Merseyrail‘s Southport line is celebrating 120 years since it carried the world’s first inter-urban electric passenger train service on 22 March 1904.

Lines had been electrified in the USA and Germany in the late nineteenth century, but Liverpool-to-Southport was the first to carry passengers between two urban locations.

The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway company began the project in 1902.

Two years later, new electric trains replaced Victorian-era steam trains between Liverpool Exchange and Southport via Waterloo and Ainsdale, an eighteen-mile route popular for work and leisure travel.

Originally, the traction current was 625 volts DC, with power to the live rails supplied from an electricity generating station at Formby built for this purpose.

Preston’s Dick Kerr & Company supplied the electrical equipment, and the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway built the electric multiple unit trains.

The service saw seven trains leave Liverpool each hour. One was an express service to Southport, three were stopping services to Southport, and one terminated at Hull Road.

Electrifying the service enabled the operator to reduce the stopping trains’ journey time from Liverpool to Southport to 37 minutes, seventeen minutes faster than the steam service it replaced.

The London Midland & Scottish Railway (LMS) replaced the first electric trains with Class 502s from 1939 onwards, and forty years later, British Rail replaced the replacements with Class 507s.

Now, new state-of-the-art Class 777s are the fourth generation of electric trains to operate along the route, which is now part of Merseyrail’s Northern line.

Two original, brick-built large transformer buildings at Southport and at Hillside, dating from 1904, are still in use, and now house modern equipment. Merseyrail describes them as having been “silent witness to 120 years of progress”.

“This is another historic milestone that we are celebrating on the Merseyrail network this year. It illustrates the incredible railway heritage that we have in this part of the UK.

“We are incredibly proud of the history of our network and the public service that has been provided in three centuries – from the 1800s, through the 1900s and now into the 2000s.

“Today, thousands of customers are travelling on the Southport to Hunts Cross line every day. It is one of the busiest lines on the Merseyrail network with a 15-minute service, seven days a week during the summer months.

“And we are sure that the new fleet of Class 777 trains will serve the people on this line for many years to come.”

Neil Grabham, Managing Director of Merseyrail