History of the East Coast Main Line E-Book

Robin Jones

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Since the mid-nineteenth century the East Coast Main Line has been one of the major routes from London to northern England and to Scotland. It has seen some of the greatest achievements in the railways, most notably the 'Flying Scotsman' becoming, in 1934, the first locomotive in the world to exceed 100mph and the 'Mallard' in 1938 claiming the as-yet-unbroken world speed record for steam locomotives of 126mph. The East Coast Main Line not only made history by facilitating an ever-faster link between two capital cities, it also provided an international stage for Britain's engineering marvels, inspiring many generations of schoolboys and adults alike. That was to continue after the end of the steam era on British Railways, with diesel and then electric traction setting a series of new records over the route. This new book looks at how the London-Edinburgh line became the world's fastest steam railway and how its proud and unique heritage is appreciated and celebrated today more than ever before. Superbly illustrated with over 300 colour and black & white photographs.

Leseprobe

A History ofthe East CoastMain Line

ROBIN JONES

THE CROWOOD PRESS

First published in 2017 by

The Crowood Press Ltd

Ramsbury, Marlborough

Wiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2017

© Robin Jones 2017

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 78500 287 8

Frontispiece: The greatest racehorses of the East Coast Main Line: the last line-up of all six surviving Gresley A4 streamlined Pacifics, including the pair repatriated temporarily from North American museums, took place at the Locomotion Museum in Shildon, County Durham, in February 2014. Pictured left to right on the evening of 19 February are Nos 60007 Sir Nigel Gresley, 60008 Dwight D. Eisenhower, 60009 Union of South Africa, 4489 Dominion of Canada, 4464 Bittern and 4468 Mallard, the world steam railway locomotive speed record holder. (Fred Kerr)

Title page: On 30 September 2015, in the waiting room on Platform 2 at Grantham, the official unveiling took place of the spectacular stained-glass window depicting world steam railway speed record holder Mallard, created by local artist Mike Brown. (Author)

Dedication

To Vicky and Ross, who both began their careers travelling on the East Coast Main Line.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Brian Sharpe, Dennis Butler and the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust.

All pictures credited ‘CCL’ are published under a Creative Commons licence. Full details may be obtained at http://creativecommons.org/licenses.

Pictures credited ‘AUTHOR’ were taken by the author. Pictures credited ‘AUTHOR’S COLLECTION’ are non-copyright pictures from the author’s personal collection.

All pictures taken inside the National Railway Museum were taken with the permission of the NRM.

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1The Great Route to the North before the Railway

Chapter 2Beginnings North of the Border

Chapter 3Heading North from Newcastle

Chapter 4London to Leeds and York

Chapter 5Bridging the Biggest Gaps: The Aberdeen ‘Extension’

Chapter 6Sturrock: Shrinking Distance through Speed

Chapter 7The Singular Racing Days

Chapter 8After the Goldrush: Britain’s First Atlantics

Chapter 9The New Golden Age of Steam

Chapter 10The Duck that Downed the Eagle

Chapter 11What’s in a Name?

Chapter 12King’s Cross – The True King of Termini

Chapter 13Leamside: The Forgotten Main Line

Chapter 14When Diesels Reigned Supreme!

Chapter 15Beeching, Serpell and Electrification

Chapter 16Reach for the Stars: The Selby Diversion

Chapter 17Scotsman’s Modern-Day Successors

Chapter 18A New Steam Star for the Twenty-First Century

Chapter 19The National Railway Museum: Jewel in the East Coast Crown

Chapter 20Gresley’s A4s: Demise and Regathering

Chapter 21The Return of the King

Chapter 22The East Coast’s Darkest Days

Index

A 2010 Department for Transport route diagram of the East Coast Main Line from King’s Cross to Aberdeen and its principal connections.

Introduction

Steam hit the national headlines in a big way in 2016, with the return of the legendary Flying Scotsman to the nation’s railways after a lengthy absence, during which it underwent a major rebuild costing a phenomenal £4.2 million. Thus not only was it already the world’s most famous steam locomotive, but its overhaul under the auspices of owner the National Railway Museum also made it the world’s most expensive one.

The fact that we live in an age of celebrity culture was no more apparent than when the great Brunswick green behemoth returned to the tracks in triumph and began hauling passenger trains again. It is a gross understatement to say that crowds turned out everywhere it went: there were numerous instances of people trespassing on the lines to get a closer view, and on its official comeback trip from London King’s Cross to York on 25 February it had to be halted twice because onlookers were straying on to the electrified main line in complete disregard of their own safety. In fact the rail authorities stopped publishing its timings in a bid to deter trespassers, operators cancelled or rerouted two of its planned trips for fear that onlookers would stray on to the line side, and British Transport Police published photographs taken from a helicopter following at least one of its trains in a bid to identify and apprehend offenders. In short, ‘Scotsman’ frenzy had gripped the nation: here was a train that had become almost too famous to run.

Flying Scotsman is, for many people, the defining icon of the steam age, and its exploits both in the steam era and its years in preservation never fail to enthral. Yet there is a far bigger story surrounding Sir Nigel Gresley’s masterpiece – not just concerning the locomotive, but also the route on which it staked its immortal claim to fame: Britain’s East Coast Main Line.

In 1706, the English Parliament passed the Union with Scotland Act, and the following year, the Union with England Act was passed by the Parliament of Scotland. The legislation brought to a conclusion a merger between two once-hostile countries, which had in effect begun with the death of Elizabeth I in 1603, when King James VI of Scotland inherited the English crown from his double first cousin twice removed, and a ‘union of crowns’ took place, with both countries sharing one monarch for the first time. From 1 May 1707, the English Parliament and its Scottish counterpart united to form the Parliament of Great Britain, based in the Palace of Westminster. History recorded that the union took Great Britain to new political heights.

The following century the union of England and Scotland was further reinforced, not by further treaties, but by a 393-mile (632km) trunk railway. It reduced the journey time of five days or more between London and Edinburgh by stagecoach to just a few hours. In those days, such a feat was considered by ordinary folk as we might today regard daily commuter shuttles to a moon base and back: simply mind-blowing.

In the incessant drive by the railway companies operating over this trunk route to cut travelling time between the two capital cities, world transport technology jumped forwards in leaps and bounds, with Britain leading the steam era pack by a long way. There was open rivalry, firstly with the West Coast Main Line, which ran from London to Scotland on the opposite side of the country, and secondly with Germany, and this spurred on landmark developments in locomotive and infrastructure technology, leading to the golden age of steam in the Thirties.

In 1934 the London & North Eastern Railway A3 Pacific No. 4472 Flying Scotsman became the first in the world to officially break the 100mph (160km/h) barrier. Four years later another masterpiece was designed by the company’s chief mechanical engineer Sir Nigel Gresley: the streamlined A4 Pacific No. 4468 Mallard, which set a world speed record of 126mph (203km/h) on Stoke Bank in Lincolnshire, snatching the crown off Nazi Germany. That world speed record has yet to be broken, and almost certainly never will be.

The great gateway to the East Coast Main Line: the frontage of King’s Cross station, as seen in the early LNER period. LONDON TRANSPORT MUSEUM

So not only did the East Coast Main Line make history by facilitating an ever-faster link between two capital cities, it also provided an international stage for Britain’s engineering marvels, inspiring many generations of schoolboys and adults alike. That was to continue after the end of the steam era on British Railways, with diesel and then electric traction setting a series of new records over the route.

We now look forward not only to yet another generation of modern trains being introduced, but also the prospect of regular 90mph steam operation again, as highlighted in Chapter 18. This volume not only tells the story of how the London-to-Edinburgh line became the world’s fastest steam railway, it also looks at how its proud and unique heritage is today appreciated and celebrated more than ever before. Both the route itself, and the locomotives and trains that ran over it, were a colossal inspiration to a country that in the 1930s was emerging from depression – and they are still a monumental source of national pride today.

CHAPTER 1

The Great Route to the North before the Railway

The Romans literally laid the foundations of much of what later became known as the Great North Road, the great stagecoach route linking London to Edinburgh. Renowned for the quality of their road building, they turned primitive trackways that had existed for centuries before they invaded in ad44 into major highways. Indeed, historians have said that what became the route of the Great North Road was trodden not only by ancient Britons but also by Phoenician traders.

Ermine Street is the modern name for one such great highway they built from Londinium to Lindum Colonia (Lincoln) and Eboracum (York), although we don’t know what the Romans called it. Its purpose was military, and it supplied the great frontier of the Roman Empire that was Hadrian’s Wall, which stretched from the Solway Firth to the mouth of the River Tyne and kept the warlike Picts out of what is now England.

The Romans tried to push even further north, and in ad142 the Emperor Antoninus Pius ordered the building of a ‘Hadrian’s Wall lite’, the far more basic turf ramparts that were the Antonine Wall, a barrier between the Clyde and the Forth. However, the Romans grew tired of the colossal effort and expense incurred in trying to subdue southern Scotland, and withdrew to Hadrian’s Wall. One of three suspected Roman roads in Scotland crossed the River Tweed at Tweedmouth, near the future Berwick-on-Tweed.

The muddy surface of the Great North Road at Highgate was riddled with ruts because of the sheer volume of traffic using it. Turnpike trusts came into existence to address such problems.

Unfortunately the splendid roads that the Romans built fell into disrepair after they abandoned Britain in ad410, and many of them disappeared. The principal route from London to York and on to Edinburgh was for centuries afterwards a combination of decaying Roman roads and pothole-ridden muddy trackways. Tudor statutes placed responsibility on each parish to maintain all its roads, but while it helped local residents, it did little to aid long-distance travellers.

By the seventeenth century, trade in and out of London had increased to the point where horses and carts were causing so much damage to highways on an hourly basis that the parishes could not keep up with their statutory obligations. The city fathers saw that the only realistic way forwards was to have one Roman-style ‘super highway’ into the city, the maintenance of its stone surface funded by payments from passing traffic. Accordingly, an Act of Parliament in 1663 gave local magistrates powers to install tollgates on a section of the Great North Road. The length between Wadesmill in Hertfordshire and Stilton in Huntingdonshire became one of Britain’s first toll roads.

In the first three decades of the eighteenth century, many stretches of the main roads leading into London became controlled by turnpike trusts, and by 1825 around 1,000 turnpike trusts controlled 18,000 miles (29,000km) of highway in England and Wales.

At Lolham Bridges, north of Peterborough, the East Coast Main Line is bisected by the Roman road King Street, which left Ermine Street, later the Great North Road, near the River Nene at Ailsworth Heath and the Roman settlement of Castor, and ran into South Kesteven, rejoining Ermine Street south of Ancaster, another Roman town. King Street is believed to date from the reign of the Emperor Hadrian (117–138). An East Midlands Trains local DMU service is seen crossing King Street on 29 May 2014. Part of it isvery much in use as a road today. AUTHOR

The Great North Road became a primary route used by mail coaches between London, York and Edinburgh. The earliest surviving record of stagecoach travel dates back to 1685 and was from London to the coaching ‘capital’ of Stamford in Lincolnshire, where horses were changed and establishments offered travellers rooms for the night – the equivalent of a modern-day motorway service station. The fare for the two-day journey to Stamford from the George Inn at Aldersgate was £1, a fortune that only the well-to-do could afford. The journey to York took another two days.

Traditionally, the start of the Great North Road is Smithfield Market in St John Street in Clerkenwell. AUTHOR

The Great North Road was held to start at Hicks Hall in London’s Smithfield. However, after the building of the General Post Office in 1829, stagecoaches switched to the route that a century later became classified as the A1. The new route followed Aldersgate Street and Goswell Road before joining the traditional route at the Angel, Islington, which became a key staging post. By the early eighteenth century the Angel was the largest coaching house in a row of several sited along Islington’s High Street. Improvements to the road carried out by turnpike trusts reduced the journey time between London and Stamford to just a day by 1770, and the fare was duly cut to 16s. Yet it would still take at least four days to travel between the capitals.

A mail coach caught in a snowstorm. THE POSTAL MUSEUM

Royal Mail coaches made their Great North Road debut in the 1780s. York was the first terminus of the stagecoach route from London, but a new route running from Doncaster to Ferrybridge, Wetherby, Boroughbridge, Northallerton and Darlington provided a more direct way to Edinburgh, the ultimate destination. However, the less populated sections of the Great North Road had a less-than-perfect reputation as they were the haunt of highwaymen and footpads who targeted rich travellers.

The coaching trade reached its height in 1830, when forty mail coaches and thirty passenger-carrying services passed through Stamford each day. But the end of prosperity for Stamford and other coaching towns was fast approaching.

On 15 September 1830 the world’s first inter-city steam railway opened: the Liverpool & Manchester Railway. It was a seminal moment in global transport history for two major reasons. First, it ended the debate as to whether the steam locomotive was just a novelty, and horse-drawn wagons and cable haulage of coaches along railways were still state of the art. Yet the Liverpool & Manchester was an instant success and sparked off a series of trunk railway schemes that would soon carve up the countryside and shrink the travelling time between major towns and cities, bursting the bubble of the stagecoach town and operators’ prosperity wherever they were laid.

The opening of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway on 15 September 1830 was a watershed moment in world transport history. It laid down the blueprint for other trunk railways such as the East Coast Main Line, and sounded the death knell for turnpike roads and stagecoach services.

Second, George and Robert Stephenson’s Rocket, winner of the Rainhill Trials in 1829, a competition held to find the best form of traction for the Liverpool & Manchester, was itself a watershed in the evolution of the steam locomotive: its several innovations placed it apart from the early engines that had appeared before, and laid down a blueprint for other engineers to follow.

The final stagecoach from London to Newcastle left in 1842, and the last from Newcastle to Edinburgh in July 1847. Railways were to supersede the Great North Road, but did not kill it off: in 1921, well into the motor-car age, it was designated by the Ministry of Transport as the A1, the first A road in Britain. Yet within two decades, the great trunk railway that ran all but parallel to it from London to Scotland would become the world leader, at least in terms of steam technology.

A woodcut of highwayman Dick Turpin leaping London’s Hornsey toll bar.

The George was one of England’s most important coaching inns, situated at the point where the Great North Road entered Stamford, the key point on stagecoach and mail coach routes between London and the North, and long described as the finest stone town in England. AUTHOR

Another historic Stamford coaching hostelry was the Millstone Inn, its advertisement for good stabling etched into its stonework. AUTHOR

The name of this Stamford inn harks back to the stagecoach era. AUTHOR

A contemporary sketch of Olive Mount cutting on the then new Liverpool & Manchester Railway.

CHAPTER 2

Beginnings North of the Border

The early decades of the twenty-first century have seen the planning of an often controversial high-speed rail network designed to further reduce the travelling times between London, Birmingham and Scotland. Government planners are able to sit down and work out the ideal choice of route before drawing up detailed plans to build it. However, that is not how the East Coast Main Line came into existence: this happened by the joining together of the main lines of three separate railway companies – the North British, North Eastern and Great Northern railways. While each may have harboured long-term ambitions to link the two capitals, their immediate concern was to serve towns and cities in their ‘territories’.

Many people are surprised to learn that, unlike the Great North Road, the beginnings of the construction of what became the ECML lay not in London, but in Edinburgh, a fact that should leave Nicola Sturgeon and her Scottish nationalists beaming with pride even if they did lose the Scottish independence referendum in September 2014. For it was the Scots who led the way in creating what would one day be the world’s fastest steam railway! The ECML had its roots in several early schemes to link Scotland’s two major cities, Edinburgh and Glasgow, and the one that finally took off was that of the Edinburgh & Glasgow Railway.