Planned rail bridge connecting Manchester's Victoria and Piccadilly stations will cause 'catastrophic damage' to heritage site, say critics

When the world’s first passenger railway line opened between Liverpool and Manchester on 15 September 1830, it sparked an explosion in inter-city train travel and helped northern England to become the engine room of the Industrial Revolution. Now, 185 years later, the station at the end of that line has become the focus of a legal dispute that threatens to derail plans by Chancellor George Osborne to build a 21st-century Northern Powerhouse.