Editing Midland Main Line (section)

===Midland Main Line southern extensions===

Without its own route to London, the Midland Railway relied upon a junction at {{rws|Rugby}} with the [[London and Birmingham Railway]] line for access to the capital at [[London Euston railway station|London Euston]]. By the 1850s, the junction at Rugby had become severely congested. The Midland Railway employed [[Thomas Brassey]] to construct a new route from Leicester to {{rws|Hitchin}} via [[Kettering]], [[Wellingborough]], and [[Bedford railway station|Bedford]] giving access to London via the [[Great Northern Railway (Great Britain)|Great Northern Railway]] from Hitchin.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mimas.ac.uk/~zzaascs/mrsoc/chron.html |title=A Midland Railway chronology>Incorporation and expansion |year=1998 |publisher=The Midland Railway Society |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081228041937/http://www.mimas.ac.uk/~zzaascs/mrsoc/chron.html |archive-date=28 December 2008 }}</ref> The [[Crimean War]] resulted in a shortage of labour and finance, and only £900,000 ({{Inflation|UK|900000|1857|r=0|fmt=eq|cursign=£}}){{Inflation-fn|UK|df=y}} was available for the construction, approximately £15,000 for each mile ({{Inflation|UK|15000|1857|r=0|fmt=eq|cursign=£}}.<ref name="Leleux">{{cite book |last= Leleux |first=Robin|title=A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain. Volume 9 |publisher=David & Charles, Newton Abbot |page=92 |isbn=0715371657}}</ref> To reduce construction costs, the railway followed natural contours, resulting in many curves and gradients. Seven bridges and one tunnel were required, with {{Cvt|60|ft}} cuttings at Desborough and Sharnbrook. There are also major summits at Kibworth, Desbrough and at Sharnbrook where a 1 in 119 gradient from the south over {{Convert|3|mi}} takes the line to {{convert|340|ft|4=0}} above sea level. This route opened for coal traffic on 15 April 1857, goods on 4 May, and passengers on 8 May.<ref>{{cite news |title=Opening of the Leicester and Hitchin Line |url=http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001289/18570509/052/0003 |newspaper=Bedfordshire Mercury |location=British Newspaper Archive |date=9 May 1857 |access-date=5 July 2016 }}</ref> The section between Leicester and Bedford is still part of the Midland Main Line.

While this took some of the pressure off the route through Rugby, the GNR insisted that passengers for London alight at Hitchin, buying tickets in the short time available, to catch a GNR train to finish their journey. [[James Allport]] arranged a seven-year deal with the [[Great Northern Railway (Great Britain)|GN]] to run into Kings Cross for a guaranteed £20,000 a year ({{Inflation|UK|20000|1857|r=-4|fmt=eq|cursign=£}}).{{Inflation-fn|UK|df=y}} Through services to London were introduced in February 1858.<ref>Davies, R.; Grant, M.D. (1984). Forgotten Railways: Chilterns and Cotswolds. Newton Abbot, Devon: David St John Thomas. {{ISBN|0-946537-07-0}}, p. 110–111.</ref>

This line met with similar capacity problems at Hitchin as the former route via Rugby, so a new line was constructed from [[Bedford]] via [[Luton]] to {{rws|St Pancras}}<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mimas.ac.uk/~zzaascs/mrsoc/chron.html |title=A Midland Railway chronology>London extension |year=1998 |publisher=The Midland Railway Society |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081228041937/http://www.mimas.ac.uk/~zzaascs/mrsoc/chron.html |archive-date=28 December 2008 }}</ref> which opened on 1 October 1868.<ref name="Leleux"/> The construction of the London extension cost £9 million (equivalent to £{{Inflation|UK|9|1868|r=0}}&nbsp;million in {{Inflation-year|UK}}).<ref name="Barnes">{{cite book |last=Barnes |first=E. G. |date=1969 |title=The Rise of the Midland Railway 1844–1874 |publisher=Augustus M. Kelley, New York |page=308 }}</ref>

As traffic built up, the Midland Railway opened a new deviation just north of [[Market Harborough railway station]] on 26 June 1885 to remove the flat crossing of the [[Rugby and Stamford Railway]].<ref>Radford, B., (1983) ''Midland Line Memories: a Pictorial History of the Midland Railway Main Line Between London (St Pancras) & Derby'' London: Bloomsbury Books</ref>