Longton, Adderley Green and Bucknall railway

The Longton, Adderley Green & Bucknall railway was a railway line in North Staffordshire that operated between 1875 and 1964. The line was the idea of the identically named Longton, Adderley Green & Bucknall railway company (L AG & B) which was granted parliamentary approval in 1866 to build a 4.25 mi (6.84 km) goods only line from Botteslow Junction on the NSR's Biddulph Valley line.[1] The L AG & B did not construct the line but leased all construction and operation to the NSR.[1]

Construction was not fast and it was nine years after approval before the line opened in September 1875.[2] The coal-owner and railway director William Francis Gordon put his Lawn Colliery at Bucknall on the market in 1870, anticipating its completion.[3] Two time extensions were required, and the plans were altered to provide a second junction with the NSR at Millfield Junction, near Normacot on the Crewe–Derby line.[2]

In 1894 the NSR purchased the L AG & B company to take ownership of the line and on 1 January 1895, the NSR severed the line near Weston Coyney to increase the distance that coal had to be carried on the company's lines therefore increasing revenue.[4] The line remained split until closure in the 1960s when the 0.5 miles (0.80 km) branch from Millfield Junction closed at the end of December 1963. The longer 3.675 miles (5.91 km) branch from Botteslow Junction closed the following year.[5]

References
  1. Christiansen & Miller 1971, p. 73.
  2. Jeuda 2014, p. 49.
  3. "To Capitalists and Others". Staffordshire Advertiser. 29 October 1870. p. 1.
  4. Christiansen & Miller 1971, p. 74.
  5. Christiansen & Miller 1971, p. 304–305.

Sources
  • Christiansen, Rex & Miller, Robert William (1971). The North Staffordshire Railway. Newton Abbot, Devon: David & Charles. ISBN 0-7153-5121-4.
  • Jeuda, Basil (2014). The North Staffordshire Railway in LMS days. Vol. 3. Lydney, Gloucestershire: Lightmoor Press. ISBN 978-1899889-83-9.
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