Later History
By 1870 the Midland straddled the country, lines from London and the South West meeting at Derby to travel to Scotland via the North West and the North-East. There were now four tracks from London most of the way from Trent Junction. In 1879 these were complemented by the Melton Line via Corby, which continued to Nottingham through Old Dalby, thus providing Nottingham with an alternative route for London trains north of Kettering.
By the middle of the decade investment had been paid for; passenger travel was increasing, with new comfortable trains; and the mainstay of the line (goods traffic, particularly minerals) was increasing dramatically.
Allport retired in 1880, to be succeeded by John Noble and then by George Turner. By the new century the quantity of goods, particularly coal, was clogging the network. The Midland passenger service was acquiring a reputation for lateness. Lord Farrar reorganised, at least, the expresses but by 1905 the whole system was so overloaded that no one able to predict when many of the trains would reach their destinations and there were crews spending as much as a whole shift standing at a signal.
At this point Sir Guy Granet took over as General Manager. He introduced a centralised traffic control system, and the locomotive power classifications that became the model for those used by British Rail.
The Midland acquired a number of other lines, including the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway in 1903 and the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway in 1912. The Midland shared running rights on some lines, but it also developed lines in partnership with other railways, and was involved in more such 'Joint' lines than any other. In partnership with the Great Northern Railway it owned the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway to provide connections from the Midlands to East Anglia; the M&GN was the UK's biggest joint railway. The MR also provided motive power for the Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway, and was a one-third partner in the Cheshire Lines Committee.
Read more about this topic: Midland Railway
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