Talk:Wansbeck Railway

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Wrong context ??[edit]

Text seems a bit too keen to suggest the Wansbeck line was a defensive precaution:

Richard Hodgson, Chairman of the North British Railway was a member of the provisional committee, and this clearly shows the intention: the NBR was a link in a chain of railways between Edinburgh and London via Berwick, but it was dominated by the railways of George Hudson, who had shown himself to be ruthless in his dealings, and who had already tried to take over the NBR. The NBR had no running rights south of Berwick. If the NBR could get access to Newcastle over friendly railways -- the Border Union, the Border Counties, the Wansbeck Valley, and the Blyth and Tyne -- it would have much greater autonomy, and access to the important commercial centre at Newcastle.

By the time the Wansbeck Railway was suggested, the North Eastern Railway had been out of Hudson's hands for nearly a decade. Tomlinson's History of the North Eastern Railway (which can be downloaded for free from archive.org) has the chairman of the NER for the relevant period as Harry Stephen Thompson and notes that for the five previous years the NE had 'been at peace' with its neighbours The relevant chapter of Tomlinson (XVII: pp 577-620) is entitled "Schemes of Invasion that were foiled", and for once there does seem to be some truth in the standard railway history tale that "it was the other boy that started it" . According to both Tomlinson and Thomas, Hodgson's attempts to get access to Newcastle arose from the breakdown of amalgamation talks between the NBR and the NER. Rjccumbria (talk) 18:10, 24 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]