Hull to Barnsley or Bust

Midday meetings at Hull Town Hall in the 1800's were always poorly attended by the public. 

A notable exception was in 1880 for an address by Colonel Gerard Smith about the Hull and Barnsley Railway and Dock Bill. 

Kingston Upon Hull was founded on a strong and independent character and with a healthy disregard and scorn for heavy handed National or Corporate Concerns. For the half century prior to this particular Town Hall gathering the business community and working population had been stifled by the monopolies exerted by two very powerful commercial entities in the form of the North Eastern Railway and the Hull Dock Company. 

It should be said that these two large and influential organisations had invested in Hull but their loyalties and decisions were to the benefit of their wealthy shareholders and this was often contrary to the development and economic growth of the town and in the consolidation of its place in the national economy. 

A cited example was that the North Eastern Railway favoured the transporting of coal to Hartlepool and Grimsby to the obvious exclusion of Hull which was geographically the natural route. As a holder of major local landed areas and resources the Hull Dock Company was obstructive and resistant to any competition. In 1872 the NER had flexed its commercial clout and had temporarily delayed shipments of fish from the Port creating a disruptive logjam of rail traffic. The shipowners, merchants and working people of Hull viewed the NER with mistrust, suspicion and a developing anger. 

Colonel Smith was heralded as a hero for Hull in battling with the vested interests and big business to initiate a new and exciting railway line through the successful passing in Parliament of the Railway and Dock Bill. 

Within a few days of the meeting there was to be the declaration of a public holiday in celebration.

There was already a railway line westwards towards Barnsley although it actually terminated at Cudworth, about two miles short. The proposed new railway would open up six new routes by connecting with other existing lines as far west as Liverpool, Manchester, Huddersfield, Halifax, Leeds and Wakefield, southwards to Sheffield, Birmingham and the Midlands. 

The line would also open up new areas in the huge Yorkshire Coal Fields where millions of tons of the black gold were just waiting to be exploited. 

Hull by its pioneering effort would be the natural beneficiary in the movement of the coal as well as all of the ancillary commerce in general freight traffic. 

It would for all of the mass euphoria be the largest ever scheme to be undertaken calling upon an estimated four million pounds in capital ( 75% by share issue and the remainder in loans) as well as the need to enter into co-operative agreements with other railway line operators. 

The relative isolation of Hull from the rest of the country called for the best engineering minds and skills particularly as the new route would go through the rolling topography of the some of the most beautiful countryside of the East Riding. 

Key infrastructure was also to be developed from scratch not just for the railway but also the essential element of a Dock. Hull Corporation fully backed the project and made land available which was a key factor. 

The chief passenger station was to be located in Kingston Square in the central area of Hull and with other stations at Newington, St Johns Wood (Queens Road), Sculcoates (Beverley Road) and Botanic Gardens. A branch line for freight trains was to be founded at Neptune Street and Dairycoates. On leaving Hull the line would head out to the then small villages of Willerby and Kirkella, Little Weighton and via a tunnel to South Cave and North Cave. There was a flatter course to Howden, Drax, Carlton, Heck, Kirk Smeaton to reach the  the South Yorkshire Coalfied. 

Work on the new line and dock followed and it was completed by 1885. Mechanical steam powered excavators were used being amongst the first time to support the work of around 8000 navvies. 

The route required over one hundred bridges and with twenty of these within the urban area of Hull. 

A shortage of funds led to a stop in work for 5 months in 1884 and the cost had increased to closer to ten million pounds. As a victim of the necessary cuts to the budget the intended landmark building of the Kingston Square Station was never built although an aerial depiction of Hull around that time showed a grand terminus which will have been a major asset to the town. Cannon Street served as the centrepiece . 

The Alexandra Dock was at the time of its construction the largest in Britain and with its successful role in the export of coal. 

The burden of debt of the Company was targeted by those longstanding and aggrieved competitors at the North Eastern Railway and Hull Dock Company who within 12 months of the line opening started a price war on transit and dock charges respectively. 

This was the beginning of the end and approaches were made to the Midland Railway and even as a last resort to the NER itself for amalgamation. The proud shareholders rejected both moves and in 1887 the Company went into Receivership albeit in a strategic move which saw a re-emergence and continued operations until Nationalisation of the Railways in the early 1920's. 

It had been a momentous ride.