The Sankey Brook Navigation Company opened the Sankey Canal in 1757, making it the first true canal of the Industrial Revolution and the first modern canal in England.
It was built primarily to take coal down from the collieries in the Haydock and Parr area to serve the growing town and port of Liverpool (including its chemical industries) via the River Mersey and the Cheshire salt industry via the River Weaver. Local industries expanded rapidly and spread along the line of the canal to St Helens, Haydock, Newton le Willows and Runcorn Gap (Widnes), which were small villages until this period. The Sankey Canal can be credited with the industrial growth of the region.
The canal enjoyed a profitable monopoly of goods traffic to and from the St Helens area for seventy years until the new-fangled steam powered railways arrived in the 1830s.
Across the country many business owners and trades people complained about the sometimes indifferent service and high rates charged by the canal companies. Some canals suffered from a lack of maintenance and traffic delays and stoppages were common, caused by low water levels in the summer and frozen channels and lock gates during the winter.
The 1825 Stockton & Darlington Railway and the 1830 Liverpool & Manchester Railway inspired some influential local businessmen and landowners to build their own railway to move coal and other materials more quickly and cheaply than on the Sankey Canal.
Under a Parliamentary Act of 1830, the St Helens & Runcorn Gap Railway Company was authorised to build a 16¾-mile single railway line from St. Helens to Runcorn Gap (later to become known as Widnes).
The engineer was Charles Vignoles (1793-1875). The single track line crossed over the Liverpool & Manchester Railway at Sutton near St Helens and included a cable-worked 1:70 incline 1½ miles long by the cross-over and another cable-worked incline just north of Runcorn Gap.
The railway was a serious commercial threat to the Sankey Canal and its owners were spurred in to action. The canal was extended from Fiddlers Ferry to Runcorn Gap via ‘The New Cut’ and it opened in July 1833, one month ahead of the railway!
The World’s first rail-to-ship interchange facility was created alongside the Sankey Canal when the railway company opened Widnes Docks on the River Mersey in August 1833 (now known as Spike Island).
The railway company struggled because the canal company reduced its rates and actually managed to increase the tonnage of freight that it carried. The fierce competition benefitted local industrialists but it was damaging to both companies and the deteriorating condition of the canal (caused by water pollution from factories and chemical works) persuaded both companies to agree to a merger. This led unusually to the canal company buying out the railway company.
Under an Act of 21st July 1845 the St. Helens Canal & Railway Company (SHCR) was incorporated.
The new company owned nine second-hand steam tank engines and it had a staff of 122 but it was described as being a ‘ramshackle operation’. The SHCR set about improving the situation by doubling the railway tracks and easing the gradients so that the whole line could be operated by steam locomotives. Goods traffic on the canal remained steady initially but then it gradually began to decline, especially after railway branches to Garston Docks, Warrington and Rainford were opened.
The SHCR managed to increase its locomotive and rolling stock fleets, in part thanks to the ingenuity of its Chief Mechanical Engineer but it struggled to compete with its larger railway neighbours. Railway and canal maintenance was again neglected and the chemical pollution in the water affected parts of the canal.
It was a relief to SHCR shareholders in 1864 when the company was taken over by the powerful London & North Western Railway Company (LNWR).
The LNWR was keen to expand its local network and prevent a rival company from gaining direct access to the industrial centres of St Helens and Widnes. However the LNWR inherited an eclectic fleet of locomotives and it had to invest heavily to repair and improve the railway and the canal, including enlarging Carr Mill Dam which was the canal’s primary water supply (via Black Brook). On the railways, Widnes Dock Junction and the flat crossing were causing congestion problems so in 1869 the LNWR built a 1.5 miles long deviation line through Widnes.
Most of the line’s traffic was mineral (especially coal) and chemicals. Unlike on the Liverpool to Manchester railway, little attention was paid to the needs of passengers initially. In its early years the company’s trains were very slow and a well recounted story is told of a certain passenger who, having missed the train from Runcorn Gap, was told by an official, “Now hurry yourselves — she’s not long started, and if you look sharp you’ll catch her up!”. Better station facilities and carriages were eventually provided and workers trains were laid on to serve the many collieries and other industries along the line.
The line became extremely profitable and there were many sidings and private industrial branch lines connected to it. By the late 1890s it was handling 2,000,000 tons of goods and mineral traffic per year, representing almost 15% of the total goods tonnage carried on the LNWR network.
Britain’s railways were worn out after intense use and minimal maintenance during the First World War. In 1923 most of the separate railways were grouped into one of the ‘Big Four’ private companies. The LNWR became part of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS). Large quantities of freight were carried on the line and the passenger train from St Helen Shaw Street to Ditton Junction station was nicknamed the Ditton Dodger.
The Sankey Canal could not compete with the speed and convenience of the railways, and traffic declined during the 1880s. By the time of the First World War very few barges travelled through to St Helens and none are recorded after 1919. The LMS inherited the canal in 1923 and it was pleased in 1931 to be allowed to close the northern section beyond the Sankey Sugar Works at Earlestown. The railways were nationalised in 1948 to create British Railways and the Sankey Canal passed from the LMS to the British Waterways Board.
After the Second World War, railway passenger traffic declined due to bus competition and the Ditton Dodger service ended in 1951. Freight traffic initially continued to be heavy but it declined during the 1960s. In 1969, the line north of Farnworth & Bold station was singled and in 1975 the line south of the station was also singled. The line was closed to through traffic in 1981 and the track was quickly lifted. Some of the southern part of the route is now Watkinson Way, which is an easterly road bypass for Widnes.
For more information:
St Helens and Runcorn Gap Railway – Wikipedia
8D Association | Dedicated to promoting the history of the railways of South Lancashire, Merseyside and North Cheshire.
JM Tolson, The St Helens Railway: Its Rivals and Successors, Oakwood Press 1982 ISBN 0-85361-292-7