Manchester and Leeds Railway

The Manchester and Leeds Railway was an English railway company authorized by an 1836 act of Parliament to build a line from Manchester to Normanton, where it connected with the North Midland Railway for onward access to Leeds. Following the Calder valley for much of its route, the line opened throughout in 1841, and the company subsequently built or acquired branches to Heywood, Oldham, Halifax, and lines reaching toward Preston, Liverpool and Bury. On 9 July 1847 the company was renamed the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, reflecting how far its network had grown beyond the original Manchester-to-Leeds route. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/