This unique line operated between 1893 and 1956. Click on the image above to view a film about its final days on the British Film Institute site.
It closed because years of salt spray off the Irish Sea had left the owners with a vast repair bill. But there was also a suspicion that the line had annoyed the powers that be by surviving in private hands after the nationalisation of the railways in 1948.
I trust that the Online Video of The Liverpool Overhead Railway (aka the dockers' umbrella) has been transferred from VHS to a digital medium. The commentary is by ex-BBC producer and life-long tram enthusiast Martin Jenkins. I declare an interest in that he was the star actor of Oldershaw Grammar when I started attending there.
ReplyDeleteMy father made sure that the family made a trip the length of the railway which remained in its last year of operation.
This railway was featured in the 1950 Ealing film "THE MAGNET", which was filmed on location in Liverpool; New Brighton and Wallasey. So for a clearer and more professionally filmed 35mm view of it, see the restored version of the film on DVD. David Rayner, Stoke on Trent.
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