Warrington and Newton Railway

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The Warrington and Newton Railway was an early railway company in England. It acted as a feeder to the original Liverpool and Manchester Railway, opening only one year later in 1831. The line ran for 4.5 miles from a junction with the L&MR at Newton Junction (now Earlestown) to the original Warrington terminus just North of the town centre. After seven years the railway was absorbed into the new Grand Junction Railway, to form part of the route from Birmingham to Liverpool and Manchester. A new line was built on the present route around the West side of Warrington, and a new station was built slightly to the North of today's Bank Quay station.

The central 2.5 mile stretch of the original line between Bewsey and Winwick Junction (since expanded to four tracks wide) now forms part of today's West Coast Main Line, therefore representing the very first part of the London to Glasgow route to be constructed.

The southernmost stub of the line survived for over a century as sidings serving a brewery, cable factory and steel mill, and the original station was used as a coal depot. Although both are now gone, the station building still exists as the 'Three Pigeons' hotel [1] on the corner of Tanners Lane and Dallam Lane.[2]