London, Midland and Scottish Railway in the context of "General Post Office"

The East Coast Main Line (ECML) is a 393-mile-long (632 km) electrified railway between its northern terminus at Edinburgh Waverley and southern terminus at London King's Cross. Peterborough, Doncaster, York, Darlington, Durham and Newcastle are on the line, which is a key transport artery on the eastern side of Great Britain running broadly parallel to the A1 road. The main line acts as a 'spine' for several diverging branches, serving destinations such as Cambridge, Leeds, Hull, Sunderland and Lincoln, all with direct services to London. In addition, a few ECML services extend beyond Edinburgh to serve other Scottish destinations, such as Stirling, Inverness, Dundee, or Aberdeen.

The line was built during the 1840s by three railway companies, the North British Railway, the North Eastern Railway, and the Great Northern Railway. In 1923, the Railways Act 1921 led to their amalgamation to form the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) and the line became its primary route. The LNER competed with the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) for long-distance passenger traffic between London and Scotland. The LNER's chief mechanical engineer Nigel Gresley designed iconic Pacific steam locomotives including Flying Scotsman and Mallard, the latter of which achieved a world record speed for a steam locomotive, 126 mph (203 km/h) on the Grantham-to-Peterborough section on 3 July 1938.

The London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) was the second largest (after LMS) of the "Big Four" railway companies created by the Railways Act 1921 in Britain. It operated from 1 January 1923 until nationalisation on 1 January 1948. At that time, it was divided into the new British Railways' Eastern Region, North Eastern Region, and partially the Scottish Region.

A streamliner is a vehicle incorporating streamlining in a shape providing reduced air resistance. The term is applied to high-speed railway trainsets of the 1930s to 1950s, and to their successor "bullet trains". Less commonly, the term is applied to fully faired upright and recumbent bicycles. As part of the Streamline Moderne trend, the term was applied to passenger cars, trucks, and other types of light-, medium-, or heavy-duty vehicles, but now vehicle streamlining is so prevalent that it is not an outstanding characteristic. In land speed racing, it is a term applied to the long, slender, custom-built, high-speed vehicles with enclosed wheels.

The Edmondson railway ticket was a system for recording the payment of railway fares and accounting for the revenue raised, introduced in the 1840s. It is named after its inventor, Thomas Edmondson, a trained cabinet maker, who became a station master on the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway in England.

He introduced his system on the Manchester and Leeds Railway. Previously, railway companies had used handwritten tickets, as was the practice for stagecoaches, but it was laborious for a ticket clerk to write out a ticket for each passenger and long queues were common at busy stations.

The Mersey Railway was the passenger railway connecting the communities of Liverpool and Birkenhead, England. It is currently a part of the Merseyrail network. It was extended further into the Wirral Peninsula, which lies on the opposite bank of the River Mersey to Liverpool. Both sides of the river were connected via the Mersey Railway Tunnel. The railway opened in 1886 with four stations using steam locomotives hauling unheated wooden carriages; in the next six years the line was extended with the opening of three more stations. Using the first tunnel under the Mersey, the line is the world's oldest underground railway outside London.

Because the steam locomotives created a polluted atmosphere in the tunnel despite the forced ventilation system, many passengers reverted back to using the river ferries making the railway bankrupt by 1900. Recovery came after the railway adopted electric traction in 1903. The Mersey Railway remained independent after the railway grouping of 1923, although it became closely integrated with the electric train services operated by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway over the former Wirral Railway routes after 1938. The Mersey Railway was nationalised, along with most other British railway companies, in 1948.

The Midland Railway (MR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844. The Midland was one of the largest railway companies in Britain in the early 20th century, and the largest employer in Derby, where it had its headquarters. It amalgamated with several other railways to create the London, Midland and Scottish Railway at grouping in 1923.

The Midland had a large network of lines emanating from Derby, stretching to London St Pancras, Manchester, Carlisle, Birmingham, and Bristol. It expanded as much through acquisitions as by building its own lines. It also operated ships from Heysham in Lancashire to Douglas and Belfast. A large amount of the Midland's infrastructure remains in use and visible, such as the Midland Main Line and the Settle–Carlisle line, and some of its railway hotels still bear the name Midland Hotel.

Josiah Charles Stamp, 1st Baron Stamp (21 June 1880 – 16 April 1941) was an English industrialist, economist, civil servant, statistician, writer, and banker. He was a director of the Bank of England and chairman of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway.

Upminster is an interchange station in the town of Upminster in the London Borough of Havering, East London. It is on the London, Tilbury and Southend line, 15 miles 20 chains (24.5 km) down the line from Fenchurch Street in Central London. It is the eastern terminus of the District line on the London Underground and the eastern terminus of the Liberty line on the London Overground. The station was originally opened on 1 May 1885 by the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway on a new direct route from London to Southend that avoided Tilbury. It became a junction station in 1892 when a new branch line was opened to Romford. The station was expanded in 1932 by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway with a new entrance and additional platforms constructed to serve the electric District Railway local service which was extended from Barking. The station was expanded again in 1957 and 1958, with a seventh platform added and the main station building given a new facade. The station is managed by c2c and is in London fare zone 6.

The railway system of Great Britain started with the building of local isolated wooden wagonways starting in the 1560s. A patchwork of local rail links operated by small private railway companies developed in the late 18th century. These isolated links expanded during the railway boom of the 1840s into a national network, although initially being run by over one hundred competing companies. Over the course of the 19th and early 20th centuries, many of these were amalgamated or were bought by competitors until only a handful of larger companies remained. The period also saw a steady increase in government involvement, especially in safety matters, such as the Railway Inspectorate.

The entire network was brought under government control during the First World War, during which time a number of advantages of amalgamation and central planning were demonstrated. However, the government resisted calls for the nationalisation of the network. In 1923, almost all the remaining companies were grouped into the "Big Four": the Great Western Railway, the London and North Eastern Railway, the London, Midland and Scottish Railway and the Southern Railway. The "Big Four" were joint-stock public companies. During the 1920s and 1930s, rising competition from road transport reduced revenues, leading to a lack of investment and thus a period of slow decline. The "Big Four" cooperated closely during the Second World War and continued to run the railway system up until 31 December 1947.