In the early 1970s, four of the platforms at Exchange were closed and demolished to enable tunnelling work to begin for the Merseyrail underground. Part of 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. Exchange station would be replaced by a station in the new tunnel named Moorfields. Trains formerly serving Exchange station call at the new nearby Moorfields underground station then continue in the tunnel to terminate at Liverpool Central underground station, or onwards to Hunts Cross in the extreme south of the city. 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.