Articles from the Thoroton Society Newsletter

The Midland Counties Railway 1839 - 1844

(concluding Kerry Donlan's article from the previous issue).

By the end of 1839, The Midland Counties Railway despatched and received trains for access from and to Nottingham.

From/Destination Railway Company tracks used
Derby Midland Counties Railway
London Midland Counties Railway to Derby Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway to Hampton London and Birmingham Railway to London
Birmingham Midland Counties Railway to Derby Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway to Hampton London and Birmingham Railway to Birmingham
Liverpool Manchester Bolton Wigan Midland Counties Railway to Derby Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway to Hampton London and Birmingham Railway from Hampton Grand Junction Railway from Birmingham, then Liverpool and Manchester Railway
Preston Midland Counties Railway to Derby Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway to Hampton London and Birmingham Railway to Birmingham Grand Junction Railway from Birmingham

Note: There were no rail links to Bristol, Sheffield, Wales, Eastern Counties, North of York or Scotland at this time.

Livestock

Before railways, livestock was usually moved by 'driving' - i.e. walking the livestock to market, which reduced the weight and value of the animals. Other than for shorter distances, the railways captured almost all of the livestock trade. Farmers had access to more distant markets and had more choice of when to send their stock to market, therefore maximising their profits. Thousands of stations had livestock pens, as urban populations grew and per capita income rose, both the farming community and the railway companies capitalised on this opportunity. In 1831 the Liverpool and Manchester Railway began the first steam railway cattle trains. The Midland Counties Railway provided cattle trucks for this rapidly increasing trade, these were merely pens on wheels, roofed wagons appeared in 1848, after the formation of the Midland Railway in 1844.

Railway cattle pens still existed until the 1950s at the corner of the locomotive depot at the junction of Wilford Road and Middle Furlong Road in The Meadows, but road transport had by then reduced the railway livestock trade.

Midland Counties Railway Livestock Traffic, Half-yearly returns to the Privy Council for Trade, 1 July 1842 to 31 December 1842.

Cattle 4,422
Pigs/sheep 6,374
Total 10,796

As Nottingham was a main urban centre on the railway, a significant number of the above is likely to have been transported to the town. Livestock trains averaged 14 mph inclusive of all stops, compared to 21 mph for passenger trains. Nottingham would be required to adhere to the conditions of the 1848 Public Health Act. The rapid increase in railway livestock traffic into already congested urban areas did, in part, increase the pressure on the State to define and enforce higher standards of public health.

The 1848 Public Health Act included:

The Acts of 1848 responded to the problem of trade in diseased livestock by:

1849: The State responded to an actual/potential problem arising from, in part, livestock transported by railways, requiring the conveying of animals on or in any vehicle not to cause unnecessary suffering.

Nottingham, The Midland Counties Railway and the Railway Clearing House, 1842

The rapidly increasing number of different railway companies was a product of the State's adherence to a laissez-faire economic policy that demand would call forth supply. The result was a piecemeal, uncoordinated emergence of a national railway network, driven by the competitive maximising of profit for share-holders, a lack of co-operation and in some examples, outright confrontation and hostility.

If, in 1839, passengers wished to travel from Nottingham to London they would travel on several companies lines as noted in the table above.

Only the Midland Counties Railway would have received payment, although it contributed the shortest mileage to the journey.

In the age before telephones and the telegraph, transactions between railway companies was by letter, this was both costly and time-consuming. Some railway companies did not accept 'through tickets'; the passenger or freight owner would have to pay them directly. Some railways would not accept 'through traffic', i.e. only their carriages and wagons would be allowed to onto their railway. Given the laissez-faire origin of the railway network, these attitudes were perhaps understandable. Britain was the first nation in history to construct a national, steam operated railway network, therefore there was no precedent to follow.

Railway companies quickly concluded that these practices were a constraint on traffic growth and on profitability. A group of railway companies set up the Railway Clearing House, operating from 2 January 1842 to settle accounting between the companies, to provide standard mileage rates for passenger and freight through traffic and to check the loading of wagons for through traffic.

The nine founding members of the Railway Clearing House were:

(Midland Counties and North Midland amalgamated in 1844 to form the Midland Railway which lasted until 1922).

The individual customer, the national economy and international trade benefitted because the Railway Clearing House increased the efficiency and profitability of the participating companies. Membership was always voluntary, most railway companies became members in the 19th century.

Bradshaws and Nottingham 1842 -1961

The piecemeal emergence of the railway companies did not provide the customer with a ready method of planning their journeys, in particular when involving changing trains and using more than one railway company to complete the journey.

Bradshaws collected the passenger timetables of each railway company into one publication, this appearing half-way through the short life of the Midland Counties Company. Bradshaws was never replaced by a rival publication, evidence of its value in an age of rapidly increasing commercial and private travel. Some details were provided about local hotel accommodation and limited information of shipping services. Goods traffic was not included.

As a developing urban, manufacturing centre, Bradshaws assisted Nottingham in participating more efficiently into, and contrbuting to the economic and social transformation of Britain.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert's visit to Nottingham: Royalty travelling on the steam railway - Midland Counties, 1843

Queen Victoria became the first British monarch to travel by train on 12 June 1842, travelling by Brunel's broad gauge (7 feet ¼ inch) Great Western Railway from Windsor to London.

Railway companies paid attention to image, safety, reliability and speed. Several railway companies provided the Monarch with her own special coach built for this purpose. The London and Birmingham Railway built two four-wheeled royal carriages in 1842 and 1843 for the Dowager Queen Adelaide and for Queen Victoria. Possibly the latter carriage was used for Victoria's visit to Nottingham on Monday 4 December 1843. Such a visit would confer status on both the railway and town of Nottingham.

It was important for the Head of State to be widely seen. Rail travel was easier, faster and safer than road travel, in particular with the control of crowds. The Monarch could stand at the carriage window, enabling large numbers of people to see her. In turbulent political times such as Parliamentary reform, Chartism, Ireland and widespread revolution in Europe, the image of the Head of State was employed as a stabilising factor.

The Midland Counties Railway informed the Mayor of the Queen's schedule for the Nottingham visit:

9.00 am leave Chatsworth by coach
10.00 am Leave Chesterfield the North Midland on Railway
10.50 am Leave Derby on the Midland Counties Railway
11.30 am Arrive at Nottingham station (the site now occupied by the Magistrates Courts and County
1.45 pm Archives buildings) Arrive at Belvoir by road. There was no rail access to Belvoir until 1850

The Queen was to be received by the Corporation, Sheriff, Under-Sheriff and Surveyor. A general holiday was proclaimed. The cost of the royal visit to Nottingham was £129. 7s. 9d., which included £40. 3s. 9d. to gravel the street named New London Road which was renamed The Queen's Road.

Victoria travelled widely by train, her assertion of, and her right to a private life, resulted in frequent rail travel to her home at Osborne (acquired 1843) and Balmoral (acquired 1848).

Accidents

The Midland Counties Railway operated before the far higher level of rail travel evident later in the 19th century. As Britain was the pioneer of the steam railway there was no precedent to follow, no clear definition of what qualified as an accident. For example, did a goods wagon derailed from a siding with no injury to persons or cargo, come into the same category as a collision resulting in the death of a passenger?

The laissez-faire state required safety at work to be largely outside of its proper jurisdiction and the State did not require national statistics on deaths in coal mines to be compiled until 1952. On the clipper ship "Cutty Sark (1869), a condition of signing on as a crew member required the sailor to accept that safety was a personal matter.

Railway work was overwhelmingly a working class male occupation. The working class did not have the vote and therefore could not directly influence legislation to strengthen safety, in particular the length of time on duty. The repeal of the Combination Acts, 1824-25, confirmed that trade unions were no longer illegal, however they did not achieve full legal status until the 1906 Trade Union Act, and at that time two-thirds of adults did not have the vote.

In 1832 the first of six Acts reforming Parliament was passed, only four years prior to the inauguration of the Midland Counties Railway. Every government in the 19th century was dominated by male Anglican property owners who fulfilled the property qualification required to be an MP. The rapid growth of the railway network, the increased weight and speed of trains, and the decision by the State not to impose standards of effectiveness for locomotive brakes and signalling resulted in a rapid increase in accidents and casualties. Working class male railway workers were the main casualties involving railway staff.

The Midland Counties Railway, whilst not being free of accidents, recorded relatively few. There were no fatal accidents to passengers. A railway timekeeper was killed on 4 January 1843, whilst attempting to jump onto a moving train. The most serious running accident seems to have been at Ullesthorpe on 6 March 1843, when a locomotive tender axle broke, derailing two carriages, fortunately without any injuries. There were later fatal accidents and other serious accidents on former Midland Counties lines in Nottingham after the amalgamation to form the Midland Railway in 1844.

An 1839 enquiry into railways concluded that there must be a state supervisory role. The first Act to regulate railways (1840) empowered the Board of Trade to authorise any proper person or persons to inspect any railway. The 1842 Railways Act required that the Railway committee of the Board of Trade be informed withing 48 hours of 'serious injury to the public' (railway workers were excluded), and within 14 days of all accidents. The Midland Counties was subject to both of these Acts.

The 1844 Railways Act - a State-owned Railway for Nottingham?

This Act post-dated the amalgamation of the Midland Counties railway into the Midland Railway, but is evidence of pressure building for reforms before the opening, and during the operation of, the Midland Railway.

Laissez-faire economics upheld that demand would call forth supply, resources would be mobilised and the most efficient supplier would capture the trade. This would, in theory, forestall monopoly from acting against this principle by charging the customer higher rates than an open market would allow. This method had some justification with Turnpike Trusts and Canal companies, the owners of these routes were not the carriers, however with public railways, the route owner was also the carrier. The State was confronted by a system it had authorised, potentially acting in a monopolistic way against the public interest.

The 1844 Act empowered the State to impose compulsory purchase of any railway (that is, a new line), after 21 years, following inauguration after this Act, when profits had reached 10% per annum in the last three years, compensation based on profits would be paid. The objective was to protect the public interest against monopoly, by the State acting as the impartial provider, as it did with the Post Office. This Act would, in theory, apply to the lines from Nottingham:

The Act was not implemented, and apart from Ireland, the State remained outside of finance and railway ownership until nationalisation on 1 January 1948.

Perhaps the better known clause of the 1844 Act is the '1d a mile' requirement. The duty of the laisiez-faire state was to remove obstacles to self-improvement. The duty of the directors of the railway companies was to maximise profits, in what was for many routes a monopoly of trade. The pricing policy of some railways was prohibitive to those of modest incomes which, in effect, acted against self-improvement and economic development.

The State intervened and every railway company must provide on each passenger line:

The Privy Council for Trade had the final power to decide the times these trains ran. These times became known as the "Parliamentary trains" and significantly increased the number of passengers carried.

Nottingham and the Electric Telegraph

The 1844 Act required railway companies to allow telegraph lines to be installed along railway routes on railway property. Messages on Her Majesty's Service had priority, the railway company had the use of the telegraph, as did the public, without favour or preference.

For the first time in history, Nottingham residents, business, local government and MPs had access to instant communications in what would become a nationwide facility.

A Broad Gauge Railway for Nottingham? The 1846 Gauge Act

The gauge of the railway is the distance between the vertical faces on the insides of the two rails forming the track. The wheel flanges do not carry the weight of the locomotive, carriage or wagon, but keep the wheels in place between the two vertical faces of the insides of the rails. The wheel rim runs along the top of the rail, carrying the weight of the locomotive, carriage or wagon. The origins of the railway gauge are open to discussion. Animal drawn wagons on metalled roads wearing grooves in the road surface (Babylonia, Greece, Rome) seems a credible explanation. However, which type of animal? Single? Abreast? Tandem? The gauge of Britain's first recorded railway (Wollaton 1603/4) is unknown. George Stephenson supposedly decided that the gauge of the Stockton and Darlington, the world's first public railway hauled by steam traction in 1825, would be 4' 8½"which was based on the axle length of carts used in the area. However, the Ardrossen Railway, with horse-drawn traffic until 1840, used the 4' gauge.

The State, committed to a policy of laissez-faire economics, did not impose any standard gauge on railways, as it had done with canals. Steam railways originated in industry - iron works, coal mines etc., and did not link up to any national network. Each board of directors approved the gauge of their railway. This was a critical decision when considering costs, i.e. how much land would be needed, width and height of tunnels, width of over-bridges, width between platforms at stations. Once these costly investments had been completed, alterations to a gauge broader than the original would incur prohibitive costs.

The steam railway locomotive was in the infancy of its development. Some railway companies favoured small locomotives, e.g. the London and Birmingham Railway (open 1837-46), adding locomotives to trains if needed. There is one example of seven locomotives hauling one train.

The London and Birmingham used the 4' 8½" gauge. Brunel, on the Great Western Railway, favoured the 7' 0¼" gauge, which enabled the use of larger, more powerful locomotives. The 'Broad Gauge' was always in the minority of route mileage compared to the Stephenson or 'Narrow Gauge', and despite its clear superiority in the power and speed of its locomotives, and the stability of its trains, had been entirely rebuilt to the 'Narrow Gauge' by 1892.

The Act of Parliament of 1836 inaugurating the Midland Counties Railway, referred to it linking with the London and Birmingham Railway (inaugurated 1833) at Rugby, the latter used the 4' 8½" gauge. The decision to use the same gauge was, in effect imposed onto the Midland Counties if it was to pass traffic onto, and receive traffic from, the London and Birmingham without transhipment.

The Government, increasingly concerned at the lack of gauge uniformity acted to address what it correctly concluded was a built-in economic disadvantage, requiring the unloading and reloading of goods where different gauges met, also the transhipment of passengers. The Gauge Commission of 1845 heard evidence to assist the State in imposing its decision.

Track relaying at Bobbers Mill, Nottingham
2013. Track relaying at Bobbers Mill, Nottingham. The Nottingham to Mansfield Act predated the 1846 Gauge Act and it would have been built to the 6 foot gauge if that gauge had been accepted by the Midland Counties Railway.

Brunel told the Commission that if he was starting again he would have used a gauge broader than 7' 0¼". Charles Vignoles, engineer for the Midland Counties Railway, stated he would have preferred to use a 6'o" gauge in Nottingham, but would have faced the requirement of the 1846 Railway Gauge Act that no new railways could be built, other than to the 4' 8½" gauge, unless specifically authorised by an Act of Parliament. The Irish system was set at 5' 3" gauge. However, the Railway Gauge Act of 18 August 1846, postdated the Nottingham to Lincoln line, inaugurated 1845, also post-dating the Nottingham to Mansfield Railway of 1846, therefore Nottingham would be in the centre of a 6' gauge network:

If the 1846 Railway Gauge Act had still imposed the 4' 8½" gauge, Nottingham would have suffered the same long-term disadvantages as did Brunel and the Great Western Railway. Fortunately this was not the case.

MCR: Table of Fares

Some Main Nottingham Rail Links by 31 December 1844

Barrow, Birkenhead, Blackburn, Bolton, Bradford, Brighton, Bristol, Carlisle, Cheltenham, Chester, Chichester, Crewe, Darlington, Derby, Didcot, Dover, Ely, Exeter, Glossop, Gloucester, Hartlepool, Holyhead, Hull, Ipswich, Lancaster, Leamington, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, London, Loughborough, Macclesfield, Malton, Manchester, Margate, Maryport, Middlesborough, Newcastle, Normanton, North Shields, South Shields, Oldham, Oxford, Peterborough, Plymouth, Preston, Ramsgate, Rotherham, Rugby, Salisbury, Selby, Sheffield, Southampton, Stafford, Stockport, Stockton, Sunderland, Swindon, Tamworth, Whitby, Whitehaven, Wolverhapton, Wrexham, York.

At 31 December 1844 Steam Railway travel to and from Nottingham could involve travelling over the following former and existing Railway Company routes and lines for both Passengers and freight. There was no link to Scotland and only North Wales was connected

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