Looking through the timeline of that article, it seems to go from supposed "chaos" at around half four, to "wrapping up soon" just an hour later, including with Merseytravel getting in touch to say everything is busy but going to plan.
Not something that can be compared to Twickenham, Wembley or even Aintree - those are events that attract 100,000 road/rail travellers, maybe 200,000 in the case of Aintree. The article states that 1.3 million people attended.
And events such as Aintree are generally focused on one line; the vast majority of passengers travel from the city centre to Aintree. It is reasonably straightforward to provide a strengthened service on that one line.
The Three Queens was different - people travelling from all over Merseyside and beyond, converging on the city centre, meaning all lines took an equal hammering. I think Merseyrail did the best they could under the circumstances - running 6 trains per hour to New Brighton and a 20 minute frequency on the Northern Line to allow more trains to be strengthened to 6 car.
Can't comment on the queues at Lime Street as I didn't travel that way. I got a train from Aigburth to Brunswick around 11.20am (very busy), walked to the waterfront near the marina to watch the ships, then walked into town. I knew the trains and buses would be crazily busy for the next hour or so, so went and had something to eat, then looked round the shops for a while.
Stopped at Rubens in Central station for a cup of coffee. By this time (around 4.00pm) the queues for the Wirral Line had died down. What I was surprised by was how many people were completely unaware that the Northern Line was closed (even with a giant poster at the station entrance announcing it). There were two Merseyrail staff members with megaphones repeatedly announcing "Wirral Line only" and I saw a lot of people reacting with an annoyed look and walking away.
Saw one person on Twitter ranting at Merseyrail about Central station. When the response came that this had been advertised for many months, she replied, "Do you think anyone is assed with your posters"? :roll:
I saw on Twitter that there was a long queue at Moorfields so went to Liverpool One for a bus home instead. I had to wait about 15 minutes, letting the first bus go because it was full, but it wasn't too bad.
The buses in Liverpool were Sunday service today. Very poor. I am not aware of much additional capacity being put on bus wise.
There were extra buses although they seemed to be running on an ad-hoc basis, responding to crowds, rather than a timetable. I was at Liverpool One bus station and watched a full and standing Stagecoach double-decker depart on route 82, and another one turned up almost immediately. There was a man in Stagecoach hi-vis jacket at the stand monitoring the situation.
I also saw Arriva send out some empty buses not picking up at Liverpool One and instead starting their journeys at the next stop out, presumably to "mop up" the people who were stuck at intermediate stops.
On my way home we passed lots of buses travelling towards Liverpool city centre showing "NOT IN SERVICE" presumably running back empty to pick up more people as quickly as possible.
It looks like nothing at all was learned from the "Giants" event.
I would argue that there were lessons learned. During the Giants, Northern ran a more or less normal Bank Holiday service (with a handful of extras) and it was completely unable to cope with the crowds.
This time round there were significant changes focused on getting people from the city centre to the surrounding area. For example, the Manchester Airport service did not run for most of the day and instead an Earlestown-Liverpool all stations shuttle was operated. There were also extra services from Wigan. Stops at Newton-le-Willows were inserted in TPE services, and the Blackpool-Liverpool South Parkway service, which normally runs non-stop between Lime Street and LPY, called additionally at Mossley Hill and West Allerton.