Wapping goods station off park Lane, 1835. Queens dock and the vibrant, diverse 'sailortown' behind. The station is in a cutting to access the tunnel - top left- from to Edge Hill 1 mile plus away. No locomotives in the town; trains ran by gravity to the dock - cable (steam engine driven) back.

We recently had a visit from BBC Radio Merseyside. Celebrating the upcoming 30th Anivarssary of FoWT. You can listen online now... www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

We have done a lot of work on our map of structures on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. www.google.com/maps/d/edit?...

Back in 2018, we visited Liverpool Museum's Large Item Collection, inspecting the replica 1st & 2nd class carriages built for the 1930 centenary celebrations in Wavertree Playground. In total, there were three of each class. The other four carriages are in the National Railway Museum's collection.

Nice!

We were looking for this underwhelming structure in Rainhill, but couldn't find it. Apparently, it has been removed. These are images by our own Eric Shenton from 2017. The brass band around the edge had all but lost its detail at that point. Anyone got any photos from when it was new?

Final stop of the day was Mill Lane to enjoy the splendour of the Olive Mount cutting. Originally only 20' wide in 1830 it was repeatedly widened in the LNWR days for more tracks.

Our second to last stop of the day was to Court Hey Park, where a collection of original sleeper blocks have been repurposed into curbing. Most face the wrong way, but several do show the markings of the rail chairs.

More of the same for our 14th stop. Case's Bridge No.2, which gives access to the very modern suspension bridge over the M62

Unlucky 13th spot is the Childwall Lane Bridge. Another of the extended 16' wide tunnels through the Roby embankment. This went from 66' long to around 100' in the 1870s

12 stop is the unusual Pilch Lane bridge, which, when extended for four-track running, didn't just extend the bridge/tunnel, but made the new stretch wider.

The shock of the day was our 11th stop. Ball's Bridge. Because it is Grade II listed as an original bridge, but it isn't. It is post 1840, probably 1870, since it was originally built before Archway Road existed and was similar to many of the local 12' wide bridges built into the Roby embankment.

Our 10th stop was the remains of the winding engine, which was mostly demolished for the new Stone Lane bridge in the 1960s. Only the chimney base remains.

Our 9th stop along the line was to see the partial remains of the original bridge embedded into the new bridge on Old Lane in Rainhill

Picking up on our tour along the line on Tuesday. We ended for lunch in Sutton, Next is Rainhill. The milestone marker is Grade II listed, claiming to be 1829. The other photos show how the skew bridge was extended for modern traffic

We were in the Edge Hill cutting again today, helping @networkrail.bsky.social plan to LIDAR scan the cutting.

Last location before lunch was the mighty impressive Sutton Bridge

Next up is St. Helens Junction Station, and its very eroded window frames.

Next up is 2 Laurel Street in St. Helens, which is a circa 1830 hotel next to St. Helens Junction Station. Listed, but badly vandalised.

The second worse condition bridge we have seen along the line Legh's Cattle Archway. The worst is Legh's Brick Arch... Similar name, but just outside Manchester.

Next stop is Sandy Mail's bridge

We are out and about today taking photos of structures along the line. First stop...

A Spanish engraving of Isaac Shaw's famous view of opening day goes under the hammer in Berlin at the end of the month. The expected hammer price is 300€ www.jvv-berlin.de/en/auktionen...

The current head-scratcher at Trust Towers is the mystery of Whiston Bridge No. 1. The 1850 OS map shows the road as a level crossing. (Notice the tracks crossing the roadway). Yet Henry Booth's account listed the location as a rather solid bridge.

Another tablet on the original Platform 1. @chrisiles-co-uk.bsky.social feet for scale and context

On Platform 5 at Lime Street. Can't prove that this York Stone is 1836 original or not... The lengths @chrisiles-co-uk.bsky.social goes to to get a good photo of it...

Were are now heading down to Lime Street

We were able to go inside the Mausoleum 😲

We are out and about today doing some "mop up" photography for the Rocket 200 website. Delighted to see the fencing and the budjula have all gone from Huskisson's Mausoleum. Well done LCC.

Since it is #InternationalWomensDay we like to raise a glass to renowned actress Franny Kemble. Who, on the 25th August 1830, climbed on board a locomotive with George Stephenson and took a trip out to the Sankey Viaduct and was totally enthralled. Read her famed account here 1drv.ms/b/c/b0c945eb...

Beyond Liverpool Lime Street's platforms, up at street level, is an installation celebrating the early Railway & it’s engineers Designed to represent the Railway line below your feet. Consisting of four half wheels, each in recognition of important people, linked to L&MR & early LNWR 🧵🔽

November 1826, it was discovered that the Wapping Tunnel would pass under houses by Great George Square, and it was decided to redirect the tunnel to avoid them. The tunnel goes under many houses along its length, so what was so special about these large and expensive houses of Great George Square?

When you think about contemporary images of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the most recognisable are a collection of images by Thomas Talbot [T.T.] Bury. Initially, six plates were published in 1831, then an expanded 2nd edition (12 plates)(1832) and 3rd edition (15 plates)(1833).

Sorry to go down the rabbit hole a bit with this... Darron Keeling's reply to our original Facebook post really planted a seed. So, the theory is that the door on the left was raised when the platform was raised, while the one on the right was abandoned, bricked up and left unaltered.

Latest slide added to the collection. The stunning Duchess of Hamilton, taken at Bold Colliery in the evening sun during the Rocket 150 event. She now has her fancy streamlining bodywork refitted and sits alongside Mallard at the NRM in York.

We are pondering the meaning of the Hobbit doorway at Rainhill Station. The two existing theories are a) the doorway was from when the platform was much lower b) it was a recess for a water fountain. My favourite theory is that the door next to it was the same height, but rose with the platform.

Just a pretty photo of the back of the Huskisson Monument at Parkside. It desperately needs restoring. Hopefully, something can be done before the 200th

I went on a scavenge on Britain from Above and came away with this image of Wavertree Nook Bridge. I don't think it is original, as it looks metal, rather than the original Ashlar stone arch that vaulted from the rock walls of Olive Mount cutting. Also, an image of the real world location.

I have overlaid the 1831 map of Manchester onto a modern view to accurately line up the now gone Jones's Bridge No.3. There is no big revelation, since the now gone Church Street marries up with the truncated North Phoebe Street.

We know that there were 1/4 mile markers along the length of the line, but according to the 1850 OS map, there were markers every 1/8th of a mile. The markers showing the distance from Liverpool, then the markers showing the distance from Manchester, roughly an eighth of a mile along the track.

Stay with me, this becomes on topic quite quickly 😜 A 2008 photo of the café in Otterspool Park, which sits on the site of Otterspool House, the home of John Moss. Liverpool banker, Slave owner and Deputy Chairman of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway

Help. I've had this image on my computer for a couple of years, and I've totally forgotten what station it is supposed to be. It was supposed to be a station on the L&MR, but no clue if that is true. Anyone got any ideas?

Wishing everyone a merry and peaceful Christmas!

I have started looking into a property I didn't even know was a thing until this week. No. 2 Lionel Street in St. Helens. It sits across from St Helens Junction station and is dated to circa 1830, and was a public house/hotel. Grade II listed with a possible link to the railway. tinyurl.com/56mfekwu

At the Manchester end of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway. A sketch giving the context for the Liverpool Road terminus. Mid 1830s.

It pains to post uncited quotes. One interesting fact that has always been used is that it could take longer to transport cotton from Liverpool to Manchester than it took to get it from the Americas to Liverpool. Turns out the quote is from a Liverpool corn broker called Sir Joshua Walmsley.

Today is the 195th anniversary of modern railways. The first inter-city railway opened on this day when eight trains left Crown Street in Liverpool for Liverpool Road in Manchester. It didn't do a lot of "firsts", it just got the combination right becoming the template for everything that followed.

Currently researching the guests present on opening day of the L&MR in 1830. One of the hard ones to find information on is Count Potocki the Russian Ambassador. The problem is there are several simultaneous Counts and most contemporary press reports don't distinguish which is which...

I don't know if @rwldproject.bsky.social can help, but I was wondering when the first-ever railway-based suicide happened? I looked into it, and the date 1852 pops up, but no further details. #MorbidCuriosity

Not saying crime was rife in Liverpool in 1978, but apparently, even if it was bolted down, it was not safe. Page 15 of the Liverpool Echo for the 9th June 1978 has two separate railway thefts relating to the Liverpool & Manchester Railway.