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The Manchester and Milford Railway was a grand railway scheme supported by the London and North Western Railway to connect the industrialised Northwest England, Manchester and the Midlands with the deep-water West Wales port of Milford Haven, thereby giving an alternative to the Port of Liverpool in reaching North America. In reality, it was a connecting railway between Mid Wales and West Wales, which owing to financial difficulties never achieved its stated aim or profit. It was eventually absorbed into the Great Western Railway in 1911. ==The vision== The port of Liverpool had become both a monopoly and highly profitable by the mid-1800s Victorian era, from a combination of the import of raw goods, and the export of industrialised product, not least associated with the cotton industry of Lancashire. Isambard Kingdom Brunel had had the vision for the Great Western Railway to become a fast track for passenger carriage from London to the new world of North America, and had hence moved his port of embarcation from Bristol to Milford Haven, through construction of the Severn Tunnel and the South Wales Main Line. On reaching the West Wales port, a proposal was put forward to Parliament in 1845 to construct a broad-gauge line from Milford Haven to Manchester.〔 However, the scheme was not approved, and it was not until 1865 that the LNWR thought that it could solve its and its customers' problems in the port of Liverpool by offering industry an alternative, through better connecting its standard-gauge network to Milford Haven.〔((Context of) Thomas Edward Owen (Manchester and Milford Railway) Papers ) at Archives Wales, National Library of Wales〕〔(Pontrhydfendigaid ) An archival site about the subject district〕 It hence started sponsoring a series of in-fill railways to make its vision a reality. The proposed route was as follows (North to South):〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Manchester and Milford Railway )〕 *LNWR: Manchester via Crewe to Whitchurch *Cambrian Railways: Whitchurch to Oswestry, thence to Newtown *Newtown to Llandovery *Carmarthen and Cardigan Railway: Llandovery to Milford Haven After the LNWR proposed the scheme, the Midland Railway agreed to sponsor the construction of the Potteries, Shrewsbury and North Wales Railway (Potts) to connect the Cambrian Railway to Shrewsbury, and onwards west in the Midlands. Unfortunately, the LNWR and GWR blocked the scheme, with the LNWR later building the Shrewsbury and Welshpool Railway, leaving the "Potts" as an unconnected railway at its western end. 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「Manchester and Milford Railway」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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