Central Station – a victim of the notorious 1960s Beeching Axe
Below ground, it was a different story. In 1892, the underground Mersey Railway had been extended to Central, and even as the old station upstairs was being demolished, down below it was as busy as ever, complete with its underground walkway straight into the basement of Lewis’s store next door.
Indeed, there were big plans ahead for the underground Central. The old surface line to Garston, disused from the 1960s, was rerouted first to the old underground platforms and then through new tunnels to join the Southport line underneath what used to be Exchange Station, now Moorfields.
A new deep-level station was excavated for the Wirral services, allowing the trains to swing round in a loop via Lime Street and head straight back under the Mersey without having to stop and reverse out of Central.
By the late 1970s, it was all up and running, dragging at least a part of Liverpool’s rail network into the 20th century and frustrating Dr Beeching into the bargain, for, in a new report in the mid-1960s, he had even called for the Southport line to be chopped.
Three decades and a bit later, Central station, particularly on the Northern Line platforms, is starting to look its age, and only now are plans finally taking shape for a proper redevelopment of the site of the former train sheds, to the south of the current station.
