Talk:Maryport and Carlisle Railway

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Act required railway to be built alternately from the ends?[edit]

I hate "citation needed" but I have inserted it here. The text says that the authorising Act required the railway to be built alternately from the two ends. None of the source material I have supports that. They did build the two ends before they completed the centre section, but it appears to me that this was a commercial decision. Afterbrunel (talk) 21:39, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure what source material you have to hand, but the David & Charles Regional History (Vol 14) (op. cit.) has this on page 145: "In order to satisfy agricultural interests around Wigton, Parliament by means of a special clause in the Act put pressure on the promoters to finish the line throughout. The railway was to be built for 6 miles at the Carlisle end as soon as it was completed for 12 miles at the Maryport end, operations then proceeding forward from each extremity until the two sections met." Rjccumbria (talk) 21:36, 5 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Further to that, I had a look in the British Newspaper Archive 1836-1840 for possible confirmation from contemporary sources - and found a fair few newspaper snippets saying what 'the directors intended' with no mention of any constraint on their decisions, so I did start to wonder if it was indeed a commercial decision. However, according to the Carlisle Patriot of 18 July 1840, the opening of the first section of the M&C was followed by junketing and speechifying at the Senhouse Arms, Maryport, in the course of which one of the directors responded to the toast of 'Mr Wybergh and the other directors of the M&C':

Mr Wybergh said he had been a very inefficient director, but he could bear testimony to the zeal of his coadjutors. He was happy to say that active measures were in progress for completing the line, and he believed that by the latter end of the year it would be finished to Aspatria. After that it would be necessary, according to the provisions of the act of parliament, to begin the line at Carlisle and carry it as far as Dalston. He trusted that in a few years they would dine together in that room and afterwards proceed by the railway to sup at Carlisle

Rjccumbria (talk) 23:53, 5 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks; I'm still nervous that it's a grey area; it's a pity that (without going to Kew) we can't get access to the wording of the Act, but I can't find it anywhere on line.

I felt that the article didn't do justice to the importance of the railway, despite your sterling efforts, so I have added some text. Afterbrunel (talk) 13:37, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Most of which is appreciated, but -nothing personal - my main gripe about railway histories is that they concentrate on such things as where the station was, what it was called, when it closed, or in the railway politics, or in the engineering, and the commercial side of things (and the effect on the area served by the railway) goes largely undocumented, so I am in two minds about the merits of your expansion. The only major error I could see in the additional stuff was the statement that the M&C ran over rich haematite deposits. It doesn't; the deposits (or at least the commercially exploitable deposits) don't go much north of Whitehaven (reputable geological references available on request, but if you go to p 162 of Joy, he correctly states the extent of the West Cumbrian haematite deposits as 'a narrow strip little more than a mile wide extending from some 9 miles from south of Egremont to Lamplugh, south-west of Loweswater'). To be awkward I do wonder what the QA/ fact-checking will have been on some of the sources you are using (were not the Jacksons essentially self-publishing?). I'm a great fan of contemporary newspaper reports, because the journalists were paid to get it right, and in the 19th century there was generally a rival rag only too keen to point out any errors. On the question of the name of the original Carlisle station, the local press had multiple references including in legal arguments to the terminus at Bogfield (which of course is not conclusive as to its name) and the report of the 1850 Committee of Investigation calls it the Bogfield station. Against that, all I can see in the Carlisle press of the day is a reference in Feb 1845 to the M&CR having commenced to sell excellent coals at its station in Water Lane (which again is evidence as to location, but not to name) No hits at all for Bog Lane Rjccumbria (talk) 21:56, 12 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]