Portal:Trains/Selected article/Week 6, 2011
The
Recently selected: Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company - Ekeberg Line - Bramhope Tunnel
Liverpool Road railway station in Manchester to be met by a hostile crowd, who waved banners and flags against the Duke and pelted him with vegetables. Wellington refused to get off the train, and ordered that the trains return to Liverpool. The death and funeral of William Huskisson caused the opening of the railway to be widely reported. The L&M became extremely successful, and within a month of its opening plans were put forward to connect Liverpool and Manchester with the other major cities of England. Within ten years, 1,775 miles (2,857 km) of railways had been built in Britain, and within 20 years of the L&M's opening over 6,200 miles (10,000 km) were in place. The L&M remains in operation, and its opening is now considered the start of the age of mechanised transport; in the words of industrialist and former British Rail chairman Peter Parker
, "the world is a branch line of the pioneering Liverpool–Manchester run".