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Originally called the Commercial Railway, the London and Blackwall Railway (L&BR) in east London, England ran from Minories to Blackwall via Stepney, with a branch line to the Isle of Dogs, connecting central London to many of London's docks. It was operational from 1840 until 1926 (for passengers) and 1968 (for goods), closing after the decline of inner London's docks. Much of its infrastructure was reused as part of the Docklands Light Railway. The L&BR was leased by the Great Eastern Railway in 1866, but remained independent until absorbed into the London and North Eastern Railway at the 1923 Grouping. ==History== It was authorised by an Act of Parliament entitled "An Act for making a Railway from the Minories to Blackwall, with Branches, to be called "The Commercial Railway" dated 28 July 1836 in the reign of William IV. The length of the railway was to be . The engineer of the line was intended to be John Rennie, but the project’s City financiers favoured Robert Stephenson, believing that they would also benefit from the knowledge and wisdom of his respected father George. Although, because of the Act, Robert Stephenson had to follow Rennie’s route and use the obscure track gauge of ,〔(London and Blackwall Railway; London, Tilbury & Southend Railway Public transport in and about the parish - London and Blackwall Railway; London, Tilbury & Southend Railway )〕〔(Docklands Light Railway - Tower Gateway to West India Quay )〕 he was free to choose his own method of propulsion. Drawing on his experience with the Camden Incline on the London and Birmingham Railway he decided upon cable haulage from stationary steam engines. The railway was on brick arches as far as the West India Docks, and then on an embankment before entering a shallow cutting near the Blackwall terminus at Brunswick Wharf. The station there had an iron-roofed shed, and offices designed in an Italianate style by William Tite. The line opened on 6 July 1840, and the company changed its name to the ''London and Blackwall Railway'' on completion of an extension to Fenchurch Street, just within the City boundary, in 1841. A line from Stepney (now Limehouse) linking it with the Eastern Counties Railway at Bow was opened in 1849, known as the London and Blackwall Extension Railway (LBER), at which time the line was converted to steam locomotive operation and the track converted to . Agreement between the L&BR and the ECR about operation of the services over the LBER could not be reached so the actual junction was not completed. An interchange station called Victoria Park and Bow was opened but the ECR stopped few services there so most services terminated at Bromley and Bow. Services were withdrawn from Victoria Park and Bow on 6 January 1851. By 1854 relations between the two companies had improved and the junction between the two lines was built and the LBER became part of the initial London Tilbury and Southend (LTSR) route to Fenchurch Street. 〔The LBER and ECR were partners in the LTSR〕 It was joined to the new London, Tilbury and Southend Railway at Gas Factory Junction in 1858, allowing that company’s trains to run into Fenchurch Street. In 1852 the North London Railway had linked up with the L&BR at Poplar, and Fenchurch Street became the terminus for that line until Broad Street opened in 1865. In 1871 another branch line, the Millwall Extension Railway, opened from Millwall Junction to Millwall Docks to serve the West India Docks better. A year later the line was extended to North Greenwich, near the site of the original Island Gardens DLR station. In 1893 the Fenchurch Street-Stepney line was widened to four tracks, but by the turn of the century traffic to Blackwall and the Isle of Dogs was dropping. Passenger services east of Stepney to North Greenwich and Blackwall were withdrawn on 3 May 1926 as a result of competition from trams. 〔The Blackwall branch was meant to close on 30th June but the 1926 United Kingdom general strike saw this bought forward.〕 John Betjeman (1906-1984) in his book First and Last Loves (published 1952), wrote of a journey on the L&BR (most likely in the years just before closure) "Those frequent and quite empty trains of the Blackwall Railway ran from a special platform at Fenchurch Street. I remember them. Like stagecoaches they rumbled past East End chimney pots, wharves and shipping stopping at empty black stations till they came to a final halt at Blackwall station...When one emerged there there was nothing to see beyond it but a cobbled quay and a vast stretch of wind whipped water..." The minor stations at Leman Street and Shadwell were closed in 1941 as wartime economy measures (as was Burdett Road opened on the Bow extension route in 1871). The junction at Stepney was disconnected in 1951, so that the only remaining access to the Blackwall Branch was from the LBER via the Limehouse Curve, and this was abandoned in 1963 (last train ran 5 November 1962). Access for occasional goods services to Blackwall and North Greenwich via the North London Railway at Poplar continued until 1968, but with the closure of the docks the line was abandoned, leaving only the Fenchurch Street–Stepney section of the original Blackwall branch still in use.〔Freight services to this area of the dock continued up until 1984 via the North London route via Bow.〕 When the Docklands Light Railway opened in 1987, it reused much of the L&BR line between Minories and Westferry Road. Part of the viaduct at North Greenwich for the line to the original terminus between Mudchute DLR station and Island Gardens was used, though some of this section became disused again when the extension to Lewisham was constructed and those stations replaced with ones nearby but below ground. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「London and Blackwall Railway」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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