The Lancaster and Preston Junction Railway opened its twenty-mile line in 1840 in Lancashire, England. The company was not commercially successful. When the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway opened in 1846, the L&PJR became part of a busy trunk railway. It had never had the money to provide substantial track equipment or proper signalling arrangements. Most of the line is in use today as part of the West Coast Main Line railway and has been electrified. None of the L&PJR stations are still in use.
A chaotic situation developed in which the company did not have a legal board of directors and the Carlisle company ran unauthorised trains over the line. The Lancaster Canal Company had a yearly lease of the line and was unwilling to spend money on improvements without security of tenure. No proper system of safe operation was imposed and in 1848 a rear-end collision took place at Bay Horse station exposing the shortcomings. The situation was regularised at the end of 1848 when the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway took control. By then the London and North Western Railway was exercising oversight of the L&CR, and formal transfer to the LNWR took place in 1859.
Conception and authorisation
As the railway network of Great Britain developed, a line connecting the north-west of England to Scotland was suggested by Joseph Locke in 1835. The North Union Railway was authorised in 1834, taking up unused powers to build a line to Preston from the south. This aroused considerable interest in Lancaster where a railway connection was thought highly desirable. At a public meeting on 12 April 1836 it was agreed to build a line between Lancaster and Preston. The NUR connection from Wigan to Preston did not open until 1838.Brian Reed, Crewe to Carlisle, Ian Allan, London, 1969, , pages 79 and 80Geoffrey Holt and Gordon Biddle, A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain: volume 10: the North West, David St John Thomas, Nairn, 1986, , page 224Francis Whishaw, The Railways of Great Britain and Ireland Practically Described and Illustrated, John Weale, London, 1842, pages 167-172
Lancaster would not wait for the NUR line to Preston to be ready, and on 5 May the (7 Will. 4 & 1 Vict. c. xxii) was authorised by Parliament. Share capital was £250,000.Bob Gregson, The London and North Western Railway around Preston, Atkinson Publications Ltd, Preston, 2012, , page 21Donald J Grant, Directory of the Railway Companies of Great Britain, Matador Publishers, Kibworth Beauchamp, 2017, , page 304
Construction was expected to be straightforward and the return on investment was anticipated to be 10%, revised to 18% before opening. The line was long and the engineer was Joseph Locke. The Lancaster terminus was to be on South Road, south of the Lancaster Canal adjacent to Railway Street. At this stage any route northwards was uncertain and the canal was an important connection. When completed the station comprised a handsome building. The company made its Preston terminus at Dock Street near the Lancaster Canal, but the site had no other accommodation.
The rails were of the parallel form, (that is, not fish-bellied). Larch sleepers were used on embankments and stone block sleepers elsewhere.
Opening
The line was opened ceremonially on 25 June 1840 and a public service operated from the following day. Five passenger trains ran each way every weekday, of which two had through coaches to and from London; on Sundays, only these "mail" trains ran. Only one train a day conveyed third class passengers.Reed, page 81Gregson, page 22 Traffic was disappointing: while Lancaster remained a terminus, its trade alone could not sustain a railway particularly because of competition from the Lancaster Canal whose packet boats had operated since 1833. They were more comfortable than railway carriages and heated in winter. The canal company lowered its fares when the railway opened and the canal ran close to Garstang, the only other sizable intermediate settlement. The boats were drawn by two horses at a canter.Reed, page 84Holt and Biddle, page 225M D Greville and G O Holt, Railway Development in Preston – 1, in Railway Magazine, February 1960
Conflict with the North Union Railway In 1836, before construction of either line, the NUR had offered to extend its line northward from its intended terminus at Butler Street to Dock Street where it would acquire land for a joint station with the Lancaster company. Mutual running powers at Preston were to be included in the arrangement, and the L&PJR was to reimburse the NUR's expenses within a month of the outlays. The L&PJR delayed agreeing as its own act of Parliament was not yet secured, but in March 1837 the NUR started building the extension, tunnelling under Fishergate, and then the L&PJR committed to paying £1,500 when it was completed.Reed, pages 81 and 82 The NUR completed the extension in December 1839 and £1,500 was duly paid. When the L&PJR opened seven months later, the NUR said the payment did not get the L&PJR free use of the line to Butler Street, nor use of the station. This had been on offer, but not taken up, and did not form part of the agreement. Although this appears to have been L&PJR error, it felt aggrieved and relations between the companies were harmed. As Greville and Holt put it, having paid its share in the making of the connecting line, the L&PJR was certainly not going to pay tolls for using it.
The L&PJR had failed to agree an engine working policy until the last moment. The NUR offered to manage the locomotive fleet but the L&PJR had to acquire its share of locomotives. At the last minute the L&PJR agreed to the arrangement but failed to get the complement of locomotives ready in time. The NUR discovered that the L&PJR track was of poor quality and considered that its locomotives were being damaged in running over it; there was evidently friction in day-to-day operation too. The NUR gave six months’ notice in June 1841 to terminate the locomotive arrangement.Gregson, page 24 John Hargreaves who was working freight traffic on the L&PJR line under contract, acquired the L&PJR locomotive fleet and took over the locomotive working.
Collaboration with the Bolton and Preston Railway The Bolton and Preston Railway built a line from Bolton to Chorley and Hargreaves was working the line. The NUR considered the B&PR a hostile competitor and collaboration between the B&PR and the L&PJR exacerbated bad feeling from the NUR.Reed, page 83 The Bolton and Preston Railway had intended to build throughout to Preston which would have duplicated much of the NUR route and given it a shorter route from Preston to Manchester. In a change of plan, it now intended to make a junction with the NUR Euxton and reach Preston over the NUR. Its original intention to have a station at Preston remained, and in a further heightening of tension, the B&PR agreed to build the station there for the use of the L&PJR.
The L&PJR used its basic Dock Street station and some trains continued to Butler Street, the NUR Preston station. Passengers travelling through were charged a supplement of 6d, but some left the train at Dock Street and walked to Butler Street to rejoin the same train. The L&PJR terminus at Dock Street was little more than a siding with buffer stops and a short, low timber platform. Access to Fishergate was by way of a cinder path and a flight of steps.
The B&PR station was ready early in 1842. It was adjacent to Maxwell House and sometimes known by that name. It was a terminus, accessed from the north, and could not be used for through trains. The NUR feared that B&PR plans to duplicate the route from Euxton to Preston station might be revived. When the B&PR made its connection at Euxton, it relied on running over the NUR to get to Preston, and the NUR exploited the opportunity to charge high tolls. The B&PR was seriously weakened and was amalgamated with the NUR in 1843.
Transfer to the Lancaster Canal
The L&PJR was also weakened by the friction and its dependency on the hostile NUR. In 1842 it sought a purchaser, either the B&PR which was in financial difficulties or the NUR, which declined. On 14 July 1842 the Lancaster Canal Company agreed to take a 21-year lease of the L&PJR, effective from 1 September 1842 which was ratified by the (6 & 7 Vict. c. iv) on 3 April 1843. The lease charge was £30,000 per annum.Reed, page 84Gregson, page 25
The detached B&PR station at Maxwell House continued to be used by the Lancaster trains, but when the B&PR was absorbed by the NUR in 1844, the station passed to the NUR who refused to use the station. The canal company had to negotiate a rent to use Butler Street station which was agreed from 13 February 1844.
Lancaster and Carlisle Railway The Lancaster and Carlisle Railway was authorised on 6 June 1844,Grant, page 303 and the west coast main line was being created. The L&CR directors had an interest in the proper management of the L&PJR. In March 1844 a committee of the L&CR recommended leasing the Canal Company, and through that the L&PJR, but ambiguities in the lease of the L&PJR were discovered frustrating the plan. Further attempts to regularise matters were also unsuccessful. From 22 September 1846 the L&CR opened its line from Kendal to Lancaster, and its trains ran on to Preston without formal authorisation. The Lancaster station was a through station and the line by-passed the L&PJR terminus. By this time the London and North Western Railway, formed by amalgamating several networks including the North Union Railway, had come into being and was friendly to the L&CR, condoning the use of the Preston station. Meanwhile, L&PJR trains operated independently from the original Lancaster station to Preston Dock Street.Reed, pages 84 to 86
Management failings The management of the line was extremely sub-divided and ineffective, summarised by Captain Laffan of the Board of Trade:
In July, 1842, an agreement was made between the Directors of the L&PJR and the Lancaster Canal Company, by which the latter Company were to become lessees of the Railway for 21 years. It was agreed that the whole of the line, works, working stock, &c., were given up to the Canal Company on the 1st September, 1842. Since that time the Canal Company have remained in possession, and have continued to maintain and to work the line. As the Railway Company, however, had no power in 1842 to grant a lease of their line for a longer period than three years, and as the Canal Company had then no power to take a lease of any Railway, one of the conditions of the agreement was, that the two Companies should jointly apply for an Act to confirm the agreement, and to give them what powers were necessary to enable them to execute a formal lease. An Act was obtained in the following session (July, 1843); but upon the formal lease being drawn up, in accordance with the conditions of the agreement, the Railway Company refused to ratify it unless certain additional conditions were introduced to which the Canal Company refused to accede.
The Canal Company have retained possession of the line, and regularly fulfilled the condition of their agreement, paying every year the stipulated rent. The Railway Company acknowledge that the Canal Company is legally in possession, but they assert that they are so only as yearly tenants. The Canal Company, on the other hand, not content to remain in that position, have applied to the Court of Chancery for an injunction to compel the Railway Company to fulfil their original agreement, and grant a formal lease in accordance with it.