[3] The Midland had a large network of lines emanating from Derby, stretching to London St Pancras, Manchester, Carlisle, Birmingham, and Bristol.

The Midland Railway originated from 1832 in Leicestershire / Nottinghamshire, with the purpose of serving the needs of local coal owners.

[8] Almost immediately it took over the Sheffield and Rotherham Railway and the Erewash Valley Line in 1845, the latter giving access to the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire coalfields.

[10] The line south was the Birmingham and Bristol Railway, which reached Curzon Street via Camp Hill.

[citation needed] They met at Gloucester via a short loop of the Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway.

The change of gauge at Gloucester meant that everything had to be transferred between trains, creating chaos, and the C&GWU was owned by the Great Western Railway, which wished to extend its network by taking over the Bristol to Birmingham route.

The LNWR was progressing slowly through the Lake District, and there was pressure for a direct line from London to York.

Permission had been gained for the Northern and Eastern Railway to run through Peterborough and Lincoln but it had barely reached Cambridge.

The MR made a takeover offer only to discover that a shareholder of the GN had already gathered a quantity of Ambergate shares.

Firstly the Great Western Railway had been foiled in its attempt to enter Birmingham by the Midland, but it still had designs on Manchester.

The first step, in 1853, was to appoint James Allport as general manager, and the next was to shake off the dependence on the LNWR to London.

The bill was resubmitted in 1853 with the support of the people of Bedford, whose branch to the LNWR was slow and unreliable, and with the knowledge of the Northamptonshire iron deposits.

James Allport arranged a seven-year deal with the GN to run into King's Cross for a guaranteed £20,000 a year (equivalent to £2,410,000 in 2023),[17].

Its carriage of coal and iron – and beer from Burton-on-Trent – had increased by three times and passenger numbers were rising, as they were on the GN.

[21] St Pancras station is a marvel of Gothic Revival architecture, in the form of the Midland Grand Hotel by Gilbert Scott, which faces Euston Road, and the wrought-iron train shed designed by William Barlow.

In 1863 the MR reached Buxton, just as the LNWR arrived from the other direction by the Stockport, Disley and Whaley Bridge Railway.

The section from Wirksworth to Rowsley, which would have involved some tricky engineering, was not completed because the MR gained control of the original line in 1871, but access to Manchester was still blocked at Buxton.

Lord Farrar reorganised the expresses, but by 1905 the whole system was so overloaded that no one was able to predict when many of the trains would reach their destinations.

He introduced a centralised traffic control system, and the locomotive power classifications that became the model for those used by British Railways.

The MR provided motive power for the Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway, and was a one-third partner in the Cheshire Lines Committee.

The Midland retained its private sector independence, being given income to match 1913 levels, but was required to undertake huge volumes of military traffic, largely freight, with little opportunity to maintain the network and rolling stock.

[40] The coat of arms combines the symbols of Birmingham, Derby, Bristol, Leicester, Lincoln and Leeds.

The wyvern, a legendary bipedal dragon, was used extensively as an emblem by the Midland, having inherited it from the Leicester and Swannington Railway.

[41] The symbol appeared on everything from station buildings and bridges down to china, cutlery and chamber pots in its hotels, and was worn as a silver badge by all uniformed employees.