saving it. Such a shame.
My father grew up in Liverpool at the beginning of the 20th century, and we went there to stay with relatives in the 1950s. I particularly remember the overhead railway, the trams, and the ferries from Pier Head. It was exciting, and such a contrast with our home in a quiet part of rural East Sussex.
Very interesting - thank you. My late mother travelled on the railway during the Second World War on a visit to see my father who was working on the construction of anti aircraft guns around the City. She recalled very early in the morning the carriages being full of cleaning ladies who looked like something from an earlier age with shawls and poor clothing.
A fantastic piece of engineering and railway planning. It’s the sort of concept that should have been kept and developed. As a Londoner I must also mention Londons Overhead Electric Railway, the original South London Line London Bridge to Victoria. Also largely on viaducts.
In spite of both working in, andregularly visiting Liverpool from the 70s through to the late noughties (our offices were on the waterfront at Princes Dock), I never knew that there had been an overhead railway. Fascinating stuff. Thanks.
My first encounter withthe line was back in 1955 When I was in the ATC and we were at Summer camp at RAF Hawarden and we took a coach and a three tonner into Liverpool to see the docks and the Overhead Railway. I remember standing at Huskisson while we waited for the vehicles to return and pick us up. In addition we went across the airfield to see the De Havilland works where they were building Vampires.
Great video. The LOR was definitely ahead of its time and it's a shame that it was demolished. I like to think that a modernised LOR could have done for Liverpool's docklands what the London Docklands Light Railway did for London.
Lots of memories here - the Overhead and the trams were my favourite means of getting about in the 50s, and then the both of them disappeared within 12 months in 1956/7. I specially remember seeing the burnt out Empress of Canada in Gladstone Dock in 54, a very sad sight. Many thanks for this fine video!
You just reminded me of the Empress of Canada fire. From the Wallasey side of the river it was a red glow in the sky for nights. Then it capsized due to amount of water being jetted into the hull. There was another capsize in Bidston dock. Said to have been caused by the Captain selling ballast iron to pay dock fees.
Would you ever consider covering some of the famous (infamous?) Merseyrail BR-era plans, and in turn the now-destroyed CLC Liverpool Extension Line from Halewood to Aintree? Truly a loss for our city.
Talk about serendipitous events to come: I'm planning to go to Liverpool next week, and this will no doubt include a visit to the Museum of Liverpool. There is a comprehensive display dedicated to the overhead railway, which includes a scale model of the entire route across the docks area and beyond. I absolutely revel in watching the trains in LED form go across the model. I'd dare say that this was a scheme that was way ahead of its time. If it was still running, you can bet that it would be packed solid by tourists and visitors, and the Aintree line be used on Grand National week. Not to mention what would be its core service of ferrying thousands of disappointed Evertonians out of their brand spanking new stadium.🤣😆😅
This is absolutely brilliant Sir. For future productions I would heartily recommend slowing your narrative metier by some 15 or 20%, there is no need to rush and hurry through decent content. Kind regards.
Brilliant - and incisive commentary. The present system in Liverpool is pretty good but, outside of London, the UK cities will never get the resources to do this sort of pioneering work again.
Funny how there are blank cheques and no limit to what can be bulldozed when motorways are being built and our cities are being redesigned for car dependency, yet railways have to cut down a single tree and all of the news media suddenly (suspiciously) all attack at once. It's almost like the rich want us in cars, to shunt the responsibility of maintaining and paying for and running transit onto the poor, despite the obvious and significant damage to human mental and physical health, damage to the environment, and the many, many lives lost to the inherently damaging nature of cars. *Cars are killing the poor so the rich can get richer. It's class war.*
The present system in Liverpool is shockingly bad. About 10% of the city is served by trains, the rest is just private bus companies. Easily the worst public transport out of any city I’ve been to.
Many thanks for posting this video, I thoroughly enjoyed watching it. I was born in Liverpool and as a schoolboy one of the most exciting things to do in the school holidays was take a ride on the overhead railway. If it still existed today I think it would be a fantastic tourist attraction.
I have driven past those docks from Bootle to the city centre and back again maybe 1 million times in my life, and I was totally unaware that this railway existed before. So I’ve learned something valuable today thank you.
What an amazing historic record - my late father was a shareholder of the Mersey Docks & Harbour Board company, I'm sure this would have brought back memories for him.
My father who was born in Bootle in 1919 used to work as a young lad (14 year old) at WH Smith's warehouse in Tithebarn St, and so had to jump on the "docker's umbrella" every morning. He used to tell me of riding from "Seaforth Sands" to "Pier Head" stations watching all the docks along the way as he went past and EVERY dock was a tangle of masts, rigging and cranes busily working away, and now we barely have ANY ships in the docs, but probably handle more cargo that we did then. After WW2 and 6 furious years in the Royal Navy he was a tram driver in Liverpool and always said the worst two things the "corpy" did to the city were to tear down the overhead and rip up the tramlines. But saying that he did also used to say that the fact that the "Mersey Docks & Harbour Board" estate railway ran underneath the "overhead" for long stretches meant that for decades the sulphurous smoke of the powerful little MDHB tenders had absolutely rotted away the iron work of the Overhead, and that to repair and replace it all would have bankrupted "Liverpool City Corporation" as it was then. Post WW2 the "Corpy" had spent a large amount of money repairing all the bomb damage to the Overhead from the war only to completely tear it down 15 years later. The damage from WW2 included the devastation to a long section close to Huskisson Dock that was caused by the detonation of the British ammunition ship, the S.S Malakand, which was being loaded with thousands of tons of bombs and shells for North Africa when it was set on fire and exploded in May 1941. The explosion was so powerful that they found one of Malakand's 5 ton anchors in Everton 2 miles away. Looks like the local council has been bankrupted now by mismanagement, a dose of corruption and central government underfunding anyway.
Great memories of using it in the early “fifties” when I worked for a Liverpool fruit importer. I travelled several times a week from the Pierhead to visit various dock warehouses where the fruit imported from all over the world was held prior to delivery to towns in north west England. The railway was known locally as the “dockers umbrella” as the the dockers walked along underneath it at ground level at times of rain. The “Cavern” was then a disused cellar. I also recall attending the first night when it opened as a music venue - trad jazz / blues - pre the Beatles.
Aye prewar the Dockers used it as they walked from Bootle/Kirkdale/Dingle to the "Docker's pens" hoping to be picked for a "gang" for a day's work... most of them weren't picked and so trudged their tragic way back home to poverty.
north west england leading the way, astonishing, chicago and brooklyn overhead railways are the children of liverpools overhead railway, again blown away, to think the car chase in the french connection wooow
The railway was an amazing achievement! Thanks for the video . Somewhere in the back of my mind is a trip on the railway and the Empress of Canada fire. I was young!
So sad the Liverpool overhead railway did not survive... Part of Hamburg harbour riverbank has quite similar viaduct electric railway, well integrated into todays Hamburg Public Transport (HVV) network. Even somehow survived some heavy bombing from nowadays beloved neighbours some 80 years ago :) However nice work, I enjoyed this video. Please keep up Your good work 👍
That was a splendid account. Thank you! I lived in Liverpool for a decade, after the closure of the overhead railway. However, Mum and Dad must have taken me in the car to Liverpool before the closure and I can still see the structure of the railway in my mind's eye.
Excellent video on such an important pioneer of elevated railways..I would loved to have traveled on it when the Liverpool Docks were in full use. I have ridden on Chicago's elevated railroad.
This is a subject I am very interested in and this was a very good video. I do have one minor quibble however and that is at about 04:20 where it is stated: "Lightweight rolling stock comprised lightweight passenger cars designed to incorporate a driving motor car and two trailers". As far as I know all trains were comprised of just one or two driving motor cars (DMCs) until 1896. Then longer trains were introduced of two DMCs with a trailer car in between.
Very interesting video - anything about the LOR is!! Just some historical info here - While the LOR was the first purposely-built elevated railway that utilized only electric power, it was not the first elevated system to use electric trains. That honor actually goes to Sioux City, Iowa, of all places. Yes, Sioux City did have an elevated system that opened in 1891. In 1892, it was converted from steam to electricity, beating out Liverpool, believe it or not. It was actually quite successful, and there were plans to expand it, but the financial panic of 1893 spelled its eventual demise which occurred in 1900. Kansas City also had an early elevated system that is no more. For further reading on the LOR, I recommend "Portrait of the Liverpool Overhead Railway" and "The Docker's Umbrella (for great photos)." I have both books and they're excellent.
14:16 "Kirkby" is pronounced like 'kirby' and "West Kirby" doesn't even have a second K, so is also pronounced like 'kirby' (despite many spelling mistakes by Merseyrail 😂)
Aye, Northern Rail couldn't get that right on its on-train announcements either. Doesn't matter now since they won't be getting any further than Headbolt Lane as soon as that opens.
With regard to service to Aintree, while regular service had indeed ended, race day trains - especially for the Grand National were still running in the 1950's. Rode the complete "loop" - Pier head (bus interchange), Dingle, Seaforth and back to Pier Head a number of times as a child. Happy days!
What a wealth of informative narration! I travelled on this fascinating railway when only age 6 with my mum (about 1953).I think several times we went to Liverpool, as my father would dock at Liverpool. Sadly, it would appear so much has gone or changed in character of those days, My mum and I too, would board a tram, or take the ferry to New Brighton What is so interesting here is the vast amount of history I just would not have known. Thank you 😊
My father managed to get to ride on it before it was demolished. Later, in the back end of the 1960s he was working at John Summers & Sons steelworks at Shotton as a clerk, he saw the remains of the railway superstructure etc still piled up ready for melting down. (He also had to count the huge piles of iron railings that were still there having been removed in the beginning of WW2 in a rush of materials panic!)
At around 35 seconds in, two of the IOMSP Co.’s Birkenhead built elegant postwar steamers are a welcome sight. The oldest passenger shipping company in the world, their vessels likely had the orange and black funnel before Cunard.
A minor point, the BMT Elevated lines are not the only elevated part of NYCs Subway. While the BMT designation is still used by many New Yorkers, today it is part of what is known as the B Division, including the IND lines. The A Division is formerly known as the IRT has an extensive amount of Elevated lines, the New Lots Ave line and the Flushing line being two and there are others in the Bronx.
As a New Yorker who grew up in NYC during the Mad Men era you are absolutely right! BMT stood for Brooklyn Manhattan Transit, IND stood for the Independent City Subway system, I.R.T. stood for the Interborough Rapid Transit.
Another Ealing Comedy features an old LMR steam locomotive which the MDHB used as a static pumping engine - The Lion, as seen in "The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953)" Probably saw the loco in the museum on William Brown Street when filming The Magnet. Its a shame they no longer have a boiler cert for the Lion was it was always a star when out and about in full steam. Something about being too valuable a museum piece to risk.
A fascinating and informative video with some great footage. Before my time, but its loss was frequently bemoaned by my mother. So short sighted to have demolished what would now be an icon of Liverpool along with the Liver Buildings and the Cathedrals.
Thus proving that your devices listen to you all the time. I was talking about this only three days ago and lo and behold you tube recommends this to me today. Coincidence, I don’t think so!!!! Still, loved the video!
Really enjoyed this film. Thank you. I don't actually remember the OR but it was running still when I was small. I can't imagine that my father didn't take me on it but can't recall 😢
A great look at something my grandparents, who lived on the Wirral , told me about. I was born in 1969 so never saw the overhead railway, but it must have been quite a thing for Liverpool when it was new….great seeing two Isle of Man steam packet vessels on the pier head landing stage……you may want to look into the Iomspco….which is the oldest continuously operating passenger carrying shipping company in the world….and operates all year round as the IOMs lifeline …..👍🇮🇲👌
Superb 👌 ive been waiting for this for for quite some time, liverpool has a rich railway history! Next up one about the birkenhead dock branch built by brassey, wirral council are ripping that up now 😢
@@abloogywoogywoo Sorry - we clearly have different aesthetic sense. The entire ensemble was ugly junk. Yes, Liverpool ahs lost a lot, but this was not worth saving.
Still find it mildly amusing that an overhead railway had an underground station! But then, most of the London Underground network is above ground so I shouldn't be surprised now should I?
New York and Boston have similar oddities in,and around those operations! Boston had at,one time,the Elevated running through the street car subway! And,as in New York,having wooden bodied Elevated cars running in the respective subways! Oh,yes,add Sprague Multiple Unit control systems,that made the current suburban and urban transit possible! Thank you for the reminder of history past,and well worth reviving! Thank you 😇 😊! Thank you 😇 😊!
You mentioned Dingle, but completely skipped over the 1901 fire; which resulted in the wooden structures being destroyed and replaced by more fire proof ones 😳 Additionally, those fire damage pictures at Seaforth Sands weren't related to the war - the Luftwaffe only managed to damage some sections of viaduct, which were quickly patched up - but were as a result of an arson attack on a stabled train in February 1956.
The docklands was actually second the NYC El line all 7 of them were completed construction throughout the time that this line was being created, and before right when the docklands overhead railway was being built, they start construction on subways now it’s second place because Chicago started putting its first elevated up two years later but Chicago system was somewhat heavy already with all the operators in the area you had regular subways in streamlined, commuter, metro trains taking you out to the suburbs in the 40s and 50s
As long ago as 1824, Henry Palmer concieved the first suspended overhead railway but it took the Germans to engineer and construct it. The "Wuppertal Suspension Railway" opened in Victorian times, is updated, still running and has, probably, the best safety record of any rail system.
LET'S GOOOO! LIVERPOOL OVERHEAD!!! :D It's such a shame it went. Liverpool, despite having an... _okay_ rail system, has a long and sordid history of having its railways taken away from it. :(
The construction cost at today's prices just shows how things have changed. Today the cost would probably be more like 100 times as much. I remember both the trams and the overhead railway. It was interesting to see 2 Isle of Man and 3 Mersey ferries docked on the floating dock.
And thats with overhead railways being cheaper to build than tunnels. Since all you really need after the foundations are inplace is a bunch of trucks and cranes.
Sad to see that Liverpool Overhead Railway not there anymore and Merseyrail is all underground. And the Class 507 & Class 508 trains are slowly being replaced by the new Class 777 Metro units that are being built by Stadler.
Brilliant clip about an interesting railway. Can recommend looking for info on RUclips about the Mumbles electric railway in Swansea which closed not long after the Liverpool overground.
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Here's a real one for you. As a Crosby ( Liverpool ) kid in the 1930's &1940's (with an ex Merchant Navy Dad), I frequently rode on this rail line. One day in 1937 my Dad took me on this train to a major dock, (forgot which one ). He had some business with somebody working on a big ship there. We got off the train, walked over and got on the Ship. It was a big Battle Ship, called the THE HOOD. It was having it's Upper Deck reinforced so that ( if there was ever a War, or something ) , The ship was to become unsinkable, etc. I proceeded to walked all over this New Deck Job !... plus Dad took me down and saw all the massive Engine room stuff. All very impressive for a 7 year old kid ! ..etctera ! Then we both got back on the train and went home. 4 or 5 yrs. later, during a big famous sea battle... a single big Shell from a German Battle ship got through the deck and down into the way below, Ammunition Storage Area !.... and it blew the whole HOOD up. And it sank in about 10 minutes. 1500 + or _ , Sailors died . 3, survived,. ! .(.They stepped off the stern, as the ship went down).... and were rescued. Such are the ways of WAR. So now I'm the last person alive, who ever walked on the HOOD. FLOOKY ? .... BUT TRUE ....
A bit of memory lane for me. An Aunt took me on one of the last runs of the LOR as a 3 year old. In the mid 1970s I found out the Dingle Station still existed and helped obtain Youth Employment Subsidy funding for Roscoe Engineering's trainee mechanics. I was down for a visit like a shot. I was then involved with the tunnel collapse in 2012 supporting the Building Control Surveyors. I extracted the outline of the tunnel and station from our Historic Mapping and injected it into the modern day GIS Mapping. They then knew where issues were likely to occur at the surface and could minimise disruption. Well done Ruairidh...
May have posted this elsewhere but it has a relevance to this excellent video. Back in 1955 I went on a school trip from Manchester to LIverpool along the Manchester Ship Canal. I recall the boat we travelled on was called Egremont. Anyway we got to Liverpool and transferred onto the overhead railway - splendid! Got a train back to Manchester. All of this whole day outing for the princely sum of 13/6. ie thirteen shillings and sixpence, roughly equivalent to 68 pence in modern money. Happy bygone days!
Mum and Dad took me on a day trip to Liverpool in 1956, so we could ride the Overhead Railway, before it closed forever. A memorable time viewing the big ships in the docks. We also rode the trams, noisy and bumpy as I recall down to Pierhead. A ferry trip to New Brighton completed the day. I was 9 that year.
Featured in the Ealing comedy, The Magnet. I was sixteen in 1956 and was sent to Waterloo Dock with correspondence from the Goods yard at East and West Float, Wirral. Rode the Overhead railway, must have been just before it closed, September/October 1956.
When you look at the overhead railways in America, you see how short sighted those people were in charge of the LOR as it could have been modernised and expanded as you said.
The same could be said about the trams too… all gone.
The car became the king of transportation resulting in the levelling of areas in every town and city, take Glasgow as an example, to make way for the motorways to meet the demands of the car.
Liverpool should bring back an overhead railway, not solely for tourism but for everyone.
Oh, MerseRail have new rolling stock coming into service now… modern third rail trains.
'... you see how short sighted those people were ...' It was ever thus. When you look at the state of the roads today, you can't help but regret that so much railway infrastructure was torn up or built over.
It's no accident the car was forced on us all. When public transport exists, the rich have to set down investments for the vehicles and right of way, pay maintenance of vehicles and right of way, pay for labourers to drive and maintain the vehicles, pay out of pocket for any accidents, be accountable to government...
However, if you deal under the table and "convince" ($$$ £££) the government to destroy public transit, all the rich have to do is sit back and sell you the cars you're forced to buy (to navigate cities built to exclude public transit, walking or cycling) and the fuel to run the cars and the tax to drive the cars and the insurance to keep the cars... and after all that, the poor are forced to drive themselves around, and the rich are never accountable for the avoidable deaths that are inherent to cars nor the environmental destruction.
*Cars are killing us so the rich can get richer. It is a class war.*
Turns out people in the 1890's had braincells.
Yes these are quite true, but the LOR also had been hit several times and badly in places due to bombing during WW2. There was some shortsightedness, but the UK iks good at shortsightedness. Just look at British Rail's Modenisation plan, pumping millions into electric and deisal powered trains that most of the time didn't work so shortsightedness is in built in the UK.
@@melina001a What railway _hadn't_ been hit? That's missing the point.
Capitalism can only ever be short-sighted, even if "nationalised". That's the nature of profit.
Great video!
This video should've been rated 18 for the sheer horror of witnessing a historic railway fade into oblivion.
The amount of short-sighted decisions of the late 50s and 60s, to some extent the 70s, continues to astound me..
" A lack of political will".....as ever.
@@johnjephcote7636
… which is still continuing. Witness the mess that remains of HS2, and the fact that Rishi Sunak regards railways as nothing more than “a tax of £1000 on every family in Britain”. The shortsightedness beggars belief.
@@TikTokBrian We do need more railways but HS2 was always a bad idea. A vanity project for rich Londoners oblivious to the needs of the country
They did this with loads of old historical buildings. This happened all the way up to the 90s. It’s terrible. A good example of this is the naval officer academy at Greenwich in London.
They threw the baby out with the bath water. Anything Victorian was despised and seen as a prime target for removal at the slightest excuse. The era of modernisation, which basically meant sweeping away the past!
I've been unreasonably obsessed with this railway since I first learned of its existence 20-odd years ago. So many firsts, so much safety, yet it was left to rot and nobody was interested in saving it. Such a shame.
The Dingle tunnel hole halfway up a sandstone wall was something I used to be intrigued by as a kid in the 90s going down the dock road
This channel just keeps on getting better!
My thoughts too my friend
My father grew up in Liverpool at the beginning of the 20th century, and we went there to stay with relatives in the 1950s. I particularly remember the overhead railway, the trams, and the ferries from Pier Head. It was exciting, and such a contrast with our home in a quiet part of rural East Sussex.
Very interesting - thank you. My late mother travelled on the railway during the Second World War on a visit to see my father who was working on the construction of anti aircraft guns around the City. She recalled very early in the morning the carriages being full of cleaning ladies who looked like something from an earlier age with shawls and poor clothing.
A fantastic piece of engineering and railway planning. It’s the sort of concept that should have been kept and developed. As a Londoner I must also mention Londons Overhead Electric Railway, the original South London Line London Bridge to Victoria. Also largely on viaducts.
There's some lovley bits of street furniture that pay homage to it along the strand
I’m glad they preserved a coach, I’ve seen it in that museum and it’s really impressive, I definitely recommend a visit.
In spite of both working in, andregularly visiting Liverpool from the 70s through to the late noughties (our offices were on the waterfront at Princes Dock), I never knew that there had been an overhead railway. Fascinating stuff. Thanks.
I clicked on this by accident and it turned out to be fascinating, great work!
I believe the locals called it "the dockers umbrella "
Thanks for yet another fantastic video
Ah, the Dockers Umbrella.
That was it's nickname due to it being a shelter from the wet weather for the dockyard workers
Also, 'the Ovie'.
@@DKS225
_Dockers umbrella,_ was never used in normal everyday speech, only in print.
BRING IT BACK, needed more than ever now with the Everton Bramleymoor Stadium and updating of the dock Road, not to mention TOURISM
My first encounter withthe line was back in 1955 When I was in the ATC and we were at Summer camp at RAF Hawarden and we took a coach and a three tonner into Liverpool to see the docks and the Overhead Railway. I remember standing at Huskisson while we waited for the vehicles to return and pick us up. In addition we went across the airfield to see the De Havilland works where they were building Vampires.
Hawarden is now Airbus's principal wing research and construction site.
Fascinating bit of history. Thank-you very much!
Great video. The LOR was definitely ahead of its time and it's a shame that it was demolished. I like to think that a modernised LOR could have done for Liverpool's docklands what the London Docklands Light Railway did for London.
I was born in 1942 not far from de ‘pool and this astonishing futuristic piece of transport and civil engineering was one of our Wonders of the World.
Ur not scouser ha da liverpool no sound so rong
Lots of memories here - the Overhead and the trams were my favourite means of getting about in the 50s, and then the both of them disappeared within 12 months in 1956/7. I specially remember seeing the burnt out Empress of Canada in Gladstone Dock in 54, a very sad sight. Many thanks for this fine video!
You just reminded me of the Empress of Canada fire. From the Wallasey side of the river it was a red glow in the sky for nights. Then it capsized due to amount of water being jetted into the hull. There was another capsize in Bidston dock. Said to have been caused by the Captain selling ballast iron to pay dock fees.
Would you ever consider covering some of the famous (infamous?) Merseyrail BR-era plans, and in turn the now-destroyed CLC Liverpool Extension Line from Halewood to Aintree? Truly a loss for our city.
Great review! Such a tragedy that the line was lost - just think how popular it would be if it still existed today
Great film. Great City.
Talk about serendipitous events to come: I'm planning to go to Liverpool next week, and this will no doubt include a visit to the Museum of Liverpool. There is a comprehensive display dedicated to the overhead railway, which includes a scale model of the entire route across the docks area and beyond. I absolutely revel in watching the trains in LED form go across the model.
I'd dare say that this was a scheme that was way ahead of its time. If it was still running, you can bet that it would be packed solid by tourists and visitors, and the Aintree line be used on Grand National week. Not to mention what would be its core service of ferrying thousands of disappointed Evertonians out of their brand spanking new stadium.🤣😆😅
That's a bit cruel. 😢
They’re improving. Recent win and a draw.
Thanks cobber, great vid mate. Cheers.
Great video thank you for this. I feel it’s closure was a massive loss to Liverpool
As with many other developments Liverpool was ahead of its time.
Best channel on RUclips
This is absolutely brilliant Sir. For future productions I would heartily recommend slowing your narrative metier by some 15 or 20%, there is no need to rush and hurry through decent content. Kind regards.
this video, especially the narration, has a 1990's short documentary vibe to it that i find really charming
Unfortunately I was born a couple of years late to experience this fantastic railway. But thanks for posting this video, excellent work 👏👏👏
Incredible to see my old office window 100 year ago in port of Liverpool building. Great memories.
Brilliant - and incisive commentary.
The present system in Liverpool is pretty good but, outside of London, the UK cities will never get the resources to do this sort of pioneering work again.
Sadly yes and Libpool remains the largest underground 🚇 rail system outside of London, however that's no boast.
Funny how there are blank cheques and no limit to what can be bulldozed when motorways are being built and our cities are being redesigned for car dependency, yet railways have to cut down a single tree and all of the news media suddenly (suspiciously) all attack at once.
It's almost like the rich want us in cars, to shunt the responsibility of maintaining and paying for and running transit onto the poor, despite the obvious and significant damage to human mental and physical health, damage to the environment, and the many, many lives lost to the inherently damaging nature of cars.
*Cars are killing the poor so the rich can get richer. It's class war.*
Revolution then
@@qjtvaddict time n place? 🤣
The present system in Liverpool is shockingly bad. About 10% of the city is served by trains, the rest is just private bus companies. Easily the worst public transport out of any city I’ve been to.
Brilliant! My grandparents were from Liverpool and I always found their tales about the docks fascinating.
Many thanks for posting this video, I thoroughly enjoyed watching it. I was born in Liverpool and as a schoolboy one of the most exciting things to do in the school holidays was take a ride on the overhead railway. If it still existed today I think it would be a fantastic tourist attraction.
Excellent documentary about a long lost jewel in Liverpool’s crown.
Another great history vid! Many thanks🙏🏼
I have driven past those docks from Bootle to the city centre and back again maybe 1 million times in my life, and I was totally unaware that this railway existed before. So I’ve learned something valuable today thank you.
Great episode, sadly lost in time, like so many Liverpool firsts
What an amazing historic record - my late father was a shareholder of the Mersey Docks & Harbour Board company, I'm sure this would have brought back memories for him.
An excellent subject for your documentary series, thank you for a realy enjoyable watch.
My father who was born in Bootle in 1919 used to work as a young lad (14 year old) at WH Smith's warehouse in Tithebarn St, and so had to jump on the "docker's umbrella" every morning. He used to tell me of riding from "Seaforth Sands" to "Pier Head" stations watching all the docks along the way as he went past and EVERY dock was a tangle of masts, rigging and cranes busily working away, and now we barely have ANY ships in the docs, but probably handle more cargo that we did then.
After WW2 and 6 furious years in the Royal Navy he was a tram driver in Liverpool and always said the worst two things the "corpy" did to the city were to tear down the overhead and rip up the tramlines. But saying that he did also used to say that the fact that the "Mersey Docks & Harbour Board" estate railway ran underneath the "overhead" for long stretches meant that for decades the sulphurous smoke of the powerful little MDHB tenders had absolutely rotted away the iron work of the Overhead, and that to repair and replace it all would have bankrupted "Liverpool City Corporation" as it was then.
Post WW2 the "Corpy" had spent a large amount of money repairing all the bomb damage to the Overhead from the war only to completely tear it down 15 years later. The damage from WW2 included the devastation to a long section close to Huskisson Dock that was caused by the detonation of the British ammunition ship, the S.S Malakand, which was being loaded with thousands of tons of bombs and shells for North Africa when it was set on fire and exploded in May 1941. The explosion was so powerful that they found one of Malakand's 5 ton anchors in Everton 2 miles away.
Looks like the local council has been bankrupted now by mismanagement, a dose of corruption and central government underfunding anyway.
You're a star Rory, the dockers umbrella ☔. ☘️
I went on it on the last day, I was 8 and can still remember it
Very lovely.
Nothing like old local transit to make me smile.
Great memories of using it in the early “fifties” when I worked for a Liverpool fruit importer. I travelled several times a week from the Pierhead to visit various dock warehouses where the fruit imported from all over the world was held prior to delivery to towns in north west England. The railway was known
locally as the “dockers umbrella” as the the dockers walked along underneath it at ground level at times of rain. The “Cavern” was then a disused cellar. I also recall attending the first night when it opened as a music venue - trad jazz / blues - pre the Beatles.
Aye prewar the Dockers used it as they walked from Bootle/Kirkdale/Dingle to the "Docker's pens" hoping to be picked for a "gang" for a day's work... most of them weren't picked and so trudged their tragic way back home to poverty.
north west england leading the way, astonishing, chicago and brooklyn overhead railways are the children of liverpools overhead railway, again blown away, to think the car chase in the french connection wooow
Fantastic video. A true blast from the past 😊
The railway was an amazing achievement! Thanks for the video . Somewhere in the back of my mind is a trip on the railway and the Empress of Canada fire. I was young!
So sad the Liverpool overhead railway did not survive... Part of Hamburg harbour riverbank has quite similar viaduct electric railway, well integrated into todays Hamburg Public Transport (HVV) network. Even somehow survived some heavy bombing from nowadays beloved neighbours some 80 years ago :) However nice work, I enjoyed this video. Please keep up Your good work 👍
That was a splendid account. Thank you!
I lived in Liverpool for a decade, after the closure of the overhead railway. However, Mum and Dad must have taken me in the car to Liverpool before the closure and I can still see the structure of the railway in my mind's eye.
Excellent video on such an important pioneer of elevated railways..I would loved to have traveled on it when the Liverpool Docks were in full use. I have ridden on Chicago's elevated railroad.
When there were so many ships and sidings full of interest, what a wonderful sight-seeing journey it must have been!
This is a subject I am very interested in and this was a very good video.
I do have one minor quibble however and that is at about 04:20 where it is stated:
"Lightweight rolling stock comprised lightweight passenger cars designed to incorporate a driving motor car and two trailers".
As far as I know all trains were comprised of just one or two driving motor cars (DMCs) until 1896. Then longer trains were introduced of two DMCs with a trailer car in between.
Very interesting video - anything about the LOR is!! Just some historical info here - While the LOR was the first purposely-built elevated railway that utilized only electric power, it was not the first elevated system to use electric trains. That honor actually goes to Sioux City, Iowa, of all places. Yes, Sioux City did have an elevated system that opened in 1891. In 1892, it was converted from steam to electricity, beating out Liverpool, believe it or not. It was actually quite successful, and there were plans to expand it, but the financial panic of 1893 spelled its eventual demise which occurred in 1900. Kansas City also had an early elevated system that is no more. For further reading on the LOR, I recommend "Portrait of the Liverpool Overhead Railway" and "The Docker's Umbrella (for great photos)." I have both books and they're excellent.
14:16 "Kirkby" is pronounced like 'kirby' and "West Kirby" doesn't even have a second K, so is also pronounced like 'kirby' (despite many spelling mistakes by Merseyrail 😂)
Hahaha! Nicely put. #SCOUSE
Aye, Northern Rail couldn't get that right on its on-train announcements either. Doesn't matter now since they won't be getting any further than Headbolt Lane as soon as that opens.
@@lordmuntague Unless it gets called Kirkby Headbolt Lane? 🤔
@@caramelldansen2204 That would be about right. They also get Huyton wrong, the correct pronunciation being of course "Two Dogs"... 🙂
@@lordmuntague Is right! 😂
Big Thanks. 👍🏾😎
Thank you Rory.
With regard to service to Aintree, while regular service had indeed ended, race day trains - especially for the Grand National were still running in the 1950's. Rode the complete "loop" - Pier head (bus interchange), Dingle, Seaforth and back to Pier Head a number of times as a child. Happy days!
What a wealth of informative narration! I travelled on this fascinating railway when only age 6 with my mum (about 1953).I think several times we went to Liverpool, as my father would dock at Liverpool. Sadly, it would appear so much has gone or changed in character of those days, My mum and I too, would board a tram, or take the ferry to New Brighton What is so interesting here is the vast amount of history I just would not have known. Thank you 😊
My father managed to get to ride on it before it was demolished. Later, in the back end of the 1960s he was working at John Summers & Sons steelworks at Shotton as a clerk, he saw the remains of the railway superstructure etc still piled up ready for melting down. (He also had to count the huge piles of iron railings that were still there having been removed in the beginning of WW2 in a rush of materials panic!)
Good video. There is an article about this in Model Rail October 1985 together wth a layout. Thanks for uploading.
I think I've got that issue somewhere! Found it on ebay.
At around 35 seconds in, two of the IOMSP Co.’s Birkenhead built elegant postwar steamers are a welcome sight. The oldest passenger shipping company in the world, their vessels likely had the orange and black funnel before Cunard.
A minor point, the BMT Elevated lines are not the only elevated part of NYCs Subway. While the BMT designation is still used by many New Yorkers, today it is part of what is known as the B Division, including the IND lines. The A Division is formerly known as the IRT has an extensive amount of Elevated lines, the New Lots Ave line and the Flushing line being two and there are others in the Bronx.
As a New Yorker who grew up in NYC during the Mad Men era you are absolutely right! BMT stood for Brooklyn Manhattan Transit, IND stood for the Independent City Subway system, I.R.T. stood for the Interborough Rapid Transit.
I too grew up in that era and my Dad's Dad worked for the TA, so had many connections to it. @@luislaplume8261
Try and catch the Ealing film "The Magnet" made in the 1951. There are a couple of scenes in that film set on the Overhead Railway.
Another Ealing Comedy features an old LMR steam locomotive which the MDHB used as a static pumping engine - The Lion, as seen in "The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953)" Probably saw the loco in the museum on William Brown Street when filming The Magnet.
Its a shame they no longer have a boiler cert for the Lion was it was always a star when out and about in full steam. Something about being too valuable a museum piece to risk.
A fascinating and informative video with some great footage. Before my time, but its loss was frequently bemoaned by my mother. So short sighted to have demolished what would now be an icon of Liverpool along with the Liver Buildings and the Cathedrals.
Thus proving that your devices listen to you all the time. I was talking about this only three days ago and lo and behold you tube recommends this to me today. Coincidence, I don’t think so!!!! Still, loved the video!
Really enjoyed this film. Thank you. I don't actually remember the OR but it was running still when I was small. I can't imagine that my father didn't take me on it but can't recall 😢
i remember riding on this 70 years ago on a school trip , it was great to sea all the ships in the docks
Excellent film.
0:06 I've So Excited For Going To Liverpool In Merseyside In England Which Is The Home Of The Beatles Next Year In 2024. Wish Me Luck. Thanks Mate. X
Very interesting - Thank you.
A great look at something my grandparents, who lived on the Wirral , told me about. I was born in 1969 so never saw the overhead railway, but it must have been quite a thing for Liverpool when it was new….great seeing two Isle of Man steam packet vessels on the pier head landing stage……you may want to look into the Iomspco….which is the oldest continuously operating passenger carrying shipping company in the world….and operates all year round as the IOMs lifeline …..👍🇮🇲👌
Thanks for another fantastic video
It would be great to bring it back.
Very interesting video indeed.
Fantastic colour footage of the railway! That must date from the early 50s, and that camera must have cost an absolute fortune at the time.
Superb 👌 ive been waiting for this for for quite some time, liverpool has a rich railway history!
Next up one about the birkenhead dock branch built by brassey, wirral council are ripping that up now 😢
Thank you Ruairdh, always interesting.
So depressing it’s all gone.
The soul
Nah, good riddance. The future is sub-surface.
@@uingaeoc3905 The architecture, advertising on the metalwork, and stairways were so beautiful. Liverpool has lost so much.
@@abloogywoogywoo Sorry - we clearly have different aesthetic sense. The entire ensemble was ugly junk.
Yes, Liverpool ahs lost a lot, but this was not worth saving.
^ Judging something as worthless purely on grainy footage; typical zoomers 😂
This was brilliant. Are you going to videos about the Liverpool trams and merseyrail.
Still find it mildly amusing that an overhead railway had an underground station!
But then, most of the London Underground network is above ground so I shouldn't be surprised now should I?
How about the underground station in Liverpool that you have to climb a flight of stairs to enter?
@@caramelldansen2204 you thinking of Moorfields, the replacement for Exchange?
New York and Boston have similar oddities in,and around those operations! Boston had at,one time,the Elevated running through the street car subway! And,as in New York,having wooden bodied Elevated cars running in the respective subways! Oh,yes,add Sprague Multiple Unit control systems,that made the current suburban and urban transit possible! Thank you for the reminder of history past,and well worth reviving! Thank you 😇 😊! Thank you 😇 😊!
Fascinating.
Brilliant documentary thanks.
You mentioned Dingle, but completely skipped over the 1901 fire; which resulted in the wooden structures being destroyed and replaced by more fire proof ones 😳
Additionally, those fire damage pictures at Seaforth Sands weren't related to the war - the Luftwaffe only managed to damage some sections of viaduct, which were quickly patched up - but were as a result of an arson attack on a stabled train in February 1956.
Lovely video, I’ve seen the dockers umbrella train in the Liverpool museum on the waterfront.
The docklands was actually second the NYC El line all 7 of them were completed construction throughout the time that this line was being created, and before right when the docklands overhead railway was being built, they start construction on subways now it’s second place because Chicago started putting its first elevated up two years later but Chicago system was somewhat heavy already with all the operators in the area you had regular subways in streamlined, commuter, metro trains taking you out to the suburbs in the 40s and 50s
As long ago as 1824, Henry Palmer concieved the first suspended overhead railway but it took the Germans to engineer and construct it. The "Wuppertal Suspension Railway" opened in Victorian times, is updated, still running and has, probably, the best safety record of any rail system.
LET'S GOOOO! LIVERPOOL OVERHEAD!!! :D
It's such a shame it went. Liverpool, despite having an... _okay_ rail system, has a long and sordid history of having its railways taken away from it. :(
As does everywhere else!
@@uingaeoc3905 I can name a few places that haven't... all in the South!
@@caramelldansen2204 Give an example?
@@uingaeoc3905 London still has it's ridiculess railway spaghet.
@@davidty2006 Only in the last decade has this begun to be sorted out, the 'Overground' routes were dead on their feet until integrated into TfL.
The construction cost at today's prices just shows how things have changed. Today the cost would probably be more like 100 times as much.
I remember both the trams and the overhead railway. It was interesting to see 2 Isle of Man and 3 Mersey ferries docked on the floating dock.
And thats with overhead railways being cheaper to build than tunnels.
Since all you really need after the foundations are inplace is a bunch of trucks and cranes.
Sad to see that Liverpool Overhead Railway not there anymore and Merseyrail is all underground. And the Class 507 & Class 508 trains are slowly being replaced by the new Class 777 Metro units that are being built by Stadler.
Absolutely insane to destroy such a thing.
Brilliant clip about an interesting railway.
Can recommend looking for info on RUclips about the Mumbles electric railway in Swansea which closed not long after the Liverpool overground.
I find it interesting if we saved some of the closed lines we could reuse them now
"Much larger and significant cities" - twice! - may make sense now, but in the 1800s Liverpool _was_ a much larger and more significant city.
Brilliant just Brilliant