The company applied for permission from Parliament in 1865 and was awarded the right to go ahead with the project. In an unforeseen twist, however, Midland had also succeeded in striking a deal to share one of its competitors' lines. But the government, for reasons that we can be grateful for today, refused to let the company back out of the initial arrangement, effectively forcing Midland to embark on the hugely costly process of laying more than 70 miles of trackway through the region's dipping, rearing contours.
