Midland Railway

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This article is about the historical British railway company. For other uses see Midland Railway (disambiguation)

The Midland Railway (MR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom, which existed from 1844 to 1922.

Eventually the Midland owned a large network of railway lines centred on the East Midlands, and its head office was in Derby. Initially, the MR's main line, now known as the Midland Main Line, connected the East Midlands to London and to Leeds. The company also owned the main lines connecting the East Midlands to Birmingham and Bristol, and another to Manchester. In the end, they were the only railway of the time to own or share lines in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

Midland Railway coat of arms at Derby Station

1 Origins
2 Development
3 Innovation
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Origins

It was formed in 1844 by the merger of the Midland Counties Railway, the North Midland Railway, and the Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway.

Almost immediately, it took over the Leicester and Swannington Railway and the Sheffield and Rotherham Railway in 1845, but it was not until 1870 that a through route via Sheffield to the north was opened, from Chesterfield. It also absorbed the Mansfield and Pinxton Railway in 1847 building a connection of the latter between Chesterfield and Trent Junction at Long Eaton along the Erewash Valley, giving access to the Nottinghamshire coalfields.

[edit] Development

In 1846 it took over the Birmingham and Bristol Railway in the face of the GWR's plans to extend to Birmingham, after a legendary chance meeting on a train, of the Midland's James Ellis and two Birmingham & Gloucester directors. Previously, in 1845 the so-called "Battle of the Gauges" had resulted in a competition between the GWR's Ixion and two narrow gauge locomotives, Stephenson's 'Engine A', and the ex-North Midland Railway 'No.54 Stephenson.' The latter, an earlier Stephenson "long boiler," ran off the line after 22 miles. In 1854, the line was converted to standard gauge, initially as mixed gauge track with three rails so that both broad and standard gauge trains could run on it.

Initially the Midland ran into London using the London and North Western line from Rugby to Euston . Although the bill for running the line from Hitchin into Kings Cross, jointly with the Great Northern Railway, was passed in 1847 it was not until 1857 that the Midland could run its own trains into the Capital. By 1867 this was severely congested and the Midland built its own line into St. Pancras.

The Manchester, Buxton, Matlock and Midlands Junction Railway had been built in 1849 between Ambergate Junction and Rowsley a few miles north of Matlock . The Midland extended the line from Rowsley to New Mills South in 1867, joining the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway into Manchester. In 1880 it opened its own line into Manchester Central station.

In the 1870s a dispute with the London and North Western Railway over access rights to the LNWR line to Scotland caused the MR to construct the Settle and Carlisle (S&C) line, the highest main line in England, in order to secure the company's access to Scotland; ironically the dispute with the LNWR was settled before the S&C was built, but Parliament refused to allow the MR to withdraw from the project, which was completed in 1876.

The Midland also acquired a number of other lines, including the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway in 1903 and the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway in 1912. In common with other railways, they shared running rights on some lines, but they also developed lines in partnership with other railways, and were involved in more such 'Joint' lines than any other railway. In partnership with the Great Northern Railway it owned the Midland & Great Northern Joint Railway to provide connections from the Midlands to East Anglia; the M&GN was the UK's biggest joint railway system. The MR also provided motive power for the Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway.

[edit] Innovation

The Midland pioneered the use of gas lighting for trains in Britain, put third-class carriages on all its trains in 1872, and abolished second class in 1875, giving third class passengers the level of comfort formerly afforded to second class passengers (elsewhere some third class passengers travelled in open wagons). This was an entirely pragmatic move - the second class seats were not well patronised - but controversial. Interestingly, there had been considerable resentment, on the part of the third class passengers, at the 'toffs' using it, at least for short journeys. Others saw it as promoting the working class above their social station. The railway also introduced the first British Pullman supplementary-fare cars. The non-contiguous numbering of classes, with 1st and 3rd class only, continued until 1956, when third class was renamed second.

The company was grouped into the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) on January 1, 1923 and was the most influential of the pre-grouping companies that formed the LMS.