Manchester and Bolton Railway

In the 1820s a number of proposals for a railway between Manchester and Bolton were made, some well advanced enough to be submitted to Parliament. One, in 1825, was for a line from New Bailey in Salford, to Park Field in Bolton, and included a branch line to the Mersey and Irwell Navigation. The plan included the use of an inclined plane at Clifton to allow the railway to access the higher ground from thereon. Another scheme was to connect with the planned Liverpool and Manchester Railway near Eccles, and would reach Bolton via Moorside and Farnworth. Neither of these schemes progressed beyond the early stages of planning. In 1830 two more proposals to connect the towns were made. The Manchester to Preston Railway was unsuccessful, leaving open the way for the second scheme, which would become known as the Manchester and Bolton Railway.[3]

London and Birmingham Railway Centenary, 1938 souvenir illustrating the 2-2-0 locomotive of Edward Bury.

In 1830 the Manchester, Bolton & Bury Canal Company, led by chairman John Tobin, began to promote the construction of a railway along the line of their canal, from Salford to Bolton and Bury. Alexander Nimmo was employed to assess the proposal, and reported that it was possible "so far as he expressed himself capable of judging from his present cursory view of the canal".[4] The shareholders then sought a bill for a railway from Bolton to Manchester and on 23 August 1831 obtained an Act of Parliament to become the "Company of Proprietors of the Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal Navigation and Railway Company".[4][5] The act authorised the abandonment of the canal between the Irwell basin and Prestolee,[6] and empowered the company to build a line from Manchester to Bolton and Bury, "upon or near the line of ... the Canal". Two branch lines were also authorised, one from Clifton Aqueduct through to Great Lever, and the other from Giants Seat through to Radcliffe and Bury.[6] Due mainly to the objections of local mine owners who would have lost access to the canal and therefore their supply route, and who also would not have had branch railways built for them, the company agreed to an amending bill which would keep the canal and allow the new railway to be constructed alongside it.[7][8] In 1832 the company obtained an Act that allowed it to build the railway along the new alignment.[9] The Act also allowed for an extension of the railway to New Bailey Street in Salford, and from Church Wharf (the terminus of the canal at Bolton) to Bridge Street. Smaller branches in Bolton and Salford were also allowed.[6]

The two differently-sized tunnels at Farnworth.

Construction of the railway started in 1833, from Salford. The company attempted to alter the route of the Bury branch, and also to extend it to Rawtenstall, but they did not receive Parliamentary approval for this.[10] In July 1834 the committee of management applied to Parliament for "an act to amend the line of the railway between Manchester and Bolton".[11] The amendment would take the railway along much the same course as that proposed by the Manchester to Preston Railway and was authorised by Parliament in 1835.[10] Work proceeded so slowly that further clauses were added to the proposed act, including a continuation of the railway from Bolton, to Liverpool. Although this continuation was never built, the Liverpool and Bury Railway built such a connection in 1848.[11] A line from Clifton to Bolton, authorised in 1835, did not materialise.[10] The connection to Bury was never built, due mainly to the objections of the company's engineer, Jesse Hartley. The Bury branch would have required a 1,100-yard (1,000 m) tunnel on a gradient of 1 in 100, at the time a difficult and expensive proposition.[12]

Initially there were to have been three tracks, one for goods and another two for passengers, but only two were built.[12] Work proceeded at a slow pace, in a piecemeal fashion, with contracts awarded for portions of the work as occasion demanded. Advertisements in the Bolton Chronicle appealed to Quarrymen for quantities of stone blocks to support the rails, and for excavators to construct parts of a proposed addition to the embankment from Agecroft towards Clifton Hall. Another advertisement in November that year advertised for tenders for contracts for the construction of bridges, viaducts, culverts and other structures to finish the line from Irwell Street in Salford, to Bolton.[11] A difficult section of the railway was at Farnworth, where a tunnel was required to cut through the hillside. A double-bore tunnel 295 yards (270 m) long was built between 1835 and 1838, driven from both sides, with a large vertical shaft in the centre. This was later joined by a narrower single-bore tunnel, through which the down line was routed. Traffic along the upline was routed through the original tunnel.[13][14]

Four acts of parliament were required to raise the necessary funds,[15] and the line opened on 28 May 1838.[14] From a report of the Directors on 9 January 1839, the railway had carried 228,799 passengers since its inception. In 1841 the company had 10 locomotive engines.[16]

In 1845 William Hurst took over as Railway Superintendent for the company.[17]

A branch line was also "to join and communicate with the ... Bolton and Leigh Railway", at a junction near the Daubhill Stationary Engine, this line was however, not built.[18] The company later shared their railway, including their station at Salford, with the Manchester, Bury and Rossendale Railway Company (MB&RRC) and both worked together to construct a junction at Clifton Junction railway station.[19] In 1846 the company was taken over by the Manchester and Leeds Railway,[9][20] which itself became the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway the following year.[21] In 1922 it amalgamated into the London and North Western Railway, and in 1923 this company amalgamated into the London, Midland and Scottish Railway.[22] This company was nationalised in 1948 under the Transport Act 1947, and became part of British Railways.