Liverpool Exchange railway station

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Liverpool Exchange railway station was a railway station located in Liverpool, England. It opened originally as Tithebarn Street railway station on 13 May 1850, as the terminus of the Liverpool, Crosby and Southport Railway, Liverpool and Bury Railway and Liverpool, Ormskirk and Preston Railway, replacing an earlier station at Great Howard Street nearby. The station was extensively rebuilt and renamed in 1888, expanding from its original site to cover Clarke's Basin (the original end of the Leeds-Liverpool Canal). The station then became the Liverpool terminus of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway and was also the terminus of the Liverpool to Manchester (LYR) line. Under four extremely long roofs lay ten platforms, providing long distance services to destinations such as Manchester Victoria, Blackpool North the Lake District, Whitehaven and Glasgow.

From March 1904, electric trains operated suburban services to Southport Chapel Street. The journey time was significantly shorter than the route ran by the Cheshire Lines Committee's Liverpool Central to Southport Lord Street service, as the LYR's route ran parallel with the coast and proved extremely popular with passengers.

The station was badly damaged during World War II and the station lost a large proportion of its roof, which was never rebuilt.

On August 3rd 1968, the last British Rail scheduled passenger train to be hauled by a standard gauge steam locomotive, ended its journey at Liverpool Exchange, Stanier 'Black 5' no. 45318 having hauled from Preston the Liverpool portion of the evening Glasgow to Liverpool and Manchester train.

Exchange's long distance services switched to Liverpool Lime Street in the 1960s, leaving the station with only relatively short distance journeys to Bolton, Manchester, Southport and Wigan.

The new Merseyrail link line between the lines to Southport and Garston was built at a lower level and this involved closing the station and a new sub surface station was also built slightly further back towards the city centre, called Moorfields.

Liverpool Exchange then closed on April 29, 1977. Services were diverted to the new Moorfields underground station, and by tunnel to Liverpool Central. This then allowed trains to run from Garston, under the city centre, and right through to Southport. Within a few years of closure the old station was demolished by Oldham Bros., a local demolition company. However, the frontage of the station building was preserved and incorporated into a new office building built behind, called Mercury Court.

The approaches to the station still exist on the old brick viaducts, but the lines then descend and disappear just before Leeds Street and down into the loop and link tunnel. Parts of the original station wall can still be seen when walking down Pall Mall or Bixteth Street. The rest of the station site behind Mercury Court is currently being used as a car park. However, there are plans in the future to redevelop this whole area into a new central business district for Liverpool.

Author and First World War poet Siegfried Sassoon frequently lodged in the hotel above the station and there in 1917 wrote his A Soldier's Declaration which appeared in the press and was later read to the House of Commons.