The London and Birmingham Railway

By the late 1820’s England’s inland transport could no longer handle the flood of goods pouring from the new factories. The roads were almost impassable for much of the year; the canals, slow and iced up in winter, were daily becoming more congested as the companies prospered on their monopoly and disregarded demands for greater efficiency. Birmingham suffered particularly; the manufacturers were losing the new foreign markets to Continental competitors because delivery was slow and haphazard. A group of Birmingham industrialists decided to investigate the possibility of a railway to London, and a company was formed in association with several prominent London bankers, including George Carr Glyn who was later to become chairman. Already railways were operating profitably between Stockton and Darlington, Leicester and Swannington, Liverpool and Manchester. Chat Moss and Olive Mount on the Liverpool and Manchester had taxed the engineers’ skill, but these lines were of comparative unimportance. In fact, the respective merits of the stationary engine and chain, the horse, and the locomotive had been hody disputed before the Rocket finally triumphed at the Rainhill trials.