Alternate History- British interurban tramways

[The Pelican]

Alternate History- British interurban tramways


The British isles do pretty well on most types of railway history, but one thing that's missing is interurban tramways, apart from the Blackpool to Fleetwood line. There were some rural tramways, like the Burton and Ashby or Cambourne and Redruth; some tramways like Grimsby and Immingham which used interurban equipment- but nothing approaching the networks of relatively fast trams joining large towns and smaller settlements. In America, these reached incredible distances, such that it was possible to travel for over 1,000 miles on them; in Germany, quite a few survive as the more popular corridors of tram systems; in Japan, they were mostly upgraded to form that country's network of private railways, often overlapping with routes served by the mainline JR network. Belgium, France, Italy and Switzerland also have interurban routes surviving today.


I presume the reason Britain had fewer interurrbans is that it had gained a more intensive network of mainline railways earlier in victorian times- indeed, it's notable how little line building of any sort went on in the 1900-1940 period when most interurbans were built abroad. The 1900 date was probably due to tramway technology needing to advance enough, and the 1940 end date due to competition from buses. At least some of the electric suburban lines of the period- such as the Wimbledon-Sutton and Chessington South lines- might alternatively have been built using tramway technology, if their had been a fast tramway into London instead of the LSWR and London Underground heavy rail lines. The Southern Heights Light railway also seems fairly similar to lots of interurban schemes abroad.


My question is- where in the UK would such a network have been most likely to arise during the 1900-1940 period? London has the disadvantage that tube extensions would presumably have been a better thing to build- I guess suburban Birmingham and Manchester are possibilities, but they mostly had fairly slow tram systems running on streets, so nothing obvious for interurban lines to feed into to reach the centre. It possibly needs a town growing from small to large during the early twentieth century, so that fairly fast tracks could reach reasonably close to the city center, or perhaps a 1920s version of a New Town, with transport to it planned from the start.

Alternatively, an existing railway- presumably a fairly isolated one- might have found it covenient to buy tramcar style equipment, as happened on the Swansea and Mumbles...

 

[HSTEd]

As I recall it was possible for tram vehicles to travel a long way along the network of tramways in Manchester, St Helens and Liverpool, although I am not sure quite how far.

I think you will struggle to come up with a more plausible location for a large interconnected system than the Liverpool-Manchester area.

 

[The Pelican]

As I recall it was possible for tram vehicles to travel a long way along the network of tramways in Manchester, St Helens and Liverpool, although I am not sure quite how far.

I think you will struggle to come up with a plausible location for a large interconnected system than the Liverpool-Manchester area.

Yes, I believe all the way from Liverpool to Rochdale. I agree it's a plausible location, lots of industries or mining spread out over a wide area, and perhaps requires one of the three mainlines between the two cities- via Warrington, Newton Le Willows or Wigan- not to have been built.

Other places which seem plausible include the coal mining areas around Newcastle and the South Wales Valleys, although the latter had all, and perhaps more than all, the railways it needed from competing Victorian companies. The NER quayside branch electric locomotives, steeplecabs with 750v DC overhead wire, are a lot like interurban freight locomotives, though.

 

[Dr Hoo]

In early 20th Century Britain the bedrock of tramways was journeys to and from work. There was little time or money for leisure trips other than some local countryside at the town or city edges. Birmingham’s Lickey Hills, reached by the Rednal route illustrated this well.

Most work trips were associated with industrial sites near to fairly dense housing development. Most trips were extremely short by current standards. The idea of commuting by some hypothetical through 3’ 6” gauge tram from rural Kinver to a job in Erdington (loosely at opposite ends of the West Midlands area) is ridiculous, even though there was a continuous network.

 

[Bletchleyite]

While you might not call it exactly inter*urban* given how rural the island is, and it's not technically the UK (though it is part of the British Isles), the Manx Electric Railway is a classic example of an interurban style tramway, is it not?

 

[Backroom_boy]

Wasn't Mumbles/Swansea an example?

Ah sorry missed that this had already been raised.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

Alternate History- British interurban tramways


The British isles do pretty well on most types of railway history, but one thing that's missing is interurban tramways, apart from the Blackpool to Fleetwood line. There were some rural tramways, like the Burton and Ashby or Cambourne and Redruth; some tramways like Grimsby and Immingham which used interurban equipment- but nothing approaching the networks of relatively fast trams joining large towns and smaller settlements. In America, these reached incredible distances, such that it was possible to travel for over 1,000 miles on them; in Germany, quite a few survive as the more popular corridors of tram systems; in Japan, they were mostly upgraded to form that country's network of private railways, often overlapping with routes served by the mainline JR network. Belgium, France, Italy and Switzerland also have interurban routes surviving today.

Camborne & Redruth was not rural - it was (and is) heavily built up between the two and at the time of construction the mining industry was still in full swing. It also had freight operations which lasted a bit longer than the passenger services. Elsewhere in Cornwall there were proposals in the early 1900s for a true inter-urban system in West Penwith (Penzance, Newlyn, St. Just, Land's End etc) but of course they came to nothing and the area was a very early adopter of motor-buses.

 

[The Pelican]

In early 20th Century Britain the bedrock of tramways was journeys to and from work. There was little time or money for leisure trips other than some local countryside at the town or city edges. Birmingham’s Lickey Hills, reached by the Rednal route illustrated this well.

Most work trips were associated with industrial sites near to fairly dense housing development. Most trips were extremely short by current standards. The idea of commuting by some hypothetical through 3’ 6” gauge tram from rural Kinver to a job in Erdington (loosely at opposite ends of the West Midlands area) is ridiculous, even though there was a continuous network.

I agree that most people probably worked locally to where they lived. I think that the GWR were adding lots of capacity in the form of the North Warwickshire line and Moor Street for suburban commuters to central Birmingham at the time- I wonder what would have had to differ for that capacity to be provided by off-road trams instead of additions to existing railway network?

I suppose it vaguely parallels the question of why Birmingham and Manchester didn't manage to build metro systems at the time, even though the slightly smaller Liverpool and Glasgow both ended up with underground railways. (Liverpool only had a couple of underground stations, but the Mersey Railway was a sort of overground metro.)

 

[The exile]

Most work trips were associated with industrial sites near to fairly dense housing development. Most trips were extremely short by current standards. The idea of commuting by some hypothetical through 3’ 6” gauge tram from rural Kinver to a job in Erdington (loosely at opposite ends of the West Midlands area) is ridiculous, even though there was a continuous network.

It's unlikely that much of the traffic on continental inter-urban tramways was (or indeed is) end-to-end, with many of the large "networks" being the almost accidental result of expanding urban areas and their networks expanding and meeting each other (with sufficient overlapping of passenger flows to merit through journeys).
I suspect the reason they never really got going in the UK was the early development of our railway network compared to the "invention" of tramway technology, coupled with the early concentration of populations in urban areas. The great weakness of the inter-urban tramway is that its niche is a level of traffic that doesn't justify a full-blown heavy rail line but is enough to be worked economically - as the fate of most inter-urbans (think of Belgium's massive SNVC network) shows - that niche is very thin indeed.
It's a shame though - long-distance tram challenges are fun! (Never actually managed the full end-to-end across the Ruhrgebiet from the Western edge of the Krefeld network to the Eastern extremity of Dortmund's - living in the middle meant both that it was touch and go as to whether it could actually be done in one day [ the necessary diversion via Düsseldorf didn't help, even though you could get snacks on the tram!] and also that the temptation to give up when 5 minutes from home was too great!)

 

[etr221]

As I recall it was possible for tram vehicles to travel a long way along the network of tramways in Manchester, St Helens and Liverpool, although I am not sure quite how far.

I think you will struggle to come up with a plausible location for a large interconnected system than the Liverpool-Manchester area.

According to 'Great British Tramway Networks' (W.H. Bett and J.C.Gillham, 4th Edn 1962), from Great Crosby (but rails didn't quite connect at Seaforth) to beyond Stalybridge... Alternatively, the map shows links to Rochdale, thence to Bacup, change gauge there before continuing to Blackburn. The system at its peak was owned by 47 local authorities and 2 companies, operated by 12 l.a.s and 3 companies. The book quotes a contemporary guide: Liverpool to Manchester by tram in 1920: 6 seperate rides, total fare 2s 3d, 37½ miles, average time 4½ hours.

But those facts note some of the issues: most of the system was owned by individual cities and towns, who all built for 'their' town, rather to link to the next one; and even when they met, they had their own agendas - co-operation with neighbours tended not to be high on these.

The other two extensively linked systems were the West Midlands: Birmingham, Walsall, Wolverhampton, Dudley and Stourbridge were all connected; and what we now think of as West Yorkshire - Leeds, etc. - but this was bedevilled by multiple gauges!

Perhaps the most interesting link of the old tramways was from Sheffield to Rotherham: when Rotherham converted most of its routes to trolleybus, some new streamlined, single ended trams (looking very much like the trolleybuses) were built forthe through joint service to Sheffield.

I suppose it vaguely parallels the question of why Birmingham and Manchester didn't manage to build metro systems at the time, even though the slightly smaller Liverpool and Glasgow both ended up with underground railways. (Liverpool only had a couple of underground stations, but the Mersey Railway was a sort of overground metro.)

? Do you mean the Liverpool Overhead Railway? - Britain's equivalent to the Chicago L or the New York El, closed 1956 (and completely different from the Mersey Railway, which ended up the core of Merseyrail)

 

[The Pelican]

Camborne & Redruth was not rural - it was (and is) heavily built up between the two and at the time of construction the mining industry was still in full swing. It also had freight operations which lasted a bit longer than the passenger services. Elsewhere in Cornwall there were proposals in the early 1900s for a true inter-urban system in West Penwith (Penzance, Newlyn, St. Just, Land's End etc) but of course they came to nothing and the area was a very early adopter of motor-buses.

Interesting about a proposed system in Western Cornwall. Presumably it might have been the way to extend the Helston branch down the Lizard. A multi-town, mostly rural network reminds me that the original Porthmadog, Beddgelert and South Snowdon Railway was going to be electric, and although it was planned to use locomotives, might have ended up using tram style equipment eventually.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Oct 2025 ==

According to 'Great British Tramway Networks' (W.H. Bett and J.C.Gillham, 4th Edn 1962), from Great Crosby (but rails didn't quite connect at Seaforth) to beyond Stalybridge... Alternatively, the map shows links to Rochdale, thence to Bacup, change gauge there before continuing to Blackburn. The system at its peak was owned by 47 local authorities and 2 companies, operated by 12 l.a.s and 3 companies. The book quotes a contemporary guide: Liverpool to Manchester by tram in 1920: 6 seperate rides, total fare 2s 3d, 37½ miles, average time 4½ hours.

But those facts note some of the issues: most of the system was owned by individual cities and towns, who all built for 'their' town, rather to link to the next one; and even when they met, they had their own agendas - co-operation with neighbours tended not to be high on these.

The other two extensively linked systems were the West Midlands: Birmingham, Walsall, Wolverhampton, Dudley and Stourbridge were all connected; and what we now think of as West Yorkshire - Leeds, etc. - but this was bedevilled by multiple gauges!

Perhaps the most interesting link of the old tramways was from Sheffield to Rotherham: when Rotherham converted most of its routes to trolleybus, some new streamlined, single ended trams (looking very much like the trolleybuses) were built forthe through joint service to Sheffield.


? Do you mean the Liverpool Overhead Railway? - Britain's equivalent to the Chicago L or the New York El, closed 1956 (and completely different from the Mersey Railway, which ended up the core of Merseyrail)

Yes, I did mean the Liverpool Overhead railway- sorry about that!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Oct 2025 ==

While you might not call it exactly inter*urban* given how rural the island is, and it's not technically the UK (though it is part of the British Isles), the Manx Electric Railway is a classic example of an interurban style tramway, is it not?

Yes, the MER is a good example- it also uses notably old equipment, so gives a good idea of what it was like around 1900!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Oct 2025 ==

It's unlikely that much of the traffic on continental inter-urban tramways was (or indeed is) end-to-end, with many of the large "networks" being the almost accidental result of expanding urban areas and their networks expanding and meeting each other (with sufficient overlapping of passenger flows to merit through journeys).
I suspect the reason they never really got going in the UK was the early development of our railway network compared to the "invention" of tramway technology, coupled with the early concentration of populations in urban areas. The great weakness of the inter-urban tramway is that its niche is a level of traffic that doesn't justify a full-blown heavy rail line but is enough to be worked economically - as the fate of most inter-urbans (think of Belgium's massive SNVC network) shows - that niche is very thin indeed.
It's a shame though - long-distance tram challenges are fun! (Never actually managed the full end-to-end across the Ruhrgebiet from the Western edge of the Krefeld network to the Eastern extremity of Dortmund's - living in the middle meant both that it was touch and go as to whether it could actually be done in one day [ the necessary diversion via Düsseldorf didn't help, even though you could get snacks on the tram!] and also that the temptation to give up when 5 minutes from home was too great!)

The Ruhr network looks absolutely incredible- I suspect it's a lucky evolution in some ways- the historical eras willing to fill up the roads with tram lines, and the eras willing to pay to put those lines into tunnels, probably don't tend to coexist- so the Ruhr/ Cologne-Bonn/ Frankfurt/ Japanese systems would be difficult to recreate!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Oct 2025 ==

The above replies remind me of a map from article I found in the "The Railway Magazine" archive at https://sremg.org.uk/RlyMag/index-mob.shtml
(under "To Guildford Via Cobham"), which suggested that an early proposal for the Guildford New Line would have had it bypass the South Western Mainline all together and run via Roehampton to East Putney and the District Line- although not an interurban, it's easy to imagine it as a long rural tube line like parts of the Metropolitan and Central, possibly electrified even earlier than the rest of the LSWR. Some of those remote tube branches certainly seem to bear the greatest resemblance to the Japanese interurban networks in particular.

Now my alternate history needs to have this Guildford New Line operated by it's own company, and building it's own branch lines into major traffic centers which it's main route bypasses, such as Woking and Epsom (Wimbledon already having a District branch, and Kingston being too close to the route to need a branch). These would presumably be very similar to the Metropolitan line's Watford and Stanmore branches from a similar 1900-1940 period!

 

[eldomtom2]

In early 20th Century Britain the bedrock of tramways was journeys to and from work.

But that would have been true of tramways and interurbans elsewhere as well, so that's not really an explanation for why the "interurban" did not really exist in Britain.

I suspect a comparison of rail density between the UK and other countries at the time interurbans became viable would provide some answers - it definitely seems a possibility that there wasn't enough demand for tramways to compete directly with railways instead of serving journeys too short to go by heavy rail.

 

[Dr Hoo]

But that would have been true of tramways and interurbans elsewhere as well, so that's not really an explanation for why the "interurban" did not really exist in Britain.

I suspect a comparison of rail density between the UK and other countries at the time interurbans became viable would provide some answers - it definitely seems a possibility that there wasn't enough demand for tramways to compete directly with railways instead of serving journeys too short to go by heavy rail.

It is easy to overlook that many British tram 'routes' were extremely short but still served a profitable purpose. Luton for example, had four routes with a total length of not much more than 5 miles. Workers would typically pay a one (old) penny (1/240 of a £ pound) for an intra-urban journey to or from their terraced house, saving their energy for a long day at the hat factory/mill/mine/ironworks or whatever. It is far from clear to me that this is comparable with potential inter-urban tram journeys in North America.

 

[daodao]

More detailed searches reveal that there were a number of other interurban tramways in GB and Ireland not already mentioned, often with joint working or running over other company's tracks, including:

• Treherbert to Pontypridd
• Llandudno to Colwyn Bay
• Dublin to Lucan
• Bessbrook to Newry
• Strathclyde network
• Dunfermline network
• Kirkcaldy to Leven
• Blackpool to Lytham
• Potteries network
• West Riding network
• Nottingham to Ripley
• Portsmouth to Horndean
• Guernsey Railway

By far the largest network was in South Lancashire, and parts of Manchester Metrolink system do have the flavour of an interurban, particularly the Rochdale line.

 

[The Pelican]

More detailed searches reveal that there were a number of other interurban tramways in GB and Ireland not already mentioned, often with joint working or running over other company's tracks, including:

• Treherbert to Pontypridd
• Llandudno to Colwyn Bay
• Dublin to Lucan
• Bessbrook to Newry
• Strathclyde network
• Dunfermline network
• Kirkcaldy to Leven
• Blackpool to Lytham
• Potteries network
• West Riding network
• Nottingham to Ripley
• Portsmouth to Horndean
• Guernsey Railway

By far the largest network was in South Lancashire, and parts of Manchester Metrolink system do have the flavour of an interurban, particularly the Rochdale line.

I had forgotten the Strathclyde trams, which I seem to remember reached Balloch at one end- nearly as far as the suburban railways go nowadays. Nottingham-Ripley and Portsmouth-Horndean are also routes I should have remembered.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Oct 2025 ==

It is easy to overlook that many British tram 'routes' were extremely short but still served a profitable purpose. Luton for example, had four routes with a total length of not much more than 5 miles. Workers would typically pay a one (old) penny (1/240 of a £ pound) for an intra-urban journey to or from their terraced house, saving their energy for a long day at the hat factory/mill/mine/ironworks or whatever. It is far from clear to me that this is comparable with potential inter-urban tram journeys in North America.

I would have thought that England would have had a higher population density than most of the midwestern US, although perhaps lower than parts of Germany and Japan. On the other hand, fewer people also probably made land acquisition cheaper. It's also possible that more people meant the factories didn't have to look as far from their gates for workers- it's certainly notable that the Grimsby and Immingham seems to have mainly been aimed at finding enough people to work at the Immingham docks!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Oct 2025 ==

By the way- for anyone interested in American interurbans, the best book is "The Electric Interurban Railway in America", by George Hilton and John Due. There are often good articles online on particular companies, especially the bigger ones like those around St Louis, Chicago and Los Angeles. The German and Japanese ones I have mostly researched using the Wikipedia articles for various German tram systems and the Japanese private railways, translated using Google translate.

 

[billio]

Opened in 1883, an early steam tramway the Manchester, Bury, Rochdale and Oldham Steam Tramways Co. Ltd was an interurban tramway serving Manchester, its northern suburbs, Prestwich, Radcliffe, Bury, Heywood, Rochdale, Middleton and Oldham. Here is a link.
Nearly all of this was taken over by local authorities when they electrified the trams by 1905 often creating new urban connections such as Bolton to Bury.
Electric trams were successful in competing with local railways to the extent that in response the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway electrified the line from Bury to Manchester through Prestwich.

 

[The Pelican]

Opened in 1883, an early steam tramway the Manchester, Bury, Rochdale and Oldham Steam Tramways Co. Ltd was an interurban tramway serving Manchester, its northern suburbs, Prestwich, Radcliffe, Bury, Heywood, Rochdale, Middleton and Oldham. Here is a link.
Nearly all of this was taken over by local authorities when they electrified the trams by 1905 often creating new urban connections such as Bolton to Bury.
Electric trams were successful in competing with local railways to the extent that in response the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway electrified the line from Bury to Manchester through Prestwich.

I've always found the distribution of pre-WW1 electrification schemes in the UK really interesting- lots in London, then Liverpool, Newcastle and Northern Manchester- none in Birmingham or Glasgow, despite these providing good locations after the 1960s. It seems a pity the L and Y didn't manage to electrify more (apart from the Holcombe Brook branch)- electric trains to Oldham and Bolton as well as Bury would have been an interesting network.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

I've always found the distribution of pre-WW1 electrification schemes in the UK really interesting- lots in London, then Liverpool, Newcastle and Northern Manchester- none in Birmingham or Glasgow, despite these providing good locations after the 1960s. It seems a pity the L and Y didn't manage to electrify more (apart from the Holcombe Brook branch)- electric trains to Oldham and Bolton as well as Bury would have been an interesting network.

The Oldham loop as far as Shaw and the Royton branch was to be the L & Y 's next electrification project, but was killed by WW1. After the war, the changed economic circumstances and the torpor of the early LMS saw no progress.

 

[izvor]

Of the early interurbans, I would like to think that the Swansea & Mumbles, Burton & Ashby and the Isle of Thanet tramways could have had potential into the present day, if they had been allowed to modernise and upgrade. All had good stretches of reserved track.

 

[edwin_m]

Many of the interurbans connected with the tram networks of the towns they served, often run by different bodies, in order to reach town centres. So the general abandonment of urban tramways (due to perceived traffic disrutpiion and poor economics versus the bus) would also have killed off any remaining interurbans. Central European countries on the other hand mostly kept their tramways and developed them after WW2, so connecting interurban links often also survived and improved.

 

[ThirteenArches]

Many British tramway systems were built on the back of the construction of power stations for domestic and industrial electricity supply. The trams ensured a steady base load throughout the day, with reduced demand for transport when the industrial demand was greatest, thus improving power generation efficiency. This of course tended to limit the tram network to the area covered by that power company.

There were also other factors. Corporation bumptiousness led to huge operational difficulties of cross - boundary routes (see Manchester and Salford). The prospect of getting a long- distance line past so many vested interests was daunting. I half- recall reading of a proposal for an interurban across South Lancashire that never got beyond the trawing board. As, thankfully, happened to the crazy proposal for an interurban plateway...

And a huge damper on later development was that many privately- initiated power/ tramway developments included a clause that allowed (but did not mandate) acquisition of the system be the local authority after a fixed period, often 21 years. Combined with World War One, this meant that many systems entered public ownership in a very run down state, the operators having had no incentive to invest in new stock or track repairs let alone expansion.

 

[The Pelican]

The Oldham loop as far as Shaw and the Royton branch was to be the L & Y 's next electrification project, but was killed by WW1. After the war, the changed economic circumstances and the torpor of the early LMS saw no progress.

It's a real shame the L and Y electrification never extended- it might have ended up as a sort of northern version of the Southern reigon. It's suprising how sluggish the LMS was electrifying in general, compared to the LNER's Woodhead and Shenfield schemes.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Oct 2025 ==

Many British tramway systems were built on the back of the construction of power stations for domestic and industrial electricity supply. The trams ensured a steady base load throughout the day, with reduced demand for transport when the industrial demand was greatest, thus improving power generation efficiency. This of course tended to limit the tram network to the area covered by that power company.

There were also other factors. Corporation bumptiousness led to huge operational difficulties of cross - boundary routes (see Manchester and Salford). The prospect of getting a long- distance line past so many vested interests was daunting. I half- recall reading of a proposal for an interurban across South Lancashire that never got beyond the trawing board. As, thankfully, happened to the crazy proposal for an interurban plateway...

And a huge damper on later development was that many privately- initiated power/ tramway developments included a clause that allowed (but did not mandate) acquisition of the system be the local authority after a fixed period, often 21 years. Combined with World War One, this meant that many systems entered public ownership in a very run down state, the operators having had no incentive to invest in new stock or track repairs let alone expansion.

I think the right for councils to buy tramways after 21 years might have had something to do with it- it would certainly have put interurban companies off building lines which started at the end of existing tramways.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

I suppose it vaguely parallels the question of why Birmingham and Manchester didn't manage to build metro systems at the time, even though the slightly smaller Liverpool and Glasgow both ended up with underground railways. (Liverpool only had a couple of underground stations, but the [Liverpool Overhead] Railway was a sort of overground metro.)

For the (pre Merseyrail) underground railway in Liverpool and Birkenhead, the relevant point is surely the need to cross the Mersey - and the appropriate solution being a tunnel. Once you have a tunnel from Birkenhead to Liverpool, then given that both town and city centres are on the banks of the river, it's more or less inevitable that you will have underground stations - there's be no realistic way of getting trains up to the surface soon enough for there to be surface stations.

And it's noticeable that pre-Merseyrail, the underground stations in Liverpool and Birkenhead remained restricted to those on the Mersey Railway - all other railway penetration was on the surface (albeit by a pretty deep tunnel in the case of Lime Street - but a tunnel with no stations in it and open air stations at each end for Lime Street and Edge Hill. Much the same for the railways to the docks).

 

[Dr Hoo]

It's a real shame the L and Y electrification never extended- it might have ended up as a sort of northern version of the Southern reigon. It's suprising how sluggish the LMS was electrifying in general, compared to the LNER's Woodhead and Shenfield schemes.

I can't let this pass without comment. The L&NER was noted for ending its existence with fewer miles worked by electric traction than it started with. The Newport-Shildon freight route was scrapped and the North Eastern Railway's well-advanced plans for Newcastle-York electrification were strangled at birth.

The Cruden Bay Tramway was owned by the L&NER but closed during their tenure (admittedly brought on by wartime conditions).

The shorter Newcastle-South Shields route was electrified, albeit there wasn't a competing continuous tram route.

The Woodhead and Shenfield schemes came very late and were completed under BR.

The Manchester-Altrincham route was a joint line with the LMS but the scheme was directed by the LMS' Electrical Engineer (F A Cortez-Leigh).

The LMS had, on its own initiative, also electrified the Wirral Lines to New Brighton and West Kirby. (Amazingly, despite being the UK's pioneer tramway, Birkenhead's trams had never even been been extended to join the separate Wallasey network that was focussed on the Seacombe ferry terminal. So much for any 'inter-urban' ambitions!)

 

[The Pelican]

For the (pre Merseyrail) underground railway in Liverpool and Birkenhead, the relevant point is surely the need to cross the Mersey - and the appropriate solution being a tunnel. Once you have a tunnel from Birkenhead to Liverpool, then given that both town and city centres are on the banks of the river, it's more or less inevitable that you will have underground stations - there's be no realistic way of getting trains up to the surface soon enough for there to be surface stations.

And it's noticeable that pre-Merseyrail, the underground stations in Liverpool and Birkenhead remained restricted to those on the Mersey Railway - all other railway penetration was on the surface (albeit by a pretty deep tunnel in the case of Lime Street - but a tunnel with no stations in it and open air stations at each end for Lime Street and Edge Hill. Much the same for the railways to the docks).

I was thinking of the Mersey Railway, it taking over many of the other Birkenhead railways using the 503 EMUs, and the Liverpool Overhead railway as both being fairly metro like. Nothing either underground or elevated like those in central Manchester or Birmingham, although their is a certain similarity between the Liverpool Exchange-Southport line and two pre-war electrification schemes in Manchester, those to Altrincham and Bury. Birmingham had no electrification at all before the war.

It just seems a suprising pattern, although I suppose that similar countries also didn't have metro systems in their second biggest cities- the Lyon metro in France and the Milan metro in Italy were both postwar, and although the second biggest German city, Hamburg, had a metro at the time, that metro was from before WW1, and nowhere else there got one until the postwar era.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Oct 2025 ==

I can't let this pass without comment. The L&NER was noted for ending its existence with fewer miles worked by electric traction than it started with. The Newport-Shildon freight route was scrapped and the North Eastern Railway's well-advanced plans for Newcastle-York electrification were strangled at birth.

The Cruden Bay Tramway was owned by the L&NER but closed during their tenure (admittedly brought on by wartime conditions).

The shorter Newcastle-South Shields route was electrified, albeit there wasn't a competing continuous tram route.

The Woodhead and Shenfield schemes came very late and were completed under BR.

The Manchester-Altrincham route was a joint line with the LMS but the scheme was directed by the LMS' Electrical Engineer (F A Cortez-Leigh).

The LMS had, on its own initiative, also electrified the Wirral Lines to New Brighton and West Kirby. (Amazingly, despite being the UK's pioneer tramway, Birkenhead's trams had never even been been extended to join the separate Wallasey network that was focussed on the Seacombe ferry terminal. So much for any 'inter-urban' ambitions!)

The Woodhead and Shenfield (along with the Alrincham) schemes always seem particularly impressive due to being overhead electrified to what was intended to be the mainline standard, and including substantial quadruple track sections, later enabling these systems to do things which the Southern reigon 750v network generally didn't, especially with all of the Woodhead loco hauled trains.


On the other hand, the cancellation of the NER's mainline electrifcation scheme was probably one of the more unfotunate developments in British electrification history- although if it had been extended at either end, it might have denied us the A4's and the Deltics. The EE1s working trains fairly fast (I hope it would have eventually exceeded 65mph) would have been a really impressive thing to see- a lot like the PRR GG1s and the Swiss Crocodiles as top of the line interwar electric locos!

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

I can't let this pass without comment. The L&NER was noted for ending its existence with fewer miles worked by electric traction than it started with. The Newport-Shildon freight route was scrapped and the North Eastern Railway's well-advanced plans for Newcastle-York electrification were strangled at birth.

The Cruden Bay Tramway was owned by the L&NER but closed during their tenure (admittedly brought on by wartime conditions).

The shorter Newcastle-South Shields route was electrified, albeit there wasn't a competing continuous tram route.

The Woodhead and Shenfield schemes came very late and were completed under BR.

The Manchester-Altrincham route was a joint line with the LMS but the scheme was directed by the LMS' Electrical Engineer (F A Cortez-Leigh).

The LMS had, on its own initiative, also electrified the Wirral Lines to New Brighton and West Kirby. (Amazingly, despite being the UK's pioneer tramway, Birkenhead's trams had never even been been extended to join the separate Wallasey network that was focussed on the Seacombe ferry terminal. So much for any 'inter-urban' ambitions!)

To be fair, the major Woodhead and Shenfield schemes were LNER inspired, but postponed because of WW2. It had been encouraged by the results of the MSJ & A electrification - the LMS taking an opposite view and being lukewarm about any further 1500V DC OHL schemes. The minor LMS Wirral scheme was not until 1938 (with the help of government money) - up until that point it had shown zero interest in expanding the third-rail network.

 

[edwin_m]

For the (pre Merseyrail) underground railway in Liverpool and Birkenhead, the relevant point is surely the need to cross the Mersey - and the appropriate solution being a tunnel. Once you have a tunnel from Birkenhead to Liverpool, then given that both town and city centres are on the banks of the river, it's more or less inevitable that you will have underground stations - there's be no realistic way of getting trains up to the surface soon enough for there to be surface stations.

And it's noticeable that pre-Merseyrail, the underground stations in Liverpool and Birkenhead remained restricted to those on the Mersey Railway - all other railway penetration was on the surface (albeit by a pretty deep tunnel in the case of Lime Street - but a tunnel with no stations in it and open air stations at each end for Lime Street and Edge Hill. Much the same for the railways to the docks).

Worth remembering that the Queensway road tunnel was built with a lower deck for tram tracks, which were never installed.

 

[The Pelican]

Worth remembering that the Queensway road tunnel was built with a lower deck for tram tracks, which were never installed.

Certainly. Like with the Kingsway tram subway in London, trams with a tunneled section would have been good candidates for survival- lots of the surviving American tram systems (Boston, San Francisco, Newark, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh) survived because tram tunnels reduced their interaction with traffic, mostly in the city centres (the pre-WW2 SF and Pittsburgh tunnels were outside the centre). The only tram route to survive in Marsaille also had a tunneled section.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Oct 2025 ==

To be fair, the major Woodhead and Shenfield schemes were LNER inspired, but postponed because of WW2. It had been encouraged by the results of the MSJ & A electrification - the LMS taking an opposite view and being lukewarm about any further 1500V DC OHL schemes. The minor LMS Wirral scheme was not until 1938 (with the help of government money) - up until that point it had shown zero interest in expanding the third-rail network.

One interesting thing about electrification is that many of the earlier schemes were, like Woodhead, non-London based, wheras most long distance schemes since WW2 have begun by electrifying the suburban London part of a line. Obviously the West Coast electrification started with the lines between Crewe and Manchester, and some projects have been suburban or reigonal and reached nowhere near London, such as the recent Edinburgh-Glasgow and North Western schemes. Nonetheless, lots of proposed pre-war schemes- the Great Western's Plymouth to Exeter as well as the NER's York to Newcastle- seem not to have included the London parts of those lines. In the end, all four of the East Coast Mainline, the Great Eastern Mainline, the Great Western Mainline, and the Midland Mainline were electrified starting from the London end. Probably something to do with freight vs passenger reciepts in the North and Midlands vs London- the earlier schemes often seemed more freight focussed, and the later ones more passenger focused.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

Certainly. Like with the Kingsway tram subway in London, trams with a tunneled section would have been good candidates for survival- lots of the surviving American tram systems (Boston, San Francisco, Newark, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh) survived because tram tunnels reduced their interaction with traffic, mostly in the city centres (the pre-WW2 SF and Pittsburgh tunnels were outside the centre). The only tram route to survive in Marsaille also had a tunneled section.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Oct 2025 ==


One interesting thing about electrification is that many of the earlier schemes were, like Woodhead, non-London based, wheras most long distance schemes since WW2 have begun by electrifying the suburban London part of a line. Obviously the West Coast electrification started with the lines between Crewe and Manchester, and some projects have been suburban or reigonal and reached nowhere near London, such as the recent Edinburgh-Glasgow and North Western schemes. Nonetheless, lots of proposed pre-war schemes- the Great Western's Plymouth to Exeter as well as the NER's York to Newcastle- seem not to have included the London parts of those lines. In the end, all four of the East Coast Mainline, the Great Eastern Mainline, the Great Western Mainline, and the Midland Mainline were electrified starting from the London end. Probably something to do with freight vs passenger reciepts in the North and Midlands vs London- the earlier schemes often seemed more freight focussed, and the later ones more passenger focused.

The GWR scheme was everything west of Taunton - electrification to Princetown and Moretonhampstead would have been a delicious prospect! - because of the cost of hauling coal from South Wales over long distances for the steam depots. Unfortunately it is generally regarded as just a paper excercise aimed at getting a better price from the collieries - which it did.

 

[The Pelican]

The GWR scheme was everything west of Taunton - electrification to Princetown and Moretonhampstead would have been a delicious prospect! - because of the cost of hauling coal from South Wales over long distances for the steam depots. Unfortunately it is generally regarded as just a paper excercise aimed at getting a better price from the collieries - which it did.

It is good fun to imagine what electrification standards Brunel might have specified had he been alive in the early twentieth century- probably, like the LBSCR overhead wire scheme, designed for far faster, heavier, longer distance trains than would have ever used it in practise.