The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-05-14 00:00:00

THE RAILWAYS B ETWEEN MANCHESTER
AND ASHTON-UNDER-LYNE.

It may be asked of us, whilst introducing the subject
of these rival undertakings to our readers,—" What in-
terest have the people of Liverpool in the mode of com-
munication by which Manchester is to be connected with
the manufacturing towns of Ashton-under-Lune and
Staly.hridge, neither of which occupy a very leading
position in the map of the world ? " Our answer will be
this. Very small affairs, in eppearance, lead often to
very great results and the settlement of this apparently
unimportantjunction railway will be found ultimately to
exercise very
.considerable influence upon the prosperity
of an undertaking in which the people cf this locality are
deeply interested—viz., the Liverpool and Manchester
Railway. We will endeavour to explain how this is to
occur; and, in the first instance, briefly describe the rival
plans themselves:—
The main line of the Sheffield and Manchester Railway
passes within about three quarters of a mile of the town
of Ashton, and about two and a quarter from Stalybridge ;
and was originally intended to have communicated with
these two places by a branch of about two miles and a half
long, running through the former, and terminating in a
central part of the latter. Some opposition, however,
arising from feelings of local jealousy, occurred on the
part of some of the influential manufacturers in the neigh-
bourhood, who wanted their own locality to be approached
by the main line itself, and not merely joined to it by a
branch; and from this and other causes, such branch was
abandoned as a part of the undertaking.
The facilities which it would have afforded, however,
at length became so evident, that the directors of the
Sheffield and Manchester line were urged to resuscitate
the project. The branch was again surveyed; the bulk
of the land, which belongs for almost the whole length to
the Earl of Stamford and Warrington, was contracted for,
and the remainder purchased from the respective owners ;
and, having deposited their plans and taken the necessary
preliminary steps for an application to parliament, the
Sheffield and Manchester Company, we believe, proceeded
to the actual execution of the works. But here an un-
expected opposition arose. The Manchester and Leeds
Company, whose main line does not even approach Ash-
ton or Stalybridge, came forward with an opposition
branch (!) some six or seven miles in length, (the distance
to be formed by the proposed Sheffield branch being, to
Ashton three quarters of a mile, and to Stalybridge about
two miles and a quarter ;) and after much manoeuvring
and stirring up of local influences and jealousies, in-
duced a public meeting of the inhabitants, called upon
the subject of the respective merits of the two branches,
to declare that they (who four or five years ago re-
jected one of them as useless) could now do with
both 1 With this declaration to back them the
-Leeds Company,--with- their -absurd. scheme, went
before parliament as a competing project to the le-
gitimate line of the Sheffield Company; and—strange
fatuity of a public tribunal !—the committee of the House
of Commons have, by deciding the preamble of both bills
to be proved, in effect given their sanction to THE FOR-
MATION OF TWO RIVAL RAILWAYS BETWEEN THE
SAME TERMINI, AT THE SAME TIME, the one snaking
the distance between such termini nearly double that by
the other I

Under such circumstances, it may be argued that,
surely with such an utter hopelessness of a profitable
competition by their inefficient line against the better
and shorter one of the Sheffield Company, the directors
of the Leeds Company will not, after all, notwithstanding
their having succeeded before a committee of the
House of Commons, proceed to expend the capital of
their proprietary by its formation. Such would be the case,
were there not an under current at work, and ulterior
objects to be obtained by them which do not lie upon the
surface. Those objects may, in part, be divined by a
perusal of the following paragraph, which appeared in the
London Standard of Monday, the 6th inst., so evidently
biassed and untrue in statement, that we could scarcely
have believed that our respectable contemporary would
have given it insertion in his columns. After noticing
the fact, which we have already stated, of the preamble
of both bills being agreed to, the Standard remarks :

" This result is a triumph for the Manchester end Leeds Corn
parry, and a heavy blow and great discouragement' to th:;-
Sheffield and Manchester, being the second, we believe we
ought to say the third, parliamentary defeat sustained by the
latter company during the present session—defeats to which it
has exposed itself by its manifold attempted inroads upon the
territories of its neighbours. At the last meeting of the Man-
chester and Leeds Railway the chairman stated that that Com-
pany would not have thought of carrying a line to Ashton in
opposition to the Sheffield Company, if the Sheffield directors
had not threatened an invasion of the Manchester and Leeds line.
Even now the • heffield directors have yet anott•er competing
project in hand for the next session, unless, indeed, their past
nr.n-suc ess should have the salutary effect of inducing them to
pause. Whether this be the case or not, Ashton is wholly in-
debted to the monopolising schemes of the Sheffield Company,
for the possession of two lines of railway to Manchester ; one
of which, the Liverpool Junction, will give it au uninterrupted
railway communication with the great ports of Liverpool and
Hull, as well as with that vast hive of wealth and industry which
constitutes the all but continuous town traversed through its
whole length by the Manchester and Leeds Railway. The
Sheffield directors have been the unwitting instruments of
conferring upon Ashton facilities of communication which must
add immensely to its importance as a manufacturing empo-
rium."

Now we submit that nothing more damning than this,
coming as it evidently does from the Leeds Company,
need be urged before the whole house, or as a dernier re-
sort before a committee of the House of Lords, to ensure
a rejection of this Leeds abortion. No sane man can for
a moment argue that the towns of Ashton and Staly-
bridge will be benefitted by being enabled to travel twelve
or thirteen miles to Manchester, instead of seven or eight,
or by having even the option of so doing. No man will
maintain that it can be good for the public that " a heavy
blow and a great discouragement" should be levelled
against the Sheffield or any other line; or that the Leeds
Company should be enabled to enjoy the gratification of
having injured a rival, without benefiting the public or
themselves. But here lies the real ground of all this
glorification; and here we would request the attention of
our Liverpool readers.
Some two years ago it will be remembered the Leeds
Company succeeded in inducing the directors of the Li-
verpool and Manchester Railway to form a junction
line, by the southern bank of the river Irwell to
a station at Hunt's Bank, the latter company having an
avowed preference for a line to the south of Manchester,
which would bring them into connexion with the Man-
chester and Birmingham, and Sheffield and Manchester
lines, and the important towns of Stockport, Macclesfield,
Congleton, &c., on the former, and Ashton, Stalvbridge,
Hyde, Mottram, Glossop, &c., on the other. We our-
selves urged bt the time upon the Liverpool and Man-
chester board the importance of standing out for such
southern junction; but it was ultimately ruled other-
wise, partly, no doubt, in the confident anticipa-
tion that such southern junction would ultimately
be made notwithstanding the existence of the junc-
tion by the Irwell. Let us see, then, how the prospect
of a junction with the railways south and southeast
of Manchester is effected by the success of this Leeds and
Ashton junction. In the first place, it will be urged
against any southern junction that the traffic from Ashton,
&c., to Liverpool is provided for by the roundabout line
by way of Oldham to Manchester, and thence forward
by the Irwell line. There remains, therefore, only the
traffic of Stockport, &c., to be provided for; and we
speak advisedly when we say that a line will not be
granted through the heart of the town of Manchester to
provide for this traffic only. So long as the passengers
to Liverpool from two important lines were to be accom-
modated, there was a strong—an irresistible case—for
such a junction ; but now there is no case whatever, and
as the result of the non-formation of that junction, the
lines interested in it must look forward to a serious
diversion of their traffic.

It is plain, then, that some prompt steps must be taken
to prevent an ihaconvenience and an injury so serious ;
and to the directors of the Liverpool and Manchester
line we can suggest nothing so likely to be advantageous
to their interests as a vigorous opposition to this absurd
Leeds and Manchester project before the committee of
the House of Lords. In the success of such an opposi-
tion they are vitally interested ; and we trust they will
not hesitate in throwing their influence into the scale to
prevent this meditated heavy blow and great discou-
ragement" being inflicted uponla friendly company.