The start of a national journey... the frontage of Liverpool Street Station, the Manchester terminus of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway; it is now part of the city’s Museum of Science and Industry. In 1825, the Stockton and Darlington Railway became the first railway line anywhere in the world to carry fare-paying passengers behind steam locomotives. The Liverpool and Manchester, opened on September 15th, 1830, was the first dedicated inter-city passenger line, turning the S&D’s pioneering experiment into a commercial reality.
Part 1 of 2
BEFORE the establishment of the Liverpool and Manchester railway,* there were twenty-two regular and about seven occasional extra [road] coaches between those places, which, in full, could only carry per day 688 persons. The railway, from its commencement, carried 700,000 persons in eighteen months being an average of 1,070 per day. The fare by coach was 10s inside, and 5s outside* — by railway it is 5s inside, and 3s 6d outside.* The time occupied in making the journey by coach was four hours — by railway it is one hour and three-quarters. All the coaches but one have ceased running, and that chiefly for the conveyance of parcels. The mails all travel by the railway, at a saving to government of two-thirds of the expense.
Gentlemen’s carriages are conveyed on trucks by the railway. The locomotives travel in safety after dark. The rate of carriage of goods is 106s per ton; by canal it used to be 156s per ton. The time occupied in the journey by railway is two hours; by canal it is twenty hours. The canals have reduced their rates 30 per cent.
* The line opened with much fanfare on September 15th, 1830, but the occasion was marred by the tragedy of a fatal accident to William Huskisson MP. See The Liverpool and Manchester Railway. The railway was funded by private investors, and cost £739,165 to build. In its first year of operation, it turned a profit of £71,098, rising to £136,688 in 1844. For a contemporary view of the advantages of infrastructure projects funded by the private sector over those funded by the taxpayer, see Macaulay’s remarks in Roses and Poor-Rates, written shortly before the railway opened.
* On a visit to England in 1782, Karl Philipp Moritz had observed that “they have here a curious way of riding, not in, but upon a stage-coach. Persons to whom it is not convenient to pay a full price, instead of the inside, sit on the top of the coach, without any seats or even a rail.” See Roof Riders.
* In the case of railway passengers, ‘riding on the outside’ meant sitting in trucks open to the elements. “The first-class were covered carriages, intended only for the well-to-do” said William T. Jackman (1871-1951) in ‘The Development of Transportation in Modern England’ (1916); “the third-class carriages were at first open and exposed to all the changes of the atmosphere, and were for the poor; while the second-class accommodation was intermediate in quality and cost, and was for the great middle class.”
Précis
In 1832, the ‘Annual Review’ catalogued some benefits brought by the Liverpool and Manchester Railway since its opening two years before. Compared to the roads, the railway had increased passenger numbers by 55%, and cut prices and journey times in half; canals had slashed their rates by 30% to compete with trains that were making the trip ten times faster. (57 / 60 words)
Part Two
Chat Moss is a peat bog prone to serious flooding that was one of the sternest engineering challenges facing George Stephenson and his assistant Joseph Locke during the construction of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Stephenson solved the problem by floating the line on nearly five miles of heather bundles topped with tar and rubble, and one Sunday in 2014, nearly two centuries later, Class 175 Coradia DMU No. 175102 rattled over the Moss working for Arriva Trains Wales.
GOODS [are] delivered in Manchester the same day they are received in Liverpool. By canal they were never delivered before the third day. By railway, goods, such as wines and spirits, are not subject to the pilferage which existed on the canals. The saving to manufacturers in the neighbourhood of Manchester, in the carriage of cotton alone, has been £20,000 per annum. Some houses of business save £500 a-year in carriage. Persons now go from Manchester to Liverpool and back in the same day with great ease. Formerly they were generally obliged to be absent the greater part of two days.
The railway is assessed to the parochial rates in all the parishes through which it passes; though only thirty-one miles, it pays between £3,000 and £4,000 per annum in parochial rates. Coal-pits have been sunk, and manufactories established on the line, giving great employment to the poor, thus reducing the number of claimants for parochial relief. The railway pays one-fifth of the poor-rates in the parishes through which it passes.
Précis
As well as enabling day trips to Manchester or Liverpool and saving North West business thousands of pounds daily in freight costs, the trains were causing new businesses and jobs to spring up all along the route. Even locals dependent on the parish poor-rate had reason to be grateful, as the railway now contributed a fifth of their funding. (59 / 60 words)
