Red Star Tunnel, Liverpool Lime Street

The Red Star express parcel delivery service was launched by British Rail in April 1963. Red Star made use of the many Inter City, passenger services, serving the major cities throughout the UK. Utilising these fast and frequent passenger trains to carry customers parcels from city to city. However in May 2001, Red Star ceased operating, which caused the closure of its nation wide network of Railway Station parcels offices.

In 2008, during a quiet night at work, I was given the opportunity for a permission explore of the abandoned Red Star delivery facility and it’s Tunnel, beneath the platforms of Liverpool Lime Street Station. The Tunnel, built to transfer parcels to and from trains, between the former Red Star parcel facility on the platform, to the main Copperas Hill, post sorting office.

The former Red Star building, stood at the end of the old “Cab Road”, which was located between the original platforms 7&8. However, following the big Lime Street upgrade in 2018, the stations platforms were redesigned and renumbered. The Red Star building was demolished, the Cab Road dug out and in it’s place, two new additional platforms created. This resulted in the original platforms 7&8 being renumbered 6&9, with the two new platforms in between, becoming today’s 7&8.

I have been told that the Red Star Tunnel, having been filled in, will no longer be accessible. The Former Copperas Hill Post Sorting Office, the destination of this tunnel, was closed in 2010 and finally demolished in 2017.