Peterborough, Wisbech and Sutton Bridge Railway
| Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway |
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Overview | |
| Type | Regional rail |
| Status | Defunct |
| Locale | East of England |
| Operation | |
| Opened | 1893 |
| Closed | 1959 |
| Technical | |
| Track length | 180 miles (290 km) |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) |
The Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway, (M&GN) was a joint railway owned by the Midland Railway (MR) and the Great Northern Railway (GNR) in eastern England, affectionately known as the Muddle and Get Nowhere to generations of passengers, enthusiasts, and other users.
The main line ran from Peterborough to Great Yarmouth via South Lynn and Melton Constable. Branches ran from Sutton Bridge to an end on junction with the Midland Railway branch from Saxby, at Little Bytham near Bourne, Lincolnshire; from Melton Constable to Cromer; and from Melton Constable to Norwich. There was also a short spur connecting South Lynn to King's Lynn and its docks.
The Midland & Great Northern Joint Railway was formed in 1893 by the amalgamation of many smaller local lines, rather than being conceived from the start as a single trunk route. However, it offered its two parents – the MR and the GNR – access to the ports of East Anglia, and also enabled them to develop what became a lucrative source of revenue from holiday traffic from the industrial Midlands to the east coast resorts. It was easily the longest joint railway system in the UK, exceeding 180 miles (290 km).
Until the creation of the M&GN, the Great Eastern Railway (GER) held a near-monopoly on East Anglian traffic and had assumed that their network meant there were no population centres left to connect. However, the GER lines were mostly north to south, centred on London, leaving an opening for the smaller companies that later became the M&GN to thread their way east to west between the GER lines, and in this way connected the major towns of Norfolk (Great Yarmouth, Norwich, King's Lynn) and many other smaller centres via the MR and GNR networks to the Midlands and the North. Much of the route was single-track, and the gradient profiles were steep. Despite this, the M&GN was able to put up a spirited competition with the shorter GER route to London from Cromer, although it was never able to equal the GER's excellent timings. However, King's Cross terminus (GNR) was nearer the west end of London, and some passengers preferred to use the M&GN route. The main thrust of M&GN services was to and from the Midlands. The goods traffic was also very heavy, particularly coal inwards, and fruit, vegetables, other agricultural products and fish outwards. The single track (approximately 60% of the route mileage), although operated by the most up-to-date methods (the electric train tablet system) did make the seasonal peak loads difficult to handle – August Bank Holiday weekends were particularly difficult, with waves of special trains from and to the Midlands having to thread their way through the normal traffic of local trains and freights. Typical daily flows during the peak usually exceeded 100 trains.
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