Why was the decision taken to build Moorfields instead of use Liverpool Exchange station?

[tavistock]

Can anyone tell me why Liverpool Exchange Station, with its magnificent frontage, was not used as the portal for the replacement Moorfields underground station nearby?

Moorfields is an ugly carbuncle of a building and certainly does not deserve to represent such a busy and important interchange below.

It would have been much more sensible to use the existing Exchange entrance to serve the Merseyrail lines below, even though British Railways services above ground were terminated.

There is a nearby side entrance to Moorfields on Old Hall Street, so I would have thought it would not have been difficult for the escalators to descend from Exchange.

Does anyone know why it was decided to build the monstrosity that is Moorfields instead?

 

[Spandau]

Moorfields was supposed to link with Liverpool’s subsequently abandoned system of overhead walkways. That is why there are escalators to the main entrance from the street called Moorfields. Some people might think it is daft to have to go up an escalator to the ticket barriers then have to descend further lengthy escalators.

i suppose the entrances in Moorfields and Old Hall Street were designed to be closer to the main office/business areas than the old Exchange concourse.

i agree the building in Moorfields is a carbuncle. The area outside the main entrance is now quite unpleasant with heaps of litter/debris and rough sleepers. I imagine this is City Council and not Merseyrail responsibility. There was for years a similar situation in the council passageway linking Lime Street underground with the main line station but that has now been cleaned up

 

[tavistock]

That's very informative and helpful. Thank you. I wonder, is it too late? Raze the carbuncle to the ground... negotiate with the current owners of the Exchange building.. and redirect escalators down to the platforms from inside. Simples? Probably not. But what a hub/destination that would be!

 

[Dr Hoo]

That's very informative and helpful. Thank you. I wonder, is it too late? Raze the carbuncle to the ground... negotiate with the current owners of the Exchange building.. and redirect escalators down to the platforms from inside. Simples? Probably not. But what a hub/destination that would be!

Although I did live and work on Merseyside for a while and remember using the old Exchange station it never struck me as that special. It had been substantially altered from the original building, the architect was not especially noted and the interior was badly damaged during WW2 and never properly restored. The frontage survived and was re-purposed as hotel/business premises. Isn't that enough?

Can I ask if you have any engineering, project management and business case development experience associated with altering escalator access at underground stations, e.g. in London or elsewhere?

 

[yorksrob]

I've walked past the old frontage on a couple of occasions and thought it an impressive building.

 

[tavistock]

Although I did live and work on Merseyside for a while and remember using the old Exchange station it never struck me as that special. It had been substantially altered from the original building, the architect was not especially noted and the interior was badly damaged during WW2 and never properly restored. The frontage survived and was re-purposed as hotel/business premises. Isn't that enough?

Can I ask if you have any engineering, project management and business case development experience associated with altering escalator access at underground stations, e.g. in London or elsewhere?

Haha!! None whatsoever. Just like the look of the frontage at Exchange.I leave all the technical stuff to the experts. If it's not possible then it's not possible.

 

[yorksrob]

Considering what they've done with tube stations over the years, I find it hard to believe that they couldn't build something to come up where the old exchange concourse used to be.

 

[Ianno87]

I would guess a combination of where the tunnel portal from the north can be located, space for shafts to build the deep level station, plus how it tied into the Wirral line loop alignment, which must be pretty tight to come out of James Street and loop round to Lime Steet and back to Central. Wouldn't be surprised if there was all that much flexibility to play with on the Wirral Loop.

 

[tavistock]

Considering what they've done with tube stations over the years, I find it hard to believe that they couldn't build something to come up where the old exchange concourse used to be.

my thoughts exactly, but as has been intimated earlier I am not really qualified to have an opinion on this matter

I would guess a combination of where the tunnel portal from the north can be located, space for shafts to build the deep level station, plus how it tied into the Wirral line loop alignment, which must be pretty tight to come out of James Street and loop round to Lime Steet and back to Central. Wouldn't be surprised if there was all that much flexibility to play with on the Wirral Loop.

ah well; it was just a thought. That Moorfields station really does need rebuilding though, its such a disgrace

 

[yorksrob]

my thoughts exactly, but as has been intimated earlier I am not really qualified to have an opinion on this matter


ah well; it was just a thought. That Moorfields station really does need rebuilding though, its such a disgrace

I suspect that the original decision was down to:

1) Cost, and palming off the maintenance of the building (although credit where it's due, at least they didn't flatten it).

2) The desire to have something trendy and modern ..... for the 1970's

 

[Djgr]

The Liverpool Exchange frontage is just that-frontage. There is nothing else of the old station left, just an office complex and the owners would have zero interest in incorporating a station within it. In addition the practical benefits to passengers would be fairly minimal.

I think that the linking of Moorfields into the abortive and exceedingly crazy high level walkways scheme means that it would now cost mega £££ to achieve a more logical and attractive redesign.

 

[Bletchleyite]

i agree the building in Moorfields is a carbuncle

It is now. But in the 1970s, it was surely the epitome of modern?

 

[S&CLER]

"At Moorfields the Loop has to pass under the Queensway road tunnel, and the Link passes closely above it, just below the six-foot diameter Dale Street sewer"

(Maund, Merseyrail Electrics, the Inside Story, p. 41). The original 1962 plan would have used a bomb-site near Tempest Hey as first a construction shaft and later as a lift shaft. The revised 1968 Loop alignment made everything more complicated. The 1962 scheme would have had escalators to Exchange, which would have been retained, and to Dale Street. Currently to get up from the Loop to street level you go up 3 escalators and down 1. It's a mess, but hard to see what could be done without a massively expensive rebuild of Moorfields.

Maund adds that John Stoner, the BR architect who designed Moorfields to Roy Hughes' specification described the plan as "grotesque". It was not BR but Liverpool Corporation which was responsible for wanting the Moorfields station to be up in the air, where the walkways would have been.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Did that older Loop proposal not have the Link, i.e. Exchange and Central would have remained as above-ground termini? That would have been markedly inferior - Moorfields, for most of the 1980s and 1990s, was of no interest as a destination other than Monday-Friday arriving 0800-0900 and leaving 1700-1800 - the place was a ghost town at all other times, were it not an interchange it could easily have been left closed outside of those times.

Of course the city centre has now shifted towards it, and it is as a result far better-used.

 

[S&CLER]

Did that older Loop proposal not have the Link, i.e. Exchange and Central would have remained as above-ground termini? That would have been markedly inferior - Moorfields, for most of the 1980s and 1990s, was of no interest as a destination other than Monday-Friday arriving 0800-0900 and leaving 1700-1800 - the place was a ghost town at all other times, were it not an interchange it could easily have been left closed outside of those times.

Of course the city centre has now shifted towards it, and it is as a result far better-used.

As far as I can see from Maund, the Link to the Southport and Ormskirk lines at least was a feature in the 1962 proposals, and would also have included a connection to the Huyton line via the Wapping tunnel and the flyover at Edge Hill that still existed then but was later demolished. I get the impression that Central High Level was always doomed but that a much smaller Exchange might have survived for longer-distance trains.

Just had another look at Maund, and I think I may have misunderstood what he says; on p. 15 he says that the 1962 scheme aimed to release the Exchange and Central sites for development; but on p. 42, he writes that at Moorfields in addition to the (Tempest Hey) lift shaft coming up to the footway level 6 m above street level, there would also have been escalators "to Exchange Station and Dale Street". I now think this must mean that escalators would have come to the surface in the (redeveloped) Exchange Station area, but not necessarily that any part of Exchange itself would have survived in rail use. These escalators were never built. The area now occupied by Moorfields station was then still a bomb-site with a temporary wooden Midland Bank building, and a car showroom.

Anyone who grew up in 1950s or 1960s Merseyside will probably remember Moorfields above all as the home of the Wizard's Den joke shop!

 

[mailbyrail]

I'd totally forgotten Wizard's Den - many thanks for the reminder!!
That whole area of Liverpool was declining in the 'Swinging 60s' with faded grandeur all around.
The comment about 70s trendy and modern by Yorks Rob was so true.

 

[Vinnym]

Yes, I remember the Wizards Den, also Yates Wine Lodge on Moorfields which has been derelict for years. The Central Vaults which has also long since gone on the corner of Moorfields and The Lion which is still there on the other corner.

 

[WAO]

Although I did live and work on Merseyside for a while and remember using the old Exchange station it never struck me as that special. It had been substantially altered from the original building, the architect was not especially noted and the interior was badly damaged during WW2 and never properly restored. The frontage survived and was re-purposed as hotel/business premises. Isn't that enough?

I also remember Exchange, a pity the name wasn't retained for the awful Moorfields. The terminus was a handsome, 10 long, straight, terminal road affair,under a roof supported by Doric iron columns - Southport Chapel Street is similar. Architecturally, the hotel frontage is the sort of Renaissance style that Northern businessmen favoured over London fashions; the train shed was also practical and no-nonsense in style. It wasn't damaged fatally during the war - that was 1970's policy, now being reversed.

One approached it from Dale St through an arch, passed at the side of a large U shaped cab road then up a slope past some shops selling office equipment into the concourse. No champagne bars, of course but lots of useful destinations away from the South East, to East Lancashire and Yorkshire and even Scotland, where wealth was created then. There was a wonderful high level view of the shipping in the docks, on the way to Sandhills. There were daily dining cars with uniformed staff, into the '60's. The L&Y was truly a business line and its destruction as a system (look at Bradford, Blackpool and Fleetwood!) helped push the North into further decline.

Perhaps its site might end up as an HS3 terminal! (off topic!)

WAO

 

[S&CLER]

I also remember Exchange, a pity the name wasn't retained for the awful Moorfields. The terminus was a handsome, 10 long, straight, terminal road affair,under a roof supported by Doric iron columns - Southport Chapel Street is similar. Architecturally, the hotel frontage is the sort of Renaissance style that Northern businessmen favoured over London fashions; the train shed was also practical and no-nonsense in style. It wasn't damaged fatally during the war - that was 1970's policy, now being reversed.

One approached it from Dale St through an arch, passed at the side of a large U shaped cab road then up a slope past some shops selling office equipment into the concourse. No champagne bars, of course but lots of useful destinations away from the South East, to East Lancashire and Yorkshire and even Scotland, where wealth was created then. There was a wonderful high level view of the shipping in the docks, on the way to Sandhills. There were daily dining cars with uniformed staff, into the '60's. The L&Y was truly a business line and its destruction as a system (look at Bradford, Blackpool and Fleetwood!) helped push the North into further decline.

Perhaps its site might end up as an HS3 terminal! (off topic!)

WAO

Exchange station had a rather nice little bar, I'm told; I wasn't old enough to go into bars legally until I moved away from the area in the later 1960s, and by the time I came back to Merseyside to live, it had gone.
The Exchange Hotel was popular for Masonic functions, I gather.
One of the oddities of Exchange was that it had subways connecting the platforms, a very unusual, even unnecessary, feature for a terminus. I never saw them in use in the 1960s, and can't be sure if they were for passenger use or not, but I think the idea may have been to allow commuters from the Southport line to cross to Manchester-bound trains without going out through the barrier and back in again. Aspinall, the L&Y CME and later GM, lived in Blundellsands and commuted this way to head office in Manchester Victoria, occasionally returning on the footplate. (I imagine he kept a set of overalls in his office.)

 

[tavistock]

Thank you all for the many informative and interesting comments about Exchange.

I only began the thread as a bit of whimsy as I remember having a pint in the pub opposite the former station a few years ago, and thinking how amazing it was that the frontage had been retained against the trend at the time to destroy much of the wonderful railway architecture of the past.

Then, I looked further down the road and observed the mess that is Moorfields Station. What a disgrace! At least all of you, bar one, agree that the Exchange building is very handsome and was worth saving.

My only experience of the station when it was operating, was to embark on the long journey to Glasgow when I was a small boy in the mid 1950s. I think it was direct.

Anyway, stranger things have happened, and maybe Exchange could be partially brought back to its original purpose, even if it is only as a portal to an underground station. I am sure businesses currently using the building would welcome their own metro station, albeit with the inconvenience of a new escalator and some ticket machines. Who knows?

Thanks again for all the helpful comments.

 

[Grumpy Git]

Yes, I remember the Wizards Den, also Yates Wine Lodge on Moorfields which has been derelict for years. The Central Vaults which has also long since gone on the corner of Moorfields and The Lion which is still there on the other corner.

OT warning; the Lion has recently been voted one of Camra's best pubs.

Edit: Pub of the year no less!

 

[Gareth]

As has been pointed out, only the façade of the Exchange Station building remains. It fronts an otherwise unspectacular office development known as Mercury Court. In terms of putting a station entrance in: it's perfectly possible. The area immediately behind there was used to excavate the Northern line platforms, which are quite close to the surface. The thing is, there'd be relatively little benefit. Replacing the entrance on Moorfields itself with Exchange would make the station more peripheral to much of the downtown area, including Dale Street and Victoria Street. The second entrance, at Old Hall Street, adequately covers the waterfront.

The Moorfields entrance is a folly mainly in the sense that you have to enter by going up escalators, only then to head down to the underground platforms. This is a legacy of the overhead walkway system which was never fully realised. Location-wise, the entrance is adequate. Ideally through, it could do with being raised and a taller, nicer building put in its place with the entrance on the ground floor, as you would expect. Whilst less convenient for many, the Old Hall Street entrance could allow the station to remain open during the works.

 

[Djgr]

If you search around you can find pictures of the internals to Mercury Court. For the first decade or so of its existence people were encouraged to walk through the ground floor atrium and it had at least one bar to visit.

If I remember correctly the site was going to be used for a government department moving North until Maggie stopped it.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Talking of the existing building, does an underground station need to look nice? Most Tube stations are just steps down from the road with no building at all.

 

[yorksrob]

Talking of the existing building, does an underground station need to look nice? Most Tube stations are just steps down from the road with no building at all.

And in the country that gave us Leslie Green and Charles Holden !

Wash your mouth out young man.

 

[Taunton]

Certainly for the Wirral Loop Line, it continues to be effective to walk over to James Street, the Water Street entrance, for a good proportion of the catchment area, and saves the time going round the loop.

I never understood why the new platform at James Street was built instead of using the existing one, now disused, which is directly parallel and alongside it. The loop seems quite possible diverging at the east end of this, known universally on the system as "The Old Platform".

Talking of the existing building, does an underground station need to look nice? Most Tube stations are just steps down from the road with no building at all.

It's a valid point for discussion. The stations on the Jubilee Line Extension, each done by a separate architect, are notably architectural ego-trips. Try changing from Jubilee to District at West Ham, two lines in the open on top of one another, but which requires two escalators going up and one going back down again, plus plenty of walking, and you will see what I mean. Each won its own architectural industry awards, which seemed to have been lined up before they opened.

 

[Spandau]

Taunton said: I never understood why the new platform at James Street was built instead of using the existing one, now disused, which is directly parallel and alongside it. The loop seems quite possible diverging at the east end of this, known universally on the system as "The Old Platform".

Surely Platform 1 at James Street (the "new" platform) is at a much deeper level than platforms 2 & 3? Given the need both to go deeper and to curve at tight radii around the city centre I doubt whether it would have been possible to diverge so far east. The curve would have been even more severe than the existing one which I believe has been the possible cause of excessive wheel flange wear to rolling stock in the past. The 'disused' platform 2 is of course still employed during planned engineering work and also in emergency should the single line around the loop become blocked.

 

[S&CLER]

Taunton said: I never understood why the new platform at James Street was built instead of using the existing one, now disused, which is directly parallel and alongside it. The loop seems quite possible diverging at the east end of this, known universally on the system as "The Old Platform".

Surely Platform 1 at James Street (the "new" platform) is at a much deeper level than platforms 2 & 3? Given the need both to go deeper and to curve at tight radii around the city centre I doubt whether it would have been possible to diverge so far east. The curve would have been even more severe than the existing one which I believe has been the possible cause of excessive wheel flange wear to rolling stock in the past. The 'disused' platform 2 is of course still employed during planned engineering work and also in emergency should the single line around the loop become blocked.

That's correct. The old platform 2 also had a rising gradient of 1 in 100 against the traffic (and the old platform 3 has a falling gradient of 1 in 100 with the traffic), while the new platform has an easier rising gradient of 1 in 264 against the traffic. There was a short-lived signal box at James Street as well to control the Loop, built over the tracks at the eastern end, where there was enough height in the tunnel. It lasted until the Merseyrail resignalling in the early 1990s. The old platforms were 400 feet long, the new one is 425 feet; both the old platforms were extended by 25 feet at the eastern end on a sharp curve. See Maund, p. 44.

 

[Ianno87]

Taunton said: I never understood why the new platform at James Street was built instead of using the existing one, now disused, which is directly parallel and alongside it. The loop seems quite possible diverging at the east end of this, known universally on the system as "The Old Platform".

Surely Platform 1 at James Street (the "new" platform) is at a much deeper level than platforms 2 & 3? Given the need both to go deeper and to curve at tight radii around the city centre I doubt whether it would have been possible to diverge so far east. The curve would have been even more severe than the existing one which I believe has been the possible cause of excessive wheel flange wear to rolling stock in the past. The 'disused' platform 2 is of course still employed during planned engineering work and also in emergency should the single line around the loop become blocked.

Plus Platform 2 is the access to the Stock Interchange Line (SIL); it may not have been possible to build the loop diverging from Platform 2 *and* keep the SIL.

Constructability may have been a consideration; Mann Island Junction (where the Loop starts) might have been created by digging down vertically from... space within Mann Island, and creating a cavern in which to excavate the junction. That may not have been possible at the 'city' end of the station with more surrounding buildings.

 

[tavistock]

Talking of the existing building, does an underground station need to look nice? Most Tube stations are just steps down from the road with no building at all.

No they don't, but the Exchange frontage is so impressive, it seems such a shame not to use it and replace it with a carbuncle