After
the success of the Liverpool & Manchester
Railway, business people based in Birmingham began to consider
the advantages of having a railway. Birmingham
had seen rapid economic growth in the 1820s and by 1830 was sending
one thousand tons of goods every week by canal to London.
It was decided to approach George Stephenson,
the chief engineer of the Liverpool &
Manchester line, about the possibility of building a railway between
Birmingham and London.
Stephenson advised them about the route that the railway should take
but declined the offer of building the line. Instead, he recommended
his son, Robert Stephenson, for the
job.
The London & Birmingham Railway Company took Stephenson's advice
and in 1833 Robert Stephenson was
appointed chief engineer. Stephenson, who was paid £1,500 a year
to build what was the first railway into London. Many people living
on the proposed route were bitterly opposed to the railway. For example,
the landowners of Northampton forced Stephenson to make the line pass
some distance from their town. As a result of this change, Stephenson
now had to build a 2,400 yard tunnel at Kilsby.
Another major engineering problem the faced Stephenson was the Blisworth
Cutting.
The 112 mile long London to Birmingham line took 20,000 men nearly
five years to build. The total cost of building the railway was £5,500,000
(£50,000 a mile). The railway was opened in stages and finally
completed on 17 September 1838. The line started at Birmingham's Curzon
Street Station and finished at Euston Station
in London. As the Grand Junction Railway
had been finished in July 1837, the four major cities in England,
London, Birmingham,
Manchester and Liverpool
were now linked together.
J. C. Bourne, Primrose Hill Tunnel,
London & Birmingham Railway
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