Nantwich and Market Drayton Railway

The Nantwich and Market Drayton Railway was a standard gauge railway line which began as a single line branch in the early 1860s and rapidly became part of the Great Western Railway's (GWR) double track Wellington-Crewe line. It carried through freight and local passenger traffic until its closure in the 1960s. Market Drayton was renowned for the manufacture of gingerbread, hence the line acquired the nickname the "Gingerbread Line".

This company was provisionally formed in 1860 as the Market Drayton and Madeley Railway, then changed its name to Nantwich and Market Drayton Railway on or before 3 April 1861, and incorporated in June 1861. The first Chairman was Reginald Corbet, of nearby Adderley Hall.

The single track line was built from the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) Crewe and Shrewsbury Railway line just south of Nantwich to a terminus at Market Drayton, a distance of ten miles. Construction started in 1862 and the line opened in October 1863.

Proposals were for the railway to be worked by the LNWR, but instead the Great Western Railway took on this role and worked the nominally independent line until it was taken over by the GWR in 1897.

The line was doubled during 1866–67, to match the Wellington and Drayton Railway which opened in October 1867, thus providing a link for the GWR between the Midlands and the Northwest.

The North Staffordshire Railway line from Stoke to Market Drayton opened in January 1870, joining the line at Silverdale Junction, just north of Market Drayton.

An engine shed and turntable which had been built at Market Drayton were no longer needed when the Wellington and Drayton Railway opened, as locomotives were then based at Wellington, so they were sold to the North Staffordshire Railway.

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