Bolton and Leigh Railway

Background

Bolton was situated on the Manchester, Bolton and Bury Canal and Leigh straddled a major east–west canal route. To the west ran the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, and this was connected to the centre of Leigh by the Bridgewater Canal running east. The canals provided freight routes to both Liverpool and Manchester.

The canals of the time were the major freight routes: they were faster and could transport greater loads than the carriers using the turnpike road system. However, these canal routes were slow; they became congested, and increasingly more expensive as demand from the rapidly expanding businesses in the area increased. The waterways had a virtual monopoly on the transport links which enabled them to charge exorbitant tolls.

As costs rose, business leaders and industrialists began to look for another means of transporting their goods and products. They looked to the railway to break the canals' monopoly. The canal companies recognised this threat to their business early on: for example, the Leeds and Liverpool canal company minutes of 21 September 1822 mention the issue, and the canal businesses started to take steps to protect their interests.

Rail roads, tramroads and railways had been around for some time, mainly used to transport goods, especially coal to the canal network. There was already at least one private railway operating in the area: in 1812 Robert Daglish had constructed a railway to carry coal from Orrell Colliery in Winstanley, near Wigan to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. This railway used "Blenkinsop and Murrays" patent cog and rack steam locomotives to haul the coal wagons. A little further north, the Lancaster Canal had been built in two sections, joined in 1797 by a 5-mile-long (8.0 km) tramroad.

Inception

Sometime before 1 October 1824 a committee was formed by local businessmen, including William Hulton, Benjamin Hick and Peter Rothwell to promote a railway in the area. The committee is first recorded on that date as requiring its 63 members to pay money into a bank for the "making of a railway or railways or tram road from Bolton to the Leeds and Liverpool canal..."

Several routes were proposed and the committee contacted the pioneering railway engineer George Stephenson for his views on the scheme. Stephenson was familiar with the area as he was in the process of surveying the route of the future Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR). Stephenson's response was to commission another engineer, Hugh Steel, to conduct a survey of the viable routes for the railway. Steel had worked with Stephenson as a surveyor on the L&MR, and he was assisted in the survey by Robert Daglish. The plans for the line reflected contemporary railway engineering practice in the north-east of England, where Stephenson came from, by including inclined planes which would require cable haulage by stationary engines. Steel's proposed line was approved by Stephenson and accepted by the committee.

The committee had decided that if they tried to cross the canal at Leigh, with the ultimate aim of making a connection to the proposed L&MR, they would create so much opposition that their parliamentary bill could fail. There was little precedent for approving railways; local landowners were reluctant to have railways on or near their property; and the canal companies were very influential. The committee decided to put forward a bill they thought could pass, rather than one with a much higher risk of failing.

Towards the end of 1824 the bill was presented to Parliament together with Steel's survey and an estimated construction cost of £43,143 (equivalent to £4,080,000 in 2025).

The Bolton and Leigh Railway (B&LR) was the first public railway in Lancashire, being a public railway meant carrying goods either by company wagon or privately owned wagon. The B&LR chose to follow the turnpike and canal tradition where the service was available to anyone who could pay the toll.

Shortly after the line had opened its 'utility' was being reported on favourably, coal was reduced in price in the Bolton area by more than 2s per ton. Business on the line improved when the Kenyon and Leigh Junction Railway (K&LJR) was constructed to link the B&LR from its southern terminus with the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR) at Kenyon.

When the K&LJR presented its bill to Parliament in 1828, MPs were more amenable towards railway companies and the canal company withdrew its opposition to the railway crossing the canal. In 1829 the K&LJR received royal assent to the Kenyon and Leigh Junction Railway Act 1829 (10 Geo. 4. c. xxxvi) authorising it to build a single-track line from the end of the Bolton and Leigh Railway near Twiss (now Twist) Lane in Westleigh to Kenyon, where a junction would be made with the L&MR which was at an advanced stage of construction.

The 2+1⁄2-mile (4.0 km) line crossed the Leeds and Liverpool Canal before heading south towards Kenyon. Stations were built at Bradshaw Leach and Kenyon. As soon as it opened on 3 January 1831, goods trains could access 28+1⁄2 miles (45.9 km) of line between Bolton and Liverpool and a few months later a passenger service to Liverpool started.