Back to the Future

In Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Story of the Lost Special” (in which Sherlock Holmes gets only a glancing reference), an entire train goes missing shortly after it has passed through Kenyon Junction. The junction was just outside the village of Culcheth in the northwest of England, where the UK’s latest prime minister, Andy Burnham, grew up. It has a claim on global history: in 1831 it became the first station where passengers could change between two independent railway lines. Here the Manchester-to-Liverpool line met the one that connected Bolton to Leigh—both created by one of the titans of the English Industrial Revolution, the engineer George Stephenson.In Conan Doyle’s story, first published in 1898, the police inspector charged with investigating the mystery surveys the area between Kenyon Junction and the next station, at which the train has failed to arrive: In the stretch of railway between these two points…the country is dotted with ironworks and collieries…. There are no fewer than twelve which have small-gauge lines which run trolley cars down to the main line…. Besides these, however, there are seven which have or have had proper lines running down and connecting with po...