Midland Railway
The Midland Railway , abbreviated to MidR or MR , was a British railway company that existed from 1844 to 1922 . It emerged from the merger of three companies. The main line of the Midland Railway, the Midland Main Line , connected London with the East Midlands and with Leeds . In 1923 the Midland Railway became part of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway . The length of the route network was 3493 km in the last year of operation.
history
The Midland Railway was founded on May 10, 1844 when the Midland Counties Railway , the North Midland Railway and the Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway merged. The new company expanded rapidly, either building new routes or taking over other companies. Just a year after its inception, the MidR took over the Leicester and Swannington Railway and the Sheffield and Rotherham Railway . Also in 1846, she bought the Bristol and Gloucester Railway and thus came before the Great Western Railway (GWR), which wanted to expand its broad gauge network into the Midlands . As a compromise, three-rail tracks were laid on this route in 1854, on which trains of both gauges could run (normal gauge 1435 mm of the MidR, broad gauge 2140 mm of the GWR).
At the beginning, the MidR did not have its own route to the capital. The trains therefore ran between Rugby and London Euston on the route of the London and North Western Railway (LNWR). Parliament had already approved the construction of a line from Hitchin to London King's Cross in 1847 (joint project with the Great Northern Railway ), but this could not be opened until 1857. Since the access routes were congested and the MidR was involved in disputes with the partner companies, they planned their own access route to London. The Midland Main Line opened in 1868, along with the new London St Pancras Central Station . In 1870 a shortcut was added between Leicester and Chesterfield .
In the 1860s, the LNWR wanted to prevent the MidR from sharing their tracks. In order to still allow access to Scotland, the MidR built the Settle – Carlisle Line . The scenic main route through the Yorkshire Dales and the northern Pennines was opened in 1876. Before construction began, an agreement was reached with the LNWR and the MidR wanted to abandon the project. But the parliament insisted on the construction of the line and refused to withdraw the granted concession.
MidR also expanded through takeovers in the 20th century. She acquired the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway in Northern Ireland in 1903 and the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway in 1912 . MidR had operating rights on third-party routes and built numerous routes together with other companies. The largest joint ventures were the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway (together with the GNR) and the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway (together with the London and South Western Railway ).
With the coming into force of the Railways Act 1921 , the Midland Railway was dissolved on January 1, 1923 and integrated into the newly formed London, Midland and Scottish Railway .
See also
literature
- Peter Truman, David Hunt: Midland Railway Portrait . Platform 5 Publishing, 1989. ISBN 0906579724 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Midland Railway locomotive number 1000. Science Museum Group (English).