Talk:Northampton Loop Line
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When in 1834 the route of the main line was being decided, Northampton objected[1] to having a railway station. This meant that the Kilsby Tunnel had to be built to bypass Northampton
According to my book Rugby's Railway Heritage the London and Birmingham Railway wasn't built through Northampton because the gradients were too steep. G-Man * 22:29, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
- That's credible too, but clearly (since the loop line manages the climb), it needs support. The "Northampton didn't want it" story has wide currency, but the citation I found is someone's personal website and doesn't cite its source. Yet another version I heard was that Northampton was too far off the direct line and it would be easier to pop a little tunnel under Kilsby, same as at Linslade. We really need a primary source - without it, I don't think we can say anything. Do you want to change it for now to something like "a variety of reasons for this have been proposed and contemporary evidence is needed to provide a definitative explanation"? --Concrete Cowboy 17:40, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
- I believe that the early locomotives of the 1830s weren't powerful enough to cope with anything but the slightest gradients. By the 1870s however locomotives had become a lot more powerful. To be more specific my book states: Northampton had been exceptionally unlucky as far as railway connections were concerned. The London & Birmingham could not, with gradients that had been set for the main line, pass via the town
