Posts Tagged ‘North Staffordshire Railway Company’

The first passenger train from Stoke

September 26th, 2012

Stone Station

Isolated from the main railway network that was constructed in the 1830s, North Staffordshire’s pottery industry had to rely on canals for raw materials and to distribute its products.

During 1835, leading industrialists made plans to build a railway linking The Potteries to the national network.

These plans were forgotten when North Staffordshire was hit by a recession. Factories and mines closed. There were strikes and lock outs culminating in the Chartist Riots and the Battle of Burslem in 1842.

Two years later, pottery manufacturer William Copeland, who was also a Member of Parliament, called a series of meetings to discuss building railway links to Manchester, Liverpool and Birkenhead.

The North Staffordshire Railway Company was formed to construct the Churnet Valley Line and lines running from Macclesfield and Crewe through The Potteries to Norton Bridge, Colwich and Burton-on-Trent.

The company’s first line ran from Stoke to Norton Bridge. Opened for goods traffic on April 3rd, 1848, the line started carrying passengers shortly afterwards.

Between 7.30am and 8.00am on Monday, April 17th about 80 people made their way, by carriage and horse drawn omnibus, to the 18th century mansion in Fenton built by Thomas Whieldon which had been turned into a temporary railway station.

They entered the building and bought tickets to travel on the first passenger train from Stoke-on-Trent to Norton Bridge which stopped at Trentham and Stone.

Just before 8.00am a bell rang. The passengers got on the train. The engine driver blew the locomotive’s whistle. He opened the throttle. Clouds of steam engulfed the platform. Smoke poured out of the locomotive’s funnel and the train began to move slowly. It quickly gathered speed and was soon travelling at 25 miles a hour, terrifying cattle and sheep grazing in trackside pastures.

A temporary station had been built at Stone, where the train stopped for several minutes enabling passengers to get out and view the construction work taking place there. They saw men constructing a line from Stone to the Trent Valley Railway’s mainline at Colwich that would provide a direct route for express trains running between Stoke and London. At the junction, where the Colwich line joined  the Norton Bridge line, an Elizabethan style station, with corn and cheese warehouses, coal yards and cattle pens, was being built.

A bell rang and the passengers rejoined the train. The train left Stone and arrived at Norton Bridge just half a hour after it had left Fenton. Passengers got off and caught a mail train that took them to Stafford which they reached before 9.00am.

Copyright Betty Cooper – The Phoenix Trust 2012

Photograph © Copyright Maurice Pullin and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

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Focus on Kidsgrove – The Loop Line

March 31st, 2012

The “loop line” closed in the 1960s and the track was taken up. Today, this section between Birchenwood and Kidsgrove is a popular walkway.

Construction of the North Staffordshire Railway Company’s “loop line” began at 3.00pm on Thursday, July 21st, 1870, when Burslem’s chief bailiff, John Watkin, cut the first sod.

To build the line, which formed a “loop” that ran from the mainline at Etruria through Hanley, Burslem and Tunstall to the mainline at Kidsgrove, civil engineering contractors John and William Pickering had to erect new stations at Etruria and Hanley, make the single track branch line from Etruria to Hanley double tracked and extend it to Kidsgrove.

Because the route from Hanley to Kidsgrove crossed valleys and climbed hills, work progressed slowly. A tunnel was constructed to take the line from Vale Place (Hanley) to Cobridge. An embankment was created to carry the railway over the Hot Lane Brook Valley between Cobridge and Burslem and a 40 foot high sixteen arched wooden viaduct was built to take it across the Scotia Brook Valley into Tunstall.

Hanley’s new station and the stations at Cobridge, Burslem and Tunstall were opened on December 1st, 1873. Almost a year later, on October 1st, 1874 stations were opened at Pittshill and Goldenhill. The line was completed on November 15th, 1875 when Kidsgrove’s Liverpool Road Station opened.

Pulled by 2-4-0 or 2-4-2 tank locomotives “loop line” trains ran between Kidsgrove and Longton or Blythe Bridge. Made up of one or two sets of four close coupled four wheeled carriages, the trains, which stopped at every station, carried first, second and third class passengers.

Station staff, engine drivers and firemen, signalmen, plate layers and other employees of the North Staffordshire Railway Company followed working practices and procedures based on military discipline.

When a man started working on the railway, he entered “the company’s service” and became its servant.

Railwaymen did not go to work, they reported for duty wearing the company’s uniform which included a peaked cap with the letters NSR embroidered inside the loops of the de Stafford knot, a pocket watch and chain, a jacket and a pair of corduroy trousers.

Their jobs were called “posts” and when they left their posts they were “relieved from duty”.

A man who failed to report for duty or who left his post without permission was “absent without leave”. He could be “put on a charge” and fined, suspended from duty or discharged from the service.

Copyright David Martin – The Phoenix Trust 2012

Photograph Copyright David Martin – The Phoenix Trust 2012

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Bringing the railway to the Potteries

September 16th, 2011

Stoke StationStoke Station

The railway age began in 1830 when the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington, opened the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.

Between 1830 and 1842 numerous railway companies were formed and over 2,000 miles of track was laid. The mainline linking London and Birmingham with Liverpool and Manchester by passed the Potteries. When asked to run the line through Stoke, civil engineers employed by the North Western Railway said there was no way that a rail link could be constructed from Crewe to the Potteries because it was impossible to drive a tunnel under Harecastle Hill between Chatterley and Kidsgrove.  Hardly anyone believed them. The Trent and Mersey Canal Company had already built two tunnels there to take the canal through the hill.

In 1845, pottery manufacturer John Ridgway, who owned Cauldon Pottery, and the district’s two Members of Parliament, William Copeland and John Lewis Ricardo, decided to form the North Staffordshire Railway Company.

Ricardo was made company chairman and civil engineer George Parker Bidder was employed to survey routes for the lines it hoped to build.

On Wednesday, September 23rd, 1846 the company’s shareholders held their first meeting in Stoke town hall. The company’s secretary, John Samuda, told them that Parliament had given it permission to build three lines:

  1. The Potteries Line – from Macclesfield to Colwich running through Congleton, Stoke and Stone which had branches to Newcastle-under-Lyme and Norton Bridge.
  2. The Churnet Valley Line – from North Rode to Burton-on-Trent and Derby which ran through Leek and had a branch from Uttoxeter to Crewe via Stoke.
  3. The Harecastle and Sandbach Line – from Kidsgrove to Sandbach.

Civil engineering contractors Mackenzie, Brassey and Stephenson were employed to build the Potteries Line and its branches. The contract to construct the lines from Kidsgrove to Crewe and Sandbach was given to Grisell and Peto. Tredwells were given the contract to build the Churnet Valley Line and Prices were employed to construct the link between Uttoxeter and Stoke.

When the meeting ended the shareholders had lunch. Afterwards they marched in procession along streets decorated with garlands and bunting to Cliffe Vale where Ricardo cut the first sod. In the evening there was a ball at the town hall and a firework display in Winton’s Wood where Stoke station (pictured) was erected.

Photograph © Copyright Stephen McKay and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Visit our discussion forum at www.northstaffordshire.co.uk/discuss where you can create your own topics on important social and political issues affecting North Staffordshire or comment on existing topics including:

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Do you remember the Audley line?

May 6th, 2011
The Railway Inn (Halmerend)

The Railway Inn near the site of Halmerend Station (Copyright Phoenix Images)

Two popular short walks the Merelake Way from Alsager to Merelake  and the Marion Platt Way from Bignall End to Halmerend follow the route of the North Staffordshire Railway Company’s Audley line. Built to serve local collieries, the line cost £157,965. It ran for just over seven miles from Alsager on the Kidsgrove/Crewe line to Keele on the Silverdale/Market Drayton line. The line opened on July 24th, 1870.

A passenger service was introduced  ten years later when stations were built at Audley, Halmerend and Leycett. Passenger trains on the line ran between Kidsgrove to Stoke via Alsager, Silverdale and Newcastle-under-Lyme. A new station Alsager Road was built near the junction with the Kidsgrove/Crewe line in 1889. The service was uneconomic and the last passenger train ran in January, 1931 although the line remained open for freight until 1963.

Do you have any memories of the line or the collieries along its route? Log in or register and share them with us.

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The Potters’ Railway (1846-48)

December 4th, 2010

Stoke-on-Trent Station

Cut off from the rail network being built to link London, Liverpool and Manchester, industry in North Staffordshire faced an uncertain future.

Despite pressure from local people, the Grand Junction Railway refused to run its main line from Crewe to Stafford via Stoke.

Engineers said it was impossible to build a tunnel under Harecastle Hill between Kidsgrove and Chatterley. Nobody believed them. There were already two canal tunnels which took the Trent and Mersey Canal through the hill. The Grand Junction Railway did not have the money to build a tunnel. Its mainline by passed the Potteries although a station was built at Whitmore, a village near Newcastle.

Led by pottery manufacturer John Ridgway, leading industrialists and colliery owners wanted the region to have its own railways and in 1846 they formed the North Staffordshire Railway Company.

Parliament gave the company permission to build three lines:

  1. The Potteries Line from Macclesfield to Colwich with branches to Crewe, Newcastle and Norton Bridge,
  2. The Churnet Valley Line from North Rode to Burton-on-Trent, via Leek and Uttoxeter, with a branch line to Derby, and
  3. The Stoke to Uttoxeter Line, via Longton and Blyth Bridge.

Work started on September 23rd, 1846 when the company’s chairman John Lewis Ricardo cut the first sod at Cliffe Vale.

Railway contractor, Thomas Brassey was employed to construct the Potteries Line and its branches to Newcastle and Norton Bridge. Starting from a temporary station at Wheildon Grove, Fenton the line to Norton Bridge was opened in April, 1848 and on August 7th the first passenger trains ran along the Stoke to Uttoxeter Line.

Men worked to complete the Potteries Line. Viaducts were constructed at North Rode and Congleton to carry it over the River Dane and the Dane in Shaw brook. Track was laid between Stoke and Congleton and Elizabethan style stations, designed by London architect Henry Hunt, were erected.

At Kidsgrove where the Crewe branch joined the Potteries Line over 1,500 men spent two years building a tunnel to take the railway under Harecastle Hill. Approached through an arched roofed cutting and two open cuttings separated by a short tunnel 183 yards long, the main tunnel is 1,768 yards long, 25 feet wide and 22 feet high. More than 15 million bricks were used in its construction, Both tunnels remained in use until 1966 when the line was electrified and diverted through Bathpool Park.

In Stoke workmen were laying out Winton Square where houses for senior staff and the North Stafford Hotel were being built. Stoke station, a Jacobean style building faced the square. Designed by Henry Hunt the station which cost £30,000 had two platforms with their own entrance halls, booking offices, waiting rooms and restaurants. It opened on October 9th, 1848 when passenger trains started running from Stoke to Crewe and Congleton.

Copyright Betty Cooper – The Phoenix Trust 2010

Photograph of Stoke Station © Copyright Row17 and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

 

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