London and Blackwall Railway
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The London and Blackwall Railway (L&BR) was a railway line in the British capital, London . It led in a west-east direction from the edge of the City of London to Blackwall and opened up the western part of the Docklands . The line was in operation from 1841 to 1926, a branch line until 1949. Until 1848, the trains were pulled with the help of ropes. A large part of the route has been part of the Docklands Light Railway network since 1987 .
history
The building permit for the line, initially known as the Commercial Railway , was granted on July 28, 1836 by a parliamentary resolution. The executive engineer should have been John Rennie , but the City of London financiers pulled out Robert Stephenson . They hoped to benefit from the knowledge of his father, George Stephenson . Due to the parliamentary decision, Robert Stephenson had to stick to the route laid down by Rennie and also adopt the unusual track width of 5 feet and a half inch (1537 mm), but the choice of the drive was left to him. Based on his experience in building lines on the London and Birmingham Railway , he decided on a cableway with stationary steam engines.
Construction began in 1838 and the line opened on July 6, 1840. The following year, the line was extended to the other side of Minories Street . The company was now called the London and Blackwall Railway . In 1849, in collaboration with the Eastern Counties Railway, the branch line London and Blackwall Extension Railway from Stepney (now Limehouse Station ) to Bow was created . In the same year, the track width was changed to the standard width of 1435 mm.
The 5.6 km long original route from Minories to Blackwall was double-lane. The two tracks were operated independently in both directions. When it opened, only one track was completed, the second followed a month later. Each track was equipped with a double-length hemp fiber rope that ran over a rotating wheel at both ends of the line. The traction was provided by eight steam engines from Maudsley, Sons and Fields . The four machines at the western end had 110 hp , those at the eastern end only 75 hp, as there was a slight gradient in the west-east direction. The line was converted to conventional steam locomotives in 1848 , as the strain on the ropes was too high in the long run.
In 1850, the North London Railway (NLR) opened another connecting line that ran from Stratford to Millwall Junction . The original terminus Minories gave way in 1853 to the expansion of the neighboring Fenchurch Street station . In 1871 another branch line was opened, the Millwall Extension Railway (1871 from Poplar to Millwall Dock, 1872 to North Greenwich).
Passenger traffic from Stepney to North Greenwich and Blackwall was suspended on May 3, 1926, and Leman Street and Shadwell stations closed in 1941. When the docks were closed in the 1970s, freight traffic also ended, only the Fenchurch Street – Limehouse section remained in operation. The Docklands Light Railway , which opened in August 1987, largely uses the former L&BR viaduct route between the Tower Gateway and Westferry stations . In addition, it used at the beginning between the stations Mudchute and Island Gardens also part of the route of the Millwall Extension Railway ; however, this section was broken off during the construction of the DLR extension to Lewisham , which opened in 1999 and runs partially underground .
Train stations
| railway station | In operation | Remarks |
|---|---|---|
| Fenchurch Street | since 1854 | today starting point of LT&SR, operated by c2c |
| Minories | 1840-1853 | Relocated to the other side of the street of the same name in 1841 |
| Leman Street | 1877-1941 | from 1926 only trains on the LT&SR |
| Cannon Street Road | 1842-1848 | around 200 meters west of today's Shadwell station |
| Shadwell | 1840-1941 | around 50 meters east of today's Shadwell, from 1926 only trains on the LT&SR |
| Stepney | since 1840 | from 1926 only trains on the LT&SR, renamed Stepney East in 1923, renamed Limehouse in 1987, today operated by c2c |
| Limehouse | 1840-1926 | not to be confused with today's train station, about 180 meters from today's Westferry DLR station |
| West India Docks | 1840-1926 | between today's DLR stations Westferry and West India Quay |
| Millwall Junction | 1871-1926 | immediately east of today's Poplar DLR station |
| Poplar | 1840-1926 | at the location of today's DLR Blackwall station |
| Blackwall | 1840-1926 | right next to today's DLR East India station |
| London and Blackwall Extension Railway | ||
| Burdett Road | 1871-1941 | demolished after World War II, in what is now Mile End Park |
| Bow Road | 1892-1949 | demolished after World War II, between Bow Road underground station and Bow Church DLR station |
| Millwall Extension Railway | ||
| South dock | 1871-1926 | at the east end of the West India Dock |
| Millwall Docks | 1871-1926 | immediately north of today's DLR Crossharbour station |
| North Greenwich | 1871-1926 | at the location of today's DLR station Island Gardens |
literature
- Alan A. Jackson: London's Local Railways. David & Charles, Jackson (Vermont) 1978. ISBN 0-7153-7479-6 .
- Andrew John Robertson: Blackwall railway machinery , The Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal XI, p. 83. John Wiley & Sons, New York, March 1848.