18 Facts About Midland Railway

Midland Railway was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844.

The Midland was one of the largest railway companies in Britain in the early 20th century, and the largest employer in Derby, where it had its headquarters.

James Allport from the Birmingham and Derby Junction Midland Railway found a place elsewhere in Hudson's empire with the York, Newcastle and Berwick Midland Railway, though he later returned.

The former Birmingham and Derby Junction Midland Railway was left with the traffic to Birmingham and Bristol, an important seaport.

The original 1839 line from Derby had run to Hampton-in-Arden: the Birmingham and Derby Junction Midland Railway had built a terminus at Lawley Street in 1842, and on 1 May 1851 the MR started to run into Curzon Street.

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Permission had been gained for the Northern and Eastern Midland Railway to run through Peterborough and Lincoln but it had barely reached Cambridge.

In spite of the objections of Hudson, for the MR and others, the "London and York Midland Railway" led by Edmund Denison persisted, and the bill passed through Parliament in 1846.

In 1851 the Ambergate, Nottingham, Boston and Eastern Junction Midland Railway completed its line from Grantham as far as Colwick, from where a branch led to the MR Nottingham station.

Leicester and Hitchin Midland Railway ran from Wigston to Market Harborough, through Desborough, Kettering, Wellingborough and Bedford, then on the Bedford to Hitchin Line, joining the GN at Hitchin for King's Cross.

The delay was partly due to the withdrawal of GN's interest in the competing scheme, the Bedford and Leicester Railway, after Midland purchased the Leicester and Swannington Railway and the Ashby Canal and Tramway, which were to have been the feeder lines.

Finally the MR joined with the Manchester and Birmingham Midland Railway, which was looking for a route to London from Manchester, in a proposal for a line from Ambergate.

The MR was under pressure from Scottish railway companies, which were eagerly awaiting the Midland traffic reaching Carlisle as it would allow them to challenge the Caledonian Railway's dominance on the West Coast traffic to Glasgow and Edinburgh.

The Glasgow and South Western Midland Railway had its own route from Carlisle to Glasgow via Dumfries and Kilmarnock, whilst the North British Midland Railway had built the Waverley Line through the Scottish Borders from Carlisle to Edinburgh.

Nottingham direct line of the Midland Railway opened for goods traffic on 1 December 1879 and for passenger traffic on 1 March 1880.

Midland Railway introduced a centralised traffic control system, and the locomotive power classifications that became the model for those used by British Railways.

The Midland Railway retained its private sector independence, being given income to match 1913 levels, but was required to undertake huge volumes of military traffic, largely freight, with little opportunity to maintain the network and rolling stock.

The Midland Railway was a constituent of the new London Midland and Scottish Railway from the beginning of 1923; it was the largest joint stock company in the world.

However, in 1897 the Midland Railway Magazine noted that there appeared "to be no foundation that the wyvern was associated with the Kingdom of Mercia".