Iron, Steam & Money

by Roger Osborne

  William Smith was a professional artisan, a working tradesman from the same stock as Darby, Trevithick and Arkwright. He was interested in patterns of rock strata because they told him where to find coal for his clients. Smith did not submit his findings to the journal of the Royal Society: he kept his trade secrets to himself. He finally published his maps only when he found the support of wealthy sponsors.

  * * *

  Building canals not only connected Britain’s industry to its customers, it also trained a generation of brilliant engineers in techniques to overcome the challenges of the British landscape. Staircases of locks, such as thirty locks rising sixty-seven metres on the Worcester and Birmingham canal at Tardebigge, carried the canals over difficult terrain, while tunnels like the Harecastle on the Trent and Mersey canal and the 5,500-yard Standedge Tunnel on the Huddersfield canal, which took sixteen years to complete, took boats through seemingly impossible obstacles. This was engineering on an heroic scale. But as well as training engineers and surveyors and, in the process, giving birth to the practical science of geology, canals brought the Industrial Revolution to all parts of the country. Gangs of workers, new technologies and economic benefits introduced British people to the beginning of a new era.

  The network of canals linking the major cities and the major centres of industrial production was largely completed by the early nineteenth century. Coal, iron, limestone, cotton and all kinds of goods were brought to canal wharves either by seagoing vessels or via roads and trackways, or tramways as they became known. Canal owners stood to gain from more traffic, so they now took over from coal owners as the builders of tramways. These were effective but the major limitation on the amount of traffic came from the need for a separate wagon for every horse or team of horses and the ensuing congestion clogged up the tramways. What was required was a locomotive with the power to pull a chain of wagons.

  This was the background to the famous trial of Richard Trevithick’s locomotive in 1804 at the Pen-y-darren ironworks in Merthyr Tydfil, where iron-makers needed to move bulk goods to a canal ten miles away. The crucial factor here was that the ironworks already had a tramway which comprised most of the essential elements of a railway – a parallel set of wooden rails, running at a reasonably even level, along which horses drew loaded wagons. Trevithick’s steam-powered locomotive managed a good pace of around five miles per hour, but it was the power of the engine that mattered more than its speed of travel – its ability to pull a train of ten wagons along rails was the real beginning of the revolution in steam transport. Richard Trevithick was a serial inventor building stationary high-pressure engines, as well as locomotives and a host of other devices; he was impatient with the immense practical difficulties that stood between a few prototype engines and a fully-fledged transport system and moved on to other applications of steam. Fortunately, other engineers immediately saw the benefits of his locomotive.

  One of the earliest developers of steam railways for coal mines was John Blenkinsop, a Yorkshire estate manager who worked in concert with the Leeds engine builder Matthew Murray; the two men were the first to turn steam locomotion into a profitable enterprise.7 Born in County Durham in 1783 the son of a stonemason, Blenkinsop was apprenticed to his cousin Thomas Barnes, a Northumberland mine manager. In 1808 he became an agent on the Middleton estate near Leeds, which contained several coal mines and, crucially, was the site of a tramway running from the collieries into Leeds. As at Pen-y-darren, this proto-railway used horses to draw wagons running along wooden rails; built in 1758 and running over land outside the Middleton estate, it was the first railway authorised through an Act of Parliament to cross other people’s land.

  When Blenkinsop joined the estate, Trevithick’s demonstration at Pen-y-darren had already inspired other colliery owners to look at steam. At the Wylam colliery in Northumberland Christopher Blackett commissioned local engineers including Timothy Hackett to build a locomotive to run on his tramway; in 1811 a one-cylinder locomotive was tried but, while the necessary steam power could be generated, the problems now switched to the strength of the rails and the adhesion of the wheels to the tracks. It soon became clear that wooden, and even iron-topped, rails would be inadequate, as a locomotive pulling a large number of wagons would fail to gain purchase on the slightest incline.

  John Blenkinsop had the advantage that the Middleton railway had iron ‘edge-rails’ laid in 1807; these were L-shaped rails where the edges gripped the even wheels of the wagons (as opposed to the usual system of having flanged wheels to grip the flat rails). In 1812 Blenkinsop commissioned Matthew Murray to build a locomotive for the Middleton railway. The result was the Salamanca, a twin-cylinder locomotive that was so successful that Blenkinsop immediately ordered three more, all of which ran successfully for twenty years. While Trevithick’s locomotive used a single cylinder, with a heavy flywheel employed to even out the drive cycle, Murray used two cylinders to achieve the same effect, giving extra power and reducing the locomotive’s weight. At the same time Blenkinsop overcame the problem of wheel slippage by laying a toothed rail alongside the weight-bearing rails; the Salamanca engine drove a wheel with cogs that fitted into this rail. The system, known as rack and pinion, was successful and was used in other places until the mid-nineteenth century, but it created problems at high speeds and laying the extra rail incurred considerable expense; by mid-century it was found unnecessary as the problem of slippage could be solved through improved weight distribution.

  Once the Middleton colliery started running locomotives to the River Aire in the 1810s it triggered interest across the country. Here is the response of John Walton, a partner in the colliery, to the Duke of Portland’s agent in Ayrshire:

  Willington, Newcastle on Tyne

  11 October 1813

  Dear Sir

  In reply to your favour of the 6th instant I shall at all times have great pleasure in affording his Grace the Duke of Portland . . . every information in my power respecting the new mode of leading our Coals by Steam Engines instead of Horses.

  The Engine which is used is considered of four horses Power, of Trevithick’s invention, being the most powerful we have in use at present and is made by Fenton, Murray and Wood of Leeds . . . and costs £380 including £30 paid to Trevithick for his patent right.

  The Engine is so constituted that by the operating power of Cranks which turn a Cogged wheel working in Metal Coggs cast upon one side of the Rail laid and used as the Railway.

  At Leeds they have been daily at work for some time back leading their Coals in this way and as their Road is perfectly level their Engines take with great ease 24, twenty Boll wagons loaded at a time – each weighs with its contents about 3½ tons, making an aggregate weight of 84 tons. When the Machine is lightly loaded it can be propelled at a rate of 10 Miles an hour; but when properly loaded it is calculated to go at the rate from 3½ to 4 Miles an hour upon a level way . . .

  Should the length of the lead from his Lordship’s concern in Ayrshire be considerable I have no doubt that an immense saving will be made by the adoption of Mr Blenkinsop’s new method.

  Yours most respectfully

  John Walton8

  While the use of steam locomotives on colliery railways was spreading, another innovation took place in Swansea. A group of investors involved in mining and quarrying at Mumbles on the western end of Swansea Bay needed to move rock and ore to Swansea docks five miles away. Boat cargo across the bay was dangerous and cumbersome and a canal was impractical. The solution was to build a tramway all the way around the bay in the flat area between the town and the beach; it opened in 1806, with horse-drawn wagons carrying bulk cargo. Benjamin French, one of the original investors, immediately saw the potential for passenger transport and agreed to pay the other partners £20 a year for the right to run a passenger service. On 25 March 1807 the world’s first passenger railway (albeit horse-drawn) opened for business.9 Two years later Elizabeth Isabella Spence wrote: ‘I have never spent an afternoon with mo
re delight than the one exploring the romantic scenery at Oystermouth (Mumbles). I was conveyed there in a carriage of singular construction built for the conveniency of parties who go hence to Oystermouth to spend the day. This car contains twelve persons and is constructed chiefly of iron, its four wheels run on an iron railway by the aid of one horse, and the whole carriage is an easy and light vehicle.’10

  Steam locomotives were the product of collieries, where there was a need for their power, fuel to run them and engineers to build them. Not surprisingly, the man who was to take the steam locomotive out of the pits and across Britain and the world was himself a colliery worker. George Stephenson was born in the village of Wylam near Newcastle in 1781.11 His father worked at the local colliery and the family had no money for schooling or an apprenticeship. But once George started work in nearby Newburn colliery, as a hand on the winding gear, the illiterate young man paid for night school where he learned to read and write. However, life remained a struggle. In 1804 Stephenson moved to Killingworth where his daughter died in infancy and his wife died of tuberculosis. He left his young son Robert in the care of relatives and went to Scotland in search of better-paid work but he was forced to return when his father was blinded in a mining accident.

  In 1811 Stephenson’s situation began to improve as he was given the chance to show his engineering skills. The stationary engine at Killingworth High Pit needed repair and Stephenson offered to help; his successful work won him the position of engineer for Killingworth and he began to be recognised as an expert on steam engines. Within three years he had built a steam locomotive in the colliery’s workshop, which was used for hauling coal. It used flanged wheels rather than an edge-rail track and did away with Blenkinsop’s toothed rack rail, relying on the adhesion between the wheels and the rails; it managed to pull thirty tons of coal at around 4 mph. Stephenson went on to build another eleven locomotives at Killingworth, some for use on the Hetton colliery railway. Opened in 1822, this was the first railway built from scratch by Stephenson and the first line specifically designed for steam locomotives. While Stephenson was a brilliant builder of locomotives, his greatest contribution was to bring engines and railways together. He improved the tracks, which were still liable to buckle or break even if they were made of cast iron, and worked to distribute the weight of the engines through more axles.

  In 1818 Edward Pease, a wealthy merchant from Darlington, began to lay plans for a railway connecting Darlington to Stockton, a port on the Tees. This would enable the collieries of south Durham access to river transport, but there were objections from local landowners including one Matthew Cully:

  5th February 1819

  A set of Merchants and Speculators are endeavouring to obtain an Act of Parliament to enable them to make a Railway from Stockton to Darlington . . . The said Speculators being a few individuals who hope to be benifitted at the expense of the country, as the measure is not for the general benefit, and will . . . prove disastrous to those concerned. The said projected Railway will very materially injure the highly cultivated district through which it is proposed to carry it and cut up and intersect the enclosures which are now laid out at much expense . . . for the purpose of agriculture and good management as besides the Darlington line, which passes for nearly two miles through my property, a Branch is intended to go to Piercebridge . . . through the best part of my property. It is well known that the damage done, in making roads . . . besides the depridations . . . committed upon the crops and other property of Landowners, by the trespassing of Cattle and people employed in the traffic of the said railway. And it does not meet with the concurrence of the Landed Proprietors over whose property it is proposed to carry it, on the contrary it is almost universally opposed by them.12

  Nevertheless, Pease got his way and in 1821 Parliament passed a bill enabling the building of the twenty-five-mile railway. The company Pease formed was responsible for the track and would hire out the line to anyone who wished to use it. Pease first envisaged pulling wagons along a track by horse, but was persuaded by George Stephenson to invest in building steam locomotives – an early indication of Stephenson’s persuasive powers and his ability to get powerful people to support him. Together they set up Robert Stephenson and Company to build engines, with Stephenson’s son Robert as managing director. The company’s first notable engine was Locomotion, which ran on the Stockton & Darlington Railway on its opening day on 27 September 1825. Though originally planned as a colliery line, it was in fact the world’s first public railway, with passenger cars as well as coal wagons. While locomotives and tramways had been around for decades, this marrying together of the two was a great landmark. Five years later the Observer was still in awe: ‘The adaption of rail-ways to speed was never, we believe, thought of till the opening, in September, 1825, of the celebrated Stockton & Darlington rail-road, a work which will for ever reflect honour on its authors, for the new and striking manner in which it practically demonstrated all the advantages of the invention.’13

  Stephenson had become a national figure; the railway was there to stay. The Stockton & Darlington line taught Stephenson that gradients were a real problem to locomotives, using up disproportionate amounts of their power; railways had to be kept as level as possible. He had wrought-iron rails made for the new railway, which were longer and tougher than cast iron but they were expensive; he needed to find makers who could offer better value. Meanwhile the cotton industry had expanded so rapidly that even the new canal system could not keep up with the amount of goods to be shipped from the industrial centres to the nearest port. The industrialists of south Lancashire now wanted their own railway.

  A company was formed by Liverpool and Manchester merchants, and an enabling Act passed through Parliament in 1826; George Stephenson was commissioned to survey possible routes from Manchester to Liverpool and was appointed chief engineer for the building of the railway. The thirty-five-mile line included the Wapping Tunnel beneath Liverpool (the first tunnel under a city) and crossed the near-bottomless Chat Moss using brush floats (a technique learned from Jack Metcalf’s road-building). It had a total of sixty-four bridges and viaducts, crossing rivers, canals and streets, as well as cuttings and embankments to keep the track as level as possible.

  Despite the example of the Stockton & Darlington line, the steam locomotive had not yet become the obvious choice of transit power. There was much support for stationary engines pulling wagons through drums and cables, while other competitors such as Goldsworthy Gurney were intent on building steam road vehicles to make the journey. It was therefore decided to hold a series of trials at Rainhill to determine not just which locomotives should run on the line, but whether locomotives were suitable for the task at all. The trials that took place in October 1829 give a fascinating snapshot of the state of steam locomotion at the time. It was clear that the examples of Trevithick, Murray and Stephenson had inspired a raft of engineers to try their hand at designing and building high-pressure steam engines with the capability of driving a wheeled engine, and that any lingering thoughts of road-based vehicles were being rapidly overtaken by rail-based transport.

  The trials came down to five locomotives. Each engine was to make ten return trips along a one-and-three-quarter-mile track, making thirty-five miles in total, the length of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway. The average speed was to be ten miles an hour, the steam pressure 50 psi at the outset, and all the fuel and water necessary for the journey had to be carried on board. Two competitors dropped out before the start of the trials proper, leaving just three. The Sans Pareil built by Timothy Hackworth, a former colleague of Stephenson, nearly completed the arduous trials before cracking a cylinder; although it didn’t win the competition it would be used on the Liverpool & Manchester Railway for several years. The Novelty built by Ericsson and Braithwaite reached 28 mph, but on the second day of the trials suffered a pipe fracture that damaged the engine. The surviving entry was Rocket designed by George and Robert Stephenson, which pulled thirteen
tons at an average speed of 12 mph and a top speed of 30 mph. The Stephensons were given the contract to produce the locomotives for the world’s first fully functioning inter-city railway.

  The astonishing speed of the Rocket, its ability to carry its own fuel and water, and its awesome power proved beyond doubt that a steam railway locomotive outperformed any alternative technology. George Stephenson’s genius, demonstrated so well at Rainhill, was to produce a device that was both technically innovative and a consistent and reliable performer; his experience as engineer in the collieries of the north-east had shown him the waste of time and money brought on by unreliable machines. In addition he understood that good locomotives needed good tracks, and he was able to provide both.

  The Liverpool & Manchester Railway was opened with great fanfare on 15 September 1830 when around 800 people, including the Duke of Wellington, boarded the first train from Liverpool, while another train set off in the opposite direction. Frances Ann Kemble was one of the first people to give an account of travelling at speed: ‘Enormous masses of densely packed people lined the road, shouting and waving hats and handkerchiefs as we flew by them. What with the sight and sound of these cheering multitudes and the tremendous velocity with which we were borne past them, my spirits rose to the true champagne height, and I never enjoyed anything so much as that first hour of our progress.’14

  That first journey became famous for another reason. When the train stopped at a halfway point to take on water, the prominent politician William Huskisson got down from his carriage and stepped on to the parallel track where he was hit by a locomotive travelling in the opposite direction. He died later that day. Huskisson was the world’s first railway fatality, and a warning of the power of the new technology.