Such were the conditions of coaching when rumours of a projected London and Birmingham Railway began to be noised about in 1825, and then in 1830. “London and Birmingham” that railway was first named, although, if the original project be closely followed, it will be seen that not London, but Birmingham, took the initiative. London has ever lagged in the rear. When the early Birmingham, Shrewsbury, and Chester coaches plied between those towns and the metropolis, it was not from London that they originated, but from the provinces; and, just in same way, it was the Birmingham merchants to whom the idea of a railway to London occurred, as not merely a cheaper and more expeditious way of travelling to the capital, but an excellent means by which goods might be conveyed, and London, as a great market for them, duly exploited. The original organising committee was eventually joined by a body of London bankers and financiers, and a line of country surveyed by George and Robert Stephenson in face of a most determined opposition offered by landowners on the way. Robert Stephenson has left an account of his difficulties, and stated that he walked the whole distance between London and Birmingham no fewer than twenty times. The long story of the fight in Parliament for the Bill in 1832, of its first defeat, and of its eventual success in 1833, is not a matter for these pages. Only let it be noted that the opposition of the landed proprietors was bought off by the addition of half a million sterling to the estimates for the purchase of land along the route.

How enormous was the road and canal traffic at that time may be judged from the statement prepared by the projectors of the railway, who put the sum paid annually for travelling and conveyance of goods between London and Birmingham at £800,000.

The construction of the railway was begun in June, 1834. On July 20th, 1837, the first portion was opened to Boxmoor, a distance of 24½ miles, and on October 16th following to Tring. On April 9th, 1838, the railhead had reached a point just beyond Bletchley, and there it stopped for some months, owing to engineering difficulties at Roade and Kilsby. Meanwhile the works had been pushed on from the Birmingham end, and between that town and Rugby the line was complete. A temporary station, known as “Denbigh Hall,” was provided near Bletchley, where the railway crossed the Holyhead Road, and between this and Rugby the 38 miles break in the line was traversed by a service of coaches until the following September, when the London and Birmingham Railway was opened along its entire length.

No one was more pleased at this than Dr. Arnold, the great Headmaster of Rugby School, whose attitude was in strong contrast with that generally adopted by the classes. “I rejoice to see it,” he said, “and to think that feudality has gone for ever. It is so great a blessing to think that any one evil is really extinct.”

This event, of course, sounded the death-knell of coaching along the first half of the Holyhead Road, but there were those who thought the railway must soon show its inability to beat a well-appointed coach, and so they held on a little while longer, encouraged by some of the more irreconcileable among travellers. The “Greyhound” and the “Albion” were the last to go, in the early weeks of 1839, basely deserted even by those who had egged their proprietors to such foredoomed opposition. Edward Sherman, the great coach proprietor of the “Bull and Mouth,” who had nine coaches on this road, was a fanatical opponent of railways, and struggled to the last against them, losing thereby the important carrying and van business of the London and Birmingham, secured by the far-seeing policy of Chaplin and Horne, of the “Swan with Two Necks,” who abandoned coaching and threw in their interest with the new order of things. Sherman eventually saved himself by joining his interests with the Great Western Railway.

The opening of the London and Birmingham had a great effect upon the Irish mails and passenger traffic; for the Grand Junction Railway, between Birmingham and Liverpool, had already been in existence since July 1837, and thus a continuous route between London and Liverpool was available to Post Office and public, saving many hours and much expense. Both seized the opportunity, and everything went by train to the Lancashire port. It seemed as though not only the Holyhead Road but Holyhead itself was a thing of the past.

In 1846 the London and Birmingham and the Grand Junction Railways amalgamated, under the title of the London and North-Western Railway, and the Liverpool route might thus have been thought settled for all time; but in the meanwhile two separate lines had been authorised—one from Crewe to Chester, and another from Chester to Holyhead. By the completion of the second of these (in March 1850) Holyhead was brought back to its old importance, and is once more on the mail route between London and Dublin. Alterations on the main line have long since left Birmingham on one side, and the “Wild Irishman” now goes from Rugby by way of Nuneaton and Tamworth to Stafford, Crewe, and Chester.