London & Birmingham Railway

London & Birmingham Railway coat of arms on the original Euston station gates displayed at theNational Railway Museum in York
Overview
Dates of operation	1833–1846
Successor	London and North Western Railway
Technical
Track gauge	4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm)standard gauge

v t e London and Birmingham Railway
Legend
1837 – July 1846
Birmingham Curzon Street Hampton-in-Arden Coventry Brandon Rugby Kilsby Tunnel ( 1 mi 656 yd 2.21 km ) Crick Weedon Blisworth Roade Wolverton Denbigh Hall ( closed 1838 ) Bletchley ( opened 1838 ) Leighton Aylesbury Junction ( opened 1839 ) Tring Berkhamsted Boxmoor Kings Langley ( opened 1839 ) Watford Tunnel Watford Harrow Willesden Camden London Euston
stagecoach shuttle April–September 1838 stationary steam engine (ticket platforms from 1844)

TheLondon and Birmingham Railway (L&BR) was a railway company in theUnited Kingdom, in operation from 1833 to 1846, when it became part of theLondon and North Western Railway (L&NWR).

The 112-mile (180 km) railway line which the company opened in 1838, between London andBirmingham, was the first intercity line to be built into London. It is now the southern section of theWest Coast Main Line.

The line was engineered byRobert Stephenson. It started atEuston Station in London, went north-west toRugby, where it turned west toCoventry and on to Birmingham. It terminated atCurzon Street Station, which it shared with theGrand Junction Railway (GJR), whose adjacent platforms gave an interchange with full connectivity (with through carriages) betweenLiverpool,Manchester and London.

As early as 1823, a company was formed with the objective of building a railway between London and Birmingham, and in 1826, the engineerJohn Rennie surveyed a route throughOxford andBanbury, a route later taken by theGreat Western Railway.^[1]

In 1829 a rival company was formed byFrancis Giles who proposed building a line throughWatford Gap andCoventry. Neither company obtained backing for its scheme, and in late 1830 the two companies decided to merge. The new company appointedRobert Stephenson chief engineer, and after preparing a detailed survey, he chose the route through Watford Gap, largely to avoid possible flooding from theRiver Thames at Oxford.^[1]

The prospectus for the London and Birmingham Railway offered the following inducements to potential investors:^[1]

First, the opening of new and distant sources of supply of provisions to the metropolis; Second, Easy, cheap and expeditious travelling; Third; The rapid and economical interchange of the great articles of consumption and of commerce, both internal and external; and Lastly, the connexion by railways, of London with Liverpool, the rich pastures of the centre of England, and the greatest manufacturing districts; and, through the port of Liverpool, to afford a most expeditious communication with Ireland.

The company was created with an initial capitalisation of £5,500,000.^[2][a]Much of the subscribed funds came from Lancashire, where great profits were being made in the cotton industries.^[3]

The construction of the line was the subject of much opposition by landowners, who organised a campaign in the early 1830s to prevent the L&BR from driving a line across their estates. Turbulent public meetings were held in towns in west Hertfordshire to protest against the project, including one held at the King's Arms public house inBerkhamsted. Another was held inWatford which was attended by wealthy and influentialpeers of the realm who had property interests on the planned route of the line: theEarl of Essex was keen to protect hisCassiobury Estate from invasion by the "iron horse", as was theEarl of Clarendon, who ownedThe Grove Estate. The anatomist SirAstley Cooper was also in attendance, intent on preventing the new railway from cutting across his Gadebridge Estate. On 22 June 1832,Lord Brownlow ofAshridge voiced his opposition in theHouse of Lords to "the forcing of the proposed railway through the land and property of so great a proportion of dissentient landowners."^[4] The L&BR company's first application for anact of Parliament to construct the line was rejected in 1832, due to pressure from landowners and road and canal interests.

London and Birmingham Railway Act 1833
Act of Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Citation	3 & 4 Will. 4. c. xxxvi
Dates
Royal assent	6 May 1833
Other legislation
Repealed by	London and North Western Railway Act 1846
Status: Repealed
Text of statute as originally enacted

London and Birmingham Railway Act 1835
Act of Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Long title	An Act to enable the London and Birmingham Railway Company to extend and alter the Line of such Railway, and for other Purposes relating thereto.
Citation	5 & 6 Will. 4. c. lvi
Dates
Royal assent	3 July 1835
Other legislation
Repealed by	London and North Western Railway Act 1846
Status: Repealed

London and Birmingham Railway Act 1837
Act of Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Long title	An Act to amend the Acts relating to the London and Birmingham Railway.
Citation	7 Will. 4 & 1 Vict. c. lxiv
Dates
Royal assent	30 June 1837
Other legislation
Repealed by	London and North Western Railway Act 1846
Status: Repealed

London and Birmingham Railway Act 1839
Act of Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Long title	An Act to enable the London and Birmingham Railway Company to raise a further Sum of Money.
Citation	2 & 3 Vict. c. xxxix
Dates
Royal assent	14 June 1839
Other legislation
Repealed by	London and North Western Railway Act 1846
Status: Repealed
Text of statute as originally enacted

London and Birmingham Railway Act 1846
Act of Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Long title	An Act to empower the London and Birmingham Railway Company to enlarge their Stations in London; and for other Purposes.
Citation	9 & 10 Vict. c. clii
Dates
Royal assent	16 July 1846

The railway route proposals through Hertfordshire were modified; a second parliamentary bill was approved in May 1833 as theLondon and Birmingham Railway Act 1833 (3 & 4 Will. 4. c. xxxvi), and the line receivedroyal assent. Construction began in November of that year. The line would follow theRiver Bulbourne instead of theRiver Gade, skirting around the edge of Hemel Hempstead to protect Sir Astley Cooper's interests; for this reason,Hemel Hempstead railway station is located one mile (1.6 km) outside the town centre, atBoxmoor.^[4]

Peter Lecount, an assistant engineer of the London and Birmingham railway, produced a number of – possibly hyperbolic – comparisons in an effort to demonstrate that the London and Birmingham Railway was "the greatest public work ever executed either in ancient or modern times".^[5] In particular, he suggested that the effort to build theGreat Pyramid of Giza amounted to the lifting of 15,733,000,000 cu ft (445,500,000 m³) of stone by 1 foot (0.305 m).

The railway, excluding a long string of tasks (drainage, ballasting, and so on) involved the lifting of 25,000,000,000 cu ft (710,000,000 m³) of material reduced to the weight of stone used in the pyramid. The pyramid involved, he says, the effort of 300,000 men (according toDiodorus Siculus) or 100,000 (according toHerodotus) for twenty years. The railway involved 20,000 men for five years. In passing, he also noted that the cost of the railway in penny pieces, was enough to more than form a belt of pennies around the equator; and the amount of material moved would be enough to build a wall 1 foot (305 mm) high by one foot wide, more than three times around the equator.

The line had been planned to open at the same time as theGrand Junction Railway which entered Birmingham from the north. However great difficulty in constructing theKilsby Tunnel inNorthamptonshire delayed the opening. The first part of the line between Euston Station^[6] andBoxmoor (Hemel Hempstead) opened on 20 July 1837. Services were extended to Tring on 16 October 1837. On 9 April 1838 the company opened the north end of the line, between Birmingham and Rugby, and the south end from London to a temporary station atDenbigh Hall nearBletchley with astagecoach shuttle service linking the two parts to allow through journeys to London. The line was officially fully opened on 17 September 1838, with the first passenger train from London to Birmingham arriving that day. The first London-to-Birmingham trains took5+1⁄2 hours to complete the112+1⁄2-mile (181.1 km) journey.^[7]

It has often been claimed that initially, owing to the lack of power available to early locomotives,^[9] trains from Euston were cable-hauled up the relatively steep incline toCamden by a stationarysteam engine. However, this was denied byPeter Lecount, one of the L&BR engineers, who wrote in his 'History of the Railway connecting London and Birmingham' (1839), page 48: "It is not because locomotives cannot draw a train of carriages up this incline that a fixed engine and endless rope are used, for they can and have done so, but because the Company are restricted, by their Act of Parliament, from running locomotive engines nearer London than Camden Town." The railway opened from Euston on 20 July 1837; the stationary engines and rope haulage did not commence until 27 September, and handled all trains from 14 October 1837. Until then, and whenever the rope system was stopped for repairs, locomotives hauled the trains up the incline. From November 1843 some expresses were worked without recourse to the rope, and from 15 July 1844 the rope working ceased permanently.

Initially, it was decided that it would be cheaper to work the railway by a contractor, andEdward Bury was chosen and awarded the contract in May 1836. The contract stipulated that the company would provide locomotives to Bury's specification, while he would maintain them in good repair and convey each passenger and each ton of goods for a fixed sum at a speed not to exceed22+1⁄2 miles per hour (36.2 km/h).

Bury provided specifications and drawings for a passenger and a goods engine, and by mid-1841 the L&BR was equipped with sixty 2-2-0 passenger engines and thirty 0-4-0 goods engines. They all had inside cylinders and dome-topped fireboxes, and were mounted on inside bar-frames; they were manufactured by seven different firms, including Bury's own.

Working the line by contract never worked in practice, because of the unforeseen ever-increasing traffic and the demand for higher speeds, so in July 1839 the contract was annulled, and thereafter Bury was engaged as manager of the Locomotive Department in the normal way, on a fixed salary with a profits bonus.

By the end of the L&BR's separate existence in July 1846, the total stock was about 120 locomotives; some six-wheeled engines had been acquired, but some of these proved inferior to the original four-wheelers.

The locomotive workshops were established in 1838 atWolverton, roughly halfway between the two termini at London and Birmingham. These workshops remained in use for locomotive repairs until 1877, but had been gradually taken over by the Carriage Dept from 1864, and remained as a manufacturing facility up until the 1980s; today just a few parts of the originalWolverton railway works are used solely for rolling stock maintenance and repair.

When the railway was fully opened, it had sixteen intermediate stations between London and Birmingham. The "first-class" stations (served by all trains) were atWatford,Tring,Leighton,Wolverton,Blisworth,Weedon,Rugby andCoventry. Additionally, "second-class" intermediate stations (served by slower second-class trains only) were atHarrow,Boxmoor,Berkhamsted,Bletchley,Roade,Crick,Brandon andHampton. Roade was later redesignated as first-class due to its stagecoach connections.^[10] From about 1844 platforms were opened at Camden for tickets to be collected on southbound trains. This became a public station in 1851.^[11]

The first branch from the main line was theAylesbury Railway atAylesbury Railway Junction, seven miles (11 km) of single track, which opened in 1839 and was leased to the L&BR until purchased outright by theLNWR in 1846. TheWarwick and Leamington Union Railway, a branch of almost nine miles (14 km) between Coventry and Leamington, was purchased by the L&BR in 1843 and opened in 1844.

From 1840, when theMidland Counties Railway made a junction to its line at Rugby, the L&BR also provided through connections from London to the East Midlands and the North East. It also made connections to theBirmingham and Derby Junction Railway atHampton-in-Arden between Coventry and Birmingham.

London and Birmingham Railway Act 1845
Act of Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Long title	An Act for enabling the London and Birmingham Railway Company to take a Lease of the West London Railway.
Citation	8 & 9 Vict. c. clvi
Dates
Royal assent	31 July 1845

In 1845, theNorthampton and Peterborough Railway, a 47-mile (76 km) branch from the main line, was opened fromBlisworth. Also in 1845 branch lines, fromBletchley to Bedford and fromLeighton toDunstable, were leased; they opened in 1846 and 1848. The 'London and Birmingham Railway Act 1845 (8 & 9 Vict. c. clvi) authorised the L&BR to lease theWest London Railway, and this took effect from 1846 (jointly with theGWR). The West London Railway has opened in 1844 between Willesden Junction and the canal basin at Kensington.

The L&BR purchased theTrent Valley Railway in 1846 on behalf of theLNWR; this fifty-mile (80 km) line connected Rugby on the L&BR with Stafford on theGrand Junction Railway thus creating a more direct line from London to Liverpool and Manchester by avoiding the original route through Birmingham. TheRugby and Stamford Railway, a further branch into the Eastern Counties was approved in 1846.

In July 1846 the L&BR merged with theGrand Junction Railway and theManchester and Birmingham Railway to form theLondon and North Western Railway, which in turn was later absorbed into theLondon Midland and Scottish Railway, before finally passing into the hands of the nationalisedBritish Railways in 1948 to become part of theWest Coast Main Line as it is known today. The major change to the line during this period was electrification, which was carried out during the mid-1960s as part of BR's Modernisation Plan.

Neither of the L&BR's original termini, both designed byPhilip Hardwick, has survived in its original form. Curzon Street station in Birmingham closed to passenger traffic in 1854 (the original entrance building remains) when it was replaced byNew Street station and the original Euston station in London was demolished in 1962 to make way for the present structure which opened in 1968. On the closure of Curzon Street as a passenger station, the site became the London and North Western Railway goods depot (Birmingham) and became fully operational in 1865. The Curzon Street goods site continued railway operations as a parcel depot until 1966. The remaining parts of the old passenger station received listed building status in 1952.^[12]

• 
  TheEuston Arch and Euston station entrance byEdward Radclyffe
• 
  Willesden railway station (opened July 1842) and Acton Lane level crossing
• 
  The Harrow on Hill railway cutting, 1838^[13]
• 
  Berkhamsted railway station in 1838 with theGrand Junction Canal to the right^[14]
• 
  Denbigh Hall railway bridge
• 
  Beechwood Tunnel near Coventry
• 
  TheAvon Viaduct atWolston in 1838^[13]
• 
  The Birmingham Terminus, as intended with flanking arches, but these were not built
• 
  LMS London and Birmingham Railway Centenary 1938 souvenir, illustrating the 2-2-0 locomotive ofEdward Bury

• John Cooke Bourne
• Locomotives of the London and North Western Railway
• Wolverton railway works

• Elliot, Peter H. (1985).Rugby's Railway Heritage. Anderson Publications.ISBN 0-907917-06-2.
• Gould, David (1987).The London & Birmingham Railway 150 Years on. David & Charles.ISBN 0-7153-8968-8.
• Hough, Richard. "The London and Birmingham."History Today (Aug 1951) 1#8 pp 51–57
• Jack, Harry (2001).Locomotives of the LNWR Southern Division, London & Birmingham Railway & Wolverton Locomotive Works. Railway Correspondence and Travel Society.ISBN 0-901115-89-4.
• Lecount, Peter (1839).The History of the Railway connecting London and Birmingham.
• Whishaw, Francis (1842).The Railways of Great Britain and Ireland Practically Described and Illustrated (2nd ed.). London: John Weale. pp. 218–255.OCLC 833076248.
• Williams, Frederick S. (1852).Our Iron Roads: Their History, Construction and Social Influences. Ingram, Cooke, and co. pp. 128–129.high level bridge.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
London & Birmingham Railway (category)

• London and Birmingham Railway at Camden Railway Heritage Trust
• Reynolds, Chris."The Railways of Hertfordshire".Hertfordshire Genealogy.Archived from the original on 29 March 2016. Retrieved28 March 2019.
• March 1843 Timetable .Bradshaw's Guides – viaWikisource.

• London and Birmingham Railway
• Railway companies established in 1833
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