English railways develop radically differently

Have the British government as proposed by a young Gladestone, nationalise the building and running of british railways. But also allow counties to build railways within their boundaries at whatever gauge they like. So therefore, have the British railway network have two types of railways by 1914:
  • National Railways owned by the National government which link industrial areas and conurbations to ports and each other as well as London
  • County railways run by county authorities running exclusively within their counties' boundaries
National Railways would use the standard national gauge but each county would choose the gauge for their own county railways. Just to assert themselves, most counties deliberately choose to have different gauges from their neighbours. So therefore, unless you are travelling on a national railway, if crossing a boundary you may have to change trains.
How would this effect the demographics, politics and economics of the UK?
 
It is verging on the impossible for this to happen. The railways were private enterprises and thus the whole point was to connect cities as they were an expensive endeavour, not to mention the expense of purchasing trains and so forth.

This is so dysfunctional as an idea it wouldn't actually be adopted.
 
Have the British government as proposed by a young Gladestone, nationalise the building and running of british railways. But also allow counties to build railways within their boundaries at whatever gauge they like. So therefore, have the British railway network have two types of railways by 1914:
  • National Railways owned by the National government which link industrial areas and conurbations to ports and each other as well as London
  • County railways run by county authorities running exclusively within their counties' boundaries
What about the larger Boroughs, which fell outside County jurisdiction but would probably include a significant proportion of the best sites for busy stations and for interchanges between the national & local networks?
 
This wouldn't really work without significant cultural and economic divergences, for two reasons.

One, the government in Victorian Britain was very much pro-Free Market, easy on the interventionism. You could have ended up with a system similar to the one used in France, in which the state prepared the groundwork for the track and decided where the tracks went, but companies actually laid the track itself and ran the trains.

Secondly, the whole point of railways is connectivity. Having several, relatively small, adjacent areas with their own railway gauge would be pointless in Britain, as it would inhibit trade. The Great Western Railway, which used its own gauge, eventually transferred to the standard gauge at some considerable expense.

Also, having multiple track gauges would mean people having to change trains several times as they go from one network to another.

Mostly, countries that adopted different gauges to standard gauge did so for a combination of political and geographic reasons, which suited them. Eventually, though it was simpler for most countries to just use the same gauge as their neighbours.

Plus, it makes it easier to export trains to other countries...

At best, you could have some areas having self-contained metro systems, in the form of a light railway. But it would still make more sense to connect the majority of places within a single gauge track system.
 
Also remember that British railways started as a means to transport coal from mines to the nearest port. So the first railroads were built by a variety of mining companies and were powered by a variety of humans, horses, oxen, etc. It is even easy to imagine a short railway powered by gravity, with laden cars rolling downhill and cables pulling empty cars back up to the mine shaft.
With dozens of different companies building different railroads, they would develop at dozens of different rates. Depending upon what type of fuel was available, they could be powered by gravity, water, tides, coal, wood, petroleum, etc.
Use your imaginations people.
 
Also remember that British railways started as a means to transport coal from mines to the nearest port. So the first railroads were built by a variety of mining companies and were powered by a variety of humans, horses, oxen, etc. It is even easy to imagine a short railway powered by gravity, with laden cars rolling downhill and cables pulling empty cars back up to the mine shaft.
With dozens of different companies building different railroads, they would develop at dozens of different rates. Depending upon what type of fuel was available, they could be powered by gravity, water, tides, coal, wood, petroleum, etc.
Use your imaginations people.

For a short distance certainly, and you get a lot of variation in the industrial lines within mines or so forth. But the only practical fuel source for a national line is coal (wood not burning hot enough for fast transport). Heck, unless your mine was literally right on the coast it's still not cost effective to use anything other than coal- the few gravity powered ones around are essentially limited to going up and down a single hill for example.

Assuming this somehow came to be, some bright spark will come up with the idea 'say wouldn't it be easier to be able to travel from Ilkeston in Derbyshire to Mansfield in Nottinghamshire without having to change trains halfway', will build a new line on a single gauge, take all the business and everyone else will start following suit.
 
It might have been possible for a basic set of routes between the major cities of England but I would think that by about 1850, the impetus would be gone. By this time competing private line will start adding competition. The "government lines" focus might shift to extending main lines north to Edinburgh and Glasgow (mayyyyybe Aberdeen?) before calling it complete.

The gauge of the local "infill" lines is going to depend on capital (which will be more likely to be restricted to what can be raised from the area around the proposed line). Coal lines to tidewater may be either narrow gauge for economy of construction or broad gauge for carrying capacity. Since the endpoints would be mine/port, interconnectivity would not be an issue. Agricultural areas, with seasonal traffic, may opt for narrow gauge.

Break of gauge could be advantageous, too. Building different gauge railways from your city to others means that all travelers/freight have to stop over in your city. (In the US, cities along the Ohio River enjoyed this). One thing I could see is Manchester opting for a local railway to the port of Liverpool instead of the Manchester Ship Canal. Possibly Scotland north of Edinburgh/Glasgow would have a uniform "Scottish Gauge" of, say, three feet (similar to the network of lines in Colorado, USA).
 
Have the British government as proposed by a young Gladestone, nationalise the building and running of british railways. But also allow counties to build railways within their boundaries at whatever gauge they like. So therefore, have the British railway network have two types of railways by 1914:
  • National Railways owned by the National government which link industrial areas and conurbations to ports and each other as well as London
  • County railways run by county authorities running exclusively within their counties' boundaries
National Railways would use the standard national gauge but each county would choose the gauge for their own county railways. Just to assert themselves, most counties deliberately choose to have different gauges from their neighbours. So therefore, unless you are travelling on a national railway, if crossing a boundary you may have to change trains.
How would this effect the demographics, politics and economics of the UK?

OK, I am getting my head around this

You basically have a local transit system, its gauge is actually irrelevant in a sense because its TRAINS only run on the county railway so you would have to change to a national line to get out of the county anyway.

Can all counties actually afford this? Or are the poorer counties going to have like 2 railway lines, whilst the richer counties have 30 or 40?

(Flintshire would be funny)

It effectively creates a 2-tier system between express services and local services. In essence any train on the national line only has to stop in ONE city per county as changing trains gets you onto the local county system. I guess for some counties stopping in more than one county makes sense from travel TO that city, i.e. York and Leeds.

Interesting idea!

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
OK, I am getting my head around this

You basically have a local transit system, its gauge is actually irrelevant in a sense because its TRAINS only run on the county railway so you would have to change to a national line to get out of the county anyway.

Can all counties actually afford this? Or are the poorer counties going to have like 2 railway lines, whilst the richer counties have 30 or 40?

(Flintshire would be funny)

It effectively creates a 2-tier system between express services and local services. In essence any train on the national line only has to stop in ONE city per county as changing trains gets you onto the local county system. I guess for some counties stopping in more than one county makes sense from travel TO that city, i.e. York and Leeds.

Interesting idea!

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

Under my scenario, what would Ceredigion's network look like?
 
Grey Wolf is talking about a hub-and-spoke similar to the way that modern airliners run with small (20 to 100 passengers) carrying local commuters. One hundred to 200-seater planes carrying passengers from regional/provincial hubs to major cities. Then long-range airplanes (100 to 400 passengers) carry international travellers. International transports are so huge because of the few landing slots available at major international airports.
 
Under my scenario, what would Ceredigion's network look like?

Virtually non-existent, the money's just not there to fund anything more than a line from Aberdyfi (Cardigan) to Aberystwyth and maybe a couple of small lines around the immediate area of Aberystwyth itself.

The entire idea of this system also completely implodes in a lot of areas- Take the Derby/Nottingham/Leicester area for example. The national lines might just stop at the three county towns (Rutland probably doesn't get anything under this system), but then you get the more regional centres. Lougborough will want links to each city, Ilkeston to both Derby and Nottingham, Long Eaton makes most of the Lace sold in Nottingham's Lace Market but is over the county boundaries, Chesterfield will want lines to both Mansfield and Sheffield, Doncaster with Worksop etc.

Lets assume for a moment that the national line out of Leicester takes a stop in Loughborough and then splits with one line going up to Nottingham and one to Derby. The Derby line then goes up to Sheffield via Chesterfield, then the Nottingham line heads to either Sheffield (via Mansfield and Chesterfield) or Doncaster and York (via Worksop), or possibly both splitting at Mansfield. Either way there's then a Derby-Nottingham line which we'll say goes through Long Eaton and Beeston.

Now, while you might have express trains doing just the major cities, there's no point in having a second line just doing all small settlements along the line between Derby and Nottingham (Derby-Chaddesden-Spondon-Borrowash-Draycott-Long Eaton-Attenborough-Beeston-Lenton-Nottingham), so they'll probably just run another train along there which (under this system) might be joint funded by Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. Similarly the Nottingham-Loughborough-Leicester and Derby-Loughborough-Leicester lines will probably do the same thing. Then Ilkeston wants lines to both Derby and Nottingham, and the easiest thing to get to Derby is to just pull a spur out from the mainline at Long Eaton. Meanwhile Ilkeston is right on the border so lets assume that Nottingham County Rails have a terminal in Ilkeston, and Derby County Rails have this spur from Ilkeston down to Long Eaton. Now finances are tight (because it's being raised purely on the County basis), and so Derbyshire's only got the funding for one line at the moment, so lets assume that they put one in running from Long Eaton up through Ilkeston, Heanor and Alfreton towards Chesterfield. Two problems spring up though, the first is the problems of terrain in north Derbyshire- lots of tunnels and so forth, which means the easiest thing functionally is to have a junction with the mainline south of Chesterfield rather than try to get this secondary line up to Chesterfield station itself. Meanwhile Derbyshire is already running services on three branches of the National lines (running towards Sheffield, Nottingham and Loughborough) and running an entire new train and carriages for this one line is going to be expensive. All told, far cheaper to just use the same gauge as the national network.

Right so now we've got Nottinghamshire. We can assume that a line to Sheffield would be considered part of the national network, so that's on the main gauge, and if Doncaster isn't in the national network then it's still easiest to get to Worksop via Mansfield, and nobody wants to change trains within the county so that suddenly means that Worksop's on the main gauge as well.

And suddenly we've got a situation where Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire have both decided via precedent to use the national gauge. Now Leicestershire gains nothing by using her own gauge because that means her own businesses are losing out on access to the Nottingham Market compared to Derbyshire, so they'll want to use the same gauge as well.

And there's similar examples on multiple county boundaries across the country.
 
the government in Victorian Britain was very much pro-Free Market, easy on the interventionism. You could have ended up with a system similar to the one used in France, in which the state prepared the groundwork for the track and decided where the tracks went, but companies actually laid the track itself and ran the trains.

It is verging on the impossible for this to happen...This is so dysfunctional as an idea it wouldn't actually be adopted.

As a matter of fact, Gladstone and Palmerston discussed nationalisation of the railways over the course of 1864. Where they disagreed, intriguingly, was not in the principle of intervention but in the practicality. I'll transcribe the correspondence, as it's perhaps of interest.

"A man named [Sir AT] Galt [MP] has recently written a book, in which he recommends the purchase of the Railways by the State... [John Arthur] Roebuck [MP] has taken up this matter with great enthusiasm... I am by no means sure that the question does not contain materials for a very great and fruitful measure" (Gladstone to Palmerston, 3 October 1864)

"You mentioned in a Letter some Time ago, a Scheme which has been suggested according to which the Government would buy up all the Railways, but not with a view to work them by any Department of the State but in order to arrive at a large Reduction of the present Charges. This seems to be a large Question, seeing that the Capital laid out in our Railways amounts to about Four Hundred Millions and that the working Expences [sic] are about Sixteen Millions a Year." (Palmerston to Gladstone, 28 October 1864)

"we have now an act known as 'Gladstone's Act' which authorises the State to buy at 25 years purchase of the nett [sic] receipts, 21 years after opening, any Railway authorised in or since 1844... a more serious difficulty I think would have to be encountered in making provision for extensions of stations and other permanent improvements in the lines while under lease... The question is indeed as you say a large one... I think it looks a hopeful one, but I would not say more. Sometime ago I wrote a letter to Mr. Glyn containing a rough outline: if you think it will not try your patience too much to peruse I will send it you." (Gladstone to Palmerston, 2 November 1864)

"You lately asked me what arrangements would be made, in the event of the purchase of the Railways by the State, to regulate the making of new lines from time to time... We suppose the Railways:
1. To have been purchased and taken into possession by the State.
2. To be worked by Commercial firms or companies as lessees from the State, in conveniently divided groups. And probably
3. To be superintended, as far as the state is concerned, by a Board or Department having a qualified independence of the Executive Government...
the leases [to] be given, in the state of things I suppose, would commonly be very short leases, not for more than five or seven years... All new lines would be proposed in good faith and not in order to be bought up... they might have the aid of a Report from the Railway Board, founded on the merits, and not on the consideration of competition... considering that the day of new trunk lines, properly so called, has almost gone by... new loops, branches, and so forth would fall into the category of new works; for which at the instance commonly of the Lessees, the State would find the capital when they were approved... I am endeavouring to obtain materials which will enable you and the Cabinet to judge whether we ought to instigate any inquiry with a view to clearing the ground for this question." (Gladstone to Palmerston, 19 December 1864)

"I own it appears on the first Blush a wild and more than doubtful Project... To buy up existing Railways would I apprehend require an outlay of Two or Three Hundred Millions... This would be a permanent addition to the National Debt... The Debt would therefore be permanent, the sources from whence Interest would arise would be precarious and temporary... You may be prepared to answer all such objections and to clear away all such Doubts, and therefore I await your Development of your Scheme." (Palmerston to Gladstone, 23 December 1864).

"The question whether the present system and scale of railway charges would admit of great reductions... is one which has great claims to examination, on account of the vast benefits... the benefits might be had by purchase of the railways; I will not say it is impossible they might be had without it... Perhaps I was wrong in taking hold of the subject at the wrong end, instead of waiting until I could have stated the general reasons which seem to recommend, and which may perhaps be found to compel, our looking at it... The question of purchasing the mass of railway property is a vast and staggering one; and there is much between looking at it and adopting it. The mode in which I was myself dispose to contemplate it was one which would have created no debt in lieu of stock..." (Gladstone to Palmerston, 24 December 1864).
 
I don't doubt that a Victorian nationalisation might be possible, but I was commenting that this particular way of doing is too problematic to be adopted.

Hub and spoke might work for airports, but that's chiefly due to the fact that it's not necessary to actually go through every intervening location, whereas a railway has to actually travel through all the towns on the way, so it's only practical to use the same line for both an express route and local traffic between towns on that route.
 
I don't doubt that a Victorian nationalisation might be possible, but I was commenting that this particular way of doing is too problematic to be adopted.

Hub and spoke might work for airports, but that's chiefly due to the fact that it's not necessary to actually go through every intervening location, whereas a railway has to actually travel through all the towns on the way, so it's only practical to use the same line for both an express route and local traffic between towns on that route.

Hub and spoke does work on railways, though obviously the implementation is a little different from airlines. The advantages of cutting down the number of routes needed, however, is still potent, which is why rail hubs like Chicago and branch lines were so important back in the day (and still are, to some extent).

For a real-world example, take the London Underground system. Say you want to travel from Wembley Park to Wimbledon (stations picked to illustrate the point, not because of any particular travel logic). Then, assuming I am reading this map correctly, you would need to travel from Wembley Park to Baker Street, switch lines, travel to Edgware Road, switch lines again, and finally travel to Wimbledon. That is to say, you start off at a local station, transfer to a hub (the junction of several lines), travel to another hub, and finally get on a train that goes to your final destination. This is completely equivalent to getting on a plane at your local airport, traveling through a hub system, and finally getting onto another "spoke" route to your destination.
 
Virtually non-existent, the money's just not there to fund anything more than a line from Aberdyfi (Cardigan) to Aberystwyth and maybe a couple of small lines around the immediate area of Aberystwyth itself.

The entire idea of this system also completely implodes in a lot of areas- Take the Derby/Nottingham/Leicester area for example. The national lines might just stop at the three county towns (Rutland probably doesn't get anything under this system), but then you get the more regional centres. Lougborough will want links to each city, Ilkeston to both Derby and Nottingham, Long Eaton makes most of the Lace sold in Nottingham's Lace Market but is over the county boundaries, Chesterfield will want lines to both Mansfield and Sheffield, Doncaster with Worksop etc.

Lets assume for a moment that the national line out of Leicester takes a stop in Loughborough and then splits with one line going up to Nottingham and one to Derby. The Derby line then goes up to Sheffield via Chesterfield, then the Nottingham line heads to either Sheffield (via Mansfield and Chesterfield) or Doncaster and York (via Worksop), or possibly both splitting at Mansfield. Either way there's then a Derby-Nottingham line which we'll say goes through Long Eaton and Beeston.

Now, while you might have express trains doing just the major cities, there's no point in having a second line just doing all small settlements along the line between Derby and Nottingham (Derby-Chaddesden-Spondon-Borrowash-Draycott-Long Eaton-Attenborough-Beeston-Lenton-Nottingham), so they'll probably just run another train along there which (under this system) might be joint funded by Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. Similarly the Nottingham-Loughborough-Leicester and Derby-Loughborough-Leicester lines will probably do the same thing. Then Ilkeston wants lines to both Derby and Nottingham, and the easiest thing to get to Derby is to just pull a spur out from the mainline at Long Eaton. Meanwhile Ilkeston is right on the border so lets assume that Nottingham County Rails have a terminal in Ilkeston, and Derby County Rails have this spur from Ilkeston down to Long Eaton. Now finances are tight (because it's being raised purely on the County basis), and so Derbyshire's only got the funding for one line at the moment, so lets assume that they put one in running from Long Eaton up through Ilkeston, Heanor and Alfreton towards Chesterfield. Two problems spring up though, the first is the problems of terrain in north Derbyshire- lots of tunnels and so forth, which means the easiest thing functionally is to have a junction with the mainline south of Chesterfield rather than try to get this secondary line up to Chesterfield station itself. Meanwhile Derbyshire is already running services on three branches of the National lines (running towards Sheffield, Nottingham and Loughborough) and running an entire new train and carriages for this one line is going to be expensive. All told, far cheaper to just use the same gauge as the national network.

Right so now we've got Nottinghamshire. We can assume that a line to Sheffield would be considered part of the national network, so that's on the main gauge, and if Doncaster isn't in the national network then it's still easiest to get to Worksop via Mansfield, and nobody wants to change trains within the county so that suddenly means that Worksop's on the main gauge as well.

And suddenly we've got a situation where Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire have both decided via precedent to use the national gauge. Now Leicestershire gains nothing by using her own gauge because that means her own businesses are losing out on access to the Nottingham Market compared to Derbyshire, so they'll want to use the same gauge as well.

And there's similar examples on multiple county boundaries across the country.

How about this. I personally believe that some counties such as Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicester would do what was economically pragmatic and cooperate, having one three county network linking up the towns and industrial areas of the counties. This would be what the industrialists would have wanted. There would also be a mainline from London running through Leicester and Nottingham to the Norteast, Scotland and Yorkshire, probably with a branch line to Derby so it wouldn't be grave. However I can see larger counties like Lincolnshire deciding that they don't need to cooperate and possibly having their own gauge. Let's just hope that successive Whig, Tory, Liberal and Conservative governments see fit to build a national railway linking Grimsby and Lincoln at least to the capital, lest one need to change trains at the border merely to enter the county. I see Lincolnshire having a large number of lines radiating from Lincoln to places like Scegness, Framtham and Gainsborough with Termini at the borders if the council can borrow money.. A national line may also be built from Cleethorpes to Yorkshire but travel from Lincoln to Nottingham and particularly Sheffield is gonna be interesting. If Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire are too uncooperative, there might not even be back to back Termini at the border. Either way Lincoln very important as a transport hub, like other county towns however Newark will probably lack a line to London and be more remote, or just a dormitory town for Nottingham.

Wales would be so interesting. Swansea/ Pembroke would be the termini for a national line, as would Holyhead. The industrial areas would build intensively as might slatey Caernarfonshire to a lesser extend but I don't see the Cambrian line being built. Maybe Montgomeryshire, Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire might together build a line together from Carmarthen to Machynlleth and possibly Caernarfonshire, Merionethshire and Montgomeryshire might build one from Bangor to Machynleth though. Ceredigion, Merionethshire and Montgomeryshire therefore have no connection to England and remain more Welsh and less Brumified to this day.
What do you think?
 
However I can see larger counties like Lincolnshire deciding that they don't need to cooperate and possibly having their own gauge. Let's just hope that successive Whig, Tory, Liberal and Conservative governments see fit to build a national railway linking Grimsby and Lincoln at least to the capital, lest one need to change trains at the border merely to enter the county. I see Lincolnshire having a large number of lines radiating from Lincoln to places like Scegness, Framtham and Gainsborough with Termini at the borders if the council can borrow money.. A national line may also be built from Cleethorpes to Yorkshire but travel from Lincoln to Nottingham and particularly Sheffield is gonna be interesting. If Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire are too uncooperative, there might not even be back to back Termini at the border. Either way Lincoln very important as a transport hub, like other county towns however Newark will probably lack a line to London and be more remote, or just a dormitory town for Nottingham.
At that date, wouldn't Lindsey (whether with or without the city of Lincoln), Kesteven, and Holland, effectively be under three separate authorities rather than a unified 'Lincolnshire' one?
 
Yep in 1888 they each got their own county council. Well Holland is East Anglia and Kesteven is virtually Nottinghamshire!:D
Not that I'm the slightly bit biased!
 
I think a move towards municipalisation of railways very possible. Local governments wouldn't build them, but they would licence the heck out of them. This was a major aspect of Victorian life, Dickens mentions it. Local government bye-laws were largely written to line the pockets of local councillors, the way democracy now works in the USA with pork-barrel corruption being a way of life.

But I'm not sure that something like this didn't happen anyway. The landscape is littered with abandoned branch lines, and some of the scenic small-gauge lines originated as purely practical branches. Quoting wiki:

"The first heritage railway to be rescued and run entirely by volunteers was the Talyllyn Railway in Wales. This narrow gauge line, taken over by a group of enthusiasts in 1950, is recognised as the start of the preservation movement in the United Kingdom. The world's second preserved railway, and the first outside the United Kingdom, was the Puffing Billy Railway in Australia. This railway operates 24 km of track with much of the original rolling stock built as early as 1898. There are now several hundred heritage railways in the United Kingdom and similar railway preservation schemes by enthusiast can be found in many of the other countries in Europe and the Commonwealth."

Several hundred heritage railways, even if they only cover a few miles each, suggest they were the bottom end of a considerable network. I love them myself, even if I have to convince myself that the really narrow gauge trains won't tip over if I sneeze!
 
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