Burton on Trent Railway Network Maps: Public & Private
(A History of the Burton Breweries is Here)

Initially, Burton's beer rattled on the roads, then floated on the canals. Then in 1839 the railways - and railway time - came to Burton and everything changed, utterly changed. Quickly, the breweries took shares in the various and eventually four private railways serving Burton and the move from horse power (see Guild St. photos) which had for years brought the barrels to the canals and then lately to the Midland Railway Station started to take place.

The Old Railway Station was on the direct line of Station St. (See 1865 Map) and all other traffic had to make their way around the station to the (initially unguarded) level crossing. Naturally accidents occurred - hence the Station Bridge and the new  Station (See 1882 Map). 

By 1880 (Compare Maps of 1865 and 1882), horse power had greatly diminished and a massive network of private brewery railways linked to the main lines. Initially, during the Great War and then rapidly from the 1920s, lorries with their greater flexibility, started, in their turn, to replace the brewery networks. However, the private railways continued to choke the town centre until the mid-late 1960s. On the positive side, the arrival of the railways not only lead to a major expansion of breweries and employment in mostly relatively good jobs, but provided the Burtonian with "travel" in the current sense of the word - holidays - especially day excursions to the sea and other such frivolities.  In time, however, lorry and private car and Beeching rationality also put an end to the railways, public and private, as a network, and Burton was lucky to keep its Birmingham-Derby connection,  if not its truely wonderful and Betjeman-admired Station. And to any person, living or dead, who contributed to knocking it down:  Futue te et ipsum caballum - impudens es lenso! - as Jake would probably not have said - with cold venom.