Speak to an inhabitant of Preston, or the owner of a car in the 1950s, and they will tell you of the road congestion in Preston, especially on Bank Holidays, and during summer weekends and the Wakes holiday season. Many drivers have been caught in a traffic jam in the centre of Preston on a Sunday morning and evening. Preston was a bottleneck caused by the focus of roads and the volume of traffic that frequently converged on the town in an attempt to pass through. The traffic problem was slightly alleviated thanks to the opening of the eight-mile long Preston Bypass in 1958, which today forms a very short section of the M6.
Preston was also a railway bottleneck. Located roughly half way between the Metropolis and Glasgow (actually 209 miles from London and 193 from Glasgow) the town had drawn to it a number of independent railway companies, eight in total, between 1838 and 1882; eight independent companies possessing their own terminus. The dominant station, however, belonged to the North Union Railway; this formed the catalyst of what is today Preston’s Fishergate station.
By 1900 all the lines of the former independent companies were merged by amalgamation into the London & North Western and the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railways. From 1st January 1846, the NUR was leased jointly by the Manchester & Leeds and the Grand Junction Railway Companies and eventually absorbed by their successors, the LNWR and LYR, on 7th August 1888. Preston’s station was a joint one, the LYR’s portion being an appendage grafted on to the eastern side of the LNWR’s, this having long held the name Fishergate on account of its juxtaposition with one of the town’s major thoroughfares.
Minor alterations were made to Preston station in the 1840s and 1850 in a response to the increasing traffic. The station was the subject of a major Board of Trade report in 1866, the outcome of much criticism and complaints made by the public and Preston Corporation. A major change came in 1879 and in 1880 when the LNWR made improvements to the station following many complaints by the public and by Preston Corporation. Costing £250,000 in 1880 (which involved the reconstruction of the station and the removal of Fishergate tunnel), the new station finally had seven through platforms and four bays and even then it was subject to congestion in the summer months. By 1890, all trains to and from, and running through Preston, were either of LNWR or LYR origin.
This article surveys some of the major and minor events in Preston’s station, commencing in 1860, some 22 years after the opening of the town’s first station by the North Union Railway. The selection of major events is fully described as they appeared in the press and learned journals, including a fin de siècle drama in 1896 and a collision of 1903.
In the nineteenth century, railway stations in large towns and in cities were venues for a range of petty crimes: theft, robbery, swindling, pick-pocketing, assault, prostitution and pimping, drug addiction and drug peddling. In their seminal book, Richards and MacKenzie, compared the railway station as a source of order and discipline in society, with the station “[that] has been a haven for social outcasts, and
