Is David Higgins correct - was the early rail network London centric?

[deltic]

In his latest HS2 report David Higgins compares and contrasts the development of the motorway network with that of the rail network. In 1938 county engineers came together to plan the motorway network which has subsequently been delivered. He contrasts that and states

"The railway never had such a strategy and was London centric, built
by competing entrepreneurs in the 19th century. While the network
provided access to London, access across the country always remained
extremely weak."

My rail history is not too good but I dont believe that is correct. The rail network was far from London centric and fast train services operated between key northern cities. Cheshire Lines fast hourly services between Manchester and Liverpool, for example, were faster than present day offerings until the new TPE timetable. The rail networks of the north of England were as comprehensive as anything in the south.

Is Higgins showing his lack of railway history?

 

[gordonthemoron]

Is Higgins showing his lack of railway history?

Certainly

 

[ainsworth74]

Whilst it wasn't London centric (the first true railway was between Liverpool and Manchester after all) I would argue that he isn't far of the mark to suggest that there was no strategy to the way the network was built. For instance do we really need four north facing London terminals? If a more strategic overview had been taken could we have just gone with two or maybe even one?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway provided an intensive cross-Pennine service for both passenger services and freight services

 

[Emyr]

If a more strategic overview had been taken could we have just gone with two or maybe even one?

The other 3 would eventually have been built for the sake of capacity.

 

[Senex]

My rail history is not too good but I don't believe that is correct. The rail network was far from London centric and fast train services operated between key northern cities. Cheshire Lines fast hourly services between Manchester and Liverpool, for example, were faster than present day offerings until the new TPE timetable. The rail networks of the north of England were as comprehensive as anything in the south.

Anything but London-centric to start off with, as railways developed independently in various areas. Though very rapidly schemes for major trunk-routes did appear. But right up to Grouping you had major companies like the Lancashire & Yorkshire and the North Eastern, the former firmly based in Manchester and the latter in York, along with the joint-line set-ups like the Cheshire Lines that you mention. Even though it moved its HQ to London and changed its name, the Manchester Sheffield & Lincolnshire remained (as the GC) very much a provincial network. And a company that we always tend to think of in later times in terms of its London services, the Midland, had that vital cross-country main line from Derby to Bristol, continued to the south coast through its partnership in the Somerset & Dorset. Then of course there were the Scottish companies which despite their southwards tentacles and their London traffic were very much also regional companies with networks based on Glasgow and Edinburgh (and Inverness too, of course).

So Higgins is indeed wrong. We had no planned system based on the capital as in France, even though it could look from later maps as though that's what we ended up with, especially after Grouping.

 

[gordonthemoron]

there could have been a mega station on the Euston Road between Euston Square and Grays Inn Road, laying waste to most of Somers Town

 

[Senex]

The other 3 would eventually have been built for the sake of capacity.

We never really got a movement here to give us the great central stations serving several companies, like the creation of the Hauptbahnhöfe in Germany in the latter part of the C19 and the Union Stations in the USA.

 

[Buttsy]

We never really got a movement here to give us the great central stations serving several companies, like the creation of the Hauptbahnhöfe in Germany in the latter part of the C19 and the Union Stations in the USA.

Think the closest you could come with that in the UK is Carlisle Citadel with it's 7(?) companies.

 

[Busaholic]

We can't expect David Higgins to know much about British railway history, as he was born and grew up in Australia and, even now, has spent very few years in the U.K.

 

[ac6000cw]

We never really got a movement here to give us the great central stations serving several companies, like the creation of the Hauptbahnhöfe in Germany in the latter part of the C19 and the Union Stations in the USA.

Birmingham New Street was a joint LNWR/Midland Railway station from the start - it replaced the Curzon Street (LNWR) and Landor Street (MR) stations.

 

[ainsworth74]

The other 3 would eventually have been built for the sake of capacity.

Would they? Or would you just have expanded what was there considering that the MML/ECML/WCML/GCR would all be going into the same place you'd need to not only build an entirely new station but also a massive amount of track work to feed into it.

If you sat down in 1840 with a Railway Development Committee and said 'These newfangled railways are going to be important to the future development of this country. We need to work out the best way of linking London to the North!' I don't think the answer arrived at would be for four separate stations. Heck you might not even suggest three (four including the GCR) long distance mainlines!

 

[PeterC]

Two of the big four had names starting with "London" so that must make it London centric.

 

[edwin_m]

"Never had such a strategy" - I would agree.
"London centric" - certainly not in the early days but much more so later on. Otherwise why would the four Grouping companies have radiated from London leaving the cross-country flows between other major cities at the mercy of joint arrangements? The "Victorian Entrepreneurs" such as those behind the Midland and Great Central were very interested in getting to London, but only on the back of the money they'd made (or perhaps not made in the case of the GC) serving the North.

 

[Wyvern]

Back in the day each rail company would assume it would build its own station. Indeed there was no accounting mechanism for two companies to share assets.

When three companies wanted to build their railways to Derby in 1830-40 the town council was enthusiastic but drew the line at a multiplicity of stations. They pointed out that the Birmingham line and the Leeds line were pretty well meeting head on. They insisted one station should be built at a point where the Nottingham line could loop in from the north, skirting the canal. They got round it by the North Midland building the station and leasing space to the other two.

 

[AM9]

"Never had such a strategy" - I would agree.
"London centric" - certainly not in the early days but much more so later on. Otherwise why would the four Grouping companies have radiated from London leaving the cross-country flows between other major cities at the mercy of joint arrangements? The "Victorian Entrepreneurs" such as those behind the Midland and Great Central were very interested in getting to London, but only on the back of the money they'd made (or perhaps not made in the case of the GC) serving the North.

The network became more London centric, (or rather less regions serving) when Beeching did his thing. By the early '60s, Ernest Marples had awarded his commercial alter ego lots of lucrative contracts to build the early motorways, most of them in the north. So Beeching's assumption was that northerners can drive around instead of keeping trains running with 'taxpayers' money' for them.

 

[edwin_m]

The network became more London centric, (or rather less regions serving) when Beeching did his thing. By the early '60s, Ernest Marples had awarded his commercial alter ego lots of lucrative contracts to build the early motorways, most of them in the north. So Beeching's assumption was that northerners can drive around instead of keeping trains running with 'taxpayers' money' for them.

I'd agree with that. Virtually no London commuter route was closed by Beeching, though the commuter belt has since expanded to the extent that some of his closures would now have had significant London commuter potential had they stayed open.

 

[Senex]

Birmingham New Street was a joint LNWR/Midland Railway station from the start - it replaced the Curzon Street (LNWR) and Landor Street (MR) stations.

New Street became a joint station on 1 April 1897. Before that the Midland came in by virtue of running powers. It certainly served two of the three big railway companies in Birmingham, but the third retained its own station, so there was never an Hbf/Union station in the true sense. Probably the best example of a single station in Bristol, but most of our great cities were characterised by having two or more principal stations.

 

[Bevan Price]

New Street became a joint station on 1 April 1897. Before that the Midland came in by virtue of running powers. It certainly served two of the three big railway companies in Birmingham, but the third retained its own station, so there was never an Hbf/Union station in the true sense. Probably the best example of a single station in Bristol, but most of our great cities were characterised by having two or more principal stations.

Even Bristol had a separate (but small) terminal, Bristol St. Phillips, built as an overflow station by the Midland Railway, and used by local services until it closed in 1953.

 

[edwin_m]

Carlisle and York spring to mind as the two main cities that had single stations served by several companies. Possibly because they were near company boundaries and most of the companies didn't compete with each other, so they had more to gain by allowing easy transfer of passengers and trains between them.

 

[lancastrian]

Back in the day each rail company would assume it would build its own station. Indeed there was no accounting mechanism for two companies to share assets.

When three companies wanted to build their railways to Derby in 1830-40 the town council was enthusiastic but drew the line at a multiplicity of stations. They pointed out that the Birmingham line and the Leeds line were pretty well meeting head on. They insisted one station should be built at a point where the Nottingham line could loop in from the north, skirting the canal. They got round it by the North Midland building the station and leasing space to the other two.

I read somewhere once that the Midland Railway Mainline was from Leeds to Bristol, with branches to Carlisle and London. The Midland was I believe the third largest pre-grouping Railway, with lines all over the 4 nations. It was Derby Centric all it's independent existence.

The Lancashire & Yorkshire was basically Manchester Centric, and as for the Scottish Railways, 2 where Glasgow centric, 1 was Edinburgh centric, 1 Inverness centric and the last one Aberdeen centric.

Until Beeching the railways where not London centric at all. It was only with the closures all over the country, with the basic intention of making the Railways London centric, did they become that in my opinion.

 

[Wyvern]

In the beginning the railways were generally London centric. The only major exception was the Newcastle to Carlisle. After the Liverpool and Manchester became an unexpected success for passengers, the next step was to get to Birmingham and then to London.

At this point, the Midland began in two ways. First as a link from Leeds (and York) to Derby then Birmingham. Then when the Midland Counties looked like foundering, some Northern financiers suggested linking Derby, Notts and Leicester to even up the price of coal but also to head towards London.

The railway promoters had factories in the Midlands and the North but had business in London visiting the City, the Law Courts and Parliament which was involving them in long and uncomfortable coach journeys, plus they had goods to export through the Port of London. Later in the eighteenth century, London expanded as had its demand for coal.

Thus the original Midland main line was Leeds to London via Birmingham, which changed to via Leicester and Rugby, while the Birmingham branch had by then connected via Camp Hill to the Bristol line and the Port of Bristol.

 

[Abpj17]

I'd argue that it was London centric (but perhaps unconsciously / by luck)...but the country has always been thus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_streets_are_paved_with_gold

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...tain.roads.jpg/1280px-Roman.Britain.roads.jpg

 

[Wyvern]

Are not the roads also largely London centric, both A roads and motorways?

 

[edwin_m]

Are not the roads also largely London centric, both A roads and motorways?

The road numbering system is London centric but the actual road network is much less so. There are plenty of good-standard motorways and dual carriageways that don't go towards London. For example the M5 and even the M69 are comparable with the M1 and a good deal better than much of the A1 - whereas Birmingham-Plymouth and Leicester-Coventry railways are far below the standards of the WCML or ECML.

 

[Greenback]

I can't really see how it's possible to argue that the early railway network was London-centric. The system developed piecemeal, based on local needs and interests. By and large this was freight, with the need to transport minerals in places like south wales and the north east, or agricultural products in the south west and east anglia being paramount.

I'd argue that any desire to link London to other cities was secondary to the idea of moving goods in and out of towns and cities in the various regions.

 

[43021HST]

I would say the early railways were Northern Centric, eg both the Liverpool & Manchester, Stockton & Darlington, were built up north. Then again the railways primary focus was connecting industry with large cities, although competition rather than being city centric is what gave us our strange railway system.