Bolton and Leigh Railway
The Bolton and Leigh Railway was the first public railway in Lancashire. It opened for goods on 1 August 1828, and thus preceded the Liverpool and Manchester Railway by two years. Passengers were carried from 1831. The railway operated independently until 1845 when it became part of the Grand Junction Railway.
Background
Bolton was situated on the Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal and Leigh straddled a major east–west canal route. To the west ran the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, and this was connected to the centre of Leigh by the Bridgewater Canal running east. The canals provided freight routes to both Liverpool and Manchester.The canals of the time were the major freight routes: they were faster and could transport greater loads than the carriers using the turnpike road system. However, these canal routes were slow; they became congested, and increasingly more expensive as demand from the rapidly expanding businesses in the area increased. The waterways had a virtual monopoly on the transport links which enabled them to charge exorbitant tolls.
As costs rose, it was no wonder that business leaders and industrialists began to look for another means of transporting their goods and products. They looked to the railway to break the canals' monopoly. The canal companies recognised this threat to their business early on: for example, the Leeds and Liverpool canal company minutes of 21 September 1822 mention the issue, and the canal businesses started to take steps to protect their interests.
Rail roads, tramroads and railways had been around for some time, mainly used to transport goods, especially coal to the canal network. There was already at least one private railway operating in the area: in 1812 Robert Daglish had constructed a railway to carry coal from Orrell Colliery in Winstanley, near Wigan to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. This railway used "Blenkinsop and Murrays" patent cog and rack steam locomotives to haul the coal wagons. A little further north, the Lancaster Canal had been built in two sections, joined in 1797 by a tramroad.
Inception
Sometime before 1 October 1824 a committee was formed by local businessmen, including William Hulton, Benjamin Hick and Peter Rothwell to promote a railway in the area. The committee is first recorded on that date as requiring its 63 members to pay money into a bank for the "making of a railway or railways or tram road from Bolton to the Leeds and Liverpool canal..."Several routes were proposed and the committee contacted the pioneering railway engineer George Stephenson for his views on the scheme. Stephenson was familiar with the area as he was in the process of surveying the route of the future Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Stephenson's response was to commission another engineer, Hugh Steel, to conduct a survey of the viable routes for the railway. Steel had worked with Stephenson as a surveyor on the L&MR, and he was assisted in the survey by Robert Daglish. The plans for the line reflected contemporary railway engineering practice in the north-east of England, where Stephenson came from, by including inclined planes which would require cable haulage by stationary engines. Steel's proposed line was approved by Stephenson and accepted by the committee.
The committee had decided that if they tried to cross the canal at Leigh, with the ultimate aim of making a connection to the proposed L&MR, they would create so much opposition that their parliamentary bill could fail. There was little precedent for approving railways; local landowners were reluctant to have railways on or near their property; and the canal companies were very influential. The committee decided to put forward a bill they thought could pass, rather than one with a much higher risk of failing.
Towards the end of 1824 the bill was presented to Parliament together with Steel's survey and an estimated construction cost of £43,143.
The bill had considerable opposition in Parliament, but the received royal assent on 31 March 1825 after clauses had been inserted refusing permission to cross the canal, effectively making the railway little more than a canal feeder. The committee could take some satisfaction in its caution as the Liverpool and Manchester Bill was lost that same year.
This first act of Parliament authorised the company to raise the sum of £44,000, by the sale of 440 shares in the company, each valued at £100. The railway was to be a single track with two rope-worked inclines using stationary steam engines, to run from Lecturers Closes at Bolton to the Leeds and Liverpool canal at Leigh.
Construction and opening
In 1826 work began on the construction of the railway starting from Bolton levelling the ground for the line up to Chequerbent under the supervision of local engineer, Robert Daglish.The B&LR found it needed to revise some of the clauses set out in the original act of Parliament and they prepared a second bill in 1828. The second act received assent on 26 March 1828. This Act enlarged the company's powers, and it authorised the raising of an additional £25,000 to meet the increased costs of construction as well as specifying the track gauge for the railway as being between the inside edges of the rails, as well as between the outside edges. Sometime after this the line became a standard gauge line at.
The acts of Parliament for the B&LR also authorised branch lines at the Bolton end, to the Union Foundry on Deansgate, to William Hulton's coal yard at Great Moor Street and to the Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal. The branch to the canal was never built and the branches to Great Moor Street and Deansgate opened for freight in 1829.
The first section of track between Derby Street Bolton and William Hulton's collieries at Pendlebury Fold near Chequerbent in Westhoughton was officially opened on 1 August 1828
The official opening of the completed part of the railway was witnessed by "an immense concourse of people". They saw a procession of a "new locomotive engine made by Messrs. R. Stephenson and Co. of Newcastle... to which were attached six waggons filled with people, and decorated with numerous flags and streamers; then followed a very elegant and commodious coach, intended at some future period to convey passengers on the railway. This was filled with ladies amongst whom was Mrs. Hulton. Then followed seven other wagons, decorated with flags, and crowded with passengers, including the musicians of the Bolton old band, who occupied the two last waggons, and played a variety of appropriate airs, during the procession".
The procession started at 12.15 pm with the locomotive drawing the thirteen waggons and the coach from Pendlebury Fold, near Hulton Park, to Top o' th' Pike where the stationary engine was situated. There were about 150 people on the train which travelled at about. On reaching the stationary engine the waggons were detached and "Mrs. Hulton, after a short address, baptised the engine by the name of the Lancashire Witch". She then presented a garland of flowers to the engineer, who treated it, in the newspapers view, rather unceremoniously by placing it on the furnace-pipe where the flowers soon underwent a lamentable change.
The engine was sent back to one of Mr. Hulton's collieries from whence it returned hauling six waggons containing about 2 tons of coal which it drew with great ease at about. The locomotive was again detached from its train and demonstrated some of its abilities, starting and stopping under control even from speeds estimated up to. After the demonstration the coach and waggons were attached to the rope of the stationary engine and proceeded down the inclined plane towards Bolton. The waggons were "occasionally moved with great celerity, and occasionally stopped by means of brakes applied to the wheels, in order to shew the command possessed over them by the engineer, in case of any accident or obstruction". The crowd was so large that several people were thrown onto the railway where they were "placed in the most imminent peril" and one man was reported as nearly falling under the wheels of a waggon before it could be stopped, he was reportedly severely hurt.
At the bottom of the incline it was intended that the waggons should be horse-drawn to the terminus but the crowd man-handled the waggons to their destination. Upon arrival, a considerable number of gentlemen sat down to an excellent dinner at the Commercial Inn, Mr. Hulton in the chair.
The coach used by the ladies during the opening was loaned by the L&MR and another carriage was borrowed from them in December 1829 for 'an experiment in passenger carrying' but passengers weren't regularly carried until 1831.
The line was completed through to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal at Leigh by end of March 1830. By then the construction of the Kenyon and Leigh Junction Railway which provided a connection with the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was already well advanced.
Description of the route
The line was just under in length, and was originally single track with the exception of about towards the north end of the line, there were occasional sidings or passing places.Whishaw gives a description of the line, starting from Bolton Great Moor Street the train is worked by horse-power to the bottom of the Daubhill incline. Here a stationary steam engine hauled the train up out of Bolton. Trains running down the incline are worked by gravity. The incline rises in.
At the top of this incline the locomotive is attached and the train works to Leigh. In the other direction a stationary steam engine hauls trains up from Bag Lane through Chequerbent towards Bolton. This incline rises but over a greater distance so the slope is less severe overall.
The rope for the Chequerbent incline is made by Webster of Sunderland and is in circumference, it weighs about when new and costs £2 10s per hundredweight. This rope when partially worn is transferred to the Daubhill incline.
The width occupied by the railway on a level surface is and the track is ballasted with small coal.
The OS map of 1849 shows the original B&LR line running to the canal as well as the newer K&LJR line running over the bridge.
Double track was laid in sections with the section from Pennington to Atherton Junctions opening on 31 May 1880, the section through Bag Lane on 4 July 1880 and the final section through to Bolton on 1 February 1885, south of Pennington on the former K&LJR had been doubled when the Tyldesley Loopline opened in 1864.