ABSTRACT

TH E Stockton and Darlington Railway, the pioneer of the publicrailways of the world, was opened, as every schoolboy should know, on 27 September, 1825, and about this same date, when the first short epidemic of " railway fever " prevailed, numerous surveys were made for similar undertakings in other parts of England. Amongst these was one made by the Messrs. Rennie for a line northwards from London, which they proposed should follow the valley of the Lea nearly as far as Ware, and thence pass by the valleys of the Rib and Quin and " the towns " of Braughing and Barkway to Cambridge. Here their original survey stopped, but in 1827 they extended it in a direct line northwards through Lincoln to York. By this time, however, the railway fever had quite subsided, having resulted in the incorporation of one important public company only-the Liverpool and Manchester, and it was not until the successful opening in September, 1830, of this, the first line constructed in England for the conveyance of passengers, that kindred projects again began to find favour. Then a proposal for a London and Birmingham Railway, also first made in 1825, was revived in the latter town, and, the services of George Stephenson and his son having been secured as engineers, a Bill for it was successfully passed through the House of Commons in the session of 1832. Being then thrown out in the Lords, it was revived in 1833, together with one for a Grand Junction Railway, which the Stephensons and Joseph Locke had in the meantime surveyed; and, these both passing into law in that year, a chain of railway communication became authorized from London, via Birmingham, to Manchester and Liverpool.