North Union Railway

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The North Union Railway was an early British railway company, formed in 1834.

Contents

[edit] Origins

The North Union Railway resulted from the first railway amalgamation in British history. The two companies were the Wigan Branch Railway and the Wigan and Preston Junction Railway. The former was a branchline from the Liverpool and Manchester Railway at Parkside, serving local coal mines (particularly by a branch to New Springs) and the town of Wigan. The latter was originally promoted as a separate company, to connect Wigan with Preston, now the County Town.

The line was fully opened in 1838, and ran from the Liverpool and Manchester Railway at Parkside, near Warrington, northwards to Preston, via Wigan. It was taken over by the Grand Junction Railway, in association with the Manchester and Leeds Railway, in 1846.

[edit] Joint ownership

The North Union eventually came into the joint ownership of the successors to those earlier companies: respectively, the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) and the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (LYR). Early rationalisation of the joint venture saw that part of the North Union between Euxton Junction and Parkside vested in the LNWR and that between Euxton Junction and Bolton with the LYR.

The part between Euxton Junction and Preston - including the major part of Preston station remained in joint ownership up to the 1923 Grouping.[1] This stretch of the West Coast Main Line between London Euston and Carlisle was the only part not wholly owned by the LNWR.

To cope with ever increaing traffic, the line was quadrupled between 1889 and 1891 (Biddle, 1989).

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ In 1921 the LYR was absorbed by the LNWR so from that date the North Union Railway had only one owner

[edit] References

Biddle, G. (1989) The Railways Around Preston - A Historical Review, Scenes from the Past: No. 6, Foxline Publishing, ISBN 1-870119-05-3

[edit] Stations

Rail stub icon  This United Kingdom railway-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.