Disused Railway Tunnel (Stephenson's Rocket)

Image: © Sue Adair Taken: 15 Aug 2005

This tunnel led to the original railway station at Liverpool at Crown Street, a grand sandstone building with a moorish arch over a deep cutting, reported to be the world's first passenger railway station. In addition to the passenger station with its offices, waiting rooms and overall roof there was also goods facilities and accommodation for coal merchants. The Crown Street passenger terminus soon proved inadequate due to its size and distance from the city centre and it was closed on 15th August 1836 on the opening of a new terminus at Lime Street in May 1835, much closer to the city centre (until 1870 trains were hauled up and down from Edge hill by ropes rather than by locomotives). Crown Street was relegated to a goods and engineering maintenance depot eventually closing in 1968, little remains of this historic site.

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