The book vividly portrays how the railway age transformed Manchester and Leeds - and inflicted Bradford with misfortune from which it has never fully recovered. The Manchester & Leeds Railway was more than just the first mainline through the Pennines. The Manchester & Leeds Railway - first mainline through the Pennines - had to force a passage through Upper Calderdale already choked with mills and a canal. Picture: Gavin MorrisonIn those heady times a series of trunk lines sanctioned in 1836 included the Manchester & Leeds Railway with George Stephenson as its chief engineer. The Manchester & Leeds knew it could not compete, but renamed itself the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway.