Catalogue description Mersey Railway Company: Records

The Mersey Railway Company (MRC) was incorporated as the Mersey Pneumatic Railway Company (MPR) by the Mersey Railway Act 1866. The act empowered the MPR to construct a railway entirely in the borough of Liverpool. The promoters were unable to raise the capital so they decided to drop the plan to propel the trains by pneumatic means and use steam power instead. A further act was obtained, the Mersey Railway Act 1868, which extended the period of time for the compulsory purchase of lands and the completion of the railway as well as allowing it to drop the word"pneumatic" from the company's title, thus making it the Mersey Railway Company. Little progress was made until a trial tunnel was constructed between 1879 and 1881.

The actual MRC tunnel was completed in 1885 and opened in 1886. A public service between Liverpool James Street and Green Park Tranmere was opened in 1886 and a branch to Birkenhead in 1888. By 1887 the MRC became unable to pay interests on its debenture stocks, in consequence receivers and managers were appointed by the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice. The receivers and managers were finally discharged in 1901 by order of the High Court of Chancery.

In 1900 the Mersey Railway Act gave the MRC the power to convert its services to electricity. The railway underwent third-rail electrification in 1903. In 1938 the MRC was integrated with the newly electrified Wirral section of the London Midland & Scottish Railway. It remained independent until it was nationalised on 1 January 1948 and it came under the control of the British Transport Commission.