South Staffordshire Railway
The South Staffordshire Railway was a railway company responsible for building several lines in and around the area of Staffordshire, England.
The Chief Engineer was John Robinson McClean.
1846 The company was incorporated by the amalgamation of the South Staffordshire Junction and Trent Valley Railway and the Midland and Grand Junction Railway (both also incorporated in 1846).
After an Act of Parliament was passed to allow it, McClean took a 25-year lease on the railway, thus becoming the first person ever to be the sole owner of a railway.
The pride of their company was the South Staffordshire Line from Lichfield Trent Valley to Dudley via Walsall. This line also connected, just north of Dudley Station, with the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway's line from Wolverhampton to Stourbridge Junction and beyond - which allowed the company to run their trains to the south-east of the Black Country and into Worcestershire.
The company was taken over by the London and North Western Railway in 1867, which later became part of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway during grouping in 1923, and in turn nationalised in 1948 as part of British Rail.
See Also
Sources of Information
- British Locomotive Catalogue (Volume 2a, page 31) by Bertram Baxter
- Wikipedia