The history of rail transport in Great Britain to 1830 covers the period up to the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the world's first intercity passenger railway operated solely by steam locomotives. The earliest form of railways, horse-drawn wagonways, originated in Germany in the 16th century. Soon wagonways were also built in Britain. However, the first use of steam locomotives was in Wales. The invention of wrought iron rails, together with Richard Trevithick's pioneering steam locomotive meant that Britain had the first modern railways in the world.
A wagonway was used by German miners at Caldbeck, Cumbria, England, perhaps from the 1560s.[1] A wagonway was built at Prescot, near Liverpool, sometime around 1600, possibly as early as 1594. Owned by Philip Layton, the line carried coal from a pit near Prescot Hall to a terminus about half a mile away.[2]
Another wagonway was Sir Francis Willoughby's Wollaton Wagonway in Nottinghamshire built between 1603 and 1604 to carry coal.[3]
As early as 1671 railed roads were in use in Durham to ease the conveyance of coal; the first of these was the Tanfield Wagon Way.[4] Many of these tramroads or wagon ways were built in the 17th and 18th centuries. They used simple straight and parallel rails of timber on which carts with simple flanged iron wheels were drawn by horses, enabling several wagons to be moved simultaneously.
These primitive rails were superseded in 1767, when ironmaster Richard Reynolds probably for the first time replaced wooden rails with cast iron rails[5] and in 1793 when the then superintendent of the Cromford Canal, Benjamin Outram, constructed a tramway with L-shaped flanged cast-iron plate rails from the quarry at Crich: it was a little over a mile in length descending some 300 feet (91m) and had a gauge of 3ft6in (1,067mm). Wagons fitted with simple flange-less wheels were kept on the track by vertical ledges, or plates. Cast-iron rails were a significant improvement over wooden rails as they could support a greater weight and the friction between wheel and rail was lower, allowing longer trains to be moved by horses.
Outram's rails were superseded by William Jessop's cast ironedge rails where flanged wheels ran on the top edge of simple bar-shaped rails without the guiding ledges of Outram's flanged plate rails. The rails had been first employed in 1789 at Nanpantan at the LoughboroughCharnwood Forest Canal. Such rails could be manufactured in 3ft (914mm) lengths. Jessop, a former pupil of John Smeaton, became a partner with Outram in 1790 in the latter's Butterley ironworks.
Cast iron rails had a propensity to break easily, and the short lengths soon became uneven. In 1820, John Birkenshaw introduced a method of rolling rails in greater lengths using wrought iron which was used from then onwards.
Cross-section diagram of Tanfield Wagon Way circa 1765 with wooden rails and cast iron flanged wheels
Cross-section diagram of Outram's Cromford Canal tramway showing cast-iron L-shaped flanged rails and flangeless iron wheels
Jessop's edge rails of 1789 with cast-iron flanged wheels running on flangeless iron rails
Early public railways
The earliest railways were built and paid for by the owners of the mines they served. As railway technology developed, longer lines became possible, connecting mines with more distant transshipment points and promising lower costs. These longer lines often required public subscription to build and crossed over land not owned by the mine owners. As a result, they needed an Act of Parliament to build, to enforce the sale of way-leave by landowners. The acts also protected investors from unrealistic, or downright fraudulent, schemes.
The first line to obtain such an act, in 1758, was a private coal-owner's wagonway, the Middleton Railway in Leeds.[6] The first for public use, and on cast iron rails, was the Lake Lock Rail Road formed in 1796 and opened in 1798.[7][8][9] Another early public railway, the Surrey Iron Railway obtained an Act of Parliament on 21 May 1801 to build a tram-road between Wandsworth and Croydon in what is now south London; the engineer was William Jessop.[10] Although it survived only until 1845 and was for freight traffic only, it prefaced many others in different parts of the country. Meanwhile, the first passenger-carrying public railway was the Oystermouth Railway, authorised in 1807. All three of these railways were initially worked by horses; the Surrey Iron Railway remained horse-drawn throughout its life.
The Kilmarnock and Troon Railway was authorised by Act of Parliament on 27 May 1808 and was also built by William Jessop.[11] It was the first line in Scotland to carry passengers.[11] The line began life as a 4ft (1,219mm) gauge waggonway and at first it was operated by horses, but in 1817 locomotive haulage was trialled, using one of Stephenson's locomotives. This was the first use of a steam locomotive in Scotland.[11]
Introduction of steam locomotives
Trevithick's steam circus on which the locomotive Catch Me Who Can ranSalamanca
The first steam railway locomotive was introduced by Richard Trevithick in 1804.[12] He was the first engineer to build a successful high-pressure stationary steam engine, in 1799. He followed this with a road going steam carriage in 1801. Although that experiment ended in failure, in 1802 the Coalbrookdale Company built a locomotive for him,[13] but little is known about it, including whether or not it actually ran. In 1804, he built a successful unnamed rail going steam locomotive for the narrow gaugeMerthyr Tramroad in South Wales (sometimes - but incorrectly - called the "Penydarren Tramroad"). The Penydarren locomotive used a high-pressure cylinder without a condenser, the exhaust steam being used to assist the draught via the firebox, increasing efficiency even more. These fundamental improvements in steam engine designs by Trevithick did not change for the whole of the steam era. Amid great interest from the public, on 21 February 1804 it successfully carried 10 tons of iron, 5 wagons and 70 men a distance of 9.75 miles (15.69km) from Penydarren to Abercynon in 4 hours and 5 minutes, an average speed of nearly 5mph (8.0km/h). This locomotive proved that steam traction was a viable proposition, although the use of the locomotive was quickly abandoned as it was too heavy for the primitive plateway track. A second locomotive, built for the Wylam colliery, also broke the track.
Trevithick built a third locomotive in 1808, Catch Me Who Can, which ran on a temporary demonstration railway in Bloomsbury, London. Members of the public were able to ride behind at speeds up to 12mph (19km/h). However, it again broke the rails and Trevithick was forced to abandon the demonstration after just two months.[14]
The first commercially successful steam locomotive was the twin cylinder Salamanca, built in 1812 by John Blenkinsop and Matthew Murray for the 4ft1in (1,245mm) gauge Middleton Railway.[15] Blenkinsop believed that a locomotive light enough to move under its own power would be too light to generate sufficient adhesion, so he designed a rack and pinion system for the line. This was despite the fact that Trevithick had demonstrated successful adhesion locomotives a decade before. The single rack ran outside the narrow gauge edge-rail tracks and was engaged by a cog-wheel on the left side of the locomotive. The cog-wheel was driven by two cylinders embedded into the top of the centre-flue boiler. Four such locomotives were built for the railway, and they worked until the early 1830s.
The proprietors of Wylam Colliery, near Newcastle upon Tyne wanted to replace horse-drawn trains with steam. In 1804, William Hedley, a manager at the colliery, employed Trevithick to build a steam locomotive. However, it proved too heavy for the wooden track to allow it to be used.[16] William Hedley and Timothy Hackworth (another colliery employee) designed a locomotive in 1813 which became known as Puffing Billy.[17]Puffing Billy featured piston rods extending upwards to pivoting beams, connected in turn by rods to a crankshaft beneath the frames, which in turn drove the gears attached to the wheels. This meant that the wheels were coupled, allowing better traction.
A year later George Stephenson, another of Wylam's employees, improved on that design with Blücher,[18] which was the first locomotive to use flanged wheels to keep the locomotive on the track, and had cylinder rods directly connected to the wheels in the manner of Catch me who can.
In 1821 the Stockton and Darlington Railway Act 1821 (1 & 2 Geo. 4. c. xliv) was passed for a tramway between Stockton and Darlington. Stephenson's design convinced the backers of the proposed tramway to appoint Stephenson, who had recently built the Hetton colliery railway, as engineer. Traffic on the Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) was originally intended to be horse-drawn, but Stephenson carried out a fresh survey of the route to allow steam haulage, and the Act was amended to allow the use of steam locomotives. The railway was also empowered to carry passengers in addition to coal and general merchandise.
The line was 25 miles (40km) in length, had 100 passing loops along its single track, and four branch lines to collieries. It opened on 27 September 1825. The first train was hauled by Stephenson's Locomotion No 1 at speeds of 12 to 15 miles per hour (19 to 24km/h).[19] Four locomotives named Locomotion were constructed; they were effectively beam engines on wheels with vertical cylinders. They were also amongst the first locomotives to use coupling rods rather than chains to drive their wheels.[20] The railway was initially operated like a public road, and it was a common occurrence for waggoners' trains to meet on the single track, leading to arguments as to who should back up to a passing loop.
Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway
The first public steam railway in Scotland was the Monkland and Kirkintilloch Railway. An act of Parliament authorising the railway was passed in 1824, and it opened in 1826 as a 4ft6in (1,372mm) gauge, Scotch gauge, railway.[21][22]
The Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR) was the world's first intercity passenger railway in which all the trains were timetabled and operated by steam locomotives. This differed from the Stockton and Darlington, as sections of this line employed cable haulage, and only the coal trains were hauled by locomotives. Further, horse-drawn traffic could use the Stockton and Darlington upon payment of a toll. The passenger-carrying Canterbury and Whitstable Railway opened three months before the L&MR. However, it used cable haulage by stationary steam engines over much of its length, with steam locomotives restricted to the level stretch.[23] The L&MR was primarily built to provide faster transport of raw materials and finished goods between the port of Liverpool and mills in Manchester in north-west England.
The Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company was founded on 24 May 1823. The 35-mile (56km) line was a remarkable engineering achievement for its time, beginning with the 2,250-yard (2,060m)Wapping Tunnel beneath Liverpool from the docks to Edge Hill. Following this was a two-mile (3.2km) long cutting, up to 70 feet (21m) deep, through rock at Olive Mount, and a nine 50-foot (15m) span arch viaduct over the Sankey Brook Valley, around 70 feet (21m) high. There was also a 4.75 miles (7.64km) crossing of the Chat Moss bog.
Liverpool Road Station in Manchester
To determine which locomotives would be suitable, the directors organised the Rainhill Trials. These were arranged as an open contest that would let them see all the locomotive candidates in action, with the choice to follow. A prize of £500 was offered to the winner of the trials. The trials were won by Rocket, built by George and Robert Stephenson. Rocket was the first locomotive to use a multi-tubular boiler, which allowed more effective heat transfer from the exhaust gases to the water. It was also the first to use a blastpipe[citation needed], where used steam from the cylinders discharges into the smokebox beneath the chimney in order to increase the draught of the fire. With these innovations, Rocket averaged 12 miles per hour (19km/h), with a top speed of 30 miles per hour (48km/h) hauling 13 tons, and was declared the winner of the trials. The Stephensons were accordingly given the contract to produce locomotives for the Liverpool & Manchester Railway.
George Stephenson was an English civil engineer and mechanical engineer during the Industrial Revolution. Renowned as the "Father of Railways", Stephenson was considered by the Victorians as a great example of diligent application and thirst for improvement. His chosen rail gauge, sometimes called "Stephenson gauge", was the basis for the 4-foot-8+1⁄2-inch (1.435 m) standard gauge used by most of the world's railways.
Rail transport is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of land transport, next to road transport. It is used for about 8% of passenger and freight transport globally, thanks to its energy efficiency and potentially high speed.
A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of 1,435 mm. The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge, international gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It is the most widely used track gauge around the world, with about 55% of the lines in the world using it.
Wagonways, also known as horse-drawn railways and horse-drawn railroad consisted of the horses, equipment and tracks used for hauling wagons, which preceded steam-powered railways. The terms plateway, tramway, dramway, were used. The advantage of wagonways was that far bigger loads could be transported with the same power.
John Blenkinsop was an English mining engineer and an inventor of steam locomotives, who designed the first practical railway locomotive.
William Hedley was born in Newburn, near Newcastle upon Tyne. He was one of the leading industrial engineers of the early 19th century, and was instrumental in several major innovations in early railway development. While working as a 'viewer' or manager at Wylam Colliery near Newcastle upon Tyne, he built the first practical steam locomotive which relied simply on the adhesion of iron wheels on iron rails.
Timothy Hackworth was an English steam locomotive engineer who lived in Shildon, County Durham, England and was the first locomotive superintendent of the Stockton and Darlington Railway.
The history of rail transport began before the beginning of the common era. It can be divided into several discrete periods defined by the principal means of track material and motive power used.
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 railway track or permanent way is the elements of railway lines: generally the pairs of rails typically laid on the sleepers or ties embedded in ballast, intended to carry the ordinary trains of a railway. It is described as a permanent way because, in the earlier days of railway construction, contractors often laid a temporary track to transport spoil and materials about the site; when this work was substantially completed, the temporary track was taken up and the permanent way installed.
Puffing Billy is the world's oldest surviving steam locomotive, constructed in 1813–1814 by colliery viewer William Hedley, enginewright Jonathan Forster and blacksmith Timothy Hackworth for Christopher Blackett, the owner of Wylam Colliery near Newcastle upon Tyne, in the United Kingdom. It was employed to haul coal chaldron wagons from the mine at Wylam to the docks at Lemington in Northumberland.
Transportation of goods to factories, and of finished products from them, was limited by high transport costs along roads to their destinations. This was not too severe in the case of light valuable materials such as textiles but in the case of dense materials such as coal, it could be a limiting factor on the viability of an industry. In contrast, freighting goods by water, whether on rivers or coastwise was much cheaper. Canals brought the first major change to transportation, and were usually built directly from the mines to city centres, such as the famous Bridgewater Canal in Manchester. Tramways were also common using horses locomotion.
The Little Eaton Gangway, officially the Derby Canal Railway, was a narrow gauge industrial wagonway serving the Derby Canal, in England, at Little Eaton in Derbyshire.
A plateway is an early kind of railway, tramway or wagonway, where the rails are made from cast iron. They were mainly used for about 50 years up to 1830, though some continued later.
The Kilmarnock and Troon Railway was an early railway line in Ayrshire, Scotland. It was constructed to bring coal from pits around Kilmarnock to coastal shipping at Troon Harbour, and passengers were carried.
George Stephenson built a number of experimental steam locomotives to work in the Killingworth Colliery between 1814 and 1826.
The Merthyr Tramroad was a 9.75-mile-long (15.69 km) line that opened in 1802, connecting the private lines belonging to the Dowlais and Penydarren Ironworks with the Glamorganshire Canal at Abercynon, also serving the Plymouth Ironworks along the way. Famous as the line on which Richard Trevithick's experimental locomotive hauled the first train to carry a load. It was largely superseded when the Taff Vale Railway opened in 1841 and sections gradually went out of use over the two decades from about 1851.
Steam springs or steam suspension are a form of suspension used for some early steam locomotives designed and built by George Stephenson. They were only briefly used and may have been used for fewer than ten locomotives.
The Seaton Burn Wagonway was from 1826 to 1920 a partially horse-drawn and partially rope-operated industrial railway with a gauge of 4 ft 6 in near Newcastle upon Tyne.
References
↑ Warren Allison, Samuel Murphy and Richard Smith, An Early Railway in the German Mines of Caldbeck in G. Boyes (ed.), Early Railways 4: Papers from the 4th International Early Railways Conference 2008 (Six Martlets, Sudbury, 2010), pp. 52–69.
↑ Jones, Mark (2012). Lancashire Railways – The History of Steam. Newbury: Countryside Books. p.5. ISBN978-1-84674-298-9.
↑ Hylton, Stuart (2007). The Grand Experiment: the Birth of the Railway Age 1820-1845. Ian Allan Publishing. ISBN978-0-7110-3172-2.
↑ Hamilton Ellis (1968). The Pictorial Encyclopedia of Railways. The Hamlyn Publishing Group. p.12.
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