Liverpool Overhead Railway

Liverpool Overhead Railway
Seaforth Sands railway station
Overview
Other name(s)	Dockers' Umbrella
Service
Type	Elevated railway
Operator(s)	Liverpool Overhead Railway Company
History
Opened	6 March 1893 (1893-03-06)
Closed	30 December 1956
Demolished	September 1957 – January 1958
Technical
Line length	7 mi (11 km)
Number of tracks	2
Track gauge	1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in) standard gauge
Geographic map

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,^[1] and was home to one of the first passenger escalators at a railway station.^[2] It was the second-oldest electric metro in the world, being preceded by the 1890 City and South London Railway.

Originally spanning five miles (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 20 million people used the railway every year.^[3] 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.