The Forth Bridge’s Yorkshire roots

At an 1881 conference held in York, between the North British Railway and the three English railway companies with which it collaborated, the Forth Bridge Railway Committee came into existence.

In what I imagine was an intense meeting, the cost of the bridge was proposed to be split four ways between the North British Railway (35%), the Midland Railway (30%), the North Eastern Railway (17.5%) and the Great Northern Railway (17.5%), all of whom stood to benefit greatly from their ability to run throughtrains north of the Forth.

The Committee then took stewardship of the newly established Forth Bridge Railway Company, at which point everything was in place to turn the proposals into reality.