The Manchester & Leeds Railway was sanctioned by Parliament in 1836 as a railway commencing at Manchester and terminating at Normanton, from where trains would reach Leeds via the North Midland Railway. Although Leeds is only 35 miles from Manchester, the hilly nature of the surrounding terrain meant that the company engineers adopted a circuitous route through Rochdale, Todmorden, Hebden Bridge and the sinuous and steep-sided Calder Valley. The ‘Calder Valley’ line was opened between Manc...

The Cornwall Railway was authorised on 3 August 1846 with the aim of constructing a broad gauge rail link between Plymouth, Truro and Falmouth. After many vicissitudes, the railway was ceremonially opened between Plymouth and Truro on 2 May 1859. Meanwhile, further to the west, an entirely separate undertaking known as the West Cornwall Railway had been sanctioned with powers for the construction of a standard gauge railway between Truro and Penzance, which would incorporate parts of the e...

Although, in pre-Grouping days, Oxfordshire was primarily Great Western territory, the county was also served by the Buckinghamshire branch of the London & North Western Railway, which was in many ways a 'foreign' intruder. The line was completed to its western terminus at Oxford Rewley Road in 1851 and provided an alternative route to London, via Islip, Bicester and Swanbourne, as well as a cross-country link to Cambridge. The Buckinghamshire Railway incorporated a branch to Banbury that ...

The Midland main line from London St Pancras to the north of England is one of Britain’s most important trunk routes. With its various loops and branches, this major artery of communication links busy centres of population such as Leicester, Derby, Nottingham, Sheffield, Manchester and Leeds. Notwithstanding its obvious importance as a busy main line, the Midland route was built in piecemeal fashion, the various sections (from London northwards) being the Midland Railway London Extension (...

The South Wales Railway was promoted in the 1840s with the aim of completing a rail link between England, Wales and Ireland. As such, the proposed railway was seen as ‘a great national undertaking to connect the South of Ireland as well as South Wales and the Metropolis’, with many perceived benefits in terms of mutual trading opportunities and greater political integration. Branch lines would serve Pembroke Dock and other destinations, the length of the proposed scheme being around 210 mi...

The Chester & Holyhead Railway was incorporated by an Act of Parliament in 1844, and the promoters were thereby empowered to build an 85-mile line along the North Wales coast, the engineer for the line being Robert Stephenson. The C&HR was, from its inception, intended to form part of a rail link between London and Dublin – the assumption being that such a line would improve the economic position of Ireland, while at the same time binding it ever more closely to the rest of the United King...

Authorised on 8 May 1833, the London & Birmingham Railway was one of Britain’s first great trunk lines. Engineered by Robert Stephenson (1803-1859), the L&BR line was regarded at the time of its construction as ‘the Eighth Wonder of the World’. The route was opened in stages; the first section from Euston to Boxmoor was brought into use on 20 June 1837. The route was extended to Tring on 16 October 1837, and on 9 April 1838 further sections were opened from Tring to Denbigh Hall and betwee...

Formed in 1864 by the amalgamation of the Oswestry & Newtown, Newtown & Machynlleth, Llanidloes & Newtown and several other railway companies, Cambrian Railways was the largest independent railway in Wales, with a long, winding, single-track main line that extended from Whitchurch in the east to Aberystwyth and Pwllheli on the Welsh coast. In 1922, the company was amalgamated with the Great Western Railway under the provisions of the Railways Act 1921 and thereafter, the Cambrian line was ...

Approved in May 1833 at the same time as the London & Birmingham Railway, the Grand Junction Railway was intended to act as a link between the London & Birmingham and the Liverpool & Manchester Railway. Built under the guidance of Joseph Locke, the Grand Junction was opened along its complete length on 4 July 1837. From 19 August 1839, through coaches were able to run for 218 miles from London through Birmingham to Preston. Preston had been connected to the railway network through the Nort...

Incorporated by Act of Parliament in 1835 and completed just six years later, the Great Western Railway was a stupendous technical achievement. Extending for 118 miles from London to Bristol, this magnificently engineered line spanned Southern England from the Thames to the Bristol Channel, and was regarded as the first link in a chain of railways that would ultimately reach Cornwall, Wales and (via steamship) the south of Ireland. The railway, which is virtually flat and has no appreciabl...

The obvious success of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway demonstrated that steam railways were a safe, fast and efficient form of transport, and by the end of the 1830s ambitious entrepreneurs were planning a multiplicity of railways up, down and across the land. At first, the new railways were of purely local importance, but the need to connect important cities such as London, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow led to the promotion of major trunk routes, one of the first of these being t...

LEEDS to CARLISLE – The line from Leeds to Carlisle furnished the Midland Railway with an independent route to Scotland, in opposition to the rival London & North Western line. The railway extends for 113 miles, the easternmost sections having been constructed by the Leeds & Bradford and ‘Little’ North Western railways, while the spectacular northwards continuation from Settle to Carlisle was built by the Midland. Opened in 1875, the Settle & Carlisle line was built at a relatively late da...