Lancaster and Preston Junction Railway
The Lancaster and Preston Junction Railway was founded on May 5, 1837 by a resolution of the British Parliament to connect the cities of Preston and Lancaster with a railway line. The 32 km long route was opened on June 25, 1840. The company opened Maxwell House Station on Dock Street, hoping to provide a good connection to the North Union Railway and its route from Wigan . This hope was dashed, however, when the North Union Railway opened a station in Fishergate, about 200 meters away. The relationship between the two companies was also strained by the fact that the Lancaster and Preston Junction Railway sought a connection with the Manchester, Bolton and Bury Railway for a connection to the railway line to Manchester and thus clearly competed with the North Union Railway , which with controversial fees for transfer passengers responded. But the Lancaster and Preston Junction Railway finally agreed with the Bolton and Preston Railway to use their station even before the company had even completed its route as a connection to Manchester. However, the Bolton and Preston Railway was taken over by the North Union Railway and the situation in Preston did not improve. There was no coordinated timetable for passengers to or from Lancaster to other connections. The route between Preston and Lancaster was not profitable, because it runs parallel to the Lancaster Canal for long distances and this took over a large part of the freight traffic. Until the lease of the route in 1849 by the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway , two competing companies drove on the railway line between Preston and Carlisle. In 1859 the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway finally took over the Lancaster and Preston Junction Railway completely.
The route between Preston and Lancaster is now part of the West Coast Main Line .
literature
Gordon Biddle, Scenes from the Past 6, The Railways Around Preston , Foxline Publishing, Stockport, 1989.
