The Lincolnshire lines of the Great Northern Railway are the railways, past and present, in the English county built or operated by the Great Northern Railway.
The Great Northern Railway was authorised in 1846 and was to build from London to York via Newark and also a "Loop Line" via Lincoln. The GNR leased and operated the East Lincolnshire Railway. The construction proceeded in stages, and the line from Peterborough through Boston to Lincoln opened in 1848. The East Lincolnshire Railway from Boston to Grimsby opened in the same year.
Gradually the GNR filled in the space between the Loop Line and the coast. East-west connections were developed, and holiday and excursion traffic proved a huge development. The haulage of coal from the Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire coalfields to London and East Anglia was a lucrative traffic. There was relatively little competition from rival railways in the area, and the network as a whole was successful. However the rural character of many of the lines meant that commercially they were of limited success.
In 1879 the GNR had to concede the construction of a joint railway with the Great Eastern Railway, which abstracted considerable revenue from the mineral traffic income. After about 1965 many of the lines declined substantially, and in 1970 a widespread closure took place, leaving only key routes from the former GNR network.
Origins to authorisation
After the commercial success of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (opened 1830), a number of schemes were promoted for longer distance railways. The Railway Mania took hold, and a huge number of railway projects were promoted, in many cases with little care in design, and investors scrambled to subscribe to them, hoping to make a quick fortune. In 1844 the London and York Railway was proposed; it met with fierce opposition: from the railways controlled by George Hudson, which already provided a railway connection to the north of England, and from rival schemes.
The extent of the proposed London and York undertaking dwarfed that of any railway project in this country before or since: a "leviathan undertaking". The deposited plans consisted of:
The main line, London to York: 186 miles; A loop line off the main line, from Peterborough to Bawtry via Boston and Lincoln: 86 miles; A branch from Bawtry to Sheffield: miles; and A branch from Doncaster to Wakefield: miles.
In the 1846 session of Parliament, the London and York Railway was successful in gaining authorisation, on 26 June; it changed its title in the process to the Great Northern Railway. However the Bawtry to Sheffield branch was rejected, in favour of a rival scheme, the Sheffield and Lincolnshire Junction Railway. The Wakefield branch too was lost, but a line from Askern (north of Doncaster) to Methley (near Leeds) was authorised to the Great Northern's ally, the Manchester and Leeds Railway.
East Lincolnshire Railway
The East Lincolnshire Railway was authorised on the same day as the Great Northern Railway in 1846. It was to be an independent railway from Boston to Grimsby via Louth. The directors of the GNR immediately arranged to lease the ELR; in doing so they secured nearly all of Lincolnshire into their control. "Somewhat improvidently" the ELR proprietors were guaranteed a permanent 6% lease rental. The lease of an unbuilt railway was feasible, because the lease payment was to be 6% of the paid-up capital, which was minimal at first. The promoters of the East Lincolnshire Railway had intended that their Boston terminus should be on the Haven bank at the end of Pulvertoft Lane but, under pressure from Boston Town Council during the passage of their bill through Parliament, they decided to use the GNR's station in the town.
Having taken control, the GNR now managed the construction of the East Lincolnshire Line. The East Lincolnshire Company remained in existence, handling the lease charge and dividend payments, but now took a back seat. It was still in existence at the grouping of the railways in 1923 following the Railways Act 1921.