The North West Railway History
- A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain
- Volume 10 - The North West
- This volume deals with a region rich in railway history covering the counties of Merseyside, Greater Manchester and Lancashire, with adjacent districts of Cheshire, Derbyshire and North Yorkshire. North West England was the birthplace of the railway as we know it today and the construction of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway was a tremendous feat in its time. With the opening of the line its importance was immediately recognised, and the widespread building of railways in the region became a most spectacular feature of the industrial revolution, with marked effects upon the national economy, social and political life.
- The new railways helped to expand the great Lancashire cotton and coal industries and led to the growth of new ports, residential areas around the many manufacturing centres and seaside resorts. They took the residents of inland townsto the seaside playgrounds of the Wirral and Lancashire coasts, and the industrial executives home in theor club trains to Llandudno and Blackpool.
- Gradually the small local railways merged to form the giants - the London & North Western, and Lancashire & Yorkshire Railways, with the curious joint concern, The Cheshire lInes, and outsiders such as the Midland and the Great Western struggling for a foothold in the area. Merseyside was the home of three pioneer electric railways, and today (1986), despite a general decline in railway fortunes, there is a new resurgence of the modern railway, not only with the electrified inter-city routes but new undergound lines to bring Liverpool right up to date in railway development. All this makes the area one of the most fascinating in Britain to railway enthusiasts, students of transport and social historians.
- This second and substantially-revised edition reflecting another decade of railway history has been undertaken by Gordon Biddle, following Mr Holt's untimely death
- 279 pages, 1986, 2nd Edition, Case bound, 5¾" x 8¾"
- David & Charles Publications
- ISBN-10 0946537348
- ISBN-13 9780946537341
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A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain
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