ABSTRACT

WE have already noted the anomalous nature of the positionwhich for a number of years after its opening to London the Great Northern Railway occupied in the West Riding of Yorkshire. To provide a direct route between the West Riding and London was, as we have more than once seen, one of the main objects for which the Company was promoted, and since the completion of its towns line in 1852-nay, even for two years before this, when its main route northwards had been via Boston and Lincoln-it had given by far the best service between London and two of the most important West Riding towns, Leeds and Wakefield ; yet for access to these towns it had been at first entirely dependent upon running powers over Lancashire and Yorkshire and Midland rails. In 1854, as already noted, these running powers had been extended into Bradford and Halifax by the opening of the main line of the Leeds, Bradford, and Halifax Junction Company, and in 1857 they had been still further extended by the opening of the Wakefield, Leeds, and Bradford-afterwards called for greater clearness the West Yorkshire-Company's line, providing a direct route between Wakefield and Leeds, on to which the Great Northern through traffic was at once diverted from its original route to Leeds via Methley. In 1859, moreover, a Great Northern through service between London and Huddersfield'had been commenced under joint arrangements with the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire Company, the route being via Retford and Penistone, whence to Huddersfield the Sheffield Company had running powers over a line belonging to the Lancashire and Yorkshire ; and in Parliament that same year full facilities by this route had been secured to the allied companies by the insertion of " through booking and forwarding clauses " in the Lancashire and Yorkshire and East Lancashire Amalgamation Act. Thus, to all the more important towns of West Yorkshire the Great Northern had, by the end of the fifties, obtained an access which from London was more direct than that of other companies, and in all these towns it had provided itself

with station accommodation-separate for goods and joint for passengers. Yet in every case between these station holdings and its own rails the lines of two or more " foreign " companies intervened.