G-Mex: Encyclopedia II - G-Mex - History

G-Mex - History

Formerly the G-Mex was known as Central Station and was Manchester's fourth railway terminal.

It was built between 1875–80 by the Cheshire Lines Committee, a joint collaboration between three companies:Great Northern Railway, the Midland Railway and the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway

The building consists of a huge wrought-iron and glass segmental vault spanning 210 feet,and 550 feet long, because of its comparatively low cost in 1877, and was built by Handysides of Derby. The substructure and masonry partition was provided by Robert Neill and Sons of Manchester. The engineers were Richard Johnson, Andrew Johnston and Charles Sacré for the three companies. An earlier station used by the Midland Railway was converted to become Manchester Central Goods.

The Midland, in particular, at last had a secure base for its services, the terminus for its expresses to London St. Pancras. Initially it ran two prestige expresses, one a Pullman service, making the journey in four and a quarter hours. Later it added more services, a total of nine daily, wth two on Sundays, including an overnight Pullman sleeper.

In LMS days, there were two named expresses the "Palatine" and The "Peaks", the former making the trip in three hours and fifty five minutes, with stops at Chinley, Millers Dale, Matlock, Derby and Leicester.

There was a brief return to glory in British Railways days with the Midland Pullman, between 1960 and 1966, during the electrification of the West Coast Main Line. This stopped only at Cheadle Heath (now closed) and made the journey in three and a quarter hours.

Services through Millers Dale finished in 1968 when the line was closed. The station continued to provide local services for a while, but finally closed in 1969.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki