Manchester & Birmingham Railway Co

The Manchester and Birmingham Railway was built between Manchester and Crewe. Its locomotive works was at Longsight.

Planning for the railway begain in around 1835. The final scheme was to run from the Grand Junction Railway at Chebsey, with branches to Macclesfield and Crewe, into Manchester Store Street, which received Parliamentary authorisation in 1837.

A section between Heaton Norris and a temporary station at Travis Street in Manchester was opened first in 1840 carrying nearly two thousand passengers in the first twenty weeks. However there still remained to be built an enormous 22 arch viaduct over the River Mersey at Stockport.

In 1846, the Manchester and Birmingham Railway, the Grand Junction Railway and the London and Birmingham Railway merged to form the London and North Western Railway.