Imagined MCR: Liverpool Road Station Gets Love

Confidentials 22 April 2014

TWICE EVERY Saturday and during holidays between 1 May and Labour Day (the first Monday in September) there are re-enactments of the 1869 Golden Spike ceremony in Utah, USA. We have a picture of one such re-enactment above.

My vote is for a big celebration based around the 'oldest and first passenger railway station' on the weekend closest to each anniversary in September.

These take place at the site where a golden spike was driven into the ground to mark the spot where America became linked by transcontinental railway from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

A more important event took place in the North West of England on the 15 September, 1830. This was the date the Railway Age began when the Liverpool and Manchester Railway opened. Its immediate success led to lines criss-crossing the globe.

In Manchester the original passenger railway station in the world, the oldest railway station anywhere, exists as part of the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI).

Twice every Saturday and during holidays between May and September nothing happens in Manchester to celebrate this huge event that made the world smaller, accelerated social mobility, boosted economies and, as is the case with the USA, knitted nations together.

Plaque marks the spot

Curiously the Golden Spike Historic Monument Site, to give it its full name, has less than 50,000 visitors a year while MOSI has more than 600,000. The Liverpool Road Station at MOSI is in a city centre too whereas the American place is in the middle of absolutely bloody nowhere.

So why the singular lack of celebration in Manchester?

Perhaps this is down to cultural differences.

A relatively new country such as the USA tends to indulge itself when it comes to re-enacting significant events in its history, using it as an excuse to play the anthem, wave the flag and get all patriotic.

Older European nations are more cynical, distrustful of US excess, too damaged by flagwaving.

Or maybe it's simpler than that, maybe nobody's thought to celebrate the day the world's infrastructure exponentially lurched forward? Manchester, so used to 'firsts', sometimes misses the obvious events.

There is a point to all this talk of Utah and Manchester.

MOSI is calling for ideas on how to best utilise their Grade I listed ex-railway station. They've smartened it up and added an original colour scheme resulting in a lovely, calm and tranquil space.

Meg McHugh, curator of industrial heritage, at MOSI says: "We want to show how we love the building and we want to develop ideas of how best we can tell its story and underline its importance. After all it is such an important 'first'."

Meg McHugh stands in the Wellcome Trust exhibition currently occupying Liverpool Road Station

My vote is for a big celebration based around the 'oldest and first passenger railway station' on the weekend closest to each anniversary in September.

Rail enthusiasts, family events, costumes, 1830s food stalls (street urchin food perhaps), exhibitions on HS2, lectures on the future of rail travel (hosted in the station building maybe), a torchlit procession and a symbolic lighting of a big boiler. Fire, steam and noise. Dawn of a new age.

MOSI is the perfect place to celebrate the Iron Horse and the Iron Way.

Not only does it have the station but it also has the oldest railway warehouse. This would provide a perfect host for model rail enthusiasts to create a massive diorama - perhaps one of the whole route between Liverpool and Manchester. Release the inner child I say.

The oldest railway warehouse anywhere

There's even a sort of 'public square' between two of the railway arms on the MOSI site while a stroll away is the grossly underused Castlefield Outdoor Arena; both fine for extravaganzas, markets and shows. Liverpool Road is in a permanent state of being closed off so events could be held there too.

Finally someone should slap the management of the Commercial Hotel across the back of the head and shout, "Hey your pub is directly opposite the oldest railway station in the world and is thus the oldest purpose built railway hotel in the world. Why not smarten the place up, bring in the memorabilia and turn yourself into a place of pilgrimage for rail enthusiasts?"

That's my idea. A version of the Utah re-enactment but not so frequent and one with far more international resonance.

The EditorMaybe Richard Branson could pay for it all - he likes trains.

Anyway, put your ideas below if you have some for how MOSI might utilise Liverpool Road Station. Let's get the splendid building making a real contribution to city life.

And if it takes me dressing up as the Duke of Wellington, the Prime Minister who opened the railway in 1830, so be it.