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Sir Herbert Walker, 1868-1949

Sir Herbert Ashcombe Walker was the last general manager of the London & South Western Railway, and followed in that company’s tradition of recruiting its general managers from outside, in his case from the London & North Western Railway which he had joined at the age of 17 years. He joined the LSWR in 1912 when he was 43 years old, at a time when it had already started on third rail electrification and on the massive and desperately needed reconstruction of Waterloo. Despite being one of the youngest general managers, during the First World War he became acting chairman of the Railway Executive Committee, the body that ran the railways on behalf of the government, and his valuable work was recognised by a knighthood in 1917.

Walker has become famous for his extensive system of third rail electrification, completing that of the suburban network and extending it to the coast so that by 1939, the third rail covered the Sussex coastline as far east as Hastings and extended into Hampshire as far as Portsmouth and, well inland, Aldershot and Alton. He also took the credit for the extension of the docks at Southampton that enabled it to become Britain’s premier passenger port at a time when overseas travel meant travel by sea. Others credit him with even interval or ‘clockface’ scheduling, on which he insisted, but many of the early railways had operated on such a basis, especially on suburban services where high frequency lent itself to even interval operations.

It is true that Walker deserves acknowledgement for all of these, and indeed for the strong leadership that he provided throughout his time at the Southern Railway. Yet, to confine any appraisal of him to these matters alone is to overlook his other qualities. He had a strong grasp of financial matters coupled with what can only be described as common sense. Typical of him was the decision not to rebuild the whole of Waterloo because the ‘Windsor’ station was at the time a new structure and could be incorporated into the design for the reconstruction without damaging the completeness of the new terminus. Equally, one suspects that his enthusiasm for third rail electrification was based on the economy of a system that did not require the wholesale reconstruction of tunnels and overbridges, the cost of which could well have changed the economics of the programme completely. In many cases, carriages originally built for steam haulage were rebuilt as suburban electric multiple units, again a worthwhile economy, especially as the newer rolling stock was selected that otherwise could have been wasted by premature retirement. Walker also had an eye for publicity and recruited the young journalist John Elliott to handle the Southern’s publicity. The LSWR had no great history of named trains, but the Southern Railway soon established a range of named expresses, showing that Walker did not adhere blindly to every LSWR tradition.

That Walker also took the long view and was aware of developments in transport generally can be gathered from the Southern’s keen interest in acquiring bus companies, and where the entire company could not be purchased, taking a substantial shareholding, and, of course, its interest in air transport and airports. The enthusiasm for main line electrification has led many to believe that his ultimate ambition was that of complete electrification of the Southern, but this seems unlikely given the sparse service and poor business prospects of many of the lines in Devon and Cornwall.

As a man, Walker has been described as quiet but authoritative, a consummate professional with a strong grasp of all aspects of railway operation, and a leader who always got the best from his management team. He had a strong sense of duty towards his shareholders and the travelling public. A weakness was the failure not to look for greater integration of the old companies that could have rendered economies in management. Integration was carried through efficiently in such places as the Isle of Wight, where the three companies rapidly became one. It also has to be accepted that communications and automation were less sophisticated than today, so that keeping distinct divisions would have been seen as a practical approach rather than allowing over-centralisation. Undoubtedly, the network could have taken more line closures than was in fact the case, with branches such as those to Bembridge and Ventnor West proving a drain on the finances of the Southern Railway at a time when market conditions were far from buoyant, while those closures that did take place could have been accelerated. There was a curious contradiction in that the man who managed a railway and shipping concerns, and several ports of which the most significant by far was Southampton, believed that airports should be provided by the state, rather like roads.

Walker retired in 1937 and became a non-executive director of the Southern until nationalisation. He died in 1949.

Wantage Tramway

Linking the town of Wantage with Wantage Road Station on the Great Western, London to Bristol line, this 2½ mile line initially used horses when it opened in 1875, but steam locomotives were introduced the following year. It was unusual in that it ran alongside the highway, and railway goods wagons could be disconnected from trains and shunted along the tramway. Until after the First World War, the company enjoyed modest prosperity, paying an annual average dividend from opening to 1914 of 4.6 per cent. It was an early victim to the motor bus, passenger services ceasing in 1925, but goods continued until 1945, and the company was wound up in 1947.

War and Railways

The railways did not seek a role for themselves in warfare, and at first both the Admiralty and the War Office were hostile to the approach of the railways at Portsmouth and Shoeburyness respectively. Yet, as early as 1842, legislation was passed that allowed the government emergency powers over the railways: but at first the reason was that of internal security. It was not until invasion fears arose again in 1859 that consideration was given to the use of the railways in wartime.

Many of the early ideas were grandiose, including the proposal for a circular line built around London to allow armoured trains carrying artillery to defend the capital. None of this should have been too surprising as the American Civil War, 1861 to 1865, showed that the railways were of supreme importance to army commanders, who could have the men and the material that they wanted, wherever they wanted it and when they wanted it: troops arrived ready to fight, rather than tired from a lengthy forced march. It was easier to keep armies supplied, and the size of armies grew as it became possible to cope with their massive appetites for food and ammunition. The wounded could also be moved away more speedily and with less risk of further injury from being bounced around in a wagon.

In the UK, Parliamentary scrutiny of legislation authorising new lines began to take defence requirements into account. The War Office accepted the London, Tilbury & Southend Railway’s extension to Shoeburyness in 1882. The War Office joined those opposed to the Great Western Railway’s broad gauge, seeing it as delaying the movement of men and equipment in an emergency.

The original emergency powers simply gave the government of the day the authority to direct how the railways should be run, leaving operational control in the hands of the companies. This remained true with the legislation of 1844 and 1867, and even with the Regulation of the Forces Act 1871. Other recognition of the importance of the railways to the military included the creation of the Engineer & Railway Staff Volunteer Corps in 1865, so that experienced railwaymen would be on hand when needed. Amongst those who helped plan for the use of the railways in wartime was Sir Myles Fenton of the SER. In 1896, an Army Railway Council was established, which later became the War Railway Council.

Britain’s railways had played a minor role in the Crimean War, although its supply needs swallowed up shipping, but this changed with the Boer War, although this was confined to the workings of one company, the London & South Western Railway, with the majority of troops sent to Southampton to embark for South Africa between 1899 and 1902 travelling through London’s Waterloo Station, while the cavalry took their horses with them through Nine Elms. Over three years, no fewer than 528,000 men were moved over the LSWR to Southampton.

The First World War

Throughout the Boer War the LSWR remained under the control of its own management, but the big lesson was that concentrating so much traffic on London was inefficient, and in the years leading up to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, the railway links between the coast and the military training and rear concentration areas on Salisbury Plain were improved.

War in Europe was widely expected. The Liberal government had begun to consider nationalisation of the railways, but this was put aside as war loomed. The state took far more extensive powers over the railways than had ever been anticipated, with the President of the Board of Trade, whose department was responsible for the railways, as well as ports and shipping, taking control of the railways and acting as nominal chairman of the Railway Executive Committee, REC, formed as early as 1912, to run the railways on behalf of the government. Membership of the REC included the general managers of the ten most important railway companies, and one of their number, Herbert Ashcombe Walker, general manager of the London & South Western Railway since 1910, was chosen as acting chairman, despite being one of the youngest general managers. It could have been the LSWR’s experience of the demands of the military during the Boer War that had resulted in Walker becoming acting chairman, or it could have been the commonsense argument that since so much traffic would travel over the company’s metals and it owned the port of Southampton, that it would be best placed to co-ordinate matters and liaise with both the Army and the Royal Navy. Everything suggests that Walker was a great success in this post, for which he received a knighthood in 1917.

The REC’s remit initially only covered railways in Great Britain, and it was not until 1917 that the Irish railway companies also came under its control – Ireland at that time being united and all of it part of the United Kingdom. Two of the Irish railways, the Northern Counties Committee and the Dundalk, Newry and Greenore were owned by ‘mainland’ railways. The Great Southern & Western had a close relationship with the Great Western Railway, but it was a working relationship, not a financial arrangement. Control of the railways in Ireland was necessary not just for the war effort, but also because of the internal security situation.

Of course, the LSWR had no monopoly of cross-Channel traffic, which was also shared with four other railway companies, the Great Eastern, with its port at Harwich; the South Eastern & Chatham, with its ports at Dover and Folkestone; and the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway, with its port at Newhaven. The LSWR operated cross-Channel and Channel Islands services from Southampton, while the Great Western operated to the Channel Islands from Weymouth. Other shipping services were bringing men and horses across the Irish Sea, with Ireland an important source for both, while the entire railway network was pressed into service to meet the needs of industry as well as the armed forces. Wartime innovations across the English Channel included train ferries between a new port at Richborough in Kent and France to help speed deliveries of rolling stock. This was not the first train ferry, as the concept had been pioneered many years earlier.

Few had any real idea over how modern warfare would affect the railways. The shelling of east coast towns by German naval forces was not unexpected, although no one had really considered just how much naval gunnery had increased in potency over the previous century. Only a few considered attack from the air to be a serious threat, but as early as October 1914, the SECR had a lookout posted on Hungerford Bridge, carrying the line from London Bridge and what is now Waterloo East (then known as Waterloo Junction) into Charing Cross. The lookout was expecting bombers’ Zeppelin airships, ready to stop trains running across the bridge.

There was little damage to the railways from bombing during the First World War, despite being recognised by both sides as legitimate and significant targets. Aircraft were in their infancy, and even a Zeppelin could only carry a limited bomb load. Most of the action affected Liverpool Street. On the night of 8/9 September 1915, several bombs fell on Liverpool Street, damaging the suburban and through lines, and fracturing a water main that flooded the suburban tracks. Nevertheless, partly because of the small size of the bombs, repairs were put in hand and a full service restored by 11am on 9 September. The bombs also demolished a wall and shattered glass at Broad Street next door, where some horses were injured. A more significant incident followed during the air raid of 13 June 1917. Again the City was the target, and again three bombs landed on the GER’s terminus at Liverpool Street: one of the bombs was a dud and failed to explode, another exploded on a platform and a third hit the dining car of the noon express to King’s Lynn and Hunstanton, setting it alight. Two carriages between platforms 8 and 9 were being used for medical examinations, and these were smashed. All in all, sixteen people were killed and another thirty-six wounded, making it one of the worst bombing casualty rates in England during the First World War.

During the First World War, the Great Northern Railway at Kings Cross used Gas Works Tunnel as a shelter for main line trains whenever enemy aircraft approached, but the station was untroubled by German bombing during the war, even though a massive volume of freight traffic passed through the station on its way to the SECR, including train loads of explosives for the British forces fighting in France.

Unfortunately, accidents were a far more serious threat to the railways and those using them than enemy action. On 22 May 1915, at Quintinshill, near Carlisle, on the Caledonian Railway, Britain suffered its worst ever railway disaster (see accidents) with several trains involved and at least 227 people killed with another 245 injured. Most of those who died were soldiers on their way to France from Scotland, and as their unit records were destroyed in the fire that engulfed the wreckage, completely accurate figures have never become available. The signal box covered not just the main line but two passing loops to allow expresses to overtake the slower goods trains and local stopping trains. At the time both loops were occupied by goods trains, so that a northbound local train had to be reversed on to the southbound mainline to allow a double-headed express, to pass it on the way to Edinburgh and Glasgow, but the local train was promptly forgotten by the signalman. A crowded troop train raced downhill from Beattock, with no less than twenty-one carriages, mainly elderly six-wheelers built largely of wooden construction and with gas lighting, and struck the local train with such force that the troop train was compressed to a quarter of its original length. Worse was to follow, when the double-headed northbound express ran into the wreckage before it could stop, glowing coals from the fireboxes created an inferno as they ignited the ruptured gas pipes for the lighting of the troop train. The resulting fire was so severe that it did not die down for twenty-four hours.

Both signalmen were negligent and convicted of manslaughter, but the real culprit was the railway company’s failure to pay for any form of automatic train control.

State control of the railways was intended to ensure that the system operated as one: an excessive measure as the pre-war railways had co-ordinated themselves very well indeed, partly through the workings of the Railway Clearing House, which did more than simply balance inter-company tickets and freight receipts, and several companies did collaborate, especially to ensure the smooth through running of the Anglo-Scottish expresses, of which the most complicated was that from Aberdeen to Penzance, a distance of well over 800 miles. Nevertheless, state control enabled resources to be directed to wherever they might be most needed rather than companies keeping their equipment to themselves while another part of the system suffered under wartime pressures. Many railwaymen had volunteered to join the armed forces while others were mobilised because of their reserve obligations, so that no less than 184,475 – 45 per cent of railwaymen of military age - had enlisted. The military had also helped itself to locomotives and rolling stock for service as far away as Mesopotamia: more than 600 locomotives were pressed into military service overseas as the ½ inch or so difference between British and French track gauges mattered little.

Despite cutting or reducing many ordinary services to free men and equipment for military use, there were increased pressures on the system over and above the obvious need for troop trains. Unforeseen by the planners on the outbreak of war was that the role of coastal shipping, in peacetime so important for the movement of bulk commodities such as coal, was severely restricted by enemy activity in the North Sea and the English Channel.

Few warships were fuelled by oil at this stage in the Royal Navy’s history, because of fears that sufficient oil might not be available in wartime. The Grand Fleet had moved to its forward wartime base at Scapa Flow in Orkney, not the most convenient location for supply by railway, but coal had to be carried from South Wales to Grangemouth, where it was transferred to coastal shipping, on the so-called ‘Jellicoe Specials’, named after the admiral commanding the Grand Fleet. All in all, no less than 13,630 coal trains were run for this purpose alone between August 1914 and March 1919, with Pontypool Road on the Great Western Railway being the main loading point. Grangemouth had to be the main transhipment point because further north the railways, with most of the route mileage single track, could not have coped, and there were insufficient port facilities in the far north of Scotland. Despite the shortcomings of the largely single-tracked line north of Perth, naval manpower was moved further north by rail, putting the Highland Railway under great strain between Perth and Inverness and then north to Thurso. This required ‘naval specials’ to be operated every night, covering the 717 miles from Euston to Thurso in 21½ hours, an average speed of just over 33 miles per hour.

Routine operations were severely affected as railway workshops were converted to help with the war effort, including the manufacture of armaments, while rolling stock was converted to provide ambulance trains. Some minor railway lines, as far apart as near Dumfries in the south-west of Scotland and at Southsea on the South Coast, were closed in wartime never to reopen, but the creation of new manufacturing plant, such as an ordnance factory near Gretna close to the border between Scotland and England, also meant that additional facilities had to be created quickly.

Economy in manpower, fuel and materials all meant that services elsewhere had to be reduced. There were fewer trains, and as the Quintinshill accident showed, many were lengthened or combined, while overall speeds were reduced, although none of these measures were as restrictive as those imposed during the Second World War. Dining car and sleeping car provision was also reduced, but again, the cuts were not as severe as those that came in the early 1940s and these facilities never quite disappeared completely. First-class travel survived the war years, even on inner suburban lines and those parts of the London Underground offering this facility, but eventually cheap day return tickets were withdrawn to discourage leisure travel.

New, rebuilt or reconditioned steam locomotives appeared in a drab grey colour scheme.

Despite it being a truly global war, the main centre of activity was in Europe, and the greatest pressure fell on the Channel Ports, with first Dover and then Folkestone closed to civilian traffic. The SECR became Britain’s frontline railway, with the heaviest responsibility for the movement of men and materials to the coast. In London, Charing Cross also had the role of being Westminster’s local station, and a special train, code-named Imperial A was held ready at all times for VIP journeys to the coast, being used for 283 journeys during the war years. Charing Cross was also the arrival point for many of the casualties of war: On 7 June 1917, after the start of the Battle of Messines at dawn, the first wounded arrived at Charing Cross at 2.15pm that same day.

The state was to prove to be a shortsighted and improvident proprietor, so that financially, the war years were a disaster for the railway companies, despite compensation being based on pre-war earnings, ones of prosperity for the railways. Post-war, one general manager noted that the combined profits for the railway companies in 1913 had totalled £45m, but that by 1920, these had dropped to less than £7m, owing to improved rates of pay during WWI when the railways were under direct Government control. By 1921, immediately prior to government control ceasing, the railways were running at a loss overall of around £9 million. Part of the reason was almost certainly the cost of manpower. Railway wages in 1913 had totalled £47m, but by 1920 had risen to £160m.

The Second World War

Before the outbreak of war, the Ministry of Transport, later to become the Ministry of War Transport, seized control of the railways on 1 September 1939, using powers granted under the Defence Regulations Act 1939. As before the minister operated through a Railway Executive Committee, which included the general managers of the four main line railways and of London Transport. The railways evacuated many of their administrative personnel. The Railways Executive Committee used an abandoned underground station on the Piccadilly Line at Down Street, between Green Park and Hyde Park Corner stations, converted to provide office accommodation and dormitories.

State control made the railways contractors to the government, with all revenue passing to the government which then allocated shares from a pool, initially set at a guaranteed £40 million (around £2,152 million today). The Southern share of the pool was fixed at 16 per cent, the same as for the Great Western while the London Passenger Transport Board received 11 per cent, the London, Midland & Scottish 34 per cent and the London & North Eastern 23 per cent. These percentages were based on the average net revenues for the companies and LPTB during 1935-37, which the government took as each company’s standard revenue. Once the guaranteed £40 million had been paid, any balance was allocated to the five train operators on the same percentage terms up to a maximum of £3.5 million. After this, if there was a further balance, the revenue over £43.5 million would be divided equally between the government and the pool until the pool total reached £56 million. At this stage, if the revenue share allocated to any of the companies then exceeded its standard revenue, the excess would be shared out proportionately among the other companies.

Costs of maintenance and renewals had to be standardised, while the cost of restoring war damage would be met up to a total of £10 million in a full year. Privately-owned wagons were also requisitioned by the Ministry of War Transport, and the individual companies had to meet the costs and revenue attributed to the wagon owners out of their share of the revenue pool. The Railway Control Order also applied to other lines, including the East Kent, Kent & East Sussex, and Shropshire & Montgomery light railways, the King’s Lynn Docks & Railway and the Mersey Railway. The Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway was requisitioned by the military, becoming a vital link in the defences of the Kent coast.

This was a ‘take it or leave it’ type of agreement, with the government leaking threats of nationalisation if the companies failed to agree, although these were officially denied. While the years in question had been bad ones for the British economy, the final year 1938, had been even worse and the railways had difficulty in getting the government to understand this. The government had earlier warned the railways that as many as 800 locomotives might be required for service overseas, but as the war did not follow the pattern of 1914-18, not all were required.

Some 110,000 men had to be given up for national service, with more than 100,000 actually conscripted into the armed forces, while 298 steam and 45 of the still rare diesel locomotives, mainly shunting engines, were also taken for service overseas. These figures were in addition to the use of railway workshops for war work, which naturally moved a further substantial number of personnel away from railway work.

Once again the railways had to economise in the provision of their services, saving fuel and making locomotive power and rolling stock available for the many specials required by the armed forces. For the first time the railways had to participate in a massive evacuation programme, moving children and expectant and nursing mothers away from areas judged to be at risk from enemy bombing. Evacuation was to be a problem that recurred during the war. As France fell, a further evacuation moved many evacuees away from what had now become an endangered zone, the coastal and country districts in the South East and South of England, as well as evacuating many of the residents of those areas. A further evacuation later in the war was caused as the V-weapons took their toll on London and the South East.

Evacuation was ordered on 31 August. In London alone, 5,895 buses were required to move 345,812 passengers to the stations. During the four days of the operation, from 1 to 4 September 1939, only a skeleton service could be provided for the public outside the rush hours. Elsewhere were moving children from the Medway towns, from Southampton, Portsmouth and Gosport. The railways also had to arrange 34 ambulance trains for the partial evacuation of hospitals.

Initially, excursion and cheap day tickets were withdrawn, but day tickets were reintroduced on 9 October, although with tighter conditions.

On the eve of war, 2 September, black out was enforced. Drivers had to pull up their trains beside oil lamps placed on the platform as markers. Steam locomotives had canvas draped between the engine cab and tender to hide the light of their fires, while the side windows on the more modern locomotives were blanked out. Colour light signals had long hoods fitted over them so that they could not be seen from the air. At first trains ran at night without lights, but later shaded lights were introduced.

On 11 September, government-inspired cuts were imposed, inflicting hardship on passengers as normal commuter traffic remained virtually at pre-war levels. Twenty minute suburban frequencies were cut to half-hourly, while off-peak and Sunday services became hourly. This led to unacceptable levels of overcrowding with many passengers left behind, and station dwell times were extended as passengers struggled to alight from trains or climb aboard. Normal services were reinstated on weekdays from 18 September, before new reductions in passenger services followed during September and October. Catering arrangements were reduced.

The impact on longer distance services included, for example, on the GWR, between London and Bristol, the number of daily trains falling from 20 to 14, while the average journey time for the 118 miles extended from 135 minutes to 178 minutes, but pre-war journeys included a fastest time of just 105 minutes. There were many ‘temporary’ speed limits, while war damage became extensive, especially in the London area and along the south and east coasts. Trains had extra stops and extra carriages. Long distance trains from some London termini would have to be divided in two to fit the platforms, with the first half pulled out of the station, and then backed on to the second half to be coupled, before the journey could start. At intermediate stations, such over-long trains had to make two stops so that passengers could board and alight.

By the time of Dunkirk, many railway ships had been requisitioned by the government, but as the situation in France began to spiral out of control, the signal was received that ‘all available railway steamers of 1,000 tons gross with a range of 150 miles are required for immediate Government service.’ At 17.00 on 26 May, the code-word ‘Dynamo’ was sent to the railways, warning them that the evacuation was due to start. The operation ran from 27 May to 4 June, and the difficulty of organising it was made worse by the sudden realisation on the part of the authorities that a second evacuation was needed of many children moved from London. In the end, more than 338,000 troops were carried. The railway companies quickly agreed amongst themselves to provide a large pool of carriages. The GWR provided sufficient for 40 trains, the LMS 44, the LNER 47 and the Southern 55, a total of 186 trains with a total of almost 2,000 carriages.

Throughout the war years there was an almost constant trimming of services to reduce fuel consumption. At the same time, the changing traffic patterns created by wartime saw new stations opened and some new lengths of track to meet the needs of war workers and the military. The Elham Valley line was one of a number taken over completely by the military. In addition, as the war progressed, other restrictions were applied. On 6 October 1941, under the directions of the Minister of War Transport, all suburban trains became third class only. While mainline trains retained first class accommodation, on 22 May 1942, many lost all catering facilities, although some service was maintained on the longer distance services.

On 5 October 1942, off-peak cheap returns were finally scrapped, leaving seasons as the only discounted tickets.

The financial basis of state control had been imposed, but the original scheme had many deficiencies. Instead of the original agreement of a £40 million guarantee and a share in net revenue in excess of that amount up to £56 million, there would be a fixed annual guarantee. Division of the £43 million and the relative shares were to be:

Great Western . . . . . £6,670,603 15.5%

Southern . . . . . . . . . . £6,607,639 15.4%

London, Midland, Scottish . . . . . . . . . £14,749,698 34.3%

London & North Eastern . . . . . . . . . . £10,136,355 23.6%

London Transport . . £4,835,705 11.2%

Further adjustments were not made in the later stages of the war, but even so surplus profits taken by the government for 1943, 1944 and 1945, reached a total of £155 million.

Traffic rose dramatically. The number of originating passenger journeys on the GWR in 1938 was 129 million, but by 1944 this had increased to 190 million. On the LMS the figures were a smaller rate of increase, from 421 million to 456 million, itself down 2 million on 1943, but static on the LNER at 281 million, but again down on 1943. The big exception was on the Southern, where passenger journeys fell from 361 million to 347 million, due in no small part to the loss of the holiday and excursion traffic. For all of the railway companies, the number of coaching train miles fell between 1938 and 1944, including empty stock workings.

Freight increased overall by 46 per cent between 1938 and 1943, with the biggest increase, 86 per cent, in merchandise, which doubtless included manufactured items such as munitions. While coal and coke traffic only rose by 13 per cent, the length of haul rose by no less than 30 per cent

Overall, in 1935-37, the five railway undertakings had average annual total operating receipts of £195,236,000 and expenditure of £158,500,000, which gave them net operating receipts of £36,727,000 and net revenue of £39,903,000. By 1944, the annual figures had risen to total operating receipts of £394,360,000 and expenditure of £301,200,000, giving net operating receipts of £93,193,000 and net revenue of £90,256,000, but, of course, of the last figure, they were only allowed to keep £43,469,000, with the rest going to the government. Overall, for 1941-44, the railways received a total of £173,876,000 and the government received £176,199,000, and these figures ignore the sums for 1939-40 and for 1945.

Waterford & Kilkenny Railway

Opened in 1848, the Irish standard gauge Waterford & Kilkenny became the Waterford & Central Ireland Railway in 1868, and was absorbed by the Great Southern & Western Railway in 1900.

Waterford, Limerick & Western Railway

Originating as the Waterford & Limerick Railway in 1846, the first section to be opened was between Limerick and Tipperary in 1848, but it was later extended and renamed the Waterford, Limerick & Western Railway in 1895, by which time it was opened throughout from Waterford through Limerick to Sligo, and had branches to Foynes, Killaloe, Thurles and Tralee. Built to Irish standard gauge, it was absorbed by the Great Southern & Western Railway in 1901.

Waterloo

In some ways, the history of Waterloo is similar to that of London Bridge, with the station being fairly remote from the destinations of most of the travellers arriving off its trains, but having replaced an earlier and even less satisfactory terminus, in this case at Nine Elms. The station also grew piecemeal, with four separate stages of construction and was extended to provide through running, and with the creation of a station just outside at Waterloo Junction on the line from London Bridge to Charing Cross, so it was also used by two railway companies. Here, however, the histories of the two stations differ considerably. The through connection for trains to run beyond Waterloo was relatively short-lived. More important, Waterloo was taken in hand and the London & South Western terminus completely rebuilt by a vigorous and determined new general manager, Sir Herbert Walker, so that for more than eighty years it has represented a dignified and cohesive whole, clearly showing that it was the first terminus designed for electric trains.

The predecessor of Waterloo, Nine Elms, was chosen as the terminus for the new London & Southampton Railway, first mooted in 1831, largely because it meant that costly disturbance to business and residential property would be minimal. Its position, close to the southern end of Vauxhall Bridge, meant that passengers could make their way to the West End, while boat services were envisaged for those travelling to the City. The new terminus was opened on 21 May 1838, by which time the railway was open as far as Woking. The following year, the London & Southampton unveiled its ambitions with a new name, the London & South Western Railway, although it did not reach its original objective until 11 May 1840. The first train, carrying guests, took three hours for the journey of just under eighty miles between Nine Elms and Southampton.

The new railway soon found that its heaviest traffic was short distance between what would now be the outer suburbs and London. Many of the station names of the early LSWR differ from those of today, with the original Kingston now being Surbiton. The first branch line was opened on 27 July 1946 from Clapham Junction to Richmond, and soon provided a quarter of the company’s traffic. The lack of appeal of the railway for much of the other traffic was largely due to the remote location of Nine Elms, and the LSWR admitted to the Metropolitan Termini Commission in 1846 that road coaches had survived between Chertsey and the City because of this. The original promoters of the branch to Richmond had also proposed a line from Nine Elms to a supposed ‘West End’ terminus near Hungerford Bridge. Having taken over the Richmond branch before its completion, the LSWR obtained powers in 1845 for a new terminus in York Road, close to the southern end of Waterloo Bridge, and a further act in 1847 increased the number of lines to the new terminus to four and also the size of the site. The reasons for the LSWR choosing Nine Elms in the first place can be the more readily understood when it is realised that the extension to Waterloo, then requiring far fewer tracks than exist today, required the demolition of 700 houses and the crossing of 21 roads, despite the 1¾ mile railway using a viaduct with more than 200 arches for most of its length. Obstacles that affected the alignment included Lambeth Palace, Vauxhall Gardens and a gas works. One intermediate station was built at Vauxhall, while a bridge over Westminster Road was on the skew with the then unprecedented span of 90ft. The size of the undertaking was partly because the LSWR was encouraged by earlier negotiations with the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway that would have seen the latter share the new terminus, but despite legislation being passed, the concept was dropped, largely because of objections from the London & Croydon Railway before that company was absorbed by the LBSCR. A few years later, another scheme surfaced that would have seen the LBSCR use Waterloo, but this was also dropped and eventually Victoria became the objective of the Brighton Company’s ambitions. The South Eastern Railway also considered an extension to Waterloo from Bricklayers’ Arms, but Parliament rejected the proposal. The interest in using Waterloo can be understood, with Robert Stephenson telling a Royal Commission in 1846 that there was ‘no point on the South side of the Thames so good for a large railway station, as the south end of Waterloo Bridge’.

The first Waterloo Station opened on 11 July 1848, with Nine Elms having closed the previous day, although being available for VIP use and visiting royalty. Initially, Waterloo was designed not as a terminus but as a through station and under a two span 280ft iron and glass roof were six tracks and six 300ft platform faces, although the length of these was soon doubled, while a spur towards the river suggested that the LSWR was attempting to keep every option open. The catchment area for the new terminus was soon growing again, with an extension of the Richmond branch to Windsor on 1 December 1849, by which time an additional up line had been installed.

The LSWR itself, not withstanding the opinion of Stephenson and the interest displayed by other companies, was not content with Waterloo, and instead wanted to get closer to the City. Even at this early stage, the LSWR claimed that there was no room for goods traffic at Waterloo, especially since access to the river was blocked by the Lion Brewery. Acts of 1846 and 1848 provided for an extension to a site just west of London Bridge and property acquisition started, but a financial crisis in 1848-9 undermined these plans. The plans for an extension and the financial crisis doubtless also delayed the construction of permanent buildings on the site.

By this time, the rapid expansion of London and the tremendous growth in population combined to put extreme pressure on cemetery space. This was solved in 1854 when the London Necropolis & National Mausoleum Company opened a private cemetery at Brookwood, conveniently on the LSWR mainline west of Woking, and a private station was built at Waterloo for the special trains with their hearse carriages.

Expansion continued at Waterloo as the LSWR network grew. Four additional platform faces were built in 1860, in what was to become known as the Windsor Station and separated by the original station, now known as the ‘Main Station’ by its own cab road. The opening of the Charing Cross extension in 1864 was accompanied by a short spur into Waterloo, and this could have enabled passenger trains to work through to London Bridge and, later, to Cannon Street, thus providing the long sought after City extension of the LSWR, but instead it was rarely used by passenger trains, although it was the route taken by Queen Victoria when travelling from Windsor to the Channel ports. In 1868, a service from Kensington to Cannon Street was introduced over the connection, but this was cut back to Waterloo in February 1869, no doubt influenced by the opening of an SER station, known as Waterloo Junction for many years, on the Charing Cross extension, although at first passengers interchanging between the two companies were forced to rebook, and only later were through fares offered for those attempting to reach the City. For the most part, the connection was used for the occasional goods working.

Yet another Waterloo station was added in 1878, opening on 16 December, but on this occasion, new offices were opened and a refreshment room, with a cab yard under a new 300ft frontage on Waterloo Road. In 1885, a further final extension was added, with the North station built as an extension of the Windsor Station and opened in November, with six new platform faces, so that by now Waterloo had a total of eighteen, and unusually for the day, all of them suitable for arrivals and departures, but still served by just four approach tracks, which were the cause of much delay as by this time Waterloo was handling 700 trains daily. As was the custom at the time, and as we have seen at Victoria, Waterloo was an open station, with tickets being checked at Vauxhall, and this no doubt added to the delays. The station itself was a mess, not least because of an eccentric platform numbering system that meant that many platforms used the same number for two faces, and this, with a paucity of departure information, meant that even if the intending passenger found the right platform, there was a 50 per cent risk of boarding the wrong train. Between 1886 and 1892, a further two approach tracks were added for trains off the South Western main line and a third for trains on the Windsor line, necessitating the rebuilding of Vauxhall station. Once again, there was massive destruction of housing, so that the LSWR had to provide new property in 1890 for more than a thousand people. In 1900, the number of approach lines was increased to eight for part of the approach, reducing to seven as far as Queen’s Road. Progress was uneven, and it was not possible to ease the lot of all passengers at once. Passengers for the City were growing in numbers, and were also people of considerable influence. The need to rebook at the South Eastern station was a nuisance, and although later through season tickets did become available, the service from Charing Cross to Cannon Street was unreliable, especially in thick fog since the railways of the day did depend entirely on enginemen being able to see signals, and Cannon Street was not by any means a convenient terminus for all City workers. An idea of the character of the typical LSWR City-bound passenger can be gained from one event in 1880, when a group of them formed the Metropolitan Express Omnibus Company to operate horse buses between Waterloo and the City, and even though this company was taken over within a year by the Railways & Metropolitan Omnibus Company, within five years it was operating eighteen twenty-six seat buses and carrying 2.5 million passengers annually. The LSWR itself calculated that of the 50,000 daily arrivals at Waterloo, a quarter of them were heading for the City, divided equally between the buses and the SER. As early as 1882, plans were considered for an overhead railway, but rejected as too costly, and no doubt hazardous given the technology of the day, and these were revived in 1891, but still considered too costly. Relief was soon found in plans for a Waterloo and City tube line, authorised in 1893. The new company was clearly attractive to the LSWR, which provided much of the capital and five of the eight directors, and agreed to operate the line for 55 per cent of the gross receipts after payment of a 3 per cent dividend. The line opened in 1898, providing a direct nonstop link between a station not strictly deep underground but in Waterloo’s basement and a point just across the road from the Bank of England, appropriately enough known as Bank. Open air carriage sidings were constructed at the Waterloo end, and rolling stock could be moved using a hoist. This was also the LSWR’s first experience with electric train operation. In 1907, the company took over the line completely.

Even earlier plans had attempted to introduce a tube line between Waterloo and the West End. A pneumatic tube was begun, but this, the Waterloo and Whitehall, was abandoned in 1868. At this stage the LSWR was probably being cautious in the middle of a depression in railway financing, but there seems little explanation for its neglect of the Bakerloo Line, originally known as the Baker Street & Waterloo Railway, which opened on 10 March 1906 between Lambeth North and Baker Street, with a station deep below Waterloo which was reached at first by means of lifts.

Waterloo was to experience the demands of wartime traffic before any other London terminus, simply because all of the troops sent to the Boer War between 1899 and 1902 passed through Southampton, and the majority of them also went through Waterloo, while the cavalry boarded with their horses at Nine Elms.

The LSWR was not blind to the shortcomings of its only London terminus, and as the 1890s drew to a close and the railway enjoyed considerable prosperity, powers were sought from Parliament to extend the station by purchasing an additional 6½ acres to the south of the terminus, including six streets and parts of two others, a church and church schools, and in return the LSWR erected six blocks of flats to accommodate 1,750 people, allegedly more than the number displaced by the expansion. From contemporary accounts, little of worth was lost in the exercise since the area around Waterloo was as much a mess as the stations themselves, with such an unsavoury reputation that it was sometimes known as ‘whoreterloo’.

Site clearing had already begun in 1901 when the new chief engineer, J W Jacomb-Hood was sent to the USA to study American termini. He returned to design a magnificent twenty-three platform station with a single roof, a wide passenger concourse running uninterrupted across the platform ends, and opposite them a substantial office block that also accommodated the station facilities. This was thinking on a grand scale that had no precedent in the design of the London termini at the time, and, some might suggest, or since! It required massive strengthening of the foundations, with additional foundations being dug thirty feet deep to get below the marshy ground, while the bridge over Westminster Bridge Road was widened to take eleven approach roads. The Necropolis station was demolished, with a new structure built on the south side of Westminster Bridge Road, and opened on 16 February 1902, and powers obtained to buy more land to the north of the terminus and to abandon the through line to the SER. When Herbert Walker joined the LSWR in 1912, the plans were scaled back, but only slightly, since Walker, who was a man who knew how to get the best value out of any investment, decided that the 1885 north station, still relatively new, should be untouched and retain its own roof, although the concourse would still continue unbroken across the station, and this reduced the number of platforms to twenty-one.

Much of the new roof had already been completed by the end of 1907, followed by a new cab road that ran from Westminster Bridge Road along the side of the new terminus and then turned left to run in front of what were to be the new offices. The first four platform faces were ready in stages during 1909, with another early in 1910, all with conventional numbering of each face. Parts of the new frontage block were also ready in 1909, although the new booking hall was not ready until 11 June 1911, with doors both to the cab road and to the main concourse. The LSWR obviously had other priorities, as a new ‘gentlemen’s court’ was opened under the new building and reached by a stone stair case from the main concourse: described by Railway Magazine as ‘perhaps the finest in England’, it also included a hairdressing salon, shoe cleaning room and bathrooms, while the air could be changed by electric fans.

A far-sighted feature of the first fifteen of the new platforms were steps running down to a subway that ran under them and provided access to the tube stations, both speeding up the progress of those wanting to travel on the underground and also easing pressure on the platform barriers. Less far-sighted were the platform lengths, and given the amount of work undertaken both within the new terminus and on the approach roads, this oversight is all the more difficult to understand. Already, main line trains often consisted of twelve corridor carriages and a locomotive at each end, with that at the buffers having brought the train into the station. Already trains could easily be 750ft in length, but the platforms were as short as 635 ft, with those for the West Country and Portsmouth at 728ft and 735ft, with just one, reserved for boat trains to Southampton, at 860ft, although later extended to 946ft, with across the central cab road from this, another platform of 843ft. The end of the cab road also had two short loading docks. The legacy of the Southern and its predecessors on nationalisation would have been almost perfect but for this, especially in recent years as pressure on existing train lengths have lead to calls for longer trains. Additional office accommodation was provided in a two storey office block completed in 1920 between platforms 15 and 16, and marking the boundary between the all-new platforms and the Windsor Station, which also had a further loading dock on its north side, beyond which the carriage and engine sidings, hoist to the Waterloo & City and locomotive turntable were little affected by the changes. Changes to the approaches allowed greater flexibility in operations and allowed parallel working at some of the platforms.

Once completed and opened on 21 March, 1922, by Queen Mary, Waterloo stood comparison with the best anywhere, and there could be no doubt that this was a single large terminus, since the concourse, 120ft wide, ran for 770ft across the platform heads with a single long block of offices and amenities behind it, which included the first London terminus branch of a bank when the National Provincial (now RBS NatWest) opened it in 1923. The economy made by Walker on the Windsor platforms was not apparent to the casual observer, but simple good housekeeping with so much else to spend money on, modernising and standardising the now grouped railway. In addition to access from the cab road, there was the Victory Arch, the war memorial to the LSWR dead in the First World War, and staircases opposite platforms 8 and 12 led down to Waterloo Road. Given the SER’s penchant for building riverside termini in prominent positions, it seems a shame that the view of Waterloo, set back somewhat from the banks of the river, was marred by the viaduct carrying the former SER lines from Waterloo to the Hungerford Bridge.

During the First World War, Southampton had handled the embarkation of the British Expeditionary Force in 1914, followed by many of the reserves in 1915, and was the main port for those going to other theatres of war, especially in the Middle East. The presence of the Royal Navy at Portsmouth, as well as the flood of men going for training on Salisbury Plain or into the many garrisons in the south, meant that there was considerable strain on the entire system. As at Victoria, there was a free buffet staffed by volunteers for troops and this was opened in 1915 and not closed until 1920, some eight million meals later. The numbers returning from leave was such that on Sunday nights as many as thirty extra trains had to be organised.

Despite its importance, Waterloo suffered bomb damage just once, when on the night of 29/30 September 1917, a number of bombs dropped in the sidings to the north of the station – the damage was repaired within a day.

The LSWR was an energetic proponent of the electric railway, and Walker’s eye for value meant that this was done on the 600volt dc system using a third rail. This was certainly economical and straightforward. Wimbledon via East Putney was electrified on 25 October 1915, and on 30 January of the following year it was joined by the Kingston Roundabout and its Shepperton branch. On 12 March 1916, the Hounslow Loop was electrified, followed by the Hampton Court branch on 18 June. The so-called ‘new’ Guildford line, running via Cobham, was electrified as far as Claygate on 20 November 1916, and initially there was a steam push-pull service beyond for stations to Guildford, but the line had to return to steam working in July 1919, as demand on the other routes meant that the rolling stock could be used more effectively elsewhere. After grouping, the line through to Guildford via Cobham was completed, as was the line from Raynes Park to Dorking North, and electric services inaugurated on these routes on 12 July 1925. After some delay while competing methods of electrification were evaluated, services to Windsor were electrified on 6 July 1930.

In 1924, improvements were made to the booking hall, with the original wood block floor replaced by coloured glass tiles and plaster columns replaced by marble capped with bronze, while the doors to be cab road were replaced by windows. Of possibly greater importance, on 13 September 1926, the Hampstead Tube, now the Northern Line, opened an extension from Charing Cross to Kennington, with a station beneath Waterloo, providing a direct service from Waterloo to Euston, but it was not until the following year that the escalators were ready with a new booking hall beneath the Windsor platforms.

Possibly bearing in mind that many longer distance passengers would have a wait for a train, and of course there were those waiting to greet arriving passengers, a newsreel and cartoon cinema had been built at the end of the concourse next to platform 1 and opened on 27 August 1934. Announcements of arriving trains would be flashed up at the side of the screen if requested from the cashier.

In 1935, twelve years after the grouping, the name Waterloo Junction was dropped for the old SER station, which had lost its line into the terminus in 1911, and platforms were designated A to D to avoid confusion with those of the terminus. As at Victoria, the process of integration seems to have been piecemeal and patchy.

New signalling and layouts were brought into use on 17 May 1936 as steady growth in traffic, boosted by electrification, needed changes to the approaches to the station. Given the congested nature of the surrounding area, this required a flyover at Wimbledon, the nearest point at which the work could be carried out, to carry the up main local over the up main line. These were joined at Vauxhall by a relief line between the up main through and the down Windsor through, while at Waterloo electrification was extended to platforms 7, 8 and 9. Colour light signalling was introduced between Hampton Court Junction and Waterloo, although those at the terminus were delayed until 18 October.

Electrification had continued to spread, so that from 3 January 1937, Windsor electrics divided at Staines, with the rear portion serving Chertsey and Weybridge. Next, came Waterloo’s first main line electrification, and the longest on the Southern, with introduction of the third rail for the Portsmouth Direct, the line running through Woking and Guildford to Portsmouth Harbour, brought into service on 4 July 1937. This was done in conjunction with electrification to Aldershot and Alton, with the stopping trains dividing at Woking into Portsmouth and Alton portions. Once again there was a massive increase in frequencies, with summer Saturdays seeing four fast trains an hour on the Portsmouth line, which had seen just four fast trains a day in steam days. As war approached, further electrification followed, with services to Reading from 1 January 1939, and these trains also divided, at Ascot with a portion continuing to Guildford by the roundabout route of Camberley and Aldershot. As the suburbs grew, a new line was needed branching off the Dorking North line to Tolworth, reached on 29 May 1938, and Chessington South, reached on 28 May 1939, and, of course, electrified throughout.

Loudspeakers had been introduced and used from 9 March 1932, which was probably an ideal day since the Oxford and Cambridge boat race coincided with a rugby international at Twickenham. Waterloo’s business could be sporty as well as commuting, for there were also occasions when trains were needed for races at Ascot and Epsom. In 1937, the Southern experimented with music over the loudspeaker system, often using light opera, but the idea was to have marches to encourage arriving passengers to leave the station briskly in the morning and something soothing to calm them and entertain them as they waited for their evening train home. The announcer was also responsible for the musical programme – although recordings were never announced – and at first was based in a booth over the news stand opposite platforms 8 and 9, but the announcer’s box was later moved to a position above the station offices between platforms 15 and 16.

As war approached, the Southern started to take precautions, with air raid shelters for around 6,500 people constructed in the arches underneath the station, doubtless with the idea that there could be trainloads of passengers to protect at busy periods, but in fact many of the users were to be local people, and those bombed out of their homes sometimes took up permanent residence.

The Second World War was one in which few places escaped the bombs, and Waterloo was a primary target. On 7 September 1940, a bomb fell just outside the station and seriously damaged the viaduct over John Street. Railwaymen and the Royal Engineers worked to restore services, but the station was closed until 19 September, and services could not be fully restored until 1 October. The disruption affected more than just passengers, and at one stage there were 5,000 bags of unsorted mail. The overnight newspaper trains switched to Clapham Yard, and after further enemy action moved to Wimbledon, and then to Surbiton after bombing destroyed the roads around Wimbledon station. Waterloo was the worst affected of the Southern termini in London, as it was out of action due to incendiary bombs from the night of 29/30 December 1940 until 5 January 1941, which itself was not a quiet night as the old LSWR offices in York Road were destroyed that night and the underground lifts and booking hall badly damaged. A further closure came after the raid on the night of 10/11 May 1941, when around 50 high explosive and incendiary bombs and parachute mines set fires blazing and destroyed the Necropolis Station, and penetrated to the basement arches setting alight large quantities of spirits stored there: the station could not function until a partial re-opening on 15 May. The disruption to services was severe, with many passengers delayed by several hours as the crowds overwhelmed the replacement bus service from Clapham Junction, with a queue of more than a mile in length at one point and the road towards Waterloo difficult to drive over as it was cluttered with many fire hoses. One unexploded bomb was to remain undetected until work started on an office building in York Road in 1959: at 2,000-lbs, had it exploded during the intervening years, the destruction and loss of life at the height of the rush hour would have been terrible. The original LSWR terminus at Nine Elms also lost its roof on 10/11 May.

There were few changes at Waterloo after the war, and only the most essential tidying up between the end of the war and nationalisation. For many years, Waterloo was largely neglected by the new British Railways, and it took almost twenty years before any further electrification, with the line through to Bournemouth finally being electrified in 1967, and later the third rail was extended to Weymouth. The most significant change came with the completion of the Channel Tunnel, which until late 2007 saw the Eurostar services from Paris and Brussels using a new Waterloo International station built over the old Windsor station and the sidings on the other side of the wall. Since Channel Tunnel services have been diverted to St Pancras, this station with its very long platforms remains unused, as indeed do many of the junctions created to allow trains to travel from near Folkestone to Waterloo.

Waterloo & City Railway

The only tube railway not to pass into the control of the London Passenger Transport Board in 1933, the line opened in 1898 to give direct access to the City of London from Waterloo Station, isolated south of the Thames. The line was independent but worked by the London & South Western Railway which took it over in 1907. Initially, specially-built four car trains were used. The line ran for 1½ miles under the Thames without intermediate stations from Waterloo to the Bank, which passengers could interchange with the Central Line. An electric hoist at Waterloo enabled vehicles to be removed for overhaul. The line passed into the control of the Southern Railway in 1923. Increasingly, as traffic grew and its equipment aged, its reputation with City commuters fell, but new American-built rolling stock was introduced in 1940, and this remained until the line was transferred to London Transport in 1994, before railway privatisation, and four car electric trains based on standard LT tube rolling stock were introduced and the line converted from third rail to third and fourth rail.

At least twice in its history, once during the Second World War, the line has had to be closed due to flooding from burst or damaged water mains.

Watkin, Sir Edward, 1819-1901

After working in the family cotton merchants, he became involved in campaigns including one against the Corn Laws. At the age of twenty-six, he became secretary of the Trent Valley railway, before becoming assistant to Mark Huish general manager of the London & North Western Railway. In 1854, he became general manager of the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire Railway, predecessor of the Great Central. He spent some time away from the GCR working in Canada, where he attempted to rescue the Grand Trunk Railway, and on his return in 1862, disagreed with the decisions taken during his absence and resigned. He returned to the GCR in 1864 as chairman. This was the first of a string of chairmanships, followed by that of the South Eastern Railway (see South Eastern & Chatham Railway) in 1866, and the Metropolitan Railway in 1872. He saw these railways as forming a continuous link leading to a Channel Tunnel, with through trains between Manchester and Paris via London, and this drove his ambitions to extend the MSLR to London, which was finally achieved in 1899, by which time the company had been renamed the Great Central. His approach to railway management was grandiose and expansionist, which led to much ruinous competition.

He was knighted for his services in Canada in 1868. Involved in politics, he was at different times MP for Yarmouth in 1857, Stockport from 1864 to 1868, and finally, Hythe from 1874 until 1895.

Although he lived to see the GCR reach London and was present at the celebrations for the opening of its terminus at Marylebone, ill health forced his retirement from all of his chairmanships in 1894.

Wedgwood, Sir Ralph Lewis, 1875-1956

After graduating from Cambridge, he became a traffic apprentice at the North Eastern Railway, after which he made rapid progress, becoming company secretary in 1905 and chief goods manager in 1911. He worked for the government during the First World War as director of ports, and on his return to the NER he became deputy general manager, and general manager in 1922, before becoming the first general manager of the new London & North Eastern Railway in 1923, the same year that he was knighted.

Under Wedgwood, the LNER operated a policy of decentralised management, leaving a small team to look after finance and policy matters. He also found time to be a member of the Weir Committee on main line electrification in 1931, and in 1936 visited India with a team investigating the state of the country’s railways. On his return, he was one of the figures behind the ‘Square Deal’ campaign in which the railways pleaded unsuccessfully for the freedom to set their own freight rates. When he retired in 1939, he was appointed chairman of the Railway Executive Committee, which oversaw the running of the railways in wartime, before finally retiring in 1941.

Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway

The 2ft 6in gauge Welshpool & Llanfair Light Railway was completed in 1903. Unlike most of the Welsh narrow gauge lines, it was not built primarily for mineral or slate traffic, although it did have traffic from the Standart Quarry, but operated through an agricultural area. The line was built to link the small town of Llanfair Caereinion to the nearest large (the terms are relative) town of Welshpool, and using the Light Railways Act, 1896, a Light Railway Order was obtained in 1899. One term of the order was that the railway would have to be worked by an existing company, and so the following year it was leased to the Cambrian Railway for ninety-nine years in return for 40 per cent of the receipts. Only three passenger carriages and two locomotives were built.

West Clare Railway

Opened in 1887, the West Clare was a light railway using a 3ft gauge running from Ennis on the Limerick to Sligo branch of the Great Southern & Western Railway, initially to Miltown but later an extension was opened in 1892 to Kilrush, on the Shannon estuary, and to Kilkee, with the line dividing at Moyasta Junction. A levy on the population of Co. Clare, half of which was refunded by the British government, enabled a guaranteed 4 per cent dividend to be paid on this otherwise unprofitable line. Just eleven locomotives were operated. Subject of a song by Percy French, Are Ye Right There, Michael, Are Ye Right? It passed to the Great Southern Railways in 1925, and was nationalised in 1945. It closed in 1961.

West Coast Main Line

Often known in railway circles as the WCML, the term is of comparatively recent origin and refers to the main line from Euston to Glasgow, or what would at one time have been known as the West Coast Group of Companies. The companies involved originally were the London & North Western and Caledonian Railways.

The line was amongst the early railways and a number of companies built stretches of it between 1837 and 1850, initially running through Birmingham, but in 1847 the LNWR provided a cut-off route between Rugby and Stafford through the Trent Valley. Another cut-off followed north of Warrington. At Carstairs, the line divided, with a line to Edinburgh in competition with the East Coast route, while the line to Glasgow continued to Aberdeen, and until the opening of the Forth and Tay bridges, was the quickest route to that city. The terminus in Glasgow was the Central Station.

The line was opened throughout in 1858, and between 1860 and 1870 what was known as the Scotch Railways Agreement confined Glasgow and Aberdeen traffic to Euston and that to Edinburgh to King’s Cross. Nevertheless, old habits died hard and afterwards there were occasions when the competing main lines tried to provide the fastest expresses (see Races to Scotland). This was despite the problems of the steep gradients at Shap and Beattock.

Not all of the traffic was between London and Scotland, as the line carried heavy traffic between London and the Midlands and to the North West, and the traffic to Ireland via Holyhead. Post-nationalisation, Aberdeen services were concentrated on the East Coast route. Between 1959 and 1974, the line was electrified, starting with services to the Midlands and ending with those to Glasgow, while that between Carstairs and Edinburgh was electrified in 1991, but another route from Carlisle closed earlier as part of the post-Beeching cuts.

In more recent years, the entire route has been through the most extensive rebuilding and modernisation of any route in British railway history, to the extent that many believe that a completely new line would have been less expensive. The current operator post-privatisation is Virgin Trains, which operates ‘Pendalino’ tilting trains between London and the main cities along the route.

West Cornwall Railway

Authorised in 1834 as the Hayle railway, the 17-mile standard gauge West Cornwall opened for goods traffic during 1837-38 to take tin and copper mined around Redruth to the port at Hayle. Two miles of gradient were worked by stationary steam locomotives, but standard locomotives were used on the remainder. Passenger services did not begin until 1843.

The West Cornwall itself was authorised in 1846 to purchase the Hayle Railway, eliminate the gradients and extend the line westwards to Truro and Penzance. Although W S Moorsom was appointed engineer, he was replaced by Brunel. The line as completed was entirely single track, and for economy, its nine viaducts were built of wood. Operations were complicated by the opening of the broad gauge Cornwall Railway between Plymouth and Truro in 1859, and to avoid a break of gauge, the CR had been empowered to require the WCR to lay a third rail to allow mixed gauge operations, but the company could not afford to do this and so its property was transferred to the supporters of the Cornwall Railway, known as the Associated Companies. Nevertheless, the WCR existed on paper until nationalisation, not being formally grouped in 1923.

West Highland Railway – see North British Railway

West London and West London Extension Railways

An important strategic link in the railway network, these two lines of just seven route miles linked the trunk routes approaching London from the north and west with those from the south and south-east. Originally authorised in 1836 as the Birmingham Bristol & Thames Junction Railway to link the London & Birmingham with the Kensington Canal. The canal was bought in 1839 and the railway became the West London Railway. When it opened in 1844, it crossed the Great Western main line on the level. At first, only freight was carried, and after six months the line closed until reopened in 1862 as part of a West London Extension Railway that reached Clapham Junction where it connected with the London & South Western, London, Brighton & South Coast and London, Chatham & Dover railways.

Passenger traffic became important after this, with a station built at Kensington which served the site of the second Great Exhibition and later the Olympia exhibition centre. Long distance expresses from the Midlands and the North West to the South Coast used the line as well as suburban services. Nevertheless, the passenger services dwindled away for many years and only since privatisation has the line been electrified on the third rail system and used by passenger trains once again.

West Midland Railway

The result of an amalgamation of the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton, authorised in 1845, Newport, Abergavenny & Hereford, authorised in 1846 but not completed until 1852, and Worcester & Hereford Railways, dating from 1858, in 1860.

The OWWR was originally intended to be part of the Great Western broad gauge network, running from Oxford into the Black Country and with Brunel as its engineer. There was a considerable cost overrun with both the GWR and the contractors, Peto & Betts and Treadwell, providing considerable additional capital. The 92 route miles were completed in 1854 using mixed gauge, although no broad gauge trains ever used it, and by this time supported by the London & North Western Railway. The OWWR did not prosper and there were changes to the board, while in 1859, the GWR agreed that all but two miles of the line could be converted to standard gauge, while the line from Oxford to Paddington would become mixed, allowing through trains from the OWWR to run to London.

By contrast, the Newport, Abergavenny & Hereford Railway and Worcester & Hereford Railway were both standard gauge. The former was built with the support of the LNWR which needed access to South Wales, and opened in 1854, while a branch was built to serve Quaker’s Yard, completed in 1857, which included a grand viaduct at Crumlin. The Worcester & Hereford Railway had a difficult passage through Parliament, but the OWWR and NAHR undertook to work the line jointly with the Midland Railway. Although the first seven miles were completed by 1860, the tunnels at Ledbury and Malvern proved difficult and the line was not completed until 1861 after the creation of the WMR. While the LNWR had designs on the WMR, proposing a connecting line from London to Oxford, the WMR was acquired by the GWR in 1863.

West Somerset Railway

Built to broad gauge, the West Somerset Railway was authorised in 1857, although work did not start until 1859, and then suffered difficulty in raising the £160,000 needed, so it was not opened from Norton Fitzwarren to the small port of Watchet until 1862. A further extension, the Minehead Railway, had an even longer gestation period, authorised in 1865, dissolved in 1870, revived in 1871 and finally opened in 1874. From the start, both lines were worked by the Great Western Railway, and the two railways were converted to standard gauge in 1882. The GWR took over the Minehead Railway in 1897, but the West Somerset remained independent until 1922.

Traffic on the line was always light, partly as there was no connection with the West Somerset Mineral Railway at Watchet, and little onward railway movement of cargo arriving at the docks. It was not until the early years of the twentieth century that passenger traffic began to grow as Minehead developed as a resort, and in 1933 the number of passing loops was increased from four to six, and in 1934 and 1936 stretches of the line were doubled.

Weston, Clevedon & Portishead Light Railway

Not one of the grouped companies, as most light railways slipped through the net and retained their independence, doubtless to the relief of everyone, and especially the ‘Big Four’. Nevertheless, under the control of the Railway Executive Committee, the companies were not quite their own masters. The Great Western Railway took over the Weston, Clevedon & Portishead Light Railway in 1940 and traffic was discontinued on 18 May. The line had been built using powers obtained in 1885 as a tramway to replace a horse bus service, but the 8½ mile stretch between Weston-super-Mare and Clevedon did not open until December 1897, and the rest followed later giving a 14½ mile route with no less than seventeen stopping places. In 1899, its own Act of Parliament authorised the conversion to a light railway, and at the time of the GWR acquisition, there were five steam locomotives, of which three were immediately condemned, and a Fordson rail tractor, as well as an ex-Southern Railway Drewry petrol railcar. Passenger carriages included three with bogies, while the rest were four and six wheelers.

Wharncliffe, Lord/James Archibald Stuart Wortley-Mackenzie, 1776-1845

A career politician, Wharncliffe had already been elevated to the Lords when the Great Western Railway’s second bill was proceeding through Parliament in 1835. He chaired the committee that examined the proposals and discovered falsehoods amongst the objections to the bill, and as a result, the bill was enacted. As a mark of gratitude, the viaduct at Hanwell, completed in 1837, was named after him. His name entered railway terminology as he was instrumental in getting the Lords in ensuring that railway companies needing to extend their powers should first obtain the agreement of a minimum of 60 per cent of the shareholders in a special meeting before starting the Parliamentary processes – these meetings became known as ‘Wharncliffe meetings’.

Wheel and Axle Notation

1) Diesel and Electric

The notation of wheels for electric and diesel locomotives is different from that used for steam locomotives. This is because it is important to distinguish between motored and unmotored axles. A single motored axle is denoted as ‘A’, two coupled motored axles by ‘B’ and three by ‘C’. If the axles are individually driven rather than coupled, which is the more usual form except for shunting locomotives, the same form is used for the number of powered axles but they are followed by ‘o’; so a locomotive with two powered axles on each bogie and no other axles would be Bo-Bo, and with three powered axles, Co-Co, for example. The other wheels on the bogie that simply bear weight are denoted by the number, so that two unpowered axles followed by three coupled powered axles, with the same layout at the other end of the locomotive, would be 2C-C2. A train with three axles on each of two bogies, but with just the outer axles on each bogie powered, would be A1A-A1A.

2) Steam

The wheel notation for steam locomotives is also known as Whyte’s Notation after the inventor, F M Whyte (1865-1941), who was general mechanical engineer of the New York Central Railroad. It was introduced in the United States around 1900, and adopted in the UK around 1903. The notation works from left to right, with the left being the front of the locomotive and right being the back, usually the driving cab. The total number of wheels, if any, at the front is given, then those which are coupled driving wheels, and then the trailing wheels. This means that a Pacific locomotive would be described as 4-6-2, that is a four-wheeled leading bogie, followed by six driving wheels (three on each side), and then a small bogie or pony truck with a wheel on each side. Large articulated locomotives such as those produced by Beyer-Garratt, would be 4-8-8-4, for example, denoting a bogie first and last and in between two sets of four coupled driving wheels on each side.

A commonly used refinement applied to tank engines, with the suffix ‘T’ for a standard tank engine; ‘ST’ for saddle tanks; ‘PT’ for pannier tanks; and ‘WT’ for a well tank. This means that an 0-4-4T tank locomotive would be one with a standard tank, no leading bogies, four driving wheels and a trailing bogie.

It has become the custom to assign names to the main notations, so that a 4-6-2 locomotive is generally known as a ‘Pacific’, while other significant notations mentioned in the British Isles include ‘Atlantic’ for 4-42; ‘Baltic’ for 4-6-4; ‘Mogul’ for 2-6-0.

In mainland Europe, a different notation is used based on axles, so that a Pacific would be 2-3-1.

Whitby & Pickering Railway

Authorised in 1833 to carry passengers, lime and stone, from the Vale of Pickering to the port of Whitby, 24 miles away. The line was engineered by George Stephenson, but was initially worked by horses except for the Goathland incline, which was worked by cable haulage. Completed during 1835-36, the line was acquired by the York & North Midland Railway in 1845, and by 1847 had been strengthened for steam locomotives. In 1854, it became part of the North Eastern Railway, and subsequently became part of the London & North Eastern Railway. Closed in 1965, the 18-miles from Pickering to Grosmont became the preserved North Yorkshire Moors railway which reopened in 1973.

Whitechapel & Bow Joint Railway

An important strategic link in the capital’s railway network, the line was supported by the Metropolitan District and London, Tilbury & Southend Railways. When the two-mile long railway opened in 1902, it relieved the pressure on Fenchurch Street and gave commuters from southern Essex easier access to the City of London. It is now part of the London Underground system.

Whitelaw, William, 1868-1948

A landowner and bank director, Whitelaw became a director of the Highland Railway in 1899, becoming chairman in 1902 until he became a director of the North British Railway in 1912. He next became chairman of the London & North Eastern Railway in 1923, staying until 1938, where he was a popular and successful figure. The LNER was over-capitalised and he insisted on dividend restraint, as well as restricting investment, although he took great pride in the high speed trains.

Wirral Railway

Formed in 1891 from a number of short lines, one of which was the Hoylake Railway which had opened in 1866 to link Hoylake with the docks at Birkenhead. Eventually the WR had 13½ route miles with connections to the Great Western and London & North Western joint line at West Kirby and extensions to Birkenhead Park, New Brighton and Seacombe, where passengers could transfer to a ferry service to Liverpool. The line was mainly used by passenger trains.

Although powers to electrify the line were obtained in 1900, electrification on the third rail system did not come until 1938, by which time it was part of the London, Midland & Scottish Railway.

Wrexham, Mold & Connah’s Quay Railway

Opened in 1866, the Wrexham, Mold & Connah’s Quay Railway linked the tidal port at Connah’s Quay with the coal mines and iron and steel works. It was under financed and provided an indifferent service as a result until it was taken over by the Great Central Railway in 1905.