566 REPORT—1896. 
their goods termini adjoining. There are in all about fifteen stations 
along this six-mile length, divided among the London and North-Western, 
Lancashire and Yorkshire, Cheshire lines, Midland, Great Northern, 
Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire, and Great Western Railways, 
some of which, however, having no direct rail access to Liverpool, have 
depots for the interchange of traffic with their fully developed systems 
at Birkenhead. 
For many years a service of large omnibuses traversed the dock lines, 
from north to south and vice versa, every ten minutes throughout the 
day, and thus added considerably to the convenient working of the 
Kstate. 
_ As, however, the docks extended, this arrangement was found to be 
inconvenient and insufficient for the wants of the community, and the 
Author designed an Overhead Railway to be erected at the level of 
16 feet above the street lines, with spans standing on slender wrought- 
iron columns, so as to offer as little impediment as possible to the under- 
neath street traffic. Twenty-three stations, approached by easy stairs, 
were designed to be erected along the line in convenient positions to 
some of the side streets. 
It was further designed that it should be worked by electricity, that 
being the simplest arrangement for a railway in such a situation. The 
plans were all matured for the construction of the work, and tenders were 
on the eve of being invited, when the Dock Board, as a final decision, 
concluded that, considering the great labour and responsibility of admi- 
nistering an Estate of such magnitude as that of the Docks, it would be 
somewhat anomalous to undertake in addition such duties as those of 
directing a passenger railway which was likely to develop to great magni- 
tude. They therefore entered into an arrangement with a syndicate, 
who undertook the work, which, to the designs and under the able 
engineering direction of Sir Douglas Fox and Mr. James Henry 
Greathead, has been most satisfactorily carried out to completion, and 
now forms not only a most interesting engineering work, but a valuable 
public convenience, daily becoming of greater magnitude and importance. 
The Mersey Tunnel railway, an important work which has added 
very materially to the facilities of the passenger cross-river traffic, as 
well as in effect linking up for passenger purposes the railway systems 
of the Lancashire and Cheshire sides of the River, was carried out from 
the designs of Sir James Brunlees and Sir Douglas Fox, and has since 
been in full and constant use. 
The construction of the Tunnel presented considerable difficulties 
which were very successfully overcome by the Engineers. 
Several canal systems, from up the River, work in connection with 
the Dock Estate, and are important adjuncts to the trade of the Port, 
the entrance to the docks being generally arranged to meet their special 
tidal requirements. The only one, however, which has a direct communi- 
cation with the docks is the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, which traverses 
the country to the north of Liverpool, and is in direct communication 
with the manufacturing and mineral centres of Lancashire and York- 
shire. 
In the foregoing sketchy narrative of the Mersey and its great Sea- 
port, the Author has been unwillingly compelled, by the exigencies which 
a Paper of this description imposes upon him, to exclude many matters 
of great interest, even a descriptive outline of Garston, Widnes, Elles-° 
