Monument record 2528/1/0 - The Manchester and Birmingham Railway

<1> Ashmore, O, 1982, The Industrial Archaeology of North West England, p.21-23 (Book). SCH3181.

Manchester to Birmingham Railway, opened 1842.

<2> Whishaw F, 1842, The Railways of Great Britain and Ireland, p.301-306 (Book). SCH9397.

The Manchester and Birmingham Railway arose out of two competing projects put before Parliament in in 1837: the one called the Manchester South Union (Manchester to the Birmingham and Derby Railway at Tamworth) and the Manchester, Cheshire, and Staffordshire Railway, the main line of which was to form a communication between Manchester and the Grand Junction Railway near Stafford. Following review, a single railway, the Manchester, Cheshire, and Staffordshire Railway, comprising parts of both proposals was established by an Act of Parliament in the same year.

The mainline ran from Store Street Station in Manchester via Stockport, Cheadle and Wilmslow, through Sandbach parish, to Crewe where it joins the Grand Junction Railway. The branch line to Macclesfield left the mainline in the township of Cheadle Bulkeley and ran though the townships of Adlington and Tytherington to its eastern termination near Macclesfield. The first section of the line, between Manchester and Stockport, opened on the 4th June 1840.

<3> Ordnance Survey, Various, Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 (Maps and Plans). SCH7262.