Everything about The Liverpool And Manchester Railway totally explained
The
Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR) was the world's first inter-city passenger
railway in which all the trains were timetabled and were hauled for most of the distance solely by
steam locomotives. The L&MR was primarily built to provide faster transport of raw materials and finished goods between the port of
Liverpool and mills in
Manchester and surrounding towns in
North West England.
Historic Line
Up to Construction
The L&MR was intended to achieve cheap transport of raw materials and finished goods between the Port of Liverpool, and east
Lancashire. Huge tonnages of
textile raw material were imported through Liverpool and carried to the textile mills near the
Pennines where water and then steam power enabled the production of the finished cloth. The existing means of water transport, the
Mersey and Irwell Navigation and the
Bridgewater Canal, dated from the previous century, and were felt to be making excessive profits from the existing trade and throttling the growth of Manchester and other towns. (Similar feelings with regard to the railways led in turn to the construction of the
Manchester Ship Canal in the 1890s). There was support for the railway from the cities at either end, but opposition from the landowners over whose land the railway was proposed to pass.
The original promoters are usually acknowledged to be
Joseph Sandars, a rich Liverpool corn merchant, and John Kennedy, then owner of the largest spinning mill in Manchester. They were influenced by
William James. Now something of a forgotten figure, James was a land surveyor who had made a fortune in property speculation. He advocated a national network of railways, based upon what he'd seen of the development of colliery lines and locomotive technology in the north of England.
The Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company was founded on
24 May 1823. It was established by
Henry Booth, who became its secretary and treasurer, along with other merchants from
Liverpool and
Manchester. A bill presented in
1825 to Parliament was rejected, but it passed in May the following year. In Liverpool 172 people took 1979 shares, in
London 96 took 844, Manchester 15 with 124, 24 others with 286. The
Marquess of Stafford had 1000, giving 308
shareholders with 4233 shares.
The initial survey for the line was carried out by
William James and, being done surreptitiously and/or by trespass, was defective.
Robert Stephenson departed for
South America and William James became bankrupt. Consequently, in
1824 George Stephenson was appointed engineer in their place. By this time, he was taking on too much. As Robert was absent, George (who couldn't do the calculations required, and had relied on his son for this part of the business) left checking the survey to subordinates. Upon presentation to Parliament in
1825 it was shown to be inaccurate (particularly in relation to the Irwell bridge), and the first Bill was thrown out. A key opposition figure in this had been
G. H. Bradshaw, one of the trustees of the Marquess of Stafford's Worsley estate, which included the
Bridgewater Canal.
In place of George Stephenson, who was now in disgrace, the railway promoters appointed
George and
John Rennie as engineers, who chose
Charles Blacker Vignoles as their surveyor. They also set out to placate the canal interests and had the good fortune to be able to approach the Marquess directly through the good offices of their counsel, Mr. Adam, who was a relative of one of the trustees, and the support of
William Huskisson who knew the Marquess personally. Implacable opposition to the line changed to financial support, a considerable coup.
The second Bill received the Royal Assent in 1826, and was for a railway on a considerably different alignment, avoiding the properties of particularly vociferous or effective opponents of the previous Bill, but as a consequence facing the challenge of crossing
Chat Moss bog. It was intended to place the Manchester terminus on the
Salford side of the river, but the
Mersey and Irwell Navigation withdrew their opposition to a crossing of their river at the last moment, in return for access for their carts to the intended railway bridge. The Manchester station was thus fixed at Liverpool Road in the heart of
Castlefield.
Construction
The terms asked for by the Rennies proving unacceptable, George Stephenson was reappointed as engineer with his assistant
Joseph Locke. Previous experience with civil engineers set Stephenson against allowing Vignoles to continue his survey and he resigned.
L. T. C. Rolt in his biography of Stephenson suggests that a faction on the Board continued to ask Stephenson for second opinions, and Rennie took umbrage at this. Vignoles may have resigned because he'd been appointed by Rennie, and as an ex-army engineer thought it the honourable thing to do.
The line was a remarkable engineering achievement for its time, beginning with the
Wapping Tunnel beneath Liverpool from the
docks to
Edge Hill. Following this was a -long-cutting, up to deep, through rock at Olive Mount, and a nine arch viaduct (each arch of span), over the Sankey Brook valley, around high. Not least was the famous crossing of
Chat Moss.
Having found it impossible to drain the
bog, Stephenson began constructing a large number of
wooden and
heather hurdles, which were sunk into the bog using
stones and
earth until they could provide a solid foundation - it was reported that at one point tipping went on solidly for weeks until such a foundation had been created. To this day the track across Chat Moss floats on the hurdles that Stephenson's men laid and if one stands near the lineside one can feel the ground move as a train passes. It is worthy of note that the line now supports locomotives 25 times the weight of the
Rocket, which hauled the first experimental train over the Moss in January 1830.
The railway needed 64
bridges and
viaducts, all of which were built of
brick or
masonry, with one exception: the Water Street bridge at the Manchester terminus. A cast iron
beam girder bridge was used here to save
headway in the street below the line. It was designed by
William Fairbairn and
Eaton Hodgkinson, and cast locally at their factory in
Ancoats. It is important because
cast iron girders became an important structural material for the growing rail network. Although Fairbairn tested the girders before installation, not all were so well designed, and there were many examples of catastrophic failure in the years to come, culminating in the
Dee Bridge disaster of 1847.
The line was laid using
fish-belly rails at 35
lb. per yard (17.3 kg/m), laid either on
stone blocks or, at Chat Moss,
wooden sleepers.
Cable or locomotive haulage
In
1829 adhesion-worked locomotives hadn't proved particularly reliable. The experience on the
Stockton and Darlington Railway was well-publicised, and a section of the
Hetton colliery railway had been converted to cable haulage. The success of the latter method was indisputable, while the steam locomotive was still untried. The L&MR had sought to de-emphasise the use of steam locomotives during the passage of the bill, the public having become alarmed at the idea of these monstrous machines which, if they didn't explode, would fill the countryside with noxious fumes. Moreover, attention was turning towards steam road carriages, such as those of
Goldsworthy Gurney's. There was thus a division in the L&MR board between those who supported Stephenson's "loco-motive" and those who favoured cable haulage, the latter supported by the opinion of the engineer,
John Rastrick. Stephenson wasn't averse to cable haulage - he continued to build such lines where he felt it appropriate - but knew its main disadvantage, that any breakdown anywhere would paralyse the whole line.
The gradient profile of the line had been arranged so as to concentrate the steep grades in three places (either side of Rainhill at 1 in 100 and down to the docks at Liverpool at 1 in 50) and make the rest of the line very gently graded, say 1 in 2000. To determine whether and which locomotives would be suitable, the directors organised the
Rainhill Trials. When the line opened the final passenger section from Edge Hill to
Crown Street railway station was cable hauled as was the section down the
Wapping Tunnel.
Double track
The line was built to
standard gauge and
double track. Firstly, there was no convenient means of operating the line as
single track as the line predated the
telegraph. Secondly, the amount of traffic was expected to require double track.
A decision had to be made about how far apart the rails of the double track should be. It was decided to make the space between the separate tracks the same as the track gauge itself, so that it would be possible to operate
over-gauge trains up the middle, something which probably never happened. In later years, it was decided that the tracks were too close together, restricting the width of the trains, so the gap between tracks was widened. The narrowness of this gap contributed to the first fatality - that of
William Huskisson, and also makes it dangerous to do maintenance work on one track while trains are operating on the other track.
Opening
The line opened on
15 September 1830 with termini at
Liverpool Road,
Manchester (now part of the
Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester) and Edge Hill, Liverpool. The festivities of the opening day were marred when
William Huskisson, the popular
Member of Parliament for Liverpool, seized the opportunity of a temporary halt at
Parkside near
Newton-le-Willows to alight and talk to the
Duke of Wellington, then
Prime Minister, through the Duke's carriage window. Standing on the
permanent way, he misjudged the speed of the approaching
Rocket and was run over, becoming the world's first railway passenger fatality. (He wasn't killed instantly; the locomotive
Northumbrian was detached from the Duke's train and rushed him to
Eccles, where he died in the vicarage). The somewhat subdued party proceeded to Manchester, where, the Duke being deeply unpopular with the labouring classes, they were given a lively reception (bricks thrown, etc), and returned to Liverpool.
Notwithstanding the unfortunate start to its career, the L&MR was very successful. Within a few weeks of opening it ran its first excursion trains, carried the first railway mails in the world, and was conveying road-rail containers for
Pickfords; by the summer of 1831 it was carrying tens of thousands by special trains to Newton Races.
Although the Act had allowed for it to be used by private carriers paying a toll, from the start the company decided to own and operate the trains itself. Although the original intention had been to carry goods, the canal companies reduced their prices, (an indication that, perhaps the railwaymen had been right to suggest their charges were excessive) and the extra transit time was acceptable in most cases. In fact the line didn't start carrying goods until December, when the first of some more powerful engines,
Planet, was delivered. What wasn't expected was the line's success in carrying passengers. The experience at
Rainhill had shown that unprecedented speed could be achieved. The train was also cheaper and more comfortable than travel by road. So, at first, the company concentrated on this, a decision that had repercussions across the country and triggered the "
railway mania".
Initially trains travelled at, due the limitations of the track. Drivers could, and did, travel more quickly, but they'd be reprimanded: it was found that excessive speeds could force apart the light rails, which were set onto individual stone blocks without cross-ties. In 1837 work started to replace the original fish-belly rail with
parallel rail of 50 pounds per yard (23kg/m), on
sleepers.
The tunnel from Lime Street to Edge Hill was fully completed in 1836, and when it opened carriages were separated from their engines and lowered to
Lime Street station by
gravity, their descent controlled by brakemen, and hauled back up to Edge Hill by rope from a stationary engine. The tunnel is approximately long.
On
30 July 1842 work started to extend the line from Ordsall Lane to the new
Manchester Victoria station. The extension was opened on
4 May 1844 and
Liverpool Road station was thereafter used for goods traffic for over a century.
Influence
Being one of the first railways, many lessons had to be learnt from experience, but not many passengers were killed except by their own negligence. The L&MR developed the practice of red signals for stop, green for caution and white for clear, which spread by the early 1840s to other railways in Britain and the United States. These colours later changed to the more familiar red, yellow and green. The L&MR was also responsible for the
gauge of, which came to be used more or less universally.
In
1845 the L&MR was absorbed by its principal business partner, the
Grand Junction Railway (GJR); the following year the GJR formed part of the
London and North Western Railway.
Modern Line
The original Liverpool and Manchester line still operates as a secondary line between the two cities - the southern route, the former
Cheshire Lines Committee route via
Warrington Central is the busier route.
On the original route, an hourly fast service is operated by
Northern Rail, from Liverpool to Manchester, usually calling at
Wavertree Technology Park,
Earlestown,
Newton-le-Willows and
Manchester Oxford Road, and continuing via
Manchester Piccadilly station to
Manchester Airport. Northern Rail also operates an hourly service calling at all stations from Liverpool Lime Street to Manchester Victoria. This is supplemented by an additional all-stations service between Liverpool and Earlestown, which continues to
Warrington Bank Quay.
Between Warrington (Bank Quay), Earlestown and Manchester Piccadilly, there are additional services (at least one per hour) operated by
Arriva Trains Wales, which originate from
Chester and the
North Wales Coast Line.
Services are described in more detail in the
Liverpool to Manchester Line article.
Stations
(stations still open in bold)
Further Information
Get more info on 'Liverpool And Manchester Railway'.
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