North Union Railway
The North Union Railway was an early British railway company, formed in 1834.
The line was fully opened in 1838, and ran from the Liverpool and Manchester Railway at Parkside, near Warrington, northwards to Preston, via Wigan.
In 1840 it was running trains from Preston to Liverpool, Manchester or Wigan
It was taken over by the Grand Junction Railway, in association with the Manchester and Leeds Railway, in 1846.
The North Union eventually came into the joint ownership of the successors to those earlier companies: respectively, the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) and the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (LYR). Early rationalisation of the joint venture saw that part of the North Union between Euxton Junction and Parkside vested in the LNWR and that between Euxton Junction and Bolton with the LYR.
The part between Euxton Junction and Preston - including the major part of Preston station remained in joint ownership up to the 1923 Grouping. This stretch of the West Coast Main Line between London Euston and Carlisle was the only part not wholly owned by the LNWR.
To cope with ever increasing traffic, the line was quadrupled between 1889 and 1891 (Biddle, 1989).
See Also
Sources of Information
- [1] Wikipedia
- Bradshaw’s Railway Companion 1840