The London and Birmingham Railway
THERE were trains for freight, mail and passengers, including plush first class carriages for six, and even ‘bed-carriages’, the first sleeper trains; one’s brougham or landau could also be loaded onto a flat waggon.* Second class carriages seated eight, but third class carriages had no roof, and were liable to be coupled next to a cattle truck.
Two magnificent terminal stations were designed by Philip Hardwick in the Greek classical style, one at Curzon Street in Birmingham and another at Euston in London, where in 1849 a Great Hall was added, with eight allegorical statues representing cities along the route, and one of George Stephenson.
The Curzon Street entrance still stands, though the station was superseded by New Street in 1854. Hardwick’s Euston, with its spacious hall, tall Doric arch and elegant wrought-iron trainshed roof, was wantonly destroyed in 1962, entirely in the name of ‘progress’.
In 1946, the London and Birmingham Railway merged with its northern neighbours to form the London and North Western Railway.
Two kinds of gentleman’s horse-drawn road carriage. The first English-built landaus appeared in the 1830s, and Lord Brougham placed his first orders with London coachbuilder Robinson & Cook just about the time when the London & Birmingham opened to the public.