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The South Durham & Lancashire Union Railway (SD&LUR), built a railway line linking the Stockton & Darlington Railway near Bishop Auckland with the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway (the West Coast Main Line) at Tebay, via Barnard Castle, Stainmore Summit and Kirkby Stephen. The line opened in 1861 and became known as the Stainmore Line. The Stockton & Darlington absorbed the SD&LUR, and the Stockton & Darlington became a constituent of the North Eastern Railway. The line closed in stages between 1952 and 1962. A short section of the line at Kirkby Stephen East station has been restored by the Stainmore Railway Company. ==Origins== When the Lancaster & Carlisle Railway (L&CR) was approved in June 1844 there were a number of schemes for a railway over the Pennines. The York & Carlisle Railway proposed a route from the East Coast Main Line (ECML) at Northallerton via Richmond, Barnard Castle, the Tees Valley, Stainmore and the Eden Valley to the L&CR at Clifton. A rival scheme, the Yorkshire & Glasgow Union Railway, left the ECML at Thirsk, crossed the Pennines to Hawes, then Kirkby Stephen, Appleby and so reached Clifton. The Leeds and Carlisle left the Leeds Northern Railway near Headingly and passed through Wharfedale to Hawes and the Eden Valley. These schemes came together as the Northern Counties Union Railway, which was given authority in 1846 for a line from Thirsk to Clifton and a line from Bishop Auckland to Tebay. However, it would have cost £35,000 to pass through the estate of the Duke of Cleveland between Bishop Auckland and Barnard Castle, and it was a condition of the enabling Act that work on the two lines must be simultaneous. Attempts in 1847 and 1848 to repeal this clause failed and the company failed to raise the necessary finance to start work, its powers lapsed and was wound up. In summer 1850 Henry Bolckow and John Vaughan discovered a seam of iron ore at Eston, North Yorkshire. They opened a mine and the S&DR started hauling ironstone to their blast furnaces west of Bishop Auckland. By 1851 Derwent Iron had opened a mine in the area and began moving ironstone to Consett. The iron ore from Cleveland is high in phosphorus and needs to be mixed with purer ores, such as those on the west coast in Cumberland and Lancashire. In the early 1850s this ore was travelling the long way round via Newcastle and Carlisle from the Barrow-in-Furness area, and Durham coke was returning. A railway to serve Barnard Castle was proposed in 1852 that bypassed the Duke of Cleveland's estate, running from junction near North Road station and following the River Tees to Barnard Castle. An application in 1852 failed, but the ''Darlington & Barnard Castle Railway Act'' was given Royal Assent on 3 July 1854 and the railway opened on 8 July 1856. Both the South Durham & Lancashire Union Railway (SD&LUR) and the Eden Valley Railway (EVR) companies were formed on 20 September 1856. The SD&LUR route left the Stockton & Darlington Railway Haggerleases branch west of West Auckland, then crossed the Pennines to Tebay via Barnard Castle, Kirkby Stephen. The route was surveyed by Thomas Bouch and the company received permission on 13 July 1857. The EVR had a choice of following the east and west bank of the Eden and the cheaper route on the east bank was chosen even though it was a mile longer. An Act received Royal Assent on 21 May 1858, the line turning south as it joined the main line at Clifton on the insistence of the L&CR so it could not be used to bypass its allies, the London & North Western Railway, to the south. 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「South Durham and Lancashire Union Railway」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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