The company was based in Stoke-on-Trent and was nicknamed The Knotty;[2] its lines were built to the standard gauge of 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm).

The majority of the passenger traffic was local although a number of LNWR services from Manchester to London were operated via Stoke.

Freight traffic was mostly coal and other minerals but the line also carried the vast majority of china and other pottery goods manufactured in England.

[3] The establishment of the pottery industry and the development of coal and ironstone mines in the 18th century had provided a need for materials, most noticeably clay, to be brought into the area.

3. c. 32) to build a railway, or plateway, from Caldon Low limestone quarries to the canal basin at Froghall in the Churnet Valley.

[7] After these two companies applied for the necessary powers to build the lines, Parliament suggested a pause of a year "to afford time for consideration and for maturing some more complete scheme for the accommodation of that important district".

This was a line that was being supported by the Grand Junction Railway (GJR) running between Derby and Crewe via Uttoxeter and Stoke.

Despite having arranged to purchase the T&M canal for a considerable sum, to obtain support for the Liverpool extension the NSR agreed to the GJR demand.

c. lxxxv)[14] provided for the construction of the line from Macclesfield to Colwich with branches to Norton Bridge, Newcastle, Silverdale and Crewe.

A mile-long procession headed by John Lewis Ricardo, Member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent and chairman of the NSR Company, formed.

1 Dragon, heading for a temporary station at Norton Bridge on the London and North Western Railway (LNWR).

[17] The opening of the line gave the Potteries a railway link with Birmingham and London which made it an instant success with the public.

[25] Later branches constructed in the nineteenth century included lines from Stoke-on-Trent to Congleton via Smallthorne and Biddulph; Stoke-on-Trent to Leek; Newcastle to Silverdale, Keele and Market Drayton (junction with the Great Western Railway); Alsager to Audley, Leycett and Keele, and Rocester to Ashbourne.

[27] Its fame came from several mentions and a description of a journey on a Burslem to Hanley train in Arnold Bennett's The Old Wives' Tale.

[28] Twentieth century construction included the Waterhouses branch line from Leekbrook Junction to Caldon Low quarries and Waterhouses[29] from where the 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) narrow gauge Leek and Manifold Valley Light Railway (L&MV) was constructed through the Hamps and Manifold river valleys to Hulme End near Hartington.

It was authorised as part of an alternative line to Newcastle-under-Lyme but construction work beyond Trentham was quickly abandoned owing to rising costs.

[31] The Cheadle Railway was a small local company constructed with NSR's backing, built at great cost over a period of twelve years.

[35] Both passenger and freight traffic was handled by the MS&L (or, as it later became, the Great Central Railway) with the buildings maintained by the NSR.

[48] Under the Railways Act 1921, the NSR was one of the eight major companies designated to form the North Western, Midland and West Scottish Group.

[57] The company issued a 150-page guide called Picturesque Staffordshire to support this promotion and dispel the widespread held idea that the county was dull and bleak[58] In addition to the tourist traffic generated the NSR owned three hotels; the North Stafford in Stoke (opposite Stoke station), the Churnet Valley in Leek and the Hotel Rudyard at Rudyard.

The first locomotives were either purchased from contractors building the line[61] or firms such as Sharp Brothers and Company, B. Hick and Son, Kitson, Thompson and Hewitson, the Vulcan Foundry or Jones and Potts.

[63] In 1863 the new general manager, Morris, commissioned an outside report on the NSR locomotive fleet which recommended the rebuilding of 50 engines.

[62] Johnson's successor, Dodds, fared no better as his patented wedge motion, a type of valve gear, was unsuccessful.

[76] Up to 1882 locomotives were a bright green with black and white lining with a Staffordshire knot emblem on the tank or tender sides.

[69] Longbottom was succeeded by Adams who changed the livery once more to a crimson shade called Madder Lake[a]with yellow and vermilion lining.

[77] Four-wheeled carriages were the norm from the start and the last were constructed in the 1880s,[78] although by then they had progressed from the unbraked coaches of the 1840s with the introduction of the communication cord in 1869[78] and the simple vacuum brake in 1883.

[77] An unusual set of wagons to be seen were the bright yellow with red lettering vans owned by the Barnum and Bailey circus who had their main English depot in Stoke.

In 1966, Peter Cheeseman, artistic director of The Victoria Theatre, Stoke wrote a musical documentary about the NSR called The Knotty.

[88] Sound recordings of the production, The Knotty – a musical documentary, was released on LP by Argo Transacord in 1970 and as a digital version in 2014.

[89] John Lewis Ricardo, chairman of the North Staffordshire Railway, described the network as being like "a small octopus";[37] but not one NSR station was more than 30 miles (48 km) from Stoke-on-Trent.