Waterloo Tunnel

The Waterloo Tunnel also known as the Victoria Tunnel is basically just one tunnel that is separated by a small cutting at Byrom street, from Edge Hill 2nd Station where the tunnel begins to a small opening near Byrom Street also known as Hodson Station is called Victoria Tunnel and from that opening down to the docks is called the Waterloo Tunnel, and it is the longest tunnel in Liverpool being 3,337 meters in total, it opened in 1849 and closed on the 19th November 1972, it has been left disused since then.

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Since 1972 a lot of people have mistaken the Byrom street cutting as a rubbish tip as it was quite high with rubbish but was cleared in 2007 when a survey was carried out for reopening of the tunnel, not a lot of people know this but it was actually a station for a short period of time and had steps going down to the platforms and had lamps on the walls and if you look around you will see traces of the old station but most is lost under the rubbish and overgrowth, it was called Hodson Station, up to now no old photos of the site have been found but there is newspaper articles confirming it was a station and accidents that have happened there, many people used this station to enter the tunnel during air raids for extra safety, some interesting things that are still there today are and old Hodson street bridge that crosses the cutting but no longer gets used and is blocked both ends by peoples back yards, there is also a small drinking tap that no longer works on the station wall.

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This tunnel was planned to be connected to the Merseyrail northern line back in the 1970s but they idea was scrapped, quite a few of the vents for this tunnel are long gone and been capped off but there are still are few left today.

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In 1975 Merseyrail took over the railways in Liverpool and built a new loop line tunnel and they considered using the Waterloo tunnel again so they would need to build a connection into the Waterloo tunnel from the new loop line from Liverpool Central Station which is quite easy to do they just need to curve the track near where the train goes into the tunnel to Moorfields and it will join up with the end of the Waterloo tunnel which is just in the car park next to the Merseyrail northern line but they decided in the end to not use the Waterloo tunnel so everything was left for 27 years until in 2007 Merseyrail said they may reopen the tunnel from Liverpool Central and then run through the Waterloo tunnel up to Edge Hill and onto the Canada Dock branch which could be reopened again to passengers and all the old stations along the line, this is all in their long term Merseyside transport plan. this idea was pushed even more due to the football stadiums nearby being increased for capacity.

 

The tunnel is owned and maintained by Network Rail and has been safeguarded since 1972 for future rail use, in 2016 the bridge that spanned Great Howard Street was replaced and space left under for future rail access.



Stations Along Waterloo Tunnel Branch



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