mile () north of Alexandra Dock station to the carriage sheds and workshops; no land closer to the station had been available. At the time of opening in February 1893, the railway had cost £510,000 and used a total of 25,000tons of iron and steel. Opening The first official journey on the railway took place on 7 January 1893, with the railway chairman taking engineers and other people of importance on a tour of the length of the railway. The railway was officially opened on 4 February the same year by the Leader of the Opposition the Marquis of Salisbury, who turned on the main electrical current during a ceremony at the generating station at the Bramley-Moore Dock. The ceremony was attended by the Earl of Lathom, Lord Kelvin, the mayor of Liverpool, the chairman of the Dock Board, directors and engineers, and a number of other guests, who traveled on an inaugural journey along the railway. The public services started on 6 March, with the first carriages leaving from the Alexandra Dock and Herculaneum Dock stations at 7am. The Liverpool Echo reported that "the carriages appear to be fairly well filled with passengers." In the early days of the railway there were a number of injuries and at least one fatality as a result of passengers and conductors overestimating the height of the railway while standing up on the top deck of open top buses. Realising that the railway was receiving low traffic outside of working hours, the line was extended northwards to Seaforth Sands on 30 April 1894 in order to reach more residential areas. The extension brought the total length of the railway to and cost a total of £10,000. While the passengers had previously been primarily travelling to businesses and the city, the Seaforth extension resulted in a large increase in traffic from residents of the outer areas of Liverpool. An extension southwards from Herculaneum Dock to Dingle was opened on 21 December 1896. Dingle was the only underground station, the extension from Herculaneum Dock being achieved with a lattice girder bridge and a half-mile () tunnel through the sandstone cliff to Park Road. Operation The railway's contractor, J.W. Willans was appointed as its chief engineer. He specialised in building and running electric railways, and in 1902, newer and more powerful electric motors were fitted to the trains in order to reduce service times in order