When completed, Merseytram was meant to loop around Liverpool city centre before branching in three directions, connecting Liverpool Airport and unserved parts of the region.
Proposed in 2001, the project won government backing in 2002 but was scrapped for good nine years later, having already suffered a number of delays and funding issues. The project was the most meaningful attempt to reintroduce a tram system to Merseyside, since the slow decline of Liverpool's network in the 1950s.
For much of the first half of the 20th century, Liverpool was connected by trams. Liverpool Corporation Tramways operated the city's extensive electric tram network from 1898 to its closure in 1957.
