[6] The lines into the station were carried on a brick-built viaduct with several bridges over roads and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, the lines were 25 ft (7.6 m) above Tithebarn Street and the station itself rose to 90 ft (27 m) above the street so that it had to be approached by an inclined road, it was fronted by a balustraded terrace approached from below by an ornamental stairway.

[10] From 1 October 1850 trains of the Liverpool, Crosby and Southport Railway (LC&SR), which was operated on their behalf by the L&YR, began to run into Exchange/Tithebarn Street station, so now there were three companies using the terminus.

The company at this point decided to hold a design competition for the new station which attracted forty three entrants, the winner of which, John West, was announced on 3 August 1881.

Detailed specifications were drawn up and tenders invited in early 1882, at which point a plan was submitted to build a station at street level.

[29] The other served the western side of the station (the higher numbered platforms), it was used less after electric trains began operating as they didn't need to be turned.

[30] The front portion of the station looking out onto Tithebarn Street contained the hotel and railway offices, it was separated from the platforms by a carriage concourse, later a cab road, with its own glazed roof that had an entrance on Pall Mall.

[31] Beyond the carriage concourse was a circulating area containing several booking offices (General, local, season tickets etc.

[33] The Midland Railway (MR) started using the station on 1 August 1888 to provide services to Glasgow St Enoch and Edinburgh Waverley via Blackburn, Hellifield and Carlisle.

[37][38][39] The hotel frontage was in free renaissance style with columns dividing the windows, an intricately decorated iron porte cochère and a matching projecting clock.

[40] In addition to the bedrooms the hotel provided private sitting-rooms, a ballroom and hair-dressing rooms, it had its kitchens sited on the top floor which created problems keeping food cool during the summers.

[23][43] Author and First World War poet Siegfried Sassoon frequently lodged in the hotel adjoining Exchange station.

In 1917, after having earlier written at his London club his A Soldier's Declaration which appeared in the press and was read to the House of Commons, Sassoon was visited at the hotel by Colonel Jones Williams who reprimanded him for his actions.

It was from Exchange station that Sassoon made his famous trip to Formby the next day, ripped the ribbon of his Military Cross off his tunic and flung it into the waters at the mouth of the Mersey.

[25][45] The L&YR introduced multiple-unit third-rail electric powered trains from Exchange station to Hall Road, Southport Chapel Street and Crossens from March 1904,[d] with a full service from 13 May 1904.

[51] During the night of 7–8 May 1941 the "loop-line" viaduct was damaged and impassable resulting in Wigan services terminating at Preston Road, and later at Kirkdale.

[25] The early sixties saw the beginning of the decline of the station, fourteen cuts in services between Manchester Victoria, Wigan, Southport and Exchange took place in September 1958.

The Beeching Report recommended that the mostly-electrified suburban and outer-suburban commuter rail services into Exchange and Central High Level stations from the north and south of the city be terminated.

[54] On 3 August 1968, the last British Rail scheduled passenger train to be hauled by a standard gauge steam locomotive ended its journey at Liverpool Exchange, Stanier 'Black 5' no.

[56] In 1973 platforms 8 to 10 at Exchange were closed and their site used for construction and access to the underground station being built by Merseyrail at Moorfields.

[57] This ambitious scheme involved diverting the Ormskirk and Southport electric services under Exchange station and into a new tunnel running north to south under Liverpool's city centre, named the Link Tunnel, linking separate lines in the north and south of the city creating a north–south crossrail.

At both Moorfields and Central stations easy interchange was possible for the first time with Wirral Line services, which until then had operated as a completely separate network.

There had been calls by local architects to open Exchange station extending over Leeds Street to the north and onto the approach viaduct.