Page:Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham.djvu/277

Rh was to be 112½ miles long; and estimated to cost £2,500,000, but the veal cost amounted to £4,592,700, of which £72,868 18s. 10d, was spent in obtaining the Act alone. The line was opened in sections as completed, the first train running from Euston to Boxmoor, 24½ miles, on July 20, 1837. The average daily number of persons using the line during the first month was 1,428, the receipts being at the rate of £153 per day. On April 9, 1838, the trains reached Rugby, and on Aug. 14, the line was completed to Duddeston Row, the directors taking a trial trip on the 20th. There were only seventeen stations on the whole line, over which the first passenger train ran on Sept. 17.—The prospectus of the Grand Junction Railway (for Liverpool and Manchester) was issued May 7, 1830, and the line from Vauxhall Station to Newton (where it joined the Manchester and Liverpool line) was opened July 4, 1837. The importance of this line of communication was shown by the number of passengers using it during the first nine weeks, 18,666 persons travelling to or from Liverpool, and 7,374 to or from Manchester, the receipts for that period being £41,943.—The Birmingham branch of the South Staffordshire Railway was opened Nov. 1, 1847; the Birmingham and Shrewsbury line, Nov. 12, 1849; and between Dudley and Walsall May 1, 1850. The Stour Valley line was partially brought into use (from Monument Lane) Aug. 19, 1851, the first train running clear through to Wolverhampton July 1, 1852. The line to Sutton Coldfield was opened June 2, 1862, and the Harborne line (for which the Act was obtained in 1866) was opened Aug. 10, 1874. The Act for the construction of the Birmingham and Lichfield line, being a continuation of the Sutton Coldfield Railway, passed June 23, 1874; it was commenced late in October, 1881, and it will shortly be in use. The Bill for the Dudley and Oldbury Junction line passed July 15, 1881. A new route from Leamington to Birmingham was opened in Sept. 1884, shortening the journey to London.

Midland.—The Derby and Birmingham Junction line was opened through from Lawley Street Aug. 12th, 1839. The first portion of the Birmingham and Gloucester line, between Barnt Green and Cheltenham, was opened July 1, 1840, coaches running from here to Barnt Green to meet the trains until Dec. 15, 1840, when the line was finished to Camp Hill, the Midland route being completed and opened Feb. 10, 1842. The first sod was cut for the West Suburban line Jan. 14, 1873, and it was opened from Granville Street to King's Norton April 3, 1876. This line is now being doubled and extended from Granville Street to New Street, at au estimated cost of £280,400, so that the Midland will have a direct run through the town.

Great Western.—The first portion of the Oxford and Birmingham Railway (between here and Banbury) was opened Sept. 30, 1852, the tunnel from Moor Street to Monmouth Street being finished on June 6th previous. The original estimated cost of this line was but £900,000, which was swelled to nearly £3,000,000 by the bitter fight known as the "Battle of the Gauges."

The line from Snow Hill to Wolverhampton was opened Nov. 14, 1854. The first train to Stratford-on-Avon was run on Oct. 9, 1860. The Oxford. Worcester, and Wolverhampton line was opened in May, 1852. The broad gauge was altered in 1874.

Railway Jottings.—The London and Birmingham line cost at the rate of £23,000 per mile, taking nearly five years to make, about 20,000 men being employed, who displaced over 400,000,000 cubic feet of earth. The Grand Junction averaged £16,000 per mile, and at one time there were 11,000 men at work upon it. Slate slabs were originally tried for sleepers on the Birmingham and London line.