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St Pancras

St Pancras was built for the Midland Railway’s extension to London after the original arrangement that saw trains running from Hitchin to King’s Cross starting in early 1858, had proved expensive. The heavy excursion traffic for the Great Exhibition of 1862 also showed the limitations on capacity at King’s Cross, and the growth in the Great Northern Railway’s traffic in the years to follow would only have seen the problems repeated. It was clear that to be a railway with London amongst its destination, the MR needed its own terminus and its own approach route.

The MR already had its own goods yard in London at Agar Town, between the North London Railway and the Regent’s Canal. It was decided to extend this line to the Euston Road, at the boundary set by the Royal Commission on London’s Termini, which effectively barred further incursions by railways into the centre of London. A 4½ acre site was found for the terminus, and the eastern part of Lord Somers’ estate was acquired for a modest price. Even so, when work started in 1866, the extension required the demolition of thousands of slum dwellings in Agar Town and Somers Town, with some 10,000 people evicted without compensation. The line also infringed the cemetery of St Pancras Church, with successive layers of corpses having to be removed and re-interred, but it took complaints in the press for this to be done with any sense of reverence. The disruption to the cemetery was largely due to a double track link being constructed to the Metropolitan Railway on the east side of the extension, with a tunnel inside which there was a gradient of 1 in 75. Despite these problems, the line to the terminus itself had to pass over the Regent’s Canal which meant both a falling gradient towards the terminus and a platform level some 20 feet above street level. Ironically, the widening of the Metropolitan (City Widened Lines) did not go further west than King’s Cross and so was of more use for GNR trains than those of the Midland until further widening in 1926, and then the spur from the Midland main line was closed in 1935.

Initially, when William Barlow designed the station, he proposed filling the space under the tracks and platforms with soil excavated from the tunnels, but James Allport, the MR’s general manager, saw the potential for storage space, specially for beer from Burton-on-Trent. This led Barlow to design a single span trainshed, which not only allowed greater freedom in planning the storage space beneath the station, but also meant that the layout of the tracks and platforms could be altered as needed in the years to come. A large Gothic hotel was constructed in front of the station, giving it the most impressive frontage of any London terminus. Initially, the interior of the roof was painted brown, but Allport later had this changed to blues and greys to give the impression of the sky. While trains from Bedford to Moorgate started using the tunnel under the terminus from 13 July 1868, the terminus itself was not opened to traffic until 1 October 1868, without any ceremony.

The Midland Grand Hotel was still at foundation level when the station opened, but this was intended to be the most luxurious of its kind, and a monument to its architect, Sir Gilbert Scott. The hotel also included offices for the MR in its upper storeys. Meanwhile, in the terminus itself, even the handsome booking hall was not completed until the following year.

When opened, the station had eleven roads and five platform faces. One of these, later Platform 1, was a short local platform facing the west wall, while the other face of this platform was the long main line departure platform, after which there were six carriage roads, occupying the space later used by platforms 2 to 5, and followed by the two arrival platforms, later 5 and 6, with a 25-ft wide cab road running between them. Against the east wall was the excursion platform, later platform 7. In 1892, a wooden platform was inserted in the carriage roads, later becoming platforms 3 and 4, leaving two sidings between platforms 4 and 5. A hoist provided access to the beer vaults. In this form, Platforms 1 and 2 were used for arrivals and departures, including local trains; 3 and 4 were used for departures; and 5 to 7 were used by arrivals.

The approaches consisted of four tracks, although further out these became an up line and two down lines. After Cambridge Street Junction, the line became simple double track until St Paul’s Road Junction, where the lines from the Metropolitan surfaced. The main locomotive depot was at Kentish Town, 1½ miles from the terminus. Despite not being as busy as Waterloo, Victoria or Liverpool Street, the approaches were congested, almost from the beginning, and difficult to operate, especially when working empty stock to and from the station. Improvements in 1907-08 helped, but the problem was never resolved during the age of steam, although in later years diesel multiple unit working with trains turned around in the station helped considerably.

The station was meant to serve the MR’s long distance ambitions. The company saw its main market as the East Midlands, but while that was the basis of its traffic, its services to Scotland that started in the 1870s were also important. Despite having a local platform, there was almost no suburban traffic for many years with the MR’s suburban trains, never plentiful, working through to Moorgate. Even in 1903, there were just fourteen suburban arrivals between 5am and 10am. It was not until 1910 that the Midland Railway began to encourage suburban traffic at St Pancras. The MR needed running powers into the London Docks over the Great Eastern, and in return the GER was able to claim that St Pancras was its West End terminus, which required some stretch of the imagination, and ran trains from Norfolk and Suffolk into the station. The GER trains were eventually suspended in 1917 as a First World War economy measure, and with the exception of a daily train to Hunstanton during the summers of 1922 and 1923, never reinstated. Nevertheless, it was St Pancras that was used by the Royal Family when travelling to and from Sandringham.

From 1894, the London, Tilbury & Southend Railway ran boat trains for passengers catching ships at Tilbury to Scandinavia and Australia. These services survived nationalisation and did not revert to Liverpool Street until 1963.

War and Grouping

During the First World War, St Pancras had the unwanted distinction of being the worst affected of all the London termini. On 17 February 1918, a German Gotha bomber dropped five bombs across the station, and one of these exploded in the cab court outside the booking office, killing twenty people and wounding many others. Train services were not disrupted.

Under grouping, St Pancras passed to the London, Midland & Scottish Railway, which meant that the MR was in the same group as its old rival, the London & North Western Railway. The emphasis was on Euston, and the LMS has been accused of neglecting its other mainline London terminus. Nevertheless, the company suffered greatly from the miners’ strike of 1926 and the years of the Great Depression, and struggled to modernise almost anywhere.

The Second World War saw St Pancras suffer bombs and land mines, but the station’s structure, despite being built over cellars and vaults, proved resilient. During the night of 15/16 October 1940, at the height of the blitz, a land mine wrecked much of the train shed roof, closing the station for five days. As the blitz drew to a close, on the night of 10/11 May 1941, the station had to be closed for eight days after a bomb passed through the station floor at the inner end of platform 3, and while no serious structural damage occurred, there was considerable damage to trains.

After nationalisation, British Railways spent much money modernising St Pancras and its approaches, especially with new signalling. Steam ended earlier at St Pancras than at many other stations, largely because the traffic was insufficient for electrification and introducing diesel multiple units was simpler, so that the last steam departure was on 11 January 1960. The victim of these years was the hotel, with plans to merge St Pancras with King’s Cross across the road, and demolish Scott’s Midland Grand Hotel, neglected and run down. The plans to combine the two termini and replace the hotel with an office block resulted in much public uproar. An alternative was to use the hotel as an exhibition centre or transport museum, close St Pancras and divert its trains to King’s Cross, Euston or Farringdon. This also met resistance.

Privatisation of the railways may well have saved St Pancras, with Midland Mainline offering a much improved service with High Speed Trains, and during the closure of the West Coast Main Line for rebuilding, it was the availability of St Pancras to offer through services to Manchester that eased congestion. Nevertheless, after plans to build a combined station as an international terminus for Eurostar trains were abandoned as too costly, in November 2007 St Pancras emerged after a complete rebuilding as the London terminus for Eurostar. The Midland Mainline trains having earlier been evicted to a satellite station to the north of the main terminus.

Scottish Central Railway

Authorised in 1845, the Scottish Central Railway ran from Larbert and Stirling to Perth, providing the first through line between central and northern Scotland. Joseph Locke was the engineer with Thomas Brassey as contractor. The line required several bridges and tunnels, and even so had a steep gradient out of Bridge of Allan. The line opened throughout in 1848 and was an immediate success, especially for passengers from Glasgow to Perth, but also attracted Edinburgh passengers away from the shorter route of the Edinburgh & Northern as they did not have to take the ferry to Burntisland. It became a firm favourite with tourists and was soon paying a dividend of between 5.5 and 7 per cent. Later, through trains ran to Aberdeen, while there were branches to Perth Harbour, Denny and Plean. By 1865, when it amalgamated with the Caledonian Railway, the SCR had 78 locomotives, 288 passenger carriages and more than 1,300 goods wagons and vans. Before its amalgamation with the CR, the SCR acquired the Crieff Junction Railway, which left its line at what later became Gleneagles Station.

Settle & Carlisle Railway

Sponsored by the Midland Railway and authorised in 1866, the 72-mile line from Settle to Carlisle was essential for the Midland’s ambitions to operate a London to Scotland service. It was joined by the Glasgow & South Western, Lancashire & Yorkshire and North British railways. The London & North Western Railway had opposed the Midland’s ambitions, and conceded running powers to prevent the SCR being built, but the MR was persuaded to build the line by the LYR and NBR.

The engineer was the MR’s John Crossley. The line has become renowned for its spectacular scenery, which also meant that construction was challenging, needing no less than thirteen tunnels and twenty-one viaducts, of which the longest is the Ribblehead Viaduct. Despite these engineering works, the line is steeply graded, starting with a 15 mile stretch from Settle, much of which is at 1 in 100, running at around 1,000-ft above sea level for much of its length, and then descending to just above sea level at Carlisle. It was meant to be completed in four years, but took more than six, and the cost escalated from the estimated £2.2 million to £3.8 million. A branch was built between Garsdale and Hawes.

Once opened in 1876, the route was still longer and slower than either the East Coast or West Coast routes, but the MR competed on superior standards of comfort, cancelling second-class fares and scrapping third-class carriages with an immediate improvement in the lot of the third-class traveller. Through trains from St Pancras to Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester used the route, and this through traffic was essential as there was little traffic to be found along the line itself.

The line proved difficult and costly to work, while it was often blocked by snow during the winter months. After nationalisation, British Railways started to reduce use of the line, and closed all stations apart from Selby and Appleby, while the vital through traffic disappeared steadily with the rationalisation of the trunk routes, so that the last through trains ran in 1982. Nevertheless, the line remained important as a diversionary route and strong local opposition to plans for closure resulted in the government insisting that the line remain open in 1989. Eight stations were re-opened and Ribblehead Viaduct, in need of costly repairs, received funding from a variety of sources. BR next tried to ‘privatise’ the line, but this was rejected. Local authorities have taken responsibility for many of the costly structures, working through the Settle & Carlisle Railway Trust. The line remains open and has become an important tourist attraction in its own right.

Severn Tunnel

While the River Severn had been crossed by ferry from the earliest times, and the railways were quick to install branches to the ferry crossings, it was not until 1863 that the first proposal for a railway tunnel under the river was put to Parliament: it was rejected. The Great Western Railway’s growing traffic between England and South Wales had to take the lengthy route via Gloucester in the meantime, but in 1872, the company obtained authority to build a tunnel.

Work started in 1873 under Sir John Hawkshaw as consulting engineer. The project was for a seven mile length of track from Pilning on the English side to a junction at Rogiet, which was later named Severn Tunnel Junction. The tunnel itself accounted for no less than 4½ miles, of which half was under water. Designed to have gradients of 1 in 100 at each end, caution caused the section under the deepest part of the river, the Shoots, to be increased from 30ft below the river bed to 45 feet, so that the gradient on the Severn Tunnel Junction side had to be steepened to 1 in 90. To the surprise of those involved, the Shoots was not the most difficult part, instead a large spring, not surprisingly known as the Great Spring, broke into the tunnel in October 1879, flooding the workings. It took large steam pumps a year to clear the water.

Hawkshaw took a closer interest in the work as engineer-in-chief, while Thomas Walker was appointed main contractor. It was not until September 1881 that the pilot headings met. Work continued until October 1883 when the Great Spring once again broke through. Recovery was hampered by a pump breaking down, and then on 17 October, the Severn Bore, a large tidal wave, flooded the works, leaving 83 men cut off in the tunnel until they could be rescued by boat the following day. The Great Spring was later diverted and its waters are pumped out to this day.

When finally opened in 1886, the tunnel was the longest in the world.

Shipping services – see Ferries and Shipping Services

Shrewsbury & Hereford Railway

Authorised in 1846 and planned by Henry Robertson, work did not start until 1850, when Thomas Brassey was appointed contractor and also agreed to lease the line for eight years once opened. The 51-mile line opened in stages during 1852-53. At Shrewsbury, a joint station was built with the Shrewsbury & Chester and Shrewsbury & Birmingham Railways, while at Hereford it connected with the Newport Abergavenny & Hereford Railway (a predecessor of the West Midland Railway). The line supported and later worked an eight mile line to Tenbury, opened in 1861.

Both the London & North Western and Great Western Railways saw the line as a link between the Midlands and the expanding coalfields of South Wales, and when Brassey’s lease expired in 1862, they took over, paying the shareholders a guaranteed 6 per cent dividend. The line survives and is an important link for trains between Cardiff and Manchester.

Shropshire & Montgomeryshire Light Railway

This was based on the former Potteries Shrewsbury & North Wales Railway, opened in 1866, closed that same year, and then re-opened in 1868 only to close again in 1880. Part of it was taken over by the Cambrian Railway, with the remainder acquired by the Shropshire Railways in 1888, before passing to the Shropshire & Montgomeryshire Light Railway in 1909, which refurbished the line and reopened it in stages during 1911 and 1912. Passenger services were withdrawn in 1933, and during the Second World War it was requisitioned by the army in 1941. Some passenger services were reinstated during the war and for some time afterwards, while on nationalisation, the line was worked jointly by the army and British Railways, although the latter had ownership. Most of the railway closed in 1960, with passenger services withdrawn some time before that.

Shropshire Union Railways & Canal

Following the merger of the Ellesmere & Chester and Birmingham & Liverpool Junction Canals in 1842, consideration was given to converting part of the system into a railway. In 1846, the Shropshire Union Railways & Canal Company was authorised, largely based on the Ellesmere & Chester, while Shrewsbury, Shropshire and Montgomeryshire canals were added between 1847 and 1850, making an inland waterway system of 190 miles. In 1849, the company built a 19-mile railway from Stafford to Wellington. An integrated canal and railway system was the intention by this time.

The London & North Western Railway had leased the company from 1847, although the canal directors retained responsibility for the infrastructure and often resisted the railway interest, and the company was not absorbed by the LNWR until 1922, before being absorbed into the London, Midland & Scottish Railway in 1923.

Silver Arrow

An attempt to by-pass the high costs of strictly-regulated air travel, the Silver Arrow was a combined road, rail and air route between London and Paris, first introduced in 1956. Passengers travelled by road between London and Lydd Ferryfield Airport, were flown across the English Channel to Le Touquet Paris Plage, and then by road to Paris. The service was revamped in 1959 with rail taking passengers from Victoria to Margate, then a bus to Manston Airport, and on to Le Touquet, with a bus connection to Etaples for the train to Paris, with the through journey taking six hours in each direction. In 1962, the service was revised with a train from Victoria to London Gatwick Airport, then a flight by British United Airways to Le Touquet, and the following year a branch line was laid by SNCF, French Railways, into Le Touquet, with an express railcar to Paris, reducing the through journey time by about a third.

The service ended in 1981, with the introduction of hovercraft on the English Channel and improved railway timings in Northern France making it uncompetitive. It would not have survived the arrival of today’s low-cost airlines and deregulation of air transport in Europe.

Sleigo, Leitrim & Northern Counties Railway

The last privately-owned railway in Ireland, the Sleigo, Leitrim & Northern Counties opened its first section in 1879 and when fully opened in 1882 provided a cross-country link between the Midland Great Western at Ballysodare and the Great Northern Railway of Ireland at Enniskillen. The Irish standard gauge line was just 43 miles long. The line survived nationalisation by either government, but closed in 1957.

Snaefell Mountain Railway – see Manx Electric Railway

Snowdon Mountain Railway

The only rack and pinion railway in the British Isles, it was built as a tourist railway on private land with work starting at the end of 1864 and completed in early 1896. It has remained independent. Today, it is usually worked by diesel locomotives, but steam locomotives are also used at peak periods.

Solway Junction Railway

Opened between 1869 and 1873 with running powers over the North British Railway line from Silloth, the Solway Junction linked Kirtlebridge, Annan, Bowness and Brayton. It was transferred to the Caledonian Railway in 1873. Its main structure was the Solway Viaduct, over which traffic closed in 1921, although it continued to be used by locals wishing to trek from ‘dry’ Scotland on Sundays to ‘wet’ England. The remaining parts of the SJR were absorbed into the London, Midland & Scottish Railway in 1923.

Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway

Created by the amalgamation of the Somerset Central, which had opened during 1854-59, running from the Bristol & Exeter Railway at Highbridge to Glastonbury, Wells and Burnham-on-Sea, and the Dorset Central, which opened during 1860-62, running from the London & South-Western Railway at Wimborne through Templecombe to meet the SCR. The new company almost immediately went into receivership for four years, and in 1874 nearly managed to do so again after opening an extension from Evercreech to Bath, which then became its main line. Salvation came when the Midland Railway and LSWR leased the line in 1875, realising the potential of a link between the Midlands and the South Coast.

The new ownership was marred by a head-on collision in 1875 at Radstock in which thirteen people were killed.

The SDJR consisted of 102 route miles, including the Bridgwater Railway, opened in 1890, with a 64-mile main line, parts of which were doubled, but 26 miles were single track and these, with the hilly section through the Mendips near Bath, made working difficult. The line retained its own works at Highbridge and used Midland locomotives, while carriages were painted blue. The line passed to the Southern Railway and London, Midland & Scottish Railway on grouping. The new owners made economies, with the SR taking responsibility for carriages, track and signalling, and the LMS for locomotives, but the line never made a profit. It was closed in stages by British Railway between 1951 and 1966. Despite carrying expresses such as the Bournemouth-Manchester ‘Pines Express’, the line did not have a good reputation, earning the nickname ‘Slow and Dirty’.

South Devon Railway

Authorised in 1844 to extend the route of the Bristol & Exeter Railway to Plymouth, the broad gauge South Devon was 53 miles in length and involved tunnelling and steep gradients as it passed the edge of Dartmoor after the level first twenty miles between Exeter and Newton Abbot, opened in 1846. Brunel was the engineer and initially he planned to use stationary engines and pneumatic propulsion, but this was found to be impractical. A branch to Torquay opened in 1848, and the line through to Plymouth was completed the following year.

Initially, the line was worked by the Great Western, but between 1851 and 1866, the line was worked by contractors, including Daniel Gooch. Further branches were opened during this period, including an extension of the Torquay branch to Paignton, Brixham and Kingswear between 1859 and 1868 by an independent company supported by the SDR, as well as a branch to Tavistock in 1859, extended to Launceston in 1865; and branches to Moretonhampstead in 1866 and Ashburton in 1872. When completed these gave a total route mileage of 126 miles. The Tavistock and Launceston line resulted in a dispute with the London & South Western, which wished to use it as a route to Plymouth, and had to be converted to mixed gauge so that the LSWR could finally reach Plymouth in 1876. Meanwhile, the SDR had agreed to be absorbed by the GWR, and parliamentary authorisation was granted in 1878.

South Eastern & Chatham Railways Managing Committee

The ruinous competition between the London, Chatham & Dover Railway and the South Eastern Railway was brought to an end on 1 January 1899 by the creation of the South Eastern & Chatham Railways Managing Committee.

The South Eastern Railway came into existence as the result of legislation passed in 1836 to build a line from London to Folkestone and Dover, but the London & Brighton Act, 1837, required both the SER and the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway to enter London on the same route from Redhill, forcing the SER to abandon plans for a route via Oxted. The result was that the SER reached the capital by paying tolls to the London & Croydon and Greenwich railways. The initial route from Redhill was to Tonbridge, reached in 1842, Ashford and Folkestone, reached in 1843, with the line extended along the coast to Dover the following year, with Tunbridge Wells served from 1845, the same year that the SER started cross-Channel operations using a wholly-owned subsidiary, using small paddle steamers that took 2½ hours. For the most part, the SER concentrated its efforts south of the Weald, prompting the creation of the London Chatham & Dover Railway by the disappointed people of North Kent. Even so, the SER reached Ramsgate and Margate in 1846, Deal, 1847, Gravesend, 1849, Hastings in 1851 and Maidstone via Strood in 1856, as well as extending itself west to Reading via Redhill and Guildford in 1858, an incredibly indirect route through a sparsely populated area that also contributed to the SER’s financial weakness. One of the best positioned London termini was opened at Charing Cross in 1864, the only terminus actually in the West End, followed by Cannon Street, ideal for the City, in 1866, but it was not until 1868 that a direct route to Tonbridge was opened, by-passing Redhill and cutting 13 miles off the London to Folkestone and Dover route.

A vision for the future of the SER came with the appointment of Sir Edward Watkin as chairman in 1866 and he remained until 1894. Watkin wanted a route from Manchester to Paris using three railways including the SER and a Channel Tunnel.

Stirling’s appointment as CME in 1878 marked the start of a series of locomotives with much improved performance, but passenger rolling stock continued to be poor for the most part, although helped by the introduction of ‘American’ cars for the Hastings service, and by similar British-built carriages for the Folkestone route in 1897.

The SER’s concentration on the Weald route and its failure to extend the North Kent Line beyond the Medway left the field open for a rival, with the creation of the East Kent Railway in 1853, mainly supported by business interests in Faversham. The line opened between Strood and Faversham in 1858. The line was extended not at first in the direction of London but instead to Canterbury and Dover, which the EKR reached in 1862 and introduced its own Continental sailings with a service to Calais. The EKR’s expansion had been noted with concern by the SER, and the intensive competition that ensued enabled the contractors to persuade the directors to extend the line towards London, changing the EKR’s name to the London Chatham and Dover Railway in 1859. The extension reached Bromley in 1860, Victoria in 1862 and Farringdon in 1866. This rapid expansion and the reliance on contractors who had been the driving force in the development of the LCDR, placed the company under great financial strain, especially after a bank failure in 1866, which forced the company into bankruptcy that lasted until 1871. After James Staats Forbes became chairman in 1874, the competition with the SER became bitter, and extended to opening new lines to capture a share of the other company’s traffic, often regardless of the likely financial benefits.

A working union between the two companies was proposed as early as 1890, by which time the LCDR’s financial position was, if anything, stronger than that of the SER. This became clear later as the SER objected to the LCDR demanding 37 per cent of the overall receipts in 1890, but had to accept the LCDR having 41 per cent in 1899. In 1898, before the combining of the two companies, the LCDR had receipts of £142 per mile per week, against £87 on the SER. On the other hand, the SER had far better rolling stock, and especially locomotives. Had the SER taken a more comprehensive approach to the provision of railway services throughout Kent, the outcome could have been different, and it could even have enjoyed a monopoly within its area.

To prepare for the union, a Joint Committee was set up in August, 1898, under the chairmanship of Cosmo Bonsor. While the plan was that from 1 January, 1899, the two companies would operate as one, there seems to have been little stomach for strong measures. Obsolescent LCDR carriages and locomotives were scrapped, but considerable savings could have been made by eliminating competing routes, especially those to Margate and Ramsgate. Many lines had been built too quickly and too cheaply, and suffered from narrow tunnels and bridges with weight restrictions. One positive step was the linking of the two main lines by constructing four long spurs where they crossed at Bickley. Meanwhile the new CME, Wainwright, produced a series of 4-4-0 locomotives and new carriages, with Pullmans introduced in 1910. In 1919, Dover Marine station was opened, easing the transfer from train to ship, but before this, while still uncompleted, during the First World War Dover Marine handled hospital trains bringing home the wounded and departing for destinations throughout England.

While the improvements enhanced the quality of the continental trains, suburban operations continued to be dismal, and plans for electrification were not implemented until after the grouping.

South Eastern Railway – see South Eastern & Chatham Railway

South Staffordshire Railway

Formed in 1846 on the amalgamation of the South Staffordshire Junction and the Trent Valley Midlands & Grand Junction, the line ran from Dudley through Wednesbury and Walsall to Wichnor on the Birmingham-Derby line of the Midland Railway. Running powers took the company to Burton-on-Trent. The SSR opened between 1847 and 1850, and its engineer, J R Mclean, leased the line from 1850, the first individual to receive parliamentary sanction in this way. The line was notable for operating two of the first practical tank engines.

The London & North Western Railway, alarmed at the SSR’s links with the MR, bought Mclean’s lease in 1861, and in 1867, the company was acquired outright, giving the LNWR valuable access to the industrial area of the Black Country.

The South Wales Mineral Railway

The South Wales Mineral Railway operated a short line just thirteen miles in length, running from Briton Ferry to Glyncorrwg Colliery by way of Cymmer. Although nominally independent until 1923, it was taken over by the Great Western in 1908, and was operated using GWR locomotives.

South Wales Railway

Authorised in 1845, the SWR was supported by the Great Western to extend its services from Gloucester to Fishguard for the Irish packet services. Engineered by Brunel and opened as far as Carmarthen in 1852, the line was diverted to Milford Haven, port for a regular steamer service to Waterford. The broad gauge line required substantial viaducts at Chepstow, Newport and Landore, with a lifting bridge at Carmarthen. Locomotives and rolling stock were provided by the GWR, although the 263 route mile line had its own personnel. Operations were inhibited by the need to tranship coal and iron from the standard gauge lines in the South Wales valleys, and this may have been one reason for the line’s poor financial performance, for which many shareholders also blamed the GWR. The two companies amalgamated in 1863.

The SWR was infamous for the stately progress of its passenger trains, while freight customers mounted a petition signed by 269 firms in 1866, asking the GWR to convert the line to standard gauge. This was eventually achieved in 1872, shortly before the Severn Tunnel was authorised and once opened the distance between Newport and London was reduced by 25 miles.

Meanwhile, a number of attempts were made to extend the line to Fishguard, and the GWR achieved this in 1899, building a new deep-water port for ferry services operated in association with Irish companies, which opened for packet services in 1906 and from 1909, also handled transatlantic traffic calling on its way to and from Liverpool.

Southampton

Linking Southampton to London was the reason why the London & South Western Railway came into existence. Although the town had a history as a commercial port, by the early nineteenth century this business had declined and the town was a quiet resort. The introduction of steamship services to the Channel Islands and France during the 1820s was the start in restoring the town’s maritime trade, while new piers and docks were opened during the 1830s. The London & Southampton Railway was authorised in 1834 with Manchester businessmen taking up 40 per cent of its shares, and opened as the London & South Western in 1840 and extended to Dorchester via Poole in 1847.

As at Bournemouth, under the LSWR and then the Southern Railway, there were two main stations. The original Southampton terminus just outside the docks, and, with the Poole extension, Southampton West, or Central as it was later renamed. The former station has long been closed. The railway lines were also taken into the docks, but suffered from weight restrictions, so that when the Merchant Navy-class was introduced, these powerful Pacific locomotives could not be used on boat trains.

The railway contributed as significantly to Southampton’s prosperity as the town contributed to that of the railway, as shipping services diverted to the port, cutting the long and often dangerous passage around the North Foreland to London by a railway journey of three hours. Initially much criticised for poor service and for its wider ambitions, the LSWR service improved once services operated through the town to Bournemouth.

The LSWR bought the docks, with its own railway system, in 1892. The port was the first, probably anywhere, to experience wartime traffic pressures as it handled troops going to the Boer War during 18991902, and then was a major port in both World Wars, being heavily blitzed during the Second World War.

Under the Southern, the new West Docks were built and the port much improved, while the railway service benefited from new rolling stock and more powerful locomotives. The port also became the departure point for the Imperial Airways services to the Empire from 1937 onwards, with special Pullman carriages attached to a Bournemouth express and detached at Southampton. Post-nationalisation, the Southern’s new Ocean Terminal was completed, bringing fresh business to the old docks, but plans for electrification were long delayed, not being implemented until 1967.

Southern Railway

As the smallest of the ‘Big Four’ grouped companies, the Southern Railway consisted of three constituent companies, the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway; the London & South Western Railway and the South Eastern & Chatham Railway Companies Managing Committee, itself representing two companies, the London & South Eastern Railway and the London, Chatham & Dover Railway, that still retained their own assets and shareholders. The subsidiaries were the Bridgwater Railway; Brighton & Dyke Railway; Freshwater, Yarmouth & Newport (Isle of Wight) Railway; Hayling Railway; Isle of Wight Central Railway; Isle of Wight Railway; Lee-on-Solent Railway; London & Greenwich Railway; Mid Kent Railway; North Cornwall Railway; Plymouth & Dartmoor Railway; Plymouth, Devonport & South Western Junction Railway; Sidmouth Railway and the Victoria Station & Pimlico Railway. Its first general manger was Sir Herbert Ashcombe Walker the last general manager of the London & South Western Railway.

The Southern was the most dependent on passenger traffic of the Big Four railways. One problem was that this also meant that it had more London termini than any other railway company, including Victoria, Waterloo, Charing Cross, Cannon Street, Blackfriars, Holborn Viaduct and London Bridge. It inherited electrification from the LSWR and the LBSCR, but the latter used an overhead DC system and its suburban services were converted to the third-rail system favoured by the LSWR. The SECR had also planned an overhead system, but one that would have been incompatible with that of the LBSCR. Further electrification meant that all the inner and outer suburban lines were electrified by 1929, after which the company embarked on a programme of mainline electrification beginning with the London to Brighton line in 1931. Unusually, it was the only main line company to also operate its own underground tube railway, the Waterloo & City.

Even steam operations were marked by modernisation, but it was not until the Second World War that the CME, Oliver Bulleid finally gave the SR Pacific locomotives, which incorporated many advanced features and being amongst the best in terms of crew comfort, although the Leader-class that was to follow was very deficient in this respect, at least from the fireman’s point of view. The Leader-class was an attempt to see if the same flexibility offered by electric trains could be found in a steam locomotive design, capable of being driven at speed in either direction and eliminating the need for turntables, which in many cases, including Waterloo, often involved running light some distance over the congested approaches.

By the outbreak of the Second World War, the SR had the world’s largest suburban electric network as well as having electrified the main lines from London to the South Coast between Portsmouth and Eastbourne. On the two electrification projects to Portsmouth, the Portsmouth Direct of 1937 and the Mid-Sussex (via Arundel and Chichester) of 1938, it introduced corridor connections through the driving cabs, so that passengers and ticket inspectors could walk through the entire train, something not previously possible when electric multiple units were coupled together. It introduced train ferries on the English Channel, and the famous ‘Night Ferry’ sleeping car train used these to ensure that passengers could travel overnight without changing between London and Paris. It was a great provider of Pullman trains and even had Pullman cars inserted in many of its other trains to the Sussex coast, which also had the world’s first electric all-Pullman train, the ‘Brighton Belle’. At the other extreme, it looked at wider bodies for suburban carriages and also experimented with a double deck electric train, although this did not enter service until after nationalisation. With the Great Western, it was amongst the railway companies most involved in the development of domestic air services through first Railway Air Services and then Great Western & Southern Air Services, and at one time offered to buy the European services of Imperial Airways. The first airport railway stations were provided by the SR at Gatwick and at Shoreham.

More than any other railway, the SR was involved in shipping services and ports, where the new West Docks and the Ocean Terminal at Southampton were both the result of heavy investment and long term planning. It operated cross-Channel ferry services from Dover, Folkestone, Newhaven and Southampton, and also services to the Channel Islands from Southampton, as well as services to the Isle of Wight from Portsmouth and Lymington.

The SR built new suburban lines, notably the Chessington branch, but also closed many of its shorter branch lines as well as the narrow gauge Lynton & Barnstaple Railway in North Devon. Some believe that it may have been encouraged to close so many lines because of its heavy investment in bus companies, some identified by the ‘Southern’ prefix, as in Southern Vectis and Southern National, but nevertheless it did not close lines on the highly seasonal Isle of Wight network.

The company treated suburban services as seriously as its main line services, but on the Isle of Wight, with the exception of an experiment with a larger locomotive, the system was worked by carriages and locomotives from the Victorian era. Its network of services in North Devon and North Cornwall benefited from the ‘Atlantic Coast Express’, but in general were given a lower priority compared to those to Hampshire, Sussex and Kent. Grouping was almost overlooked, despite standardisation of rolling stock and locomotives, and a new green livery, with the three operating divisions, Western, Central and Eastern, approximating to the territories of the LSWR, SBSCR and SECR respectively.

Southwold Railway

Opened in 1879, the Southwold Railway was built to a 3-ft gauge and its 8¾ mile line linked Halesworth on the Great Eastern to Southwold, conveying fish from Southwold and also handling large numbers of visitors during the summer months. The line was at best only marginally profitable, and shareholders must have regretted rejecting an offer to buy the SR by the GER in 1893. Growing road competition after the First World War resulted in closure in 1929.

Stamp, Sir Josiah Charles/Baron Stamp of Shortlands, 1880-1941

After an early career with the Inland Revenue, in 1919 he became secretary and a director of Mond Nickel Company, which later became part of Imperial Chemical Industries, ICI. He became first president of the executive and later chairman of the London, Midland & Scottish Railway in 1926. The LMS organised itself on US lines with a committee of vice-presidents, but suffered from over-centralisation, tight financial controls, and in-fighting between the old London & North Western and Midland Railway factions, which also showed itself in disputes over locomotive design and procurement. Stamp recruited William Stanier from the Great Western, who produced a series of classic locomotive designs, as chief mechanical engineer, and established a research department and a School of Transport.

Stamp was prominent in promoting the ‘Square Deal’ campaign of 1938-1939, which pressed for the railways to be able to set their own freight rates, and in 1941 was negotiating with the government over terms for the state control of the railways during the Second World War when he was killed, with his wife and eldest son, during the blitz.

Stanier, Sir William Arthur, 1876-1965

Serving an apprenticeship on the Great Western Railway under William Dean from 1892, in 1920 he became locomotive works manager in 1920, and in 1922 was appointed principal assistant to the chief mechanical engineer. In 1926, he succeeded Henry Fowler as CME on the London, Midland & Scottish Railway. The LMS suffered from the legacy of small locomotives inherited from the Midland Railway. Between 1932 and 1947, he produced more than 2,000 locomotives which incorporated much of GWR practice, such as tapered boilers, as well as LMS features, and while these included his famous and successful 46-0 Class Five or ‘Black Five’ mixed-traffic locomotives, Stanier also built many 4-6-2 Pacific locomotives, starting with the Princess Royal-class in 1933, and 2-8-0 goods engines, with the latter also being built by other companies as a standard wartime design. His express Pacifics culminated in the streamlined Coronation-class of 1937.

Stanier was of that generation of CMEs who also thought beyond the steam locomotive, and built some ninety diesel-electric shunting locomotives, which, along with the ‘Black Fives’, were adopted by British Railways after nationalisation. He also produced a prototype diesel-hydraulic articulated three-car multiple unit in 1938. During the Second World War, he became scientific adviser to the Ministry of Production in 1942, and later a director of Power Jets, the company set up to exploit Sir Frank Whittle’s jet engines. He was knighted in 1943.

Stephenson, George, 1781-1848

Trained as a colliery enginewright, he invented a safety lamp that rivaled that of Davy. Nevertheless, his fame rests with his appointment as engineer for the Stockton & Darlington Railway in 1825. He soon realised that iron wheels could adhere to iron rails, and he developed the tubular boiler and steam blast pipe, which he combined in his famous locomotive, Rocket, and was responsible for both rolling stock and construction of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway. His other railways included the Birmingham & Derby Junction and York & North Midland in 1839; Manchester & Leeds and the North Midland in 1840; as well as many other less important railways. Nevertheless, he had to hand over the Grand Junction Railway to Joseph Locke, a sign that technology was moving on beyond his experience and ability to innovate and he was eclipsed by his son Robert (see below) and Locke.

Contrary to popular opinion, he amassed much of his fortune from share-dealing and his interests in collieries rather than from railways, but he remains as the ‘Father of the Railways’.

Stephenson, Robert, 1803-1853

Son of George Stephenson, he assisted his father while he was still a colliery enginewright, and owed much to his father ensuring that he had a good training in engineering. In 1823, when his father built the world’s first locomotive works, Robert Stephenson & Son, at Newcastle, Robert was put in charge. His first locomotive, Active, was re-named Locomotion No 1, and was followed by Rocket, Planet and many other famous engines. This was despite leaving the works in 1824 to work as a mining engineer in Bolivia.

After assisting with the surveying of the Stockton & Darlington and Liverpool & Manchester Railways, he became engineer in his own right for the Canterbury & Whitstable and Leicester & Swannington, but his main achievement was the London & Birmingham, which appointed him as engineer in 1838. In 1850, he became engineer for the Chester & Holyhead Railway and for the Royal Border Bridge at Berwick-on-Tweed. Less successful, his Dee Bridge at Chester collapsed, but he redeemed himself with the Britannia Bridge, linking Wales to Anglesey across the Menai Strait and the Newcastle High Level Bridge, as well as a number abroad. He was not above easing his father out of some major contracts. He became involved with politics as MP for Whitby between 1857 and his death in 1859.

Stirling, Patrick, 1820-1895

After serving his apprenticeship in a foundry, Stirling worked with marine engineers before moving to locomotive builders. In 1853, he was appointed locomotive superintendent of the Glasgow & South Western Railway, where he built a new locomotive works at Kilmarnock, and in 1857, he introduced his 2-class 2-2-2. Later, he adopted the domeless boiler. In 1866, he moved to become assistant locomotive superintendent of the Great Northern Railway, where he was soon promoted to chief locomotive superintendent. He produced some 2-4-0 locomotives for the GNR, before reverting to 2-2-2s in 1868, followed by 0-6-0s, 0-4-2s and 0-4-4Ts, and then, between 1870 and 1893, his 4-2-2 ‘Stirling Singles’ which headed some of the world’s fastest expresses. He produced the first dedicated East Coast passenger stock in 1896, but by the end of his career was falling behind thinking in mechanical engineering, objecting to bogie passenger carriages and coupled locomotives.

Stockton & Darlington Railway

When authorised in 1821, and opened in 1825, the SDR was the first railway with parliamentary approval for the carriage of passengers and goods hauled by steam locomotives. The line actually worked from collieries in south-west Durham, through Darlington and then on to Stockton, with a route mileage of around 29 miles, but in 1828, the line was extended to Middlesbrough where coal could be transshipped. At the time of opening, steam traction could not be taken for granted, but its engineer, George Stephenson and its first locomotive superintendent, Timothy Hackworth, used the line to develop more reliable steam locomotives which gave them an early lead. This was first and foremost a local line meeting a local need, mainly for the movement of coal, and should not be compared with the trunk routes that followed, or even with significant interurban lines such as the Liverpool and Manchester.

The SDR was financed largely by members of the Society of Friends, the Quakers, and especially by the Pease family, rather than through the stock market flotations of later years. Nevertheless, it in turn established subsidiary companies, of which the most significant was the South Durham & Lancashire Union Railway, which opened in 1861 and crossed the Pennines to Furness, bringing iron ore eastwards. The SDR and SDLUR combined kept the London & North Western Railway out of the North East, while Teesside was enabled to become a major iron producer.

Highly profitable with average dividends before 1860 of 9½ per cent, and providing important routes and connections, in 1863 the line was bought by the North Eastern Railway.

Stratford & Moreton Railway

Authorised in 1821, the 17-mile long Stratford & Moreton Railway was built to carry coal from the River Avon to Moreton. The railway was the idea of William James, who expected it to use steam locomotives, but when built in 1823, the engineer, J U Rastrick, planned to use horse traction. Opened in 1826, the line failed to pay its way and was neglected. There was just one branch, to Shipston-on-Stour, opened in 1836. In 1852, it was leased by the new Oxford, Worcester & Wolverhampton Railway, a predecessor of the West Midland Railway. Passenger services between Stratford & Moreton were withdrawn in 1859. In 1863, together with the OWWR, the line passed to the Great Western, and the SMR was wound up five years later. The GWR opened a new line between Shipstonon-Stour and Moreton in 1889 using much of the old track bed, but this was closed to passengers in 1929 and to goods traffic in 1960.

Stratford-upon-Avon & Midland Junction Railway

Created by the amalgamation of four small railways, the SMJR was connected to no less than four of the major railways, the Midland, Great Central, London & North Western and the Great Western. Its main route ran off the MR at Ravenstone Wood Junction, on the Bedford-Northampton line, to Broom Junction on the Barnt Green – Ashchurch line. Branches were built from Towcester to the LNWR at Blisworth and Cockley Brake Junction. Despite its strong connections, the line ran through sparsely-populated countryside and did not prosper, only showing its worth for freight during the two world wars. When it entered receivership, no other company was interested in buying it, but it struggled on after a reorganisation in 1908. It was absorbed into the London, Midland & Scottish on grouping, and the new owners experimented with a road-rail coach, known as a ‘Ro-Railer’, but most of the line was closed by 1965.

Stroudley, William, 1833-1889

After working for a millwright, he moved to the Great Western Railway, working in the Swindon workshops, and then to the Great Northern Railway. In 1861, he moved to the Edinburgh & Glasgow Railway as works manager at Cowlairs, before becoming locomotive superintendent on the Highland Railway in 1865, and finally moving to the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway in 1870, where he remained until his death.

He reduced costs by standardisation, and at the LBSCR this meant producing just five locomotive types, of which the most famous were his ‘Terrier’ tank engines for suburban trains and branch line duties, but at the upper end of the scale were his ‘Gladstones’, 0-4-2 express locomotives. His locomotives were economical and durable, but expensive to build.

Surrey Iron Railway

Authorised in 1801 and the world’s first public railway, running 8¼ miles from Wandsworth to Croydon, it largely followed the line of the River Wandle and served the many industrial premises that had sprung up along the river. The 4ft 2in gauge line used cast iron tram-plates rather than rails, with users providing the horses and rolling stock in return for paying tolls. The line more than doubled in length in 1805 when it extended to Merstham as the Croydon, Merstham & Godstone Iron Railway, authorised in 1803 and intended eventually to reach Portsmouth, but this never happened.

Development of the line was overtaken by the steam railway, and the London & Brighton Railway, predecessor of the London, Brighton & South Coast, acquired the line while the terminus was acquired by the London & Croydon Railway in 1845 for its extension to Epsom. The CMGIR was wound up by Act of Parliament in 1839 and the SIR just seven years later.

Swansea & Mumbles Railway

Authorised as the Oystermouth Railway in 1804, with a five mile route along Swansea Bay, which opened in 1806 using horses to pull freight wagons. The following year, passengers were allowed to be carried on wagons run by contractors who paid a toll to the SMR. The operation was unprofitable and derelict by 1855. Nevertheless, it was repaired and reinstated so it was back in service by 1860, and in 1874, the Swansea Improvements and Tramways Company bought the right to operate services, before introducing steam locomotives in 1877, although some horse-drawn vehicles survived until 1896.

The line was extended 1¼ miles to Mumbles in 1900, and became well-known for its carriages, large double deck trams, which were hauled by small steam locomotives. Electrification in 1929 saw completely new trams, with traffic increasing from 700,000 passengers in 1925 to 5 million in 1945. Nevertheless, after the Second World War, traffic went into decline and the line closed in 1960.

Swansea Harbour Trust

Strictly-speaking, not one of the railways covered by the Act, nevertheless, its fleet of shunting locomotives passed into Great Western ownership in 1923. The Trust itself was brought into existence by Act of Parliament in 1854 to develop the port of Swansea, and initially used contractors to operate the port. After several contractors had been experienced, or perhaps suffered since the relationships seem to have been unsatisfactory, the Trust decided to operate the port itself, and acquired a stud of steam locomotives.

Szlumper, Albert W, 1858-1934

Szlumper joined the civil engineering department of the LSWR and in later years did much of the preparatory work for the reconstruction of Waterloo, including both the terminus itself and the widening of the congested approaches. He became chief engineer in 1914 following the death of his predecessor in a riding accident, and became chief engineer of the Southern Railway in 1923. He was responsible for the remodelling of Cannon Street and for the reconstruction of the lines in the Ramsgate and Margate areas, as well as the reconstruction of Waterloo, creating the first railway terminus designed for the electric train.

Father of Gilbert Szlumper, Albert Szlumper was described in one account as ‘bluff, chunky and capable’; he retired in 1927 to become a consulting engineer.

Szlumper, Gilbert, 1884-1969

Unusually for someone at the London & South Western Railway, Szlumper reached senior level having started inside the company. Furthermore, he was the son of Alfred Szlumper, the LSWR’s chief engineer and the brains behind the work of reconstruction at Waterloo.

Gilbert Szlumper’s early career was in engineering, working in his father’s department from the time he joined the LSWR in 1902, but in 1913, he became assistant to the new general manager, Herbert Walker and during the First World War he followed Walker onto the Railway Executive Committee as its secretary. Returning to the LSWR after the war, he became its docks and marine manager and started the planning for the massive extension of Southampton Docks. He rejoined Walker as assistant general manager of the Southern Railway in 1925, and eventually replaced Walker when he retired in 1937.

As general manager, Szlumper completed most of the Southern’s electrification programme with the exception of the direct line to Hastings, for which work was prevented by the outbreak of the Second World War. Once again, Szlumper was required for the wartime railways, being loaned by the Southern to become Director-General of Transportation at the War Office shortly after war broke out, and he was retired officially from the Southern in 1942 to become Director-General at the Ministry of Supply until the war ended.

Szlumper is remembered as being quietly efficient, tireless and a clear thinker. He was very much in the mould of his predecessor and no doubt, had war not intervened, would have considerably extended the Southern electrification, possibly following Hastings with the lines throughout Kent, starting with the Thanet coast, and then probably taking on Southampton and Bournemouth.