History
It was incorporated by Act of Parliament in 1836, with a second Act in 1839 which authorised the extension from the original Manchester terminus at Oldham Road railway station to join the Liverpool and Manchester Railway when the latter was extended to Hunt's Bank (later called Manchester Victoria). The Act also authorised branches to Oldham and Halifax with a diversion at Kirkthorpe. Superintended by George Stephenson, its engineer was Thomas Longridge Gooch, a brother of Daniel Gooch of the GWR.
The line was opened in 1839 as far as Littleborough, and from Normanton to Hebden Bridge in 1840. The final linking section opened on completion of the Summit Tunnel in 1841.
The line became the chief constituent of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, which was incorporated in 1847. Several railways had earlier been absorbed by the M&LR:
- Manchester and Bolton Railway
- Ashton, Stalybridge & Liverpool Junction Railway incorporated 1844
- Liverpool & Bury Railway 1845
- Huddersfield & Sheffield Junction Railway 1845
- West Riding Union Railway
- Wakefield, Pontefract & Goole
Read more about this topic: Manchester And Leeds Railway
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Systematic philosophical and practical anti-intellectualism such as we are witnessing appears to be something truly novel in the history of human culture.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“The history of reform is always identical; it is the comparison of the idea with the fact. Our modes of living are not agreeable to our imagination. We suspect they are unworthy. We arraign our daily employments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“History ... is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
But what experience and history teach is this—that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)