Liverpool Lime Street historical services

[Jorge Da Silva]

Very big question but what services used to run to Liverpool Lime Street during British Rail and early daysd of privatisation?

 

[cuccir]

Which services used to run - is a big one, given that the station was opened in 1836. Are there specific places or types of service you're thinking of?

 

[fowler9]

Very big question but what services used to run to Liverpool LS and what services could run again to Lime Street?

Blimey, very big question. Ha ha. Dover, Penzance, Cardiff, Poole, London Paddington, the list goes on and on.

 

[swt_passenger]

Blimey, very big question. Ha ha. Dover, Penzance, Cardiff, Poole, London Paddington, the list goes on and on.

What about Bright...
Aargh...
Silence

In general, it’s a ridiculously open question, both historically and in the future; and has probably been covered in terms of possible XC services half a dozen times this year already...

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Don't forget the North Country Continental to Harwich via Woodhead, Lincoln and Ely.
Originally was a CLC service from Central HL, but I think it made it to Lime St before it was cut back to Manchester and later withdrawn.
At one time pre-war it even had a "L&Y" portion from Exchange via Doncaster.
Central HL also had services to St Pancras via Derby and to Marylebone via Nottingham Vic, but they didn't make it to Lime St.
Central LL briefly had services to GWR-land via the Mersey Tunnel, Chester and Shrewsbury, before the tunnel was electrified.
Scotland services were either from Lime St via St Helens and Penrith, or from Exchange via Blackburn and the Midland via Settle).
Exchange also had services to Burnley via Ormskirk, Bury via Bolton, Leeds via Bradford and York/Newcastle/Hull via Wakefield.

Lime St had services to places like Bolton Gt Moor St via Leigh, Blackburn via Wigan and Chorley, and York via Warrington BQ LL and Stockport.
Lime St links to Chester and North Wales are coming back soon via the Halton Curve, but once ran to Holyhead and even Pwllheli (Butlins).
Services also ran via Crewe, the Marches line and the Severn Tunnel to Bristol and beyond. Maybe even Swansea via the Central Wales Line (I forget).
Then there were all the services connecting to ships on the Mersey, either to Lime St or direct from Edge Hill to Riverside station at the Pier Head.
The list is endless.
By the late 1960s all the remaining services from Liverpool were concentrated at Lime St, with through services not being possible from Central and Exchange any more.

 

[30907]

Following time-wise from the previous post, the major longstanding services that no longer run as such but ran consistently from the mid 60s to the end of the millennium :

Liverpool-Birmingham 2 hourly Intercity: originally to/from Euston, from about 1971 became part of the Cross Country network towards Poole and Plymouth/Penzance.
Liverpool-Glasgow/Edinburgh, 2-3 daily, various permutations over the years.
Transpennine used to run Liverpool-Hull or Newcastle.

 

[Jorge Da Silva]

Following time-wise from the previous post, the major longstanding services that no longer run as such but ran consistently from the mid 60s to the end of the millennium :

Liverpool-Birmingham 2 hourly Intercity: originally to/from Euston, from about 1971 became part of the Cross Country network towards Poole and Plymouth/Penzance.
Liverpool-Glasgow/Edinburgh, 2-3 daily, various permutations over the years.
Transpennine used to run Liverpool-Hull or Newcastle.

I find it bizzare there is not a Liverpool to Hull service or a CrossCountry service from Liverpool

 

[swt_passenger]

I find it bizzare there is not a Liverpool to Hull service or a CrossCountry service from Liverpool

Lack of XC from Liverpool has been discussed a few times this year, and this summer. The main question is whose service do you withdraw to provide it, given capacity constraints at New St, and finite rolling stock?

If you are asking in a hypothetical case where New St has more paths and XC has more stock then you’re in speculation territory.

I see you were asking about XC and Liverpool only a few weeks ago:

Has been recently called for and completely ridiculous it’s not on the network. IMO I would like to see services to Bristol and Reading from Liverpool particularly after HS2.

Has anything really changed since then?

 

[fowler9]

As a scouser I think we get a decent service at the mo. Yeah we have lost direct links to the south west and the South Coast but for most of the day we have a half hourly service to Birmingham, a half hourly trans Pennine service plus the East Midlands service and of course a service to London as good as we have ever had. Northern are a bit poor at the mo but I sincerely hope it gets better soon. My local station, West Allerton doesn't have its best ever service but again hopefully it will improve.

 

[Ploughman]

A regular local service for years was the Lime St - Southport service.
Used it many times in the 70's

 

[krus_aragon]

Here are some brief details from two old timetables I own:

Winter 1963/1964 - remember that at this point the loop line didn't exist, and Liverpool Central & Exchange (Moorfields) were still terminuses:
Liverpool Lime Street to Crewe, Chester (via Runcron), Birmingham, Leamnigton Spa, Southampton, Bournemouth, Manchester Exchange, Huddersfield, Hull, Shrewsbury, Cardiff, Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth, Kingswear, Penzance, Newcastle, London Euston
And also:
Liverpool Central (High Level) to Warrington Central, Manchester Central, Stockport Tiviot Dale, London St Pancras
Liverpool Exchange to Wigan, Bolton, Manchester Victoria, Leeds, Bradford Exchange, York, Ormskirk, Preston, Carlisle, Millom, Bootle, Blackpool, Windermere, Edinburgh, Glasgow

Winter 1993/1994:
Liverpool Lime Street to Manchester Victoria, Wigan, Preston, Blackpool North, Crewe, Birmingham New St, London Euston, Derby, Peterborough, Norwich, Leeds, York, Newcastle, Bradford, Brisol, Exeter, Plymouth, Poole

Note that these are just the through services I spotted at a quick flick, and include weekend trains, and some that only ran once or twice a day.

 

[Jorge Da Silva]

Here are some brief details from two old timetables I own:

Winter 1963/1964 - remember that at this point the loop line didn't exist, and Liverpool Central & Exchange (Moorfields) were still terminuses:
Liverpool Lime Street to Crewe, Chester (via Runcron), Birmingham, Leamnigton Spa, Southampton, Bournemouth, Manchester Exchange, Huddersfield, Hull, Shrewsbury, Cardiff, Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth, Kingswear, Penzance, Newcastle, London Euston
And also:
Liverpool Central (High Level) to Warrington Central, Manchester Central, Stockport Tiviot Dale, London St Pancras
Liverpool Exchange to Wigan, Bolton, Manchester Victoria, Leeds, Bradford Exchange, York, Ormskirk, Preston, Carlisle, Millom, Bootle, Blackpool, Windermere, Edinburgh, Glasgow

Winter 1993/1994:
Liverpool Lime Street to Manchester Victoria, Wigan, Preston, Blackpool North, Crewe, Birmingham New St, London Euston, Derby, Peterborough, Norwich, Leeds, York, Newcastle, Bradford, Brisol, Exeter, Plymouth, Poole

Note that these are just the through services I spotted at a quick flick, and include weekend trains, and some that only ran once or twice a day.

So effectively there may not be as many destinations but they are much more regular? Needs Bristol and Exeter Back at least. They ended in 2003 i think.

I now understand why Central HL closed, there weren't many services other than London or Manchester, most of which were easily diverted to Lime Street.

 

[krus_aragon]

So effectively there may not be as many destinations but they are much more regular? Needs Bristol and Exeter Back at least. They ended in 2003 i think.

I now understand why Central HL closed, there weren't many services other than London or Manchester, most of which were easily diverted to Lime Street.

Pretty much. Trains to Kingswear, Bootle and Windermere were one-a-days in 1963, for example.

One significant difference that I noticed between my two timetables was the lack of direct services to the North (after closing Exchange) in 1993, and the lack of direct services to Derby and the East of England in 1963.

 

[martinsh]

In early privatisation days, the Liverpool - Birmingham service was linked to the Birmingham - Stansted one

 

[tbtc]

So effectively there may not be as many destinations but they are much more regular?

Yes - and this is the case of most big stations.

On the one hand, Liverpool seems to attract a lot of attention for it's lack of destinations but it has a much better range of services than some other coastal cities (Sunderland, Hull etc).

As timetables became more uniform/ clock-face, service patterns became simpler - e.g. the Norwich - Liverpool service now runs hourly via Grantham and Sheffield - under BR it was a generally hourly service but sometimes starting from Harwich/ Ipswich/ Cambridge, sometimes running via Loughborough or Manchester Victoria, sometimes running to Blackpool or Cumbria (a generation previously there were services running further north up the WCML too). Now we have a simple hourly Norwich - Liverpool service rather than a random assortment of destinations.

We've traded one-a-day long distance links (which were handy for the "stick granny on a train" market) for more reliable middle distance links (e.g. Liverpool has no through services to Portsmouth any more but the half hourly service to Birmingham is more services than before).

And in a world of clock face timetables (where frequencies are bumping up against the limit of what infrastructure can cope with), any additional through services become a Zero Sum Game - if you want a train from Liverpool to Hull or Bristol or Dover then what is that running at the expense of? How do you squeeze that into the timetable? Is it instead of something else? Are these just "nice to have" destinations or genuine routes that justify through services? Most XC services link places hundreds of miles apart more by accident than design (there's a market for a Newcastle to Birmingham service and a Bristol to Birmingham service but so few people travel from Newcastle to Bristol that it's more about operational convenience).

Put it this way - Merseyrail works as a frequent simple network - you could argue that Kirkby ought to have a through service to Liverpool South Parkway/ Hunts Cross, but would that be instead of the Southport - Hunts Cross services? Or squeezed awkwardly in between them? Reality is that it's most important to provide Hunts Cross, Southport and Kirkby with a good service into central Liverpool and any "through service" is more about avoiding the need to terminate lots of trains in the city centre than because thousands of people are wanting to get from Kirkby to Hunts Cross.

However, given the "exceptionalism" of Liverpool, there'll be some who no doubt think that the reduction in through services is part of some strategy to run down the city.

 

[Jorge Da Silva]

Yes - and this is the case of most big stations.

On the one hand, Liverpool seems to attract a lot of attention for it's lack of destinations but it has a much better range of services than some other coastal cities (Sunderland, Hull etc).

As timetables became more uniform/ clock-face, service patterns became simpler - e.g. the Norwich - Liverpool service now runs hourly via Grantham and Sheffield - under BR it was a generally hourly service but sometimes starting from Harwich/ Ipswich/ Cambridge, sometimes running via Loughborough or Manchester Victoria, sometimes running to Blackpool or Cumbria (a generation previously there were services running further north up the WCML too). Now we have a simple hourly Norwich - Liverpool service rather than a random assortment of destinations.

We've traded one-a-day long distance links (which were handy for the "stick granny on a train" market) for more reliable middle distance links (e.g. Liverpool has no through services to Portsmouth any more but the half hourly service to Birmingham is more services than before).

And in a world of clock face timetables (where frequencies are bumping up against the limit of what infrastructure can cope with), any additional through services become a Zero Sum Game - if you want a train from Liverpool to Hull or Bristol or Dover then what is that running at the expense of? How do you squeeze that into the timetable? Is it instead of something else? Are these just "nice to have" destinations or genuine routes that justify through services? Most XC services link places hundreds of miles apart more by accident than design (there's a market for a Newcastle to Birmingham service and a Bristol to Birmingham service but so few people travel from Newcastle to Bristol that it's more about operational convenience).

Put it this way - Merseyrail works as a frequent simple network - you could argue that Kirkby ought to have a through service to Liverpool South Parkway/ Hunts Cross, but would that be instead of the Southport - Hunts Cross services? Or squeezed awkwardly in between them? Reality is that it's most important to provide Hunts Cross, Southport and Kirkby with a good service into central Liverpool and any "through service" is more about avoiding the need to terminate lots of trains in the city centre than because thousands of people are wanting to get from Kirkby to Hunts Cross.

However, given the "exceptionalism" of Liverpool, there'll be some who no doubt think that the reduction in through services is part of some strategy to run down the city.

Thanks for the information. Really appreciate it

 

[Ianno87]

Yes - and this is the case of most big stations.

On the one hand, Liverpool seems to attract a lot of attention for it's lack of destinations but it has a much better range of services than some other coastal cities (Sunderland, Hull etc).

As timetables became more uniform/ clock-face, service patterns became simpler - e.g. the Norwich - Liverpool service now runs hourly via Grantham and Sheffield - under BR it was a generally hourly service but sometimes starting from Harwich/ Ipswich/ Cambridge, sometimes running via Loughborough or Manchester Victoria, sometimes running to Blackpool or Cumbria (a generation previously there were services running further north up the WCML too). Now we have a simple hourly Norwich - Liverpool service rather than a random assortment of destinations.

We've traded one-a-day long distance links (which were handy for the "stick granny on a train" market) for more reliable middle distance links (e.g. Liverpool has no through services to Portsmouth any more but the half hourly service to Birmingham is more services than before).

And in a world of clock face timetables (where frequencies are bumping up against the limit of what infrastructure can cope with), any additional through services become a Zero Sum Game - if you want a train from Liverpool to Hull or Bristol or Dover then what is that running at the expense of? How do you squeeze that into the timetable? Is it instead of something else? Are these just "nice to have" destinations or genuine routes that justify through services? Most XC services link places hundreds of miles apart more by accident than design (there's a market for a Newcastle to Birmingham service and a Bristol to Birmingham service but so few people travel from Newcastle to Bristol that it's more about operational convenience).

Put it this way - Merseyrail works as a frequent simple network - you could argue that Kirkby ought to have a through service to Liverpool South Parkway/ Hunts Cross, but would that be instead of the Southport - Hunts Cross services? Or squeezed awkwardly in between them? Reality is that it's most important to provide Hunts Cross, Southport and Kirkby with a good service into central Liverpool and any "through service" is more about avoiding the need to terminate lots of trains in the city centre than because thousands of people are wanting to get from Kirkby to Hunts Cross.

However, given the "exceptionalism" of Liverpool, there'll be some who no doubt think that the reduction in through services is part of some strategy to run down the city.

Great way of putting it. I may have to steal the "stick granny on a train market" expression...

But yes, it hits the nail on the head... as 'sexy' as through trains are (for any station, not just Liverpool), the railway's real bread and butter is the short-to-middle distance stuff, plus London. Get frequent trains with capacity on these links, then any other consequential connectivity that fall out is a bonus, but not a panacea.

 

[Taunton]

A surprising number have disappeared.

Liverpool-Chester is regularly discussed nowadays, in the 1960s it was a dmu which often left well filled but most had got out by Runcorn. Chester from Central station was not so straightforward then, a change after a few miles at Rock Ferry into an irregular service.

Liverpool-Southport is another dmu service that has gone, looping through north Liverpool on obscure freight lines. It seemed to normally be nearly empty. It replaced pre-1966 through carriages from Euston to Southport, which were detached from the rear of inbound expresses at Edge Hill and taken on by steam tank locomotive.

As we moved to Merseyside from Somerset, the 0905 through service to Taunton and Plymouth via Hereford was a regular. About 12 coaches and often fully loaded even from the starting point. This went in the 1967 WCML timetable and now required a change at Birmingham. The trains from Liverpool and from Manchester to Birmingham were alternately every 2 hours, and some were prolonged from there to the South-West or South Coast, but direct to Taunton never seemed to work out any more.

The Trans Pennine dmu to Hull was every 2 hours, but by the 1970s was broken at Leeds, diverted to York (which the Newcastle loco-hauled that alternated with it always served), and eventually was subsumed into the current Trans Pennine service.

When the WCML to Glasgow was electrified in 1974 a whole new market was opened up for Liverpool to Glasgow/Edinburgh several times a day, via the Newton-le-Willows curve, with Class 47 to Preston and electric beyond. There was an 0800 departure, into Edinburgh at 1200, and a 1730 return, back at 2130, which developed quite a substantial day return business in summer, but that market seems to have faded away.

I also went a few times from Liverpool to Cambridge in the 1970s, you could have gone via Manchester Piccadilly into the once-daily Continental, changing again at Ely, but it was much more practical to go through London.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

No Liverpool-Hull trains is a result of an early TPE decision to send Liverpool trains hourly to Scarborough (using 3-car 185s), and cut Hull services back to Manchester (using mostly 2-car 170s).
I imagine it was to increase frequency from Liverpool to York (for all the connections that become possible).
Middlesbrough/Newcastle services were concentrated on the Manchester Airport route as well.
Evenings and weekends, particularly Sundays, the pattern varies a bit, so you can get Liverpool-Middlesbrough at times (can't remember if a Hull service shows up).

 

[Bletchleyite]

Very big question but what services used to run to Liverpool Lime Street during British Rail and early daysd of privatisation?

With mention of Chester, there used to be hourly Lime St-Chester via Warrington BQ in the late 1990s. Some staff didn't like you using it on an actual Liverpool to Chester ticket though! It wasn't well used and was curtailed to WBQ a while later.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I find it bizzare there is not a Liverpool to Hull service or a CrossCountry service from Liverpool

What actual demand is there from Liverpool to Hull? I'd venture very little.

 

[Bevan Price]

What actual demand is there from Liverpool to Hull? I'd venture very little.

I think the majority of Trans Pennine traffic is - and always has been - short distance travel, e.g. Liverpool/Manchester, Manchester/Huddersfield/Leeds, etc.
Next most popular is perhaps tourist traffic to/from York, followed by people using Manchester Airport.

 

[Bevan Price]

To add to other "lost" destinations from Lime St., there were once trains to Alexandra Dock, Canada Dock & Garston (Dock Road). All survived (somehow) until the 1940s, but had lost much of their traffic after the spread of electric trams around the Liverpool suburbs.

The service via Warrington Bank Quay Low Level to Manchester was sparse and painfully slow (about 2 hours). There were more short workings than through services between Liverpool & Manchester (e.g. Ditton Jn or Warrington to Manchester.)

Likewise, through services to Bolton Great Moor St, were sparse - it was often necessary to change at Kenyon Jn.

 

[Jorge Da Silva]

Yes - and this is the case of most big stations.

On the one hand, Liverpool seems to attract a lot of attention for it's lack of destinations but it has a much better range of services than some other coastal cities (Sunderland, Hull etc).

As timetables became more uniform/ clock-face, service patterns became simpler - e.g. the Norwich - Liverpool service now runs hourly via Grantham and Sheffield - under BR it was a generally hourly service but sometimes starting from Harwich/ Ipswich/ Cambridge, sometimes running via Loughborough or Manchester Victoria, sometimes running to Blackpool or Cumbria (a generation previously there were services running further north up the WCML too). Now we have a simple hourly Norwich - Liverpool service rather than a random assortment of destinations.

We've traded one-a-day long distance links (which were handy for the "stick granny on a train" market) for more reliable middle distance links (e.g. Liverpool has no through services to Portsmouth any more but the half hourly service to Birmingham is more services than before).

And in a world of clock face timetables (where frequencies are bumping up against the limit of what infrastructure can cope with), any additional through services become a Zero Sum Game - if you want a train from Liverpool to Hull or Bristol or Dover then what is that running at the expense of? How do you squeeze that into the timetable? Is it instead of something else? Are these just "nice to have" destinations or genuine routes that justify through services? Most XC services link places hundreds of miles apart more by accident than design (there's a market for a Newcastle to Birmingham service and a Bristol to Birmingham service but so few people travel from Newcastle to Bristol that it's more about operational convenience).

Put it this way - Merseyrail works as a frequent simple network - you could argue that Kirkby ought to have a through service to Liverpool South Parkway/ Hunts Cross, but would that be instead of the Southport - Hunts Cross services? Or squeezed awkwardly in between them? Reality is that it's most important to provide Hunts Cross, Southport and Kirkby with a good service into central Liverpool and any "through service" is more about avoiding the need to terminate lots of trains in the city centre than because thousands of people are wanting to get from Kirkby to Hunts Cross.

However, given the "exceptionalism" of Liverpool, there'll be some who no doubt think that the reduction in through services is part of some strategy to run down the city.

Like most things in the Rail industry simplifying works well because it is easy to follow. Over the years things have got a lot simpler in terms of service patterns.

 

[KevinTurvey]

For a period from summer 88 to about 92 (I'm not sure when) there was a 9:15 @ 11:15 departure to Cardiff Central, nearly always one of the Welsh 37/4s in the early years, then went over to 155's.

Around this time there was also an hourly all stations service to Bradford and Leeds operated by 155's and sometimes 158's. At Leeds this was always advertised as Edge Hill on the departure screens.

With regards to Hull I don' think there has been a regular service since the 70's although I vaguely remember one odd one in 1986 when the Hazel Grove chord opened, class 31's of course.

 

[frodshamfella]

I find it bizzare there is not a Liverpool to Hull service or a CrossCountry service from Liverpool

Me too, you would think one port city to the other west coast to east. I think quite lot of freight does this route on the road.
That route

 

[fowler9]

For a period from summer 88 to about 92 (I'm not sure when) there was a 9:15 @ 11:15 departure to Cardiff Central, nearly always one of the Welsh 37/4s in the early years, then went over to 155's.

Around this time there was also an hourly all stations service to Bradford and Leeds operated by 155's and sometimes 158's. At Leeds this was always advertised as Edge Hill on the departure screens.

With regards to Hull I don' think there has been a regular service since the 70's although I vaguely remember one odd one in 1986 when the Hazel Grove chord opened, class 31's of course.

Did the Cardiff ever go over to 155's permanently before the service was stopped. I really can't remember despite the 17:15 being my train of choice to get home to West Allerton.

 

[Taunton]

What actual demand is there from Liverpool to Hull? I'd venture very little.

Curiously, a century ago it was a large and long term although one way traffic. Emigrants from Central/Eastern Europe to the USA came this way more than any other route. There were almost daily ship sailings from Liverpool to New York, including the cheap ones that emigrants favoured, but in contrast very little from the Baltic etc ports. So the established route was overland to Hamburg etc, then by ship to Hull (sometimes Goole), train across to Liverpool, and ship from there. A range of organisations, both commercial and charitable, sprang up along the way to support this.

The old Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway did have special Emigrant Fares, and would provide complete special trains for this connecting with an incoming ship, but used their oldest stock, wooden seated, for it. It's a shame, the emigrants with all their worldly possessions in boxes and on handcarts, which they would push down Tithebarn Street from Exchange station to Pier Head, were treated very much as second class citizens (and not even given normal Third Class accommodation by that time on the railway). Sometimes they would go and knock at the back kitchen door of hotels along the way and ask, likely in Polish or Ukrainian, for any leftover food for their children.

There is a memorial sculpture at Liverpool of a family, actually given by the Mormon Church, which used to be at Pier Head commemorating this, but has now been moved down to Albert Dock museum. It says 9 million emigrants came this way.

http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/mol/exhibitions/ontheroad/legacysculpture.aspx

 

[KevinTurvey]

Did the Cardiff ever go over to 155's permanently before the service was stopped. I really can't remember despite the 17:15 being my train of choice to get home to West Allerton.

Hi, One of the diagrams went over to sprinters in late 89, the 09:15 & 17:15 remained loco hauled until early 1991? Someone on here will know the exact date as these trains were always very popular with enthusiasts, as towards the end often anything turned up on it including no heat 37s, 47's and even 31's

 

[KevinTurvey]

Here is a pic of the 17:15 Liverpool to Cardiff in 1990 This is 37691 on 25 August.