On 4 February 1893 the British Prime Minster Lord Salisbury opened the Liverpool Overhead Railway. It was the world's first electric powered elevated railway, which meant it ran on tracks raised above the ground and was seen as the shape of things to come. At first the railway was very successful, carrying more than 19 million passengers in 1919. Increased competition from the electric trams and heavy damage during the ‘blitz’ in World War Two had a devastating impact. The high costs to maintain the railway could not be found so it was closed in 1957 and demolished the following year.
The railway had its origins in the rapid growth of Liverpool's docks in the early 19th century. There was such a large amount of passenger and cargo traffic trying to move along the Dock Road that something had to be done. In 1853 the engineer John Grantham proposed a high-level steam goods railway with storage facilities underneath. The scheme was criticised by the dock engineer Jesse Hartley who was developing plans for additional docks and the construction of the railway would have made his proposals more costly.
Traffic on the Dock Road
Traffic on the dock estate, and the Dock Road in particular, increased and by the mid 1870s the situation was made worse with the introduction of horse-drawn vehicles along the (Hartley's) Dock Line. The frequent need to leave the track to get around obstructions made this service very unpleasant for its passengers. In 1877 shipowner Alfred Holt called for the Mersey Docks & Harbour Board (MDHB) to build an overhead tramway in order to leave the ground-level clear for goods traffic. The idea gained some local support and local Acts were passed in 1878 and 1882 although nothing was actually done despite the example of a successful opening of an elevated railway in New York in 1881. In 1885 the Dock Engineer George Fosbery Lyster was asked by the MDHB to prepare a report on Holt's proposal and Lyster calculated that the line would need to carry more than eight million passengers a year to cover its operating costs.
In 1887 Parliament blocked the MDHB’s attempts to extend the proposals for the railway. Concerns about what the MDHB could legally do as a non-profit making trust lead to the formation of the Liverpool Overhead Railway Company in July 1888. Under the terms of the 1887 Act the Liverpool Overhead Railway Company would rent the land from the MDHB in return for a percentage of the profits. The compulsory purchasing powers given to the railway company by Parliament gave it considerable weight and the MDHB saw this as a chance to buy land for its own improvements at a better rate than the market value would otherwise allow. | 
