THE RAILWAYS OF CHESHIRE
After the making of canals came the railways, and the mighty power of
steam, that had wrought such a vast change in the cotton industry, was
to be the moving force of the new invention.
Late in the summer of 1830 the people who lined the river banks from
Runcorn to Latchford saw a trail of smoke travelling slowly across the
nine arches of Sankey Viaduct and the peaty plains of the Mersey. The
smoke was that of Stephenson's 'Rocket', the steam locomotive that was
drawing one of the first passenger trains in England.
[Illustration: CHESHIRE. RAILWAYS]
Cheshire had its 'Rocket' too in those days, the stage coach that left
the 'Black Boy' Inn at Stockport and passed through Cheadle, Lymm, and
Warrington to Liverpool. And the old 'Rocket' was very jealous of its
new namesake, for it was thought that with the coming of the railways
the coaches would be driven off the road. The canal companies also saw
themselves threatened, and did all they could to hinder the spread of
the new way of travelling.
Some years were to pass before the inhabitants of Cheshire saw railways
laid through their own towns and villages. The farmers of Wirral rubbed
their eyes when the first train seen in Cheshire carried its human
freight along the southern shore of the Mersey. Many of them had
doubtless never seen one before, and not a few of the more ignorant fled
in terror from the puffing, panting thing, which they looked upon as the
invention of the evil one.
It is hard indeed to think of Cheshire without its railways. Before
their coming, almost the only way of moving from one place to another
was by means of the stage coaches that rattled along the principal
highways, putting down at the nearest wayside inn the passengers who
lived in villages off the main roads. Goods and merchandise were carried
on pack-horses or slow lumbering wagons.
Some of the most important main lines of English railways now pass
through Cheshire, for the Cheshire plain is the broad gateway that leads
to the busy and populous towns of South Lancashire. Within the space of
half a century the county was covered with a network of lines, and
to-day it is impossible to find a spot that has not a railway passing
within a very few miles of it.
The earliest railways avoided the hilly districts, and for many years
there were no lines in East Cheshire. The main line of the London and
North Western Railway crosses the southern border of Cheshire where the
hills are low, and picks its way through the Cheshire plain, keeping
closely to the level valley of the Weaver, and leaving the hills of
Delamere and Frodsham on the west. It crosses the Mersey into Lancashire
at Warrington.
The cotton spinners of Stockport wanted a quick route to London, and so
a branch line was made through Alderley, which joined the main line at
Crewe. Some of the old country towns would not have the railway too
near, so we find Sandbach nearly two miles away from its station.
Another branch westwards left the main line at Crewe for Chester and
Holyhead, to carry the Irish mails; and a third branched off at Preston
Brook for Liverpool, being carried over the Mersey by a big iron bridge
at Runcorn.
There were only a few houses at Crewe when the railways were made. The
station was in the village of Church Coppenhall, but the shorter and
more convenient name of Crewe was chosen from Crewe Hall. The little
village rapidly became a big town, for it was chosen to be the
head-quarters of the London and North Western Company. Big engine and
carriage works were built, and iron foundries for the making of boilers
and steel rails. It is now one of the most important railway centres in
England, giving employment to many thousand workmen.
But one line was not enough to carry all the traffic from the great
manufacturing towns to the Midlands and the south of England. Other
railway companies accomplished the difficult task of crossing the
Pennine Hills, and Cheshire was thus brought into touch with Yorkshire
and the north-midland shires. The Midland Railway tunnelled under the
hills at a height of eight hundred feet above sea-level, and descended
rapidly to Stockport by the Goyt valley. The Great Northern enters
Cheshire by the tunnel near Penistone, and follows the Etherow down
Longdendale till it also reaches Stockport. The Staffordshire Railway
from the Potteries burrows through the hills at Harecastle on its way to
Congleton and Macclesfield. All these railways vied with one another in
quickening the speed of their trains, and their rivalry soon caused the
fares for passengers and rates for goods to become cheaper.
There is one railway which, more than any other, Cheshire boys and girls
may call their own. The Cheshire Line is not one of the great 'trunk'
lines to London, but is confined to South Lancashire and the county from
which it takes its name. This railway crosses the county from Altrincham
to Chester, never more than a few hundred yards from its great ancestor,
the Watling Street.
[Illustration: RAILWAY VIADUCT OVER GOYT VALLEY]
The populous towns of North-east Cheshire are also served by branches of
the Great Central and the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railways. The coast
towns of the Dee have their 'Wirral Railway', and through the heart of
Wirral Great Western expresses rush to their terminus at Birkenhead.
The railways teach us that time is money, and this fact is constantly
brought home to us by seeing new lines made to shorten the distance
between two points, so that men may get to their places of business more
rapidly. The Midland Railway have in the last few years straightened
their line by a short cut through Cheadle Heath, that their express
trains to Manchester may avoid delay at Stockport; and the new London
and North Western line from Wilmslow to Manchester, though it saved less
than three miles, was yet thought worth the cost.
The railways have brought town and country into closer touch with one
another, and both have gained. Farmers and market gardeners can send
their produce quickly and cheaply to the great markets of Stockport and
Birkenhead. Coals and salt, machinery and manufactured goods, can be
distributed easily from the great towns that produce them. Moreover,
many people whose daily life is spent in the crowded cities are able to
live away from their places of business and, for a portion of the day at
least, breathe the purer air of the country.
Two residential districts of Cheshire are supported mainly by the
merchants and manufacturers of Manchester and Liverpool. In East
Cheshire, Altrincham and Bowdon, Knutsford, Alderley, Cheadle, and Lymm
are practically suburbs of Manchester. In the Wirral, Hoylake, West
Kirby, and New Brighton owe their present prosperity to the business men
of Birkenhead and Liverpool who have built their homes on the Cheshire
seaboard.
In all these places you may see the mingling of the old and the new, the
older portions clustering round the parish church, the brand new villas
and mansions of the rich spreading on all sides into the surrounding
country. New towns spring up round the railway stations, as at Alderley
Edge, which is two miles from the older village of Nether Alderley.
With the railways came also the 'penny post', for letters could now be
carried cheaply and quickly to and from all parts of the country.