By Great Western to Crewe: The Story of the Wellington to Nantwich and Crewe Lin

BRAND NEW\nThe centrepiece of this railway history is the town of Market Drayton. Canals reached the town in 1835 enabling the produce of the area to reach the West Midlands and the North West of England with a reasonable chance that much of it would be acceptably fresh. Just as the town was beginning to feel the benefits of canal transport, so railways began to appear connecting neighbouring towns.\nEventually, the \u2018railway mania\u2019 spawned a number of schemes that promised to include Market Drayton and thus provide transport links to the outside world. However, these were mostly independent, and all failed to materialise. Consequently, the local townspeople made several petitions to the London & North Western Railway to be considered in its schemes, without any success. However, the Great Western Railway was more responsive, although at the earliest stage it wished to remain firmly in the background.\nThe placements of the town on a through route to enable traffic to pre