Railways

The British Main Lines.

Amongst the early British lines which were to form the great trunk railways of the later 19th century were the Grand Junction, which absorbed the Liverpool and Manchester; the London and Birmingham, incorporated in 1833 ; the Chester and Crewe ; the Manchester and Birmingham, of 1837; and the Chester and Holyhead and the Lancaster and Carlisle of The London, Midland and Scottish Railway.—These lines formed the nucleus of the London and North Western Railway (L.N.W.R.), which stretched from London (Euston Station) through Rugby, Stafford, and Crewe to Carlisle, with branches to Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Holyhead, and through Cen tral Wales. In Scotland, the L.N.W.R. worked closely with the Caledonian Railway (C.R.), a combination of the earlier Dundee and Perth, Scottish Midland, and Scottish Northeastern Railways. The Leicester and Swannington of 183o, together with the Bir mingham and Gloucester, the Birmingham and Derby, the Mid land Counties, the North Midland of 1836 and the Bristol and Gloucester of 1839, formed with other lines the Midland Railway (M.R.), as it was known prior to 1923. It stretched from London (St. Pancras) through Bedford, Leicester, and Derby to Leeds and Carlisle, with branches to Manchester, Bristol and York, in the shape of an X with its centre at Derby. The Scottish partner of the Midland was the Glasgow and South Western Railway, whose earlier title had been the Glasgow, Paisley, Kilmarnock and Ayr line. The great textile centres of Lancashire and Yorkshire were served for many years by an important railway of that name which resulted from a combination of the Manchester and Bolton of 1831 and the Manchester and Leeds of 1836. The present London, Midland and Scottish Railway (L.M.S.R.) is a combination of the London and North Western, the Midland, the Lancashire and Yorkshire, the Caledonian and the Glasgow and South Western railways, together with the smaller Furness, Highland, and North Staffordshire railways, in addition to many lines of purely local importance.

The Great Western Railway.—In the west of England I. K. Brunel's (1806-1859) broad gauge 7ft. railway, known from the time of its construction in 1835 as the Great Western Railway (G.W.R.), extended its sphere of activities through Somerset to Exeter by means of the Bristol and Exeter, and then by means of the South Devon, at one time worked atmospherically, to Plym outh and finally to Penzance. In South Wales it reached to Pembroke and later to Fishguard, a port for Ireland, while in the north it stretched to Birkenhead through Banbury, Warwick, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Shrewsbury and Chester. The policy of amalgamation brought about by the Railways Act of 1921 (see Section D) did not alter the title of this line nor change its character as greatly as it did in the case of the other three rail ways, for the G.W.R. merely took over certain mineral lines serv ing the ports of South Wales, and one or two other railways, such as the Cambrian which served Cardigan Bay and the Midland and South Western Junction line which ran southwards from Chelten ham to Andover.

London and North Eastern Railway.—The successful Stockton and Darlington Railway of 1825 naturally led to con siderable railway construction in the north-eastern counties of England, and amongst the more important of these lines were the Newcastle and Carlisle, incorporated in 1829; the Leeds and Selby of the following year ; the Whitby and Pickering of 1833; and the Hull and Selby, the York and North Midland, and the Great North of England of 1836. From these arose the erstwhile North

Eastern (N.E.R.), which in turn took over the Stockton and Darlington, and gained almost complete railway monopoly of the country lying between the Humber and the Tweed, and stretched as far westwards as Leeds and Harrogate. Forming part of the "east coast route" to Scotland, the N.E.R. worked in close partner ship with the North British (N.B.R.) in Scotland, whose ancestry dated back to the early Monkland and Kirkintilloch, the Edin burgh and Dalkeith, and the Ballochney lines. Centred on Edin burgh, the North British of 1844 gradually absorbed many small lines and finally ran from Berwick and Carlisle to Edinburgh, thence westwards to Glasgow, and northwards to Perth, Dundee and Montrose. North of Aberdeen was the Great North of Scot land (G.N. of S.R.), serving Elgin and many Scottish fishing ports.

On its southern boundary the N.E.R. worked in close harmony with the Great Northern (G.N.R.), opened in 1852 with its Lon don terminus at King's Cross. This line with a main stem from London through Peterborough and Newark to just north of Don caster formed the southernmost partner in the east coast route, but possessed also many branches serving Cambridge, Lincoln, Nottingham, Bradford, Leeds and Grimsby. In 1837 a small rail way was incorporated known as the Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne and Manchester, which was destined to have a big future, under the title of the Manchester Sheffield and Lincolnshire. It gradu ally extended, eastwards to the Lincolnshire coast, and westwards to North Wales, while finally, like its neighbour the Midland, it effected an entry into London after much opposition from its rivals already established there, through Nottingham, Leicester and Rugby in 1899, changing its name to the Great Central (G.C.R.) in 1897. The London terminus is at Marylebone, which is reached by running alongside a London suburban railway, the Metropolitan.

The eastern neighbour of the G.N.R. was the Great Eastern (G.E.R.), which resulted from a combination of Braithwaite's Eastern Counties, incorporated in 1836, with the Northern and Eastern and the London and Blackwall lines of the same year. By combination with the Eastern Union and the Norwich and Bran don, both of 1844, and many smaller lines, the G.E.R. obtained an almost complete monopoly of railway transport in East Anglia, and by means of a joint line with the G.N.R. spread northwards to Doncaster through Spalding, Lincoln and Gainsborough. Since 1922 the North Eastern, North British, Great North of Scotland, Great Northern, Great Central, and Great Eastern railways to gether with certain small lines, notably the Hull and Barnsley, have been combined and now form the London and North Eastern railway (L.N.E.R.), the second largest British system.