Liverpool Street station

Liverpool Street railway station, also known as London Liverpool Street or simply Liverpool Street, is a central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in the north-eastern corner of the City of London. It is the terminus of two main lines: the busier Great Eastern Main Line (GEML) to Norwich and the West Anglia Main Line to Cambridge. There are also local commuter services to parts of East London and Essex. In addition, it is the terminus of the Stansted Express, a fast link to London Stansted Airport.

It is one of the busiest stations in the United Kingdom, the third busiest in London after Waterloo and Victoria with 123 million visitors each year. Liverpool Street is one of seventeen stations directly managed by Network Rail. The station has exits to Bishopsgate, Liverpool Street and the Broadgate development. The station connects the Central Line, Circle Line, Metropolitan Line, and Hammersmith & City Line. The station is in Travelcard zone 1.

Destinations
Liverpool Street serves destinations in the East of England including Stansted Airport, Cambridge, Lowestoft, Great Yarmouth, Norwich, Ipswich, Clacton-on-Sea, Chelmsford, Colchester, Braintree, Southend-on-Sea and the port of Harwich, as well as many suburban stations in north-eastern London, Essex and Hertfordshire. It is one of the busiest commuter stations in London. A daily express train to Harwich connects with the ferry from Harwich to Hoek van Holland, forming the Dutchflyer service. This normally departs at 20:38 and calls at Stratford, Shenfield, Chelmsford, Witham, Kelvedon, Marks Tey, Colchester, Manningtree and Harwich International.

Trains from Liverpool Street do not go to Liverpool. For that city, Euston is the London terminus.

Almost all passenger services from Liverpool Street are operated by National Express East Anglia. It operates local and suburban services on the Great Eastern and West Anglia lines and express services to Colchester, Clacton-on-Sea, Ipswich and Norwich.

There are two weekday evening shuttle services to Barking, calling only at Stratford, which are operated by c2c. All other c2c services depart from Fenchurch Street railway station, although Liverpool Street is also used by c2c during engineering work. Both National Express East Anglia and c2c are owned by National Express Group.

Present service levels
The present Monday to Friday off-peak service sees 32 trains per hour departing and arriving London Liverpool Street.


 * 2 trains per hour to Norwich, of which:
 * 1 calls at Shenfield, Colchester, Manningtree, Ipswich, Diss and Norwich.
 * 1 calls at Stratford, Chelmsford, Colchester, Manningtree, Ipswich, Stowmarket, Diss and Norwich.


 * 2 train per hour to Enfield Town calling at all stations via Seven Sisters and Edmonton


 * 6 trains per hour to Shenfield, calling at all stations.


 * 4 trains per hour to Chingford, calling at all stations except Cambridge Heath and London Fields.


 * 1 train per hour to Clacton-on-Sea, calling at Stratford, Romford, Shenfield, Chelmsford, Witham, Colchester, Wivenhoe, Thorpe-le-Soken and Clacton-on-Sea.


 * 4 trains per hour to Stansted Airport, of which:
 * 2 call at Tottenham Hale, Bishops Stortford and Stansted Airport.
 * 2 call at Tottenham Hale, Harlow Town and Stansted Airport.


 * 2 trains per hour to Hertford East, calling at Hackney Downs, Tottenham Hale then all stations to Hertford East.


 * 2 trains per hour to Cheshunt, calling at all stations via Seven Sisters and Turkey Street


 * 3 trains to Southend Victoria, of which:
 * 2 call at Stratford, Shenfield and all stations to Southend Victoria.
 * 1 calls at Stratford, Romford, Shenfield and all stations to Southend Victoria.


 * 1 train per hour to Harwich Town, calling at Stratford, Shenfield, Chelmsford, Witham and all stations to Harwich Town.


 * 2 trains per hour to Cambridge, of which:
 * 1 calls at Tottenham Hale, Cheshunt, Broxbourne, Harlow Town, Sawbridgeworth, Bishops Stortford, Audley End, Whittlesford Parkway and Cambridge.
 * 1 calls at Tottenham Hale, Cheshunt and then all stations to Cambridge.


 * 1 train per two hours to Lowestoft, calling at Shenfield, Chelmsford, Witham, Colchester, Manningtree, Ipswich and all stations to Lowestoft.


 * 1 train per two hours to Peterborough, calling at Shenfield, Chelmsford, Witham, Colchester, Manningtree, Ipswich, Stowmarket, Bury St Edmunds, Ely, March, Whittlesea and Peterborough.


 * 1 train per hour to Braintree, calling at Stratford, Shenfield and all stations to Braintree.

History


The station was built on the site of the original Bethlem Royal Hospital widely known as Bedlam, was opened to traffic on 2 February 1874 by the Great Eastern Railway and was completely operational from 1 November 1875. From this date the original terminal, Bishopsgate, closed to passengers. It reopened as a goods station in 1881 but was destroyed by fire on 5 December 1964. The site has now been redeveloped as part of the extension of London Underground's East London line to form part of the London Overground network.

The new station was designed by the Eastern's chief engineer, Edward Wilson and was built by John Mowlem & Co. on a site which had been occupied by Bethlem Royal Hospital from the 13th Century to the 17th Century. A City of London Corporation plaque commemorating the station's construction hangs on the wall of the adjoining former Great Eastern Hotel, which was designed by Charles Barry, Jr. (son of Sir Charles Barry) and his brother Edward Middleton Barry, and also built by John Mowlem & Co. The station was named after the street on which it stands, which in turn was named in honour of British Prime Minister Lord Liverpool, having been built as part of an extension of the City of London towards the end of his term in office.

The construction of the station was due to the desire of the company to gain a terminal closer to the city than the one opened by the predecessor Eastern Counties Railway, at Shoreditch, that had opened on 1 July 1840. This station was renamed "Bishopsgate" in 1846. The construction proved extremely expensive due to the cost of acquiring property and many people were displaced due to the large scale demolitions. The desire to link the GER lines to those of the sub-surface Metropolitan Railway, a link seldom used and relatively soon abandoned, also meant that the GER's lines had to drop down to below ground level from the existing viaducts east of Bishopsgate. This means that there are considerable gradients leading out of the station. Lord Salisbury, who was chairman of the Great Eastern in 1870, said that the Liverpool Street extension was "one of the greatest mistakes ever committed in connection with a railway."

After being robbed of his money during a freak show skit in Brussels, Joseph Merrick, "The Elephant Man" travelled from Antwerp and boarded a ferry bound for Harwich in Essex. From there, he caught a train to London and arrived at Liverpool Street station. Merrick arrived at the station on 24 June 1886 to start his visit at the Royal London Hospital and was possibly mobbed here for various reasons, including knocking down a 9 year old girl. The police later found him with a calling card from Sir Frederick Treves, 1st Baronet and took him to the hospital for a permanent stay until 1890. However, the now famous quote from David Lynch's black and white motion picture based on Joseph's life, ("I am not an animal! I am a human being! I am a man!") remains a mystery if had been spoken by Merrick in reality.

The station was the first place in London to be hit by German Gotha bomber aircraft during World War I. The May 1917 bombing, when the station took a direct hit from 1,000 pounds of bombs, killed 162 people. During World War II a bomb that landed in Bishopsgate completely shattered the glass roofing.

Many Jewish refugee children arrived at Liverpool Street in the late 1930s, as part of the Kindertransport. In September 2003 the sculpture Für Das Kind Kindertransport Memorial by artist Flor Kent, who conceived the project, was installed in the station. It consisted of a specialised glass case with original objects and a bronze sculpture of a real girl, a direct descendant of a child rescued by Sir Nicholas Winton who unveiled the work. Due to lapses in maintenance the Für Das Kind collection was transferred to the Imperial War Museum.

By the 1970s the station had become dark, dilapidated and dank, whilst evocative of another age. The station was extensively modified between 1985 and 1992, including bringing all the platforms in the main shed up to the same end point and constructing a new underground booking office, but its façade, Victorian cast-iron pillars, and the memorial for Great Eastern Railway employees who died in the Great War were retained. The redevelopment coincided with the closure and demolition of neighbouring Broad Street station and the construction of the Broadgate development in its place. Liverpool Street was officially re-opened by HM Queen Elizabeth II in 1991. At this time the giant timetable board, which is suspended above the station concourse, was installed at great expense. However due to technical difficulties there was a long delay after the official opening before it became operational. It was one of the last remaining mechanical "flapper board" display boards at a UK railway station and certainly the largest, but was removed from service in September 2007 and replaced by electronic boards. The 'new' station roof has been built largely in the style of the Western part of the station which survived the war. The original roofing was painted brown at this time, with smoked plexiglass, while the new roofing was painted blue with clear glass so that the public could tell what was new and old. All platforms now end in a uniform line and most can accommodate twelve-coach trains.

The Great Eastern Hotel was extensively refurbished between 1997 and 1999, re-opening as a boutique hotel. The hotel incorporates three restaurants: "1901", "Catch" and "Eastway". The complex includes a sushi bar and two pubs.

The station has been twinned with Amsterdam Centraal Station since 1993, and there is a plaque marking this on the concourse close to the main entrance to the Underground.

Notable events

 * In April 1993, a Provisional IRA truck bomb in Bishopsgate, 200 metres away, caused some damage to the station.
 * On 17 April 1997, the British band Mansun used hidden cameras to film band members throwing £25,000 from the upper concourse onto City of London commuters below, for a promo video for their 'Tax Loss' EP. The video was filmed by Roman Coppola and the ensuing chaos as the crowd scrambled for the cash was intended to highlight human greed.
 * On 7 July 2005, terrorist Shehzad Tanweer exploded a bomb on a London Underground train shortly after it left Liverpool Street towards station on the Circle Line, killing seven people.
 * On 15 January 2009, at 11am, around 350 people took part in a three minute guerrilla-style dance for the new T-Mobile advert.
 * On 26 June 2009 starting at 6pm over 800 people took part in a massive Michael Jackson tribute. The tribute was organized through social network sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Myspace i.e a flash mob. People showed up wearing Michael Jackson clothes and brought posters of Michael. The organised group danced to some of Michael's biggest hits for over 3 hours until retiring to an after party at a nightclub on London's North side.

Transport Link
London bus routes 8, 11, 23, 26, 35, 42, 47, 48, 78, 100, 133, 135, 149, 153, 205, 214, 242, 271, 344, 388, night routes N8, N11, N26, N35 and N133.

In fiction

 * In the years following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, fictional docu-drama portrayals of how a terrorist organisation might seek to attack London twice chose Liverpool Street station as the specific target. London Under Attack, first shown by the BBC One Panorama programme in May 2004, had a lorry containing chlorine gas explode at the junction of Shoreditch High Street and Commercial Street, just north of Liverpool Street station. The gas cloud hung over the station, and killed 3,000 people. The British government denounced the programme as "irresponsible and alarmist". The BBC said that the programme was backed by research, and that Liverpool Street was used because of its position on the border between the City of London and the East End of London. The second programme was the drama Dirty War, also produced by the BBC and first shown in October 2004, in which suicide terrorists detonate a "dirty bomb" just outside the Underground station, killing 200 people and rendering the area uninhabitable for 30 years. Since the programme aired, the spot at which the fictional bomb-carrying vehicle parked has become pedestrianised.
 * Andy McNab's novel Dark Winter makes the station the target of a similar attack.
 * In the 1988 children's book Groosham Grange the main character is sent there from London Liverpool Street.
 * Liverpool Street Station is one of the four railway stations on the London version of the Monopoly game.Liverpool Street station Platform Extensions.jpg
 * A CIA safe house features above the Old Broad Street entrance to Liverpool Street tube station in the film Mission: Impossible. In the movie, the lead character played by Tom Cruise leaves the safe house and enters the main line concourse to use a payphone situated under the double staircase (since removed, with cash machines now at the spot). Cruise can also be seen looking out of a window in the safe house.
 * In fiction author Anthony Horowitz's Alex Rider series, the headquarters of MI6 is near Liverpool Street station.
 * In the film Stormbreaker, the lead character runs through the station to find a photo booth whereupon he is then transported to MI6.
 * In W.G. Sebald's novel Austerlitz Liverpool Street is mentioned in connection with The Great Eastern Hotel.
 * in 2009, the cast of St. Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold and 100's of extras were filmed during a flash mob type scene where the girls danced in the middle of the train station.

Future developments
Current plans for the Crossrail service would see a new station at Liverpool Street with full mainline and underground connections. Existing services to Shenfield would be diverted to the new low-level platforms.

London Underground
Liverpool Street is the fifth busiest station on the London Underground network with 4 lines passing through; 3 sub-surface and one deep level. This station is serviced by the Central, Circle, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan Lines. The station has sub-surface platforms (opened by the Metropolitan Railway as "Bishopsgate" on 12 July 1875) on the Circle, Metropolitan and Hammersmith & City lines. The Metropolitan had served main-line platforms of the GER station from 1 February 1875, but this through link had only a short life. The station was renamed Liverpool Street from 1 November 1909. A disused west-facing bay platform once used by terminating Metropolitan and occasional District Line trains running via is still visible.

The deep-level Central line platforms opened on 28 July 1912, as the new eastern terminus of the Central London Railway. The Central line was extended eastwards, as part of the Second World War-delayed London Passenger Transport Board's "New Works Programme 1935–1940", on 4 December 1946.

Only the eastbound/clockwise (Aldgate/Barking) platform of the Circle Line is wheelchair accessible. Wheelchair users wishing to travel in the Hammersmith/Uxbridge direction must take a train that terminates at Aldgate or Whitechapel and stay on it as it starts its westbound journey; when coming from Aldgate/Barking, they must continue to King's Cross St Pancras to change direction. Some stations on the eastern section of the Central line are wheelchair accessible from here by changing at Mile End.