RAILWAYS
There were abortive railway schemes in the mid 1820s
to link Birmingham and Birkenhead via Chester, and
by 1835 for a branch from the city to the Grand
Junction's Birmingham-Warrington line at Crewe. (fn. 1)
The Chester and Crewe and the Chester and Birkenhead Railways were incorporated separately in 1837, (fn. 2)
and both lines were opened in 1840, by when the
former was owned by the Grand Junction. (fn. 3) The line
from Crewe entered the city alongside the canal in
Boughton; that from Birkenhead came in through
Upton and Newton, east of Liverpool Road. (fn. 4) They
met on the city boundary north-east of Chester at the
hamlet of Flookersbrook, a low-lying area which the
railway companies drained. Their stations, near one
another and reached along Brook Street, were wooden
shacks and converted houses, including Brook Lodge,
which survived in a derelict condition into the 1940s or
later. (fn. 5) Although the two lines connected, there were no
through trains. (fn. 6)
After the Chester-Crewe line was authorized those
already interested in a rail connexion between Holyhead (Ang.) and the Midlands proposed a line from
Holyhead to Chester. The Chester and Holyhead
Railway Company was incorporated in 1844 to build
on a route much of which had already been surveyed
by George Stephenson. (fn. 7) To carry the line out of
Chester, Stephenson proposed a route leading west
from Brook Street, with a tunnel under Upper Northgate Street, the line then emerging to bridge the canal,
cut through the north-west corner of the city walls,
and cross the Roodee on a viaduct leading to a bridge
over the Dee. (fn. 8) The first two miles to Saltney were
shared by the Shrewsbury and Chester Railway, a
company formed by merger in 1846. (fn. 9) The lines
diverged at Saltney Junction, near Hough Green, the
Holyhead line heading due west into Wales, the
Shrewsbury line curving south to cross the main
road (later Chester Street) by a bridge and leave the
city parallel with the national boundary. A station and
later extensive sidings were built at Saltney. The
G.W.R. closed the station to passengers in 1917 but
reopened it in 1932. At Saltney Wharf on the Dee
were more sidings and a goods station which closed in
1937. (fn. 10)
Figure 50:
Train for north Wales passing under city walls, 1867
Figure 51:
General railway station, 1890s
The Shrewsbury and Chester opened its line as far as
Ruabon (Denb.) in 1846 and to Oswestry and Shrewsbury in 1848. (fn. 11) A serious accident took place in 1847,
when one of the cast-iron girders of the Dee bridge
broke, plunging a train into the river and killing five
people. (fn. 12) The bridge was repaired and in 1870–1 was
rebuilt in brick and wrought iron. (fn. 13)
The Chester and Holyhead Railway was opened to
Bangor (Caern.) in 1848 and to Holyhead in 1850. (fn. 14) A
line to Mold (Denb.), branching from the Holyhead
line just outside the city, was opened in 1849 by the
same company. (fn. 15) It was extended to Denbigh in 1869,
thus providing access along lines already open to
Ruthin (Denb.) and Corwen (Merion.). (fn. 16)
The Chester and Birkenhead had meanwhile been
absorbed in 1847 into the Birkenhead, Lancashire, and
Cheshire Junction Railway. In the same year the new
company opened a branch from its main line at Helsby
to a junction just east of Brook Street station in
Chester. (fn. 17)
By the late 1840s Chester was thus already a busy rail
junction whose stations were quite inadequate. A
general station, to be run jointly by the companies
concerned, was first mooted in 1845 and approved in
1847. (fn. 18) Completed in 1848, it was designed by Francis
Thompson on the lines of his earlier station at Derby,
as a long two-storeyed Italianate building in dark red
brick with facings of Storeton stone. (fn. 19) There was only
one through platform, over 1,000 ft. long, and a
scissors junction allowed up trains to use one end
and down trains the other. Offices for the railway
companies were housed on the first floor, with booking
hall, refreshment rooms, and other passenger accommodation beneath. (fn. 20)
As generally in the early 1840s, (fn. 21) passenger traffic
was far more lucrative than goods: in 1846 the Chester
and Birkenhead carried over 173,000 passengers who
brought in over £15,600, while goods and mails
accounted for under £2,500. The line to Ruabon
carried over 60,000 passengers in its first six
months. (fn. 22) Chester was nevertheless an obvious site for
a large goods depot. In 1841 the newly appointed
secretary of the Grand Junction, Mark Huish, began
a goods agency at Chester, (fn. 23) and by 1849 the goods yard
employed a staff of 67, handling 180,000 tons a year, (fn. 24)
rising by 1855 to up to 80 trains a day carrying 684,000
tons a year. (fn. 25) Although the gap between freight and
passenger income narrowed, the number of passengers
also rose steadily to almost 1,500,000 in 1858, of
whom nearly 300,000 were through passengers and
over 350,000 were excursionists visiting Chester. There
were nearly 100 passenger trains a day in 1855. (fn. 26)
In and after the 1850s there was great rivalry
between the two main companies operating trains
from Chester: the London and North Western
(L.N.W.R.), into which the Grand Junction had been
merged in 1846, and the Great Western (G.W.R.),
which took over the Shrewsbury and Chester in
1854. The L.N.W.R., which had operated the trains
on the Holyhead and Mold lines from their opening,
took over the Chester and Holyhead company in 1858
and later acquired others, so that it could run trains
from Chester throughout north Wales. A branch line
from Tattenhall Junction on the Chester-Crewe line to
Whitchurch (Salop.), opened in 1872, enabled the
L.N.W.R. to run trains from Chester into G.W.R.
territory at Shrewsbury. One area of contention
between the two companies was resolved by compromise: in 1860 the Birkenhead, Lancashire, and Cheshire
Junction was vested in them jointly, to be run as a
separate concern, the Birkenhead Railway. (fn. 27)
By the mid 1860s Chester General station had passed
from the General Station Committee to a joint committee of the L.N.W.R. and G.W.R. There were refreshment rooms from the start and a bookstall by 1860. (fn. 28)
The Queen Hotel opposite the station was opened in
1860. (fn. 29) City Road, suggested in 1846 to link the station
more directly with the town, (fn. 30) was built in the early
1860s jointly by the station committee and the city
council. (fn. 31)
A large area of land was eventually taken over for
railway purposes around General station. To its north,
a triangle of tracks allowing interchange between
the lines to Saltney and Birkenhead was surrounded
by sidings. The goods depot lay north-east of the
passenger station. (fn. 32)
Figure 52:
Northgate station, 1960s
Further expansion of the local rail network was
proposed in the early 1860s, (fn. 33) but the Act of 1867
for a line from Mouldsworth to a new station in
Windmill Lane (later Victoria Road) was not implemented for some years. It was opened by the Cheshire
Lines Committee (C.L.C.) in 1875, primarily for a
passenger service to Manchester. (fn. 34) The line entered
the city through Newton, crossed over the Birkenhead
line at Brook Lane and curved sharply south to Northgate station, built virtually over the Upper Northgate
Street tunnel. There was no connexion between the
new line and the existing ones. (fn. 35) In 1876 Northgate
station had c. 20 staff and its goods yard east of the
passenger station was handling c. 1,000 tons a month. (fn. 36)
A new line from Northgate station to Birkenhead,
Connah's Quay (Flints.), and Wrexham was authorized
in 1888 for the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire
Railway (renamed the Great Central in 1897), one of
the proprietors of the C.L.C. The line, opened in 1890,
passed under Liverpool Road, over Parkgate Road,
across an embankment, and out through Sealand
(Flints.), with stations at Liverpool Road and Blacon. (fn. 37)
Chester General greatly enlarged its passenger
accommodation in 1890, building two new through
platforms with their own suite of refreshment and
waiting rooms. (fn. 38) The main line to Saltney was given
extra tracks between 1900 and 1904, necessitating
major engineering works to widen the tunnels, the
Roodee viaduct, and the bridge over the Dee. (fn. 39)
In 1887 over 100 passenger trains left Chester each
weekday, a number which rose to c. 200 in 1910 and
1938. (fn. 40) In the 1890s Chester was regarded as 'a great
railway centre . . . one of the most important in
England'. (fn. 41) The L.N.W.R. and G.W.R. both ran services
to London, the former via Crewe, the latter via Shrewsbury and Birmingham. The L.N.W.R.'s other main line
from Chester was to Holyhead and Llandudno
(Caern.), with many connecting services in north
Wales. It also ran direct trains from Chester on the
line to Mold, Denbigh, and Corwen, to Shrewsbury via
Whitchurch, and to Liverpool via Runcorn. The Birkenhead Railway's trains ran to Liverpool via Birkenhead, and to Manchester Exchange via Warrington. All
those services were from General station. From Northgate station the C.L.C. ran a service to Manchester
Central via Northwich, and the Great Central one to
Connah's Quay. When the railway companies were
grouped in 1923 the L.N.W.R. became part of the
London, Midland, and Scottish Railway (L.M.S.R.)
and the Great Central part of the London and North
Eastern Railway (L.N.E.R.). The Birkenhead Railway
was jointly managed by the L.M.S.R. and the G.W.R. In
the 1920s and 1930s the enlarged companies ran direct
trains to places as far away as Aberdeen, Dover,
Bournemouth, and Pwllheli (Caern.).
From the 1950s British Railways began to withdraw
services and close stations and lines. Liverpool Road
station was closed to passengers in 1951 and Saltney
finally in 1960; (fn. 42) services to Whitchurch ceased in 1957
when the branch from Tattenhall Junction was closed, (fn. 43)
and those to Connah's Quay and New Brighton in
1968 when the same fate met the lines west from
Northgate station. Blacon station also closed then.
Northgate station itself closed in 1969 once services
to Manchester Oxford Road were able to operate from
Chester General. (fn. 44) The station was afterwards demolished and its site and that of sidings to the north were
redeveloped with housing estates.
Chester nevertheless retained frequent trains to
many destinations, and in 1995 there were c. 150
every weekday, serving the lines to Crewe and
London, Liverpool, Manchester via both Warrington
and Northwich, north Wales, and Wolverhampton via
Wrexham and Shrewsbury. (fn. 45)