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The Great Northern, Great Eastern and Great Central merger - What if?

Sad Sprinter

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This was proposed in 1908 I believe and seems to be a popular what-if scenario. Personally, I’m of the opinion that the Great Central should have merged with the GWR, but what would have been the implications (particularly for the Great Central), had this merger gone ahead?
 
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Revaulx

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To me, this is the most interesting of all the big railway what-ifs. It was more than proposed; it was agreed by all three companies but was thwarted by the government/parliament on the grounds that it was “anti-competitive”. Which was daft as post-1900 there was a far greater amount of cooperation between companies; the days of Forbes v Watkin were well and truly over (except in Scotland where impecunious companies still hated each other :rolleyes:).

Geographically it made a lot of sense; the networks largely sat side by side with little duplication. The Great Northern was desperate to electrify its London suburban services but had no money thanks to having thrown away large sums on hopeless expansion schemes (Queensbury lines, Leicester Belgrave Road). Presumably a merged company would have found it easier (and cheaper) to borrow money for electrification.

Operationally I doubt a lot would have changed. I suppose there might have an opportunity to compete more effectively with the Midland for the Notts coal traffic by merging and rationalising the GC and GN systems round there.

Edit: I suppose it’s possible that the Gresley Pacifics wouldn’t have happened…
 
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Sir Felix Pole

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I wonder what the proposed financial arrangements were - the GC was heavily indebted after the London Extension and the GN wasn't in great shape either. The GE was reasonably prosperous with a virtual monopoly in its area so it is hard to see the advantage for them.

On the passenger side the GC Bradford expresses would have been quickly withdrawn and maybe Sheffield would have had a fast service to KX via Retford to effectively compete with the Midland. The Harwich boat train might have run via the ECML rather than the 'Joint'. Expresses from KX to Grimsby / Cleethorpes might have run via Lincoln rather than Boston.
 

Revaulx

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Again, the GE might have found it easier to raise money for electrification had they been part of a bigger entity.

I think your list of the operational changes to passenger services is a realistic one, and goes to show that there wasn’t a great deal of low-hanging fruit. Freight-wise I think the opportunities would have been greater; not just the Notts coalfield but also the West Riding one and industrial North Lincs.
 

Helvellyn

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The anti-competiton reason for blocking the merger seems odd given the way the GWR had built up a large geographical sphere of influence very early on (albeit with MR and LSWR routes penetrating).

I'm trying to think of any specific areas where a concern might have arisen, or joint routes that might have been considered problematic.

On a side note could this merger, if it had gone ahead, triggered other consolidation attempts?
 

Revaulx

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The anti-competiton reason for blocking the merger seems odd given the way the GWR had built up a large geographical sphere of influence very early on (albeit with MR and LSWR routes penetrating).

I'm trying to think of any specific areas where a concern might have arisen, or joint routes that might have been considered problematic.

On a side note could this merger, if it had gone ahead, triggered other consolidation attempts?
I’m absolutely certain it would have done. Just look at what happened with the big accountancy firms in the 80s and 90s.

The North London and LTS got absorbed by the LNW and Midland just a few years later, and the GSW was doing its best to get chummy with the latter. It’s not hard to see the Caley linking up with the LNW if that had happened.

I believe that the Highland and GNS were in merger talks around the same time. Think I read it on here not that long ago…
 

Sad Sprinter

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I’m absolutely certain it would have done. Just look at what happened with the big accountancy firms in the 80s and 90s.

The North London and LTS got absorbed by the LNW and Midland just a few years later, and the GSW was doing its best to get chummy with the latter. It’s not hard to see the Caley linking up with the LNW if that had happened.

I believe that the Highland and GNS were in merger talks around the same time. Think I read it on here not that long ago…

Would Great Central electrification to Woodford Halse from Nottinghamshire be on the cards?

I’m guessing giving that the railways in southern England were electrifying, the LSWR, LBSCR and SECR might have all merged. As discussed before, an LSWR/Midland merger would have made more sense if we’re trying to provide as much competition as possible, but realistically in this scenario I can’t see how the Midland would fare other than merging with the LNWR.
 

Bevan Price

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None of GCR, GER & GNR were particularly well-funded at any time in their histories. There were few major areas of competiton between the railways apart from;
London to Cambridge & Hertford (GER & GNR)
London to Nottingham & Sheffield areas (GCR & GNR)
So it is hard to comprehend why - apart from contrariness - Parliament wanted to block the merger. And that same Parliament forced the even larger merger - the formation of LNER in 1923. I doubt that any of them could afford much - or any electrification at that time.

As for the comment about Gresley (Post2) - He got the job because the most senior man - Vincent Raven (NER) was retiring, and Robinson (GCR) was not far from retiring, and recommended Gresley as the best choice for LNER Chief Mechanical Engineer.
 

Revaulx

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Would Great Central electrification to Woodford Halse from Nottinghamshire be on the cards?

I’m guessing giving that the railways in southern England were electrifying, the LSWR, LBSCR and SECR might have all merged. As discussed before, an LSWR/Midland merger would have made more sense if we’re trying to provide as much competition as possible, but realistically in this scenario I can’t see how the Midland would fare other than merging with the LNWR.
Not sure about that; the main electrification priority was GN suburban.

The GC to Woodford Halse thing is a persistent rumour, but makes little sense. If the London end of the GN main line had been wired, surely the next phase would have been to carry on northwards. Grantham seems a reasonable target as it was a major loco change spot; once it had been reached, wiring to Nottingham would have made sense because of the coal traffic.

If Woodhead had been wired earlier, surely it would have made more sense to continue eastwards to Retford to join up with the GN main line, rather than heading south along the GC.

By the early 20th century, the LNW and Midland had started to cooperate. The rerouting of the Manchester to Birmingham bit of the Pines via Crewe rather than Derby was one of the outcomes. Cooperation at a deeper level was a lot harder to achieve though, as the LMS painfully discovered post-Grouping.
 

Taunton

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None of GCR, GER & GNR were particularly well-funded at any time in their histories. There were few major areas of competition between the railways apart from;
London to Cambridge & Hertford (GER & GNR)
London to Nottingham & Sheffield areas (GCR & GNR)
So it is hard to comprehend why - apart from contrariness - Parliament wanted to block the merger.
It is sometimes overlooked that in those times the principal revenue away from the main express lines was freight, not passenger. Areas like Nottingham to Mansfield, and others, had GCR and GNR in close and duplicated alignment, with some collieries served by both. Meanwhile on trunk hauls like London to Doncaster (and thus onward by North Eastern or L&Y) the GNR and GER were in direct competition. The GNR ran all the way to Liverpool by its one-third ownership of the CLC, the same as the GCR, using some running powers previously imposed by Parliament to get there.

It was the same elsewhere. The Midland bid strongly for traffic from London to Bristol, routed via Birmingham, and ran a daily direct freight service. They had no passenger service between these points.
 
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norbitonflyer

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I wonder what the proposed financial arrangements were - the GC was heavily indebted after the London Extension and the GN wasn't in great shape either. The GE was reasonably prosperous with a virtual monopoly in its area so it is hard to see the advantage for them.
The GE was never particularly prosperous - no major cities, and no coalfields - it was to tap in to the GN's coal traffic that the Joint Line was built (the GN benefitted as it had more coal traffic than the southern end of the ECML could cope with)

There is a reason it had a monopoly - no-one else was interested!

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Expresses from KX to Grimsby / Cleethorpes might have run via Lincoln rather than Boston.
Very unlikely - both the Joint and the Grantham line approached Lincoln from the east, so a reversal would have been needed to take the GC route from there to Grimsby. Using the connection at Newark would not have been possible until it was built in 1966, and would in any case have required the co-operation of the Midland between Newark and Lincoln.

A route from London to Grimsby via Lincoln would have been possible without reversal, via Mansfield, Staveley and Worksop, (or via Mansfield and Ollerton using the LD&ECR) but as this would have been entirely on GCR tracks it could have been done without this hypothetical merger with the GNR.

The Harwich boat train could have been diverted via the ECML, but this didn't happen even after the three companies really did merge in 1923 - at least not until the closure of the section of its route between March and Spalding in the 1980s.
 
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Rescars

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None of GCR, GER & GNR were particularly well-funded at any time in their histories. There were few major areas of competiton between the railways apart from;
London to Cambridge & Hertford (GER & GNR)
London to Nottingham & Sheffield areas (GCR & GNR)
So it is hard to comprehend why - apart from contrariness - Parliament wanted to block the merger. And that same Parliament forced the even larger merger - the formation of LNER in 1923. I doubt that any of them could afford much - or any electrification at that time.

I wonder if the concern was about competition and, in particular, a risk of exposure to hardening freight rates. The merger would have given a single company almost monopolistic control across a slice of central England when rail was really the only option for the carriage of goods and passengers during the golden years of the Edwardian era. Things looked rather different by 1921 after a World War, government control of the network and lots of cheap surplus army trucks ready to support a road haulage industry. Does anyone know what led Geddes, an ex NER man and architect of the Grouping, to propose separate Eastern and North Eastern groups? To what extent did the prewar merger proposals lie behind the rationale for the GCR ending up as part of the LNER?
 

norbitonflyer

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To what extent did the prewar merger proposals lie behind the rationale for the GCR ending up as part of the LNER?
The GCR had strong links in the London area with the GWR, and was in direct competition with the Midland between London and the East Midlands, and also across the Pennines, but its core business and densest network was in southern Yorkshire and north Lincolnshire - as its original name implied, and its original raison d'etre of serving the port of Immingham, built by the same company.

Apart from the NER's Stainforth and Wensleydale lines much further north (which required co-operation with the Midland or LNWR to get anywhere useful), and the Tyne Valley route even further north, the LMS had all the trans-Pennine routes except the ex-GCR Woodhead line.
 

Rescars

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The GCR had strong links in the London area with the GWR, and was in direct competition with the Midland between London and the East Midlands, and also across the Pennines, but its core business and densest network was in southern Yorkshire and north Lincolnshire - as its original name implied, and its original raison d'etre of serving the port of Immingham, built by the same company.

Apart from the NER's Stainforth and Wensleydale lines much further north (which required co-operation with the Midland or LNWR to get anywhere useful), and the Tyne Valley route even further north, the LMS had all the trans-Pennine routes except the ex-GCR Woodhead line.
The way you've set this out suggests "Great Central" was a pretty accurate description!
 

Magdalia

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It is sometimes overlooked that in those times the principal revenue away from the main express lines was freight, not passenger.
Coal was most important.

Areas like Nottingham to Mansfield, and others, had GCR and GNR in close and duplicated alignment, with some collieries served by both.
I wonder if the concern was about competition and, in particular, a risk of exposure to hardening freight rates. The merger would have given a single company almost monopolistic control across a slice of central England when rail was really the only option for the carriage of goods
Especially coal to London, where a merged GNR and GCR would have been in a dominant market position.

The GCR had strong links in the London area with the GWR, and was in direct competition with the Midland between London and the East Midlands, and also across the Pennines

the LMS had all the trans-Pennine routes except the ex-GCR Woodhead line.

The Great Central grew out of the Woodhead route across the Pennines.

The GE was never particularly prosperous - no major cities, and no coalfields
But the Great Eastern did have ports: Harwich, Lowestoft and Yarmouth.

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There is a reason it had a monopoly - no-one else was interested!
The Great Eastern did not have a monopoly, the Midland and Great Northern Joint ran all the way across East Anglia to Norwich and Yarmouth.
The Harwich boat train could have been diverted via the ECML, but this didn't happen even after the three companies really did merge in 1923 - at least not until the closure of the section of its route between March and Spalding in the 1980s.
That would not have happened because of the layout at Peterborough, where running powers over the Midland Railway would have been required. Diverting the boat train via Peterborough only became feasible after the layout was modified in the early 1970s.
 
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norbitonflyer

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Coal was most important.

Especially coal to London, where a merged GNR and GCR would have been in a dominant market position.
The Midland also had heavy coal traffic from the East Midlands and Yorkshire

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But the Great Eastern did have ports: Harwich, Lowestoft and Yarmouth.
Boat train traffic was glamourous but not lucrative - foreign travel was a niche market. (Which is why, in the absence of coal, the Southern companies. like the GE, developed such large suburban networks). As for goods from overseas, most those ports were minor players as London Docks were by far the largest in the country (Liverpool and Bristol also being big players).

The east coast ports were pre-eminent for one commosdity though - fish. Before refrigeration, it was essential to get them to market as quickly as possible, which meant landing them at the nearest port to where they were caught, to complete their journey by express train. (On many lines fish - and, for differentb reasons, newspapers - were given the same priority as express passenger trains)
 
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Revaulx

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Coal was most important.

Especially coal to London, where a merged GNR and GCR would have been in a dominant market position.

The Midland also had heavy coal traffic from the East Midlands and Yorkshire.
Both true. Also quite a lot of the GN’s London coal traffic went via the GN/LNW Joint Line and thence Northampton. If that could somehow have been shifted onto the GC, the LNW would have lost out. Though south of Woodford Halse the GC hadn’t got the handy connections to other lines the LNW did (e.g. the western end of the North London).

Presumably the Midland would have lost out if their M&GN partners had hopped into bed with the company that line had been built to compete with.

So maybe the LNW and Midland stirred up opposition to the merger?
 

Magdalia

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Boat train traffic was glamourous but not lucrative - foreign travel was a niche market.
Boat train travel also included international migration. Lots of emigration to the USA was from Liverpool with people from the continental mainland coming via England and crossing from Harwich or Hull to Liverpool by train.

The east coast ports were pre-eminent for one commosdity though - fish. Before refrigeration, it was essential to get them to market as quickly as possible, which meant landing them at the nearest port to where they were caught, to complete their journey by express train.
Other perishables were also important and the Great Eastern did have milk traffic to London.
 

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