  After the making of canals came the railways, and the mighty power of steam, that had wrought such a vast change in the cotton industry, was to be the moving force of the new invention. Late in the summer of 1830 the people who lined the river banks from Runcorn to Latchford saw a trail of smoke travelling slowly across the nine arches of Sankey Cheshire had its 'Rocket' too in those days, the stage coach that left the 'Black Boy' Inn at Stockport and passed through Cheadle, Lymm, and Warrington to Liverpool. And the old 'Rocket' was very jealous of its new namesake, for it was thought that with the coming of the railways the coaches would be driven off the road. The canal companies also saw themselves threatened, and did all they could to hinder the spread of the new way of travelling. Some years were to pass before the inhabitants of Cheshire saw railways laid through their own towns and villages. The farmers of Wirral rubbed their eyes when the first train seen in Cheshire carried its human freight along the southern shore of the Mersey. Many of them had doubtless never seen one before, and not a few of the more ignorant fled in terror from the puffing, panting thing, which they looked upon as the invention of the evil one. It is hard indeed to think of Cheshire without its railways. Before their coming, almost the only way of moving from one place to another was by means of the stage coaches that rattled along the principal highways, putting down at the nearest wayside inn the passengers who lived in villages off the main roads. Goods and merchandise were carried on pack-horses or slow lumbering wagons. Some of the most important main lines of English railways now pass through Cheshire, for the Cheshire plain is the broad gateway that leads to the busy and populous towns of South Lancashire. Within the space of half a century the county was covered with a network of lines, and to-day it is impossible to find a spot that has not a railway passing within a very few miles of it. The earliest railways avoided the hilly districts, and for many years there were no lines in East Cheshire. The main line of the London and North Western Railway The cotton spinners of Stockport wanted a quick route to London, and so a branch line was made through Alderley, which joined the main line at Crewe. Some of the old country towns would not have the railway too near, so we find Sandbach nearly two miles away from its station. Another branch westwards left the main line at Crewe for Chester and Holyhead, to carry the Irish mails; and a third branched off at Preston Brook for Liverpool, being carried over the Mersey by a big iron bridge at Runcorn. There were only a few houses at Crewe when the railways were made. The station was in the village of Church Coppenhall, but the shorter and more convenient name of Crewe was chosen from Crewe Hall. The little village rapidly became a big town, for it was chosen to be the head-quarters of the London and North Western Company. Big engine and carriage works were built, and iron foundries for the making of boilers and steel rails. It is now one of the most important railway centres in England, giving employment to many thousand workmen. But one line was not enough to carry all the traffic from the great manufacturing towns to the Midlands and the south of England. Other railway companies accomplished the difficult task of crossing the Pennine Hills, and Cheshire was thus brought into touch with Yorkshire and the north-midland shires. The Midland Railway tunnelled under the hills at a height of eight hundred feet above sea-level, and descended rapidly to Stockport by the Goyt valley. The Great Northern enters Cheshire by the tunnel near Penistone, and follows the Etherow down Longdendale till it also reaches Stockport. The Staffordshire Railway from the Potteries burrows through the hills at Harecastle on its way to Congleton and Macclesfield. All these railways vied with one another in quickening the speed of their trains, and their rivalry soon caused the fares for passengers and rates for goods to become cheaper. Railway Viaduct Over Goyt Valley The populous towns of North-east Cheshire are also served by branches of the Great Central and the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railways. The coast towns of the The railways teach us that time is money, and this fact is constantly brought home to us by seeing new lines made to shorten the distance between two points, so that men may get to their places of business more rapidly. The Midland Railway have in the last few years straightened their line by a short cut through Cheadle Heath, that their express trains to Manchester may avoid delay at Stockport; and the new London and North Western line from Wilmslow to Manchester, though it saved less than three miles, was yet thought worth the cost. The railways have brought town and country into closer touch with one another, and both have gained. Farmers and market gardeners can send their produce quickly and cheaply to the great markets of Stockport and Birkenhead. Coals and salt, machinery and manufactured goods, can be distributed easily from the great towns that produce them. Moreover, many people whose daily life is spent in the crowded cities are able to live away from their places of business and, for a portion of the day at least, breathe the purer air of the country. Two residential districts of Cheshire are supported mainly by the merchants and manufacturers of Manchester and Liverpool. In East Cheshire, Altrincham and Bowdon, Knutsford, Alderley, Cheadle, and Lymm are practically suburbs of Manchester. In the Wirral, Hoylake, West Kirby, and New Brighton owe their present prosperity to the business men of Birkenhead and Liverpool who have built their homes on the Cheshire seaboard. In all these places you may see the mingling of the old and the new, the older portions clustering round the parish church, the brand new villas and mansions of the rich spreading on all sides into the surrounding country. New towns spring up round the railway stations, as at Alderley Edge, which is two miles from the older village of Nether Alderley. With the railways came also the 'penny post', for letters could now be carried cheaply and quickly to and from all parts of the country. |
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