Railway historians are all well aware of the Railway King, George Hudson of York and his spectacular rise and demise. A lesser-known but equally worthy railway ‘king’ was Sir Edward Watkin who, at various times, was either the chairman or a director of multiple railway companies, both at home and abroad. Born in Salford, the son of a cotton merchant he completely immersed himself in the railways of the day. But what was this vision, this grandiose master-plan, for which the world was not ready? He was chairman of the following companies: the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (otherwise known as the Money, Sunk and Lost), the Metropolitan Railway, the East London Railway, including Brunel senior’s Thames Tunnel, the South Eastern Railway and the Submarine Continental Railway, devoted to the creation of a Channel Tunnel. He was also on the board of France’s Chemin de Fer du Nord. Should you now consult a map you might start to see and appreciate his ambition. If he could plug the gap between Sheffield and the Home Counties he could create an entire railway system between Manchester and Paris. And so the MS&L was renamed the Great Central and its new main line ran from Sheffield, through Nottingham to Loughborough, Leicester and Rugby and ended in a head-on junction with the extended Metropolitan Railway in northern Buckinghamshire. Every self-respecting railway company needed its own London terminus and so Marylebone Station was built. At about the same time the Great Way Round was thinking of becoming a little more direct in its approach to Birmingham and built a new line from Old Oak Common to Aynho, Oxfordshire. The Metropolitan line was overly undulating and tortuous in nature and not at all in keeping with Watkin’s grand plan so the GC teamed up with the GW. A splendid flying junction was built at Ashendon and from there southwards the new line became known as the GW&GC Joint Railway, diverging at Northolt to serve their respective termini. And yes, it was all built to the continental loading gauge. There were no gradients steeper than 1:176, no curves of less than one mile radius, no level crossings and the whole thing was designed for the tracks to be quadrupled without disrupting the day-to-day service – hence its famous island stations. Sadly by this time the channel tunnel project had foundered on the political rocks of ‘National Security’. The fear of invading French armies swarming through this tunnel, armed with escargot and garlic, was too much to bear. The thought that Britannia, ruling the waves and a quarter of the globe, couldn’t defend a single tunnel portal on its own island is risible. Since when has any politician made sense? But the impetus and momentum that Watkin brought to his work ensured that the London Extension nevertheless came to pass. By all accounts it was a splendid piece of engineering. But in 1965 it was closed and subsequently dug up, dismantled and destroyed in a vitriolic act of internecine rivalry and political vandalism. It was a latecomer and the competing incumbents, notably the Midland Railway, were less than delighted about having high-quality competition. They opposed it every step of the way. In 1923 the MR was subsumed into the LMS with the GC coming under the stewardship of the LNER, along with the Great Northern, another company that had had its nose disjointed by the GC. The hatreds survived ‘grouping’ and were nurtured into the era of nationalisation. BR (eastern) made reasonable endeavours at putting the line to good use. The ‘Master Cutler’ was their attempt at running a prestigious passenger service between Marylebone and Sheffield. The line’s real forte however was as a freight route, famously hosting the ‘windcutters’. But in 1960 it transferred to BR (midland). The opportunity was too good to miss and what they did to it makes grown-men weep.
A Channel Tunnel has now been built and a token section of high-speed line runs through Kent. But there is no link to the North – that is still being kicked around the corridors of Parliament. Although the GC alignment, for the most part, remains intact and available, the powers that be would prefer to build a completely new line in virgin countryside. One suspects that this is the most costly option, thus diverting far more wealth from the national purse into the estates of lawyers, landowners, consultants and their agents than would otherwise be possible in simply upgrading an existing alignment or running it parallel to an extant motorway.
Watkin however does leave a lasting legacy. In order to attract passengers onto his railways he created pleasure gardens at Wembley, northwest London, served by Wembley Park station. This included a very Eiffel-esque Watkin’s Tower. The first section was built but lack of interest meant that it didn’t go much further. Then it started listing to one side and so was demolished. The site was subsequently used for the British Empire Exhibition with its Empire Stadium, a ‘great national sports ground’. And so thanks to Edward Watkin, football fans have all been going to ‘Wemberley’ ever since.
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