Maps of historical railway proposals?

[SquireBev]

I stumbled across, on another forum, a map of the Midland Railway's proposal for a line linking Dewsbury, Bradford, and Halifax in a great loop, duplicating the LNWR, LYR and GNR lines.

Obviously it was never built, but it's fascinating nonetheless.

Does anyone know of any more maps of proposals that never came to anything?

For instance, the Worth Valley line extension to Hebden Bridge, or the Halifax High Level through line to Huddersfield.

 

[John Webb]

There are many books on the history of a particular line or a particular area which describe not only the railways which were built (and perhaps closed) but those which were planned but never built. For example, "The Wensleydale Railway" by Christine Hallas (Leading Edge, 1991, ISBN 0 85206 780 1) has a chapter and a map devoted to a number of railway schemes around Wensleydale. There is some information (but no map) in Martin Bairstow's book "The Keighley and Worth Valley Railway" (1981, ISBN 1 871944 04 X) about the proposed line to Hebden Bridge.
I can't find anything, however, on the Halifax High-level to Huddersfield proposal.

 

[SquireBev]

Thanks, I'll have a look for the Hallas book. I've already got the Bairstow, so I'll have another read of it tonight.

 

[krus_aragon]

Any proposal that got as far as Parliament will have submitted plans showing the railway's intended route. These would be submitted not only to Parliament and the Board of Trade (from 1845 on) to a Clerk of the Peace (IIRC) in each county the railway would pass through. These records can now be found in the Parliamentary Archives, the National Archives, and in local archives.

I'm not aware on any specific body of work looking at the route of all these failed attempts. What you'll mostly find is that a writer specialising in a particular line or area will have researched relevant competing schemes (and failures) for that book. They may not always include maps of their routes, but will typically name the other schemes, so you could use that name to find the deposited plans at an archive, if you have a particular interest.

 

[Harbornite]

By me, there was several plans for railways serving Harborne that weren't build, e.g. connections to the Midland Railway near Somerset Road, the GWR at Winson Green and a through route down to Bromsgrove/Halesowen. I'll look for a map and post it here.

Edit.

Here's one:

http://spellerweb.net/rhindex/UKRH/LNWR/Harborne.html

And some info about the planned route to Halesowen and Bromsgrove

http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/h/harborne/

In the end, only the two mile branch between Harborne Junction on the LNWR stour valley route and Harborne was built.

 

[SquireBev]

By me, there was several plans for railways serving Harborne that weren't build, e.g. connections to the Midland Railway near Somerset Road, the GWR at Hockley and a through route down to Bromsgrove/Halesowen. I'll look for a map and post it here.

Awesome, thanks.

Do you happen to know of any decent books about the West Midlands area? Now that I live in Brum I feel I ought to learn more about its railways.

 

[Harbornite]

Awesome, thanks.

Do you happen to know of any decent books about the West Midlands area? Now that I live in Brum I feel I ought to learn more about its railways.

Depends what you're after. I remember picking up a good book from my local library which was mainly photographic in content but can't remember the name (it had a shot of a peak at New Street on the front cover). One of my favourites was the Harborne Express by Derek Harrison, again that was from my local library.

I can also suggest the following two sites for info on railways round here.

http://warwickshirerailways.com

http://www.railaroundbirmingham.co.uk


Having just looked at the second site, I've found the name of the book I was on about, it's on page 2.

http://www.railaroundbirmingham.co.uk/useful_publications.php

From that list, I can recommend the century of railways books and the lost lines one.

 

[krus_aragon]

Awesome, thanks.

Do you happen to know of any decent books about the West Midlands area? Now that I live in Brum I feel I ought to learn more about its railways.

For a good initial grounding, I highly recommend the Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain. It's a series of 16 volumes published from the 1970s to 1990s by David and Charles. Each volume concentrates on a specific area, and is written by a railway historian with a specialist interest in that area.

You'd want to look for volume 7 (West Midlands), written by Rex Christiansen. You can easily pick up a copy for £5-10 from the likes of eBay or Abe Books.

 

[SquireBev]

Thanks very much. I'll see if I can track down a copy.