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When the railway age kicked off, it didn’t come out of nowhere.
Railways need 4 things to work:
- A track
- People to build it
- Rolling stock
- And some form of motive power
In this episode we look at the development, and state of the art, of the first three down to 1825, setting the scene for our next episode on motive power.
Show notes
- [02:03] Acts of Parliament
- [05:50] The development of railway track
- [06:00] The Diolkos of ancient Greece
- [07:57] Waggonways (that’s not a typo – it had two ‘g’s in the 1700s, trust me!)
- [10:59] Iron edge rails – William Jessop
- [13:17] Improvements to rails – malleable iron and rolled rails
- [18:53] Civil and Mechanical Engineers
- [21:07] Contractors
- [22:40] Contracting Tiers
- [23:38] Navvies
- [28:43] Rolling stock
- [29:08] Goods wagons
- [30:21] Passenger carriages
Research and Reading List
These are some of the books and websites I used for research for this episode. Some are free resources on the internet, some you can buy for yourself … if you do fancy any of them, then buying them through these links is a great way to support the show at no extra cost to you *.
Parliamentary Acts for railways between 1825 and 1830
THE KILMARNOCK TO TROON RAILWAY – Kilmarnock & District History Group
A Practical Treatise on Rail-roads, and Interior Communication in General – Nicholas Wood, 1825
A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain: Vol. 4 The North-east – K. Hoole, 1974
A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain: Vol. 8 South and West Yorkshire, the industrial West Riding – David Joy, 1984
A Regional History of the Railways of Great Britain: Vol. 12 South Wales – D.S.M. Barrie, 1994
The Church and the million. : No. II, the “navvies,” and how to meet them : a letter to a friend – Edward Monro, 1857
The Navvies’ Riot: Article In The Taunton Courier, Thursday 25 April 1811 – from the Sampford Peverell Society
Images
William Jessop (1746 – 1814)
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