The early history of the railway is the early history of the English coal
trade.
Down to the sixteenth century the fuel supply of the country alike for
manufacturing and for domestic purposes was derived almost exclusively from
those forests and peat-beds that once covered so large a portion of the
area of the British Isles. Coal was not unknown, though it was then called
"sea-coal," a name distinguishing coal from charcoal, and given to it
because the fact of the earliest known specimens being found on the shores
of Northumberland and of the Firth of Forth--where there are outcrops of
the coal measures--led to the belief that the black stone which burned like
charcoal was a product of the sea. The name was retained, as an appropriate
one, when coal was brought to London by sea from the north.
Coal is known to have been received at various dates during the thirteenth
century in London (which then already had a Sacoles, or Sea-coal, Lane), in
Colchester, in Dover and in Suffolk; but it was used mainly by smiths and
lime-burners; and it was used by them still more when the construction of
feudal castles and ecclesiastical buildings in and following the Norman
period called for work not to be done efficiently with fires of wood or
charcoal. The use of coal as fuel for domestic purposes remained, however,
extremely limited. Unlike wood and charcoal, coal was not suitable for
burning in the centre of rooms then unprovided with chimneys, while coal
smoke was regarded as an intolerable nuisance, and as seriously detrimental
to health. It was on these grounds that when, in the fourteenth century,
brewers, dyers and others in London were found to be using coal, a Royal
Proclamation was issued interdicting its use by any person not a smith or a
lime-burner, and appointing a {196}commission of Oyer and Terminer to see
to the punishment of all offenders.
For a further considerable period the use of coal continued very partial;
but in the sixteenth century great uneasiness began to be felt at the
prospective exhaustion of the timber supplies of the country, and various
enactments were passed with a view to checking the destruction of the
forests. Great attention began to be paid to the use of sea-coal as a
substitute for wood, and an improvement in domestic architecture led to a
more general provision of fire-places with chimneys, thus allowing of a
resort to coal fires for domestic purposes. Chimneys began to appear, in
fact, in numbers never seen before. Harrison, writing in 1577, grieves over
the innovation of coal fires, and recalls the good old times of wood and
peat when, as he touchingly says, "our heads did never ake."
Queen Elizabeth retained the prejudice against sea-coal, and would have
none of it. Ladies of fashion, sharing, as loyal subjects, her Majesty's
objections, would, in turn neither enter a room where coal was burning nor
eat of food cooked at a coal fire. But James I., whose ancestors had long
favoured coal fires in Scotland--and, it may be, thus made themselves
responsible for the name of "Auld Reekie" conferred on Edinburgh--had coal
brought for fires in his own rooms in Westminster Palace. When this fact
became known Society changed its views, and decided that the hitherto
obnoxious sea-coal might be tolerated, after all. Howes, writing in 1612,
was then able to speak of coal as "the generall fuell of this Britaine
Island."
In the result, and especially following on the development in trade and
industry which came with the Restoration, there was a great increase in the
demand for coal. In 1615 the coal fleet engaged in the transport of
sea-coal to London, and other ports on the east and south-east
coasts--where fuel was scarcest--comprised (as stated in "A History of Coal
Mining in Great Britain," by Robert L. Galloway) 400 vessels. In 1635, or
only twenty years later, the number had increased to between 600 and 700,
and by 1650, or thereabouts, the total had further risen to 900 vessels,
these figures being exclusive of the foreign fleets carrying coal to
France, Holland and Germany.
{197}The collieries that were more especially required to meet this
increased demand were those in the immediate neighbourhood of the Tyne,
since they offered the advantages of thick seams of coal of excellent
quality and close alike to the surface and to a navigable river. The
proportions to which the industry had already attained in the year 1649 are
shown by Grey, in his "Chorographia, or a Survey of Newcastle-upon-Tine,"
where he says: "Many thousand people are imployed in this trade of coales:
many live by working of them in pits: many live by conveying them in
waggons and waines to the river Tine.... One coal merchant imployeth five
hundred or a thousand in his works of coal."
The one great difficulty in the way of development lay in the trouble
experienced in getting the coal from the pit-banks to the river for loading
into the keels, or barges, by which it would be conveyed to the sea-going
colliers lying below the bridge at Newcastle.
The established custom was to send the coal to the river by carts, or
wains, or even in panniers slung across the backs of horses; and in Robert
Edington's "Treatise on the Coal Trade" (1813) mention is made of various
collieries which had up to 600 or 700 carts engaged in this service.
Inasmuch, however, as the art of road-making in general was then still in
its elementary stage, one can well imagine that, with all this traffic
along them, the roads between the collieries and the Tyne must have been in
a condition that added greatly both to the difficulties and to the cost of
transport. Nicholas Wood, in his "Practical Treatise on Rail-roads" (1825),
gives an extract, dated 1602, from the book of a Newcastle coal company,
showing that "from tyme out of mynd" the coal carts had brought eight
bolls--equal to about 17 cwt.--of coal to the river; but added that "of
late several hath brought only, or scarce, seven," a fact sufficiently
suggestive of the deplorable state to which the colliery roads had been
reduced even at the opening of a century that was to bring about so great
an increase in the demand for coal.
Bad as the position was for the collieries located near to the Tyne, it was
worse for those situate at any distance from the river, since, under the
road conditions then prevailing, it was practically impossible for the
owners of the latter collieries to get their coal to the river at all, or
to secure {198}any share in a trade offering such great opportunities and
undergoing such rapid expansion. The coal had but a nominal value so long
as it could not be got away from the pit-banks.
The first attempt to overcome the difficulties of the situation was in the
direction of laying parallel courses of stone or wood for the waggon wheels
to run upon; but here we have the equivalent of a partially-paved roadway
rather than of actual rails. The latter came when the parallel
wheel-courses of wood were reduced to what William Hutchinson, in his "View
of Northumberland" (1778), calls "strings of wood," for the accommodation
of "large unwieldy carriages or waggons."
Nicholas Wood says that these wooden rails had a length of about six feet,
and were five or six inches in thickness, with a breadth of about the same
proportions. They were pegged down to sleepers placed across the track at a
distance of about two feet apart, so that one rail reached across three
sleepers. The spaces between the sleepers were filled in with ashes or
small stones, to protect the feet of the horses. The waggons were in the
form of a hopper, being much broader and longer at the top than at the
bottom. At first all four wheels of the waggon were made either of one
entire piece of wood or of two or three pieces of wood fastened together,
the rim, in either case, being so shaped as to have on one side a
projection, or flange, which would keep the wheel on the rails.
This, then, was the earliest example of a _railway_--the fundamental
principle of which is, of course, the use of _rails_ to facilitate the
drawing or the propulsion of a moving body, and not the particular form of
motive power (however great the importance, in actual practice, of this
matter of detail) by which the traction is secured.
The date of the first "rail-way" (so called) in the form described, and in
accordance with the principle mentioned, is uncertain; but Galloway, in his
"History of Coal Mining," mentions a document dated 1660 which refers to a
sale of timber used in the construction of waggon-ways; while Roger North,
writing in 1676, describes the then existing railways in terms which
suggest that they were, at that date, a well-established institution.
Speaking generally, therefore, one may assume that the pioneer rail-ways
were brought {199}into operation somewhere about the middle of the
seventeenth century--if not still earlier. Taking 1650 as an approximate
date, this would mean that the first rail-way must have been made about one
hundred and eighty years before the opening of that Liverpool and
Manchester line with which the history of railways is often assumed to have
begun.
Hutchinson speaks of the collieries on the Tyne as being, at the time he
wrote (1778), "about twenty-four in number," and he further says of them
that they "lie at considerable distances from the river." On account of
these considerable distances the colliery managers had to secure way-leaves
for their rail-ways from the owners of intervening land, so as to obtain
access to the Tyne. Thus Roger North, in the account he gives of the
railways in the Newcastle district, says: "When men have pieces of land
between the collieries and the rivers, they sell leave to lead coals over
their ground, and so dear that the owner of a rood of ground will expect
20l. per annum for this leave." In some instances the total payment for a
way-leave seems to have amounted to £500 a year. Statutory powers were not
required for the rail-ways so long as they were used only for private
purposes, though when they crossed a public road the assent of the local
authorities was necessary.
The rails, sleepers and wheels, all of wood, came mostly from Sussex or
Hampshire, and the writer of an article on the Tyne railways, published in
the "Commercial and Agricultural Magazine" for October, 1800, speaks of the
use on them of so much timber as "the more extraordinary" because the
necessities of the coal mines had previously "used up every stick of timber
in the neighbourhood," so that "the import from returning colliers
(coal-ships) was the sole resource." Such import, also, would appear to
have been considerable, the making of wooden rail-ways on the north-east
coast being the means of developing an important industry in rails and
wheels in the southern counties.
One of the importers on the Tyne was William Scott, father of Lords Stowell
and Eldon, and his "Letters," included in M. A. Richardson's "Reprints of
Rare Tracts" (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1849), give some interesting details on
the subject. Scott, in addition to being himself engaged in mining, acted
as agent for southern producers of wooden rails and {200}wheels for
colliery rail-ways; and his letters show that in and about the year 1745
the consignments were coming to hand in "immense quantities." Scott seems
to have had great trouble in restraining the zeal of the southerners. He
tells one correspondent that "Wheels are at present a great drug from so
many yt. came last year. Rails will be wanted, but the people pays so badly
for them that wo^d weary eny body to serve them." To another he says: "I
find the best oak rails will scarcely give 6d. p yd this year." To
correspondents at Lyndhurst, New Forest, he writes: "I fancy the dealers in
wn. wheels will expect to have wheels soon 'em given, if such great numbers
continue coming." Mr West, of Slyndon, near Arundel, Sussex, is told that
not more than five shillings can be got for the best wooden wheels, and
that "dealers are so full that they have not room for any wheels." On March
27, 1747, Scott writes concerning wheels: "No less than about 2000 com'd
within these 14 days from Lyndhurst consign'd to different people"; and two
months later he announces that he has resolved to receive "no more such
goods as wooden wheels, rails and such like from anybody."
Most of the Tyne collieries were at a higher level than the river, and in
the construction of the rail-ways it was sought to obtain a regular and
easy descent, regardless of route or distance, to the "staith," or
shipping-stage, from which the coal would be loaded either into the keels
(barges) employed to take it along the river to the colliers, or, in the
case of longer distance rail-ways, direct into the collier itself, the
bottom of the waggons being made after the fashion of a trap-door to
facilitate discharge. Gradual descent was further aimed at because it
allowed of the loaded waggons moving along the rail-way by reason of their
own weight.
How this prototype both of the railway and of express trains as known to us
to-day was operated is well shown in a "Description of a Coal-Waggon," with
an accompanying illustration, contributed to the "General Magazine of Arts
and Sciences" for June, 1764, by John Buddie, of Chester-le-street, Durham,
who subsequently became manager of the Wallsend Colliery. In the
illustration a horse is depicted drawing, by means of two ropes fastened to
its collar, a loaded four-wheeled coal waggon along a rail-way preceded by
a man who, having a bundle of hay underneath one arm, {201}holds some of
the hay a few inches in front of the horse so that the animal, stretching
forward to get the hay, draws along the waggon more readily. Buddle
explains that the waggon is "conducted or drove by a single man, called the
Waggon-man, whose most common action on the road is, inticing the horse
forward with a bit of hay in his hand, which he supplies from under his
arm, a quantity of hay sufficient for a day being kept in the Hay-poke,"
that is, in a receptacle at the back of the waggon. Suspended over one of
the hind wheels is a "convoy," or brake, formed of a curved and
strong-looking piece of wood (described in the text as alder-wood), which
is attached at one end to the waggon, and held in a loop at the other. "Its
use," says Buddle, "is to regulate the motion of the waggon down the sides
of the hills (called by the waggon men runs) making it uniform.... The
waggon-man, taking the end out of the loop, lets it down upon the wheel,
and, placing himself astride upon the end, with one foot on the waggon-soal
he presses more or less, according to the declivity of the run; the Convoy
acting at that time as a leaver."
Buddle further says: "Waggon men, in going down very steep Runs, commonly
take their horses from before, and fasten them behind their waggons,[27] as
they would inevitably be killed was the convoy to break (which frequently
happens) or any other accident occasion these waggons to run _amain_. Nor
is this fatal consequence attendant only on the horses, but the drivers
often receive broken bones, bruises, and frequently the most excruciating
deaths. Indeed, in some places, a most humane custom is established, which
is, when any waggon-man loses his horse, the other Waggon-men go a Gait for
the poor sufferer, which is little out of their profits, and purchase him
another horse."
About 1750, according to Nicholas Wood, cast-iron wheels were introduced;
but in 1765 wooden wheels were still mostly used at the back of the waggon,
to allow of the convoy getting a better grip when the waggon was going, by
its own {202}weight, down an incline; though even then the danger of
accident was, as Buddle's observations suggest, sufficiently grave. On this
same point it is said by T. S. Polyhistor, in a "Description of a Coal
Waggon," given in the "London Magazine" for March, 1764:--
"They commonly unloose the horse when they come to the runs, and then put
him too again when down; the reason of their taking him off at such places
is because, were the convoy to break, it would be impossible to save the
horse from being killed, or if the waggon-way rails be wet sometimes a man
cannot stop the waggon with the convoy and where the convoy presses upon
the wheel it will fire and flame surprisingly; many are the accidents that
have happened as aforesaid; many hundred poor people and horses have lost
their lives; for was there ever so many waggons before the waggon that
breaks its convoy and has not got quite clear of the run, they are all in
great danger, both men and horses, of being killed."
Polyhistor also states that the quantity of coal one of these waggons would
draw on the rails was 19 "bolls," or "bowls," as he calls them. This gave a
load of about 42 cwt. of coal, as compared with the load of 17 cwt., or
less, to which the waggons on the ordinary roads at the collieries had been
reduced. The advantage from the point of view of transport was obvious; but
no less certain, also, was the risk to life and limb when a waggon with
over two tons of coal was allowed to run down an incline checked only by a
primitive wooden brake, with a man seated on one end of it to press it
against a wheel. In wet weather boys or old men were employed to sprinkle
ashes on the rails; but there were times when the rail-ways having a steep
descent could not be used at all.
Introduced on the Tyne, the rail-way was adopted in 1693 by collieries on
the Wear, and it also came into vogue in Shropshire and other districts. In
1698 a rail-way was set up on Sir Humphry Mackworth's colliery at Neath,
Glamorganshire; but after it had been in use about eight years it was
condemned by a grand jury at Cardiff as a "nuisance," and the portion
crossing the highway between Cardiff and Neath was torn up. In a statement
presented, rebutting the allegation of the grand jury, it was said: "These
waggon ways are {203}very common and frequently made use of about Newcastle
and also at Broseley, Benthal and other places in Shropshire, and are so
far from being nuisances that they have ever been esteemed very useful to
preserve the roads, which would be otherwise made very bad and deep by the
carriage of coal in common waggons and carts."
The Tyneside colliery rail-way was, in fact, widely adopted; though it
underwent many improvements long before there was any suggestion of
operating the new form of traction by means of locomotives.
The first improvement on the original wooden rail pegged on to the sleepers
was the fastening on it of another rail, in order that this could be
removed, when worn down, without interfering with the sleepers. This
arrangement was known as the "double way"; and Nicholas Wood says of it:
"The double rail, by increasing the height of the surface whereon the
carriage travelled, allowed the inside of the road to be filled up with
ashes or stone to the under side of the upper rail, and consequently above
the level of the sleepers, which thus secured them from the action of the
feet of the horses." He adds that on the first introduction of the double
way the under rail was of oak, and afterwards of fir, mostly six feet long,
and reaching across three sleepers, and was about five inches broad on the
surface by four or five inches in depth. The upper rail was of the same
dimensions and almost always made of beech or plane tree.
The next improvement was the nailing of thin strips, or "plates," of
wrought iron on to the double rail wherever there was a steep descent or a
considerable curve, thus diminishing the friction. These "plates" were
about two inches wide and half an inch thick, and they were fastened on to
the wooden rails with ordinary nails. They constituted the first step
towards the conversion of wooden rail-ways into an iron road, and Nicholas
Wood thinks it very likely that the diminution of friction resulting from
their use may have suggested the substitution of iron rails for wooden
ones.
Cast-iron rails began to come into use about 1767. Their brittleness was,
at first, found to be a great disadvantage; but this defect was
subsequently overcome, to a certain extent, by the use of smaller waggons,
which allowed of a better distribution of weight over the rail. Then in or
about {204}1776 "plates" or "rails" (the two expressions seem to have been
used somewhat indiscriminately) were cast with an inner flange, from two to
three inches high, so that waggons with ordinary wheels could be taken upon
them and be kept on the plate, or rail, by means of this flange.
John Curr, manager of the Duke of Norfolk's collieries, near Sheffield, who
claimed to have invented these flanged "plates," describes them in his
"Coal Viewer and Engine Builder's Practical Companion" (1797), as being six
feet long, three inches broad, half an inch thick, from 47 lbs. to 50 lbs.
in weight, and provided with nail holes for fastening them direct on to oak
sleepers. Lines so constructed became known as "plate-ways," "tram-ways,"
or, alternatively, "dram-ways."
The derivation of the words tram and tramway has given rise to a certain
amount of discussion from time to time, and the fallacy that they come from
the name of Benjamin Outram, of the Ripley iron-works, Derbyshire, who, in
the last quarter of the eighteenth century, advocated the flanged-plate
system of rail-way, has been especially favoured. It was, however, merely a
coincidence that "tram" formed part of his name, and this popular theory
here in question is quite unfounded.
The real origin of "tram" is indicated, rather, by the following list of
possible derivations, which I take from Skeat's "Etymological
Dictionary":--
Swedish: Tromm, trumm, a log, or the stock of a tree; also a summer
sledge.
Middle Swedish: Tråm, trum, a piece of a large tree cut up into logs.
Norwegian: Tram, a door-step (of wood). Traam, a frame.
Low German: Traam, a balk or beam; especially one of the handles of a
wheel-barrow.
Old High German: Dr[=a]m, tr[=a]m, a beam.
Thus in its original signification the word tram, or its equivalent, was
applied either to a log of wood or to certain specified objects made of
wood.
The word itself was in use in this country as far back as the middle of the
sixteenth century, since on August 4, 1555, a certain Ambrose Middleton, of
Skirwith, Cumberland (as recorded in the Surtees Society "Publications,"
vol. xxxviii., {205}page 37, note), made a will in which he left "to the
amendinge of the highwaye _or tram_, from the weste ende of Bridgegait, in
Barnard Castle, 20s." There is no reason to doubt that the "highwaye or
tram" here referred to was a road across which logs of wood had been laid,
the name "tram" being applied thereto by reason of its aforesaid original
signification. It is, further, easy to understand how, when the pioneer
rail-ways were made entirely of wood, the word tram-way should, for that
reason, still be applied to them. Just, also, as "tram" had already passed
from a log of wood to a wooden sledge or to a wheelbarrow handle, so it was
given by pitmen in the north of England to the small waggon in which coal
was pushed or drawn along in the workings.
When "plates" were nailed on to the wooden rails of the early rail-ways the
use of the word tram-way may still have been regarded as appropriate; it
was retained for the plates or rails provided with a flange, and lines
constructed with flanged plates or rails were, in turn, called plate-ways,
tram-ways, or dram-ways to distinguish them from other ways or roads made
with rails having no flange.
In course of time the wooden rails which had been the original
justification for the use of the word or prefix "tram" disappeared, and
even the flanged rails were to be met with only on canal or colliery lines;
but "tramway"--now a complete misnomer--is the name still given in this
country to what in the United States are more accurately known as street
railways.
Of the vast number of people in the United Kingdom who daily use the word
tramway, or speak of "going by tram," few, probably, realise how they are
thus recalling the days alike of log-roads and of those rail-ways of wood
which were the pioneers of the iron roads of to-day.
The designation, also, of "platelayer" was originally applied to the men
employed to lay the "plates" of which I have spoken; but although workers
on the permanent way are now, surely, _rail_-layers rather than
_plate_-layers, they are still known by the original name.
The system of flanged plates, or rails, was widely adopted; but when, in
1785, it was proposed to build a 3-mile plate-way, or tram-way, of this
type between Loughborough and the Nanpantan collieries, the commissioners
of a turnpike {206}road it was necessary to cross objected, on the ground
that the raised flange would be dangerous to traffic passing along the
road. Following on these objections, William Jessop, the engineer of the
proposed line, decided, in 1788, to abandon flanged plates and flat wheels,
and to substitute for them flat rails and flanged wheels.[28] He proceeded
to cast some "edge-rails" which overcame the scruples of the road
commissioners, and the Loughborough and Nanpantan rail-way was opened in
1789, being the first having iron rails with a flat surface, on the "edge"
of which wheels with a flange on their inner side were run. The plate, or
tram, system of flanged rails still had many advocates, and for a time
there was much controversy as to the respective merits of the two systems;
but the principle introduced by Jessop was eventually adopted for railways
in general, and became one of the most important of the developments that
rendered possible the attainment of high speeds in rail transport. "The
substitution of the flanged wheel for the flanged plate was," said Mr.
James Brunlees, C.E., in his presidential address in the Mechanical Science
Section at the 1883 meeting of the British Association, "an organic change
which has been the forerunner of the great results accomplished in modern
travelling by railway."
For some thirty years after Jessop's improvement, the rails, of whichever
kind, were still made of cast-iron, wrought-iron rails, tried at
Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1805, not coming into general use until about 1820,
when John Birkenshaw, of the Bedlington iron-works, invented an efficient
and economical method of rolling iron bars suitable for use as railway
lines.[29] By 1785 iron rails, even though only cast-iron rails, had widely
taken the place of the wooden rails which had then been in use for over a
hundred years.
{207}The substitution, from about 1767, of iron rails--even though they
were only cast-iron rails--for wooden ones became the great event in the
development of railways at this period, and gave the newer lines their
distinguishing feature as compared with their predecessors. Each fresh line
made took the credit of being an "_iron_ rail-way"; and not only did that
designation remain in vogue in this country for several decades but it
fixed, also, the names of the railway systems in various Continental
countries, as shown by the term "Chemin de Fer" in France and Belgium,
"Eisenbahn" in Germany, Austria and Switzerland; "Strada ferrata" in Italy,
and "Ferrocarril" in Spain (the English equivalent in each instance being
"Iron Road"), and by the name of Holland Iron Railway Company ("Hollandsche
Yzeren Spoorvegs-maatschappy") by which one of the oldest of the railway
companies in Holland--where it was founded in 1837--is still known.[30]
One factor in the preference shown for iron rails over wooden ones was the
consideration of cost. Alluding to the wooden railways of Durham, in his
"General View" of the agriculture of that county, drawn up for the Board of
Agriculture in 1810, John Bailey, of Chillingham, says: "Of late years, on
account of the high price of wood, iron railways have been substituted."
With an increase in the price of timber, owing to the greater scarcity
thereof, as the available supplies in the southern counties became more
depleted, the time may well have come when, apart from other
considerations, it was found cheaper in the north to make cast-iron rails
than to import wooden ones. The need for importing so much timber was
further diminished, from about 1739, by the substitution, in many
instances, of blocks of stone for {208}the wooden sleepers previously used,
the iron being either spiked to wooden plugs inserted in holes made in the
stones or else fastened by wooden pins into cast-iron "pedestals," as John
Bailey calls them, fixed in the stones.
Wooden rails did not, however, entirely and immediately give way to iron
rails. On the contrary, the old system was so far maintained that,
according to "The Industrial Resources of the Tyne," wooden railways could
still be found on the collieries in that district as late as 1860.
Among the advantages derived from the substitution of iron rails for wooden
rails was the fact that a horse could draw, on the level, heavier loads
than before. On the other hand, the heavier the load the greater was the
danger in taking the waggons down hill-sides with only a wooden brake to
check their speed; and this danger was increased to an even greater degree
when the use of iron rails involved the abandonment of the wooden wheels
which had hitherto been retained at the back of the waggons in order that
the brake should act more effectively. Still further improvements thus
became necessary, and these first took the form of inclined planes on which
the law of gravity was employed, loaded waggons raising empty ones, or
having their own descent regulated, by means of a rope passing round a
wheel at the top of the incline. Later on stationary engines and chains
were substituted for the wheel and the rope, horses then being employed on
the level only.
Bailey says on this point: "Waggon ways have generally been so contrived
that the ascents were not greater than a single horse could draw a waggon
up them; but some cases have happened lately where it required more than
one horse, and steam engines have been substituted for horses for drawing
waggons up these ascents. At Urpeth waggon way five or six waggons are
drawn up at one ascent, by a steam engine placed at the top."
Here, then, we have another stage in the process of evolution that was
going on. The stationary engine at the top of an incline drawing up, or
regulating the descent of, heavier loads, on iron rails, was the first
employment on railways of that steam power which was afterwards to develop
into the locomotive capable to-day of taking heavy trains at a speed of a
mile a minute. In those early days, however, speed was {209}not regarded as
a matter of any importance. Colliery managers were quite satisfied with a
steady three miles an hour.
Although the general conditions of the pioneer railways were, apparently,
so primitive, some of the lines were more ambitious and more costly than
might, at first, be supposed. Among them were lines from five to ten miles
in extent which served the double purpose of (1) enabling collieries in,
for example, the Hinterland of the Tyne to benefit from the ever-expanding
trade in coal; and (2) providing them with the means of discharging direct
into the colliers below Newcastle bridge, thus saving the preliminary
transport in, and transshipment from, the coal barges on the river. In
these five- or ten-mile distances there were often considerable declivities
to overcome, in order that the ideal of a gradual descent should be
secured, and the cuttings, embankments, bridges and other works thus
carried out were often closely akin to much of the railway construction
with which we are familiar to-day. Thus Dr. Stukeley, in his "Itinerarium
Curiosum," says in describing the visit he paid to the Tanfield Collieries,
Durham, in 1725:--
"We saw Col. Lyddal's coal-works at Tanfield, where he carries the road
over valleys filled with earth, 100 foot high, 300 foot broad at bottom:
other valleys as large have a stone bridge laid across:[31] in other places
hills are cut through for half a mile together; and in this manner a road
is made, and frames of timber laid, for five miles to the river-side."
Arthur Young, also, who visited the Newcastle-on-Tyne district in 1768,
says in his "Six Months Tour through the North of England": "The coal
waggon roads from the pits to the water are great works carried over all
sorts of inequalities of ground so far as the distance of nine or ten
miles."
The staiths at the river end of the Tyne railways are described in the
"Commercial and Agricultural Magazine" as "solid buildings, two stories
high; into the upper story the {210}waggon-way enters, and a spout
projecting over the river shoots the coals into the keels, or a trap-door
drops the coals into the lower story, whence they must be shovelled into
the keels afterwards."
John Francis expresses the opinion, in his "History of the English Railway"
(1851), that probably by 1750 there was scarcely an important colliery that
had not its own railway. Such lines as these, however, were of a private
character, serving the interests only of the companies or the individuals
making them, without offering transport facilities to other traders in
return for tolls, and requiring no Act of Parliament so long as they
retained this character, did not require to cross public roads, and could
be constructed by agreement among the landowners concerned. The more
important development came when the canal companies themselves desired to
supplement their canals by railways which anyone paying the stipulated
tolls could use in connection with canal transport. Under these conditions
the companies had to seek for further powers from Parliament, and this they
began to do about the middle of the eighteenth century.
The Trent and Mersey Canal Act of 1776, for example, authorised the
construction of a "rail-way" from the canal to the Froghall quarries, a
distance of three and a half miles.[32] In 1802 the same company obtained
authority to construct three "railways" extending from their canal in
various directions. The preamble of the Act (42 Geo. III. c. 25) recited
that the lines would be of "great advantage to the extensive manufactories
of earthenware ... and of public utility," and the Act accordingly
sanctioned the lines "for the passage of waggons and carriages of forms and
constructions, and with burthens suitable to such railways, to be approved
by the company," at rates duly specified. These various railways, together
with the Trent and Mersey Canal itself, were, in 1846, taken over by the
North Staffordshire Railway Company, whose general manager, Mr W. D.
Phillipps, informs me that portions of two of them are still in daily use.
They are laid with cast-iron tram plates, with flanges to keep the wheels
in place, and ordinary waggons {211}and carts use them to get from the
canal basin to the high road, a few hundred yards away, the same rate of
toll being charged as on the canal. Mr Phillipps further says: "Our
Froghall tramway rises 400 feet from the level of the canal to the quarry,
passing by means of a tunnel through an intermediate hill, and it is worked
entirely by gravitation, there being four inclined planes of various
lengths and inclinations. The gauge is 3 feet 6 inches. It is practically
the same as when laid down over 100 years ago. We convey over it nearly
500,000 tons of limestone annually, and I find it a cheap and expeditious
mode of conveyance."
I would call special attention to these details because it was, no doubt,
the fact that ordinary road carts, with flat-edged wheels, could be taken
along the flanged plates of the early railways, and were so taken under
authority of the Acts of Parliament here in question, that originally
established the idea both of a common user of the railways by traders
employing their own vehicles upon them and of competition being thus
ensured between different carriers. The pioneer public railways, provided
as accessories to canal transport, were, indeed, looked upon as simply a
variation, in principle, of the ordinary turnpike road. They were roads
furnished with rails, and available for use, on payment of the authorised
tolls, by anyone whose cart-wheels were the right distance apart.
The position in this respect was entirely changed when the system of
railway operation came to be definitely fixed on the principle of
edge-rails and flanged wheels, with locomotives in place of horses; yet the
legislation immediately following the spread of railways on this vastly
different basis was still determined, as regarded their use by the public,
by the precedent originally established under the conditions here narrated.
While thus operated on the toll principle of a turnpike road--the pioneer
"railway stations" being themselves simply the equivalent of
toll-houses--the early railways were all associated with canal or river
transport. Robert Fulton says in his "Treatise on the Improvement of Canal
Navigation" (1796) that "Rail-roads have hitherto been considered as a
medium between lock-canals and cartage, in consequence of the expence of
extending the canal to the {212}particular works in its neighbourhood";
and, in the course of a detailed argument in favour of small boats, of from
two to five tons burden, in preference to the unduly large ones--as he
considered them--then in vogue, he adds: "Rail-ways of one mile or
thereabouts will, no doubt, be frequently necessary, where it may be
difficult to find water at the extremity, or when the trade from the works
is not sufficient to pay the expence of machinery,[33] and, its extent
being one mile, can be of little importance to the country."
That Parliament itself, at this time, looked upon railways only as
accessories to canals is shown by a reference to the "House of Commons
Journals," where, under date June 19, 1799, it is reported that a Committee
appointed, on the 10th of the same month, "to consider the expediency of
requiring notices to be given of an intended application to Parliament for
leave to bring in a Bill for the making of Ways or Roads usually called
Railways or Dram Roads, or for the renewal or alteration of an Act passed
for that purpose," had adopted the following resolution: "That it is the
opinion of this Committee, That the Standing Orders of the House of the 7th
of May, 1794, relating to Bills for making Navigable Canals, Aqueducts and
the Navigation of Rivers, or for altering any Act of Parliament for any or
either of those purposes, be extended to Bills for making any Ways or
Roads, commonly called Railways or Dram Roads, except so much of the said
Standing Orders as requires," etc. The resolution was agreed to by the
House on the 25th of the same month.
Towards the close of the century it became customary for canal companies
applying to Parliament for powers, or extensions of existing powers, to
seek for authority to make railways, waggon ways or stone roads in
connection with their canals; and these they were generally authorised to
lay down to any existing or future mines, quarries, furnaces, forges or
other works within a distance of, at first four, subsequently eight, miles
of such canal. They were, also, authorised to construct any bridges
necessary for giving access to the canal. If, after being asked to make a
railway, waggon road or bridge, under these conditions, the canal company
refused so to do, the person or persons concerned {213}could carry out the
work at his or their own cost and charges, without the consent of the owner
of the lands, rivers, brooks or water-courses it might be necessary to
cross, though subject to the payment to them of compensation under
conditions analogous to those in force in regard to the construction of
canals. One Act of this type, the Aberdare Canal Act, 1793, goes on to say:
"Every such rail way or waggon road and bridge ... shall ... be publick and
open to all persons for the conveyance of any minerals, goods, wares,
merchandizes and things, in waggons and other carriages," of a specified
construction, "and for the passage of horses, cows and other meat cattle,
on payment to the person or persons at whose charge and expense such rail
way or waggon road shall have been made or erected" of the same rates as
would be payable to the canal company under like conditions.
It was in South Wales, even more than on the Tyne, that the early railways
eventually underwent their greatest development. In "Illustrations of the
Origin and Progress of Rail and Tram Roads and Steam Carriages or
Loco-motive Engines" (1824), by T. G. Cumming, Surveyor, Denbigh, we
read:--
"As late as the year 1790 there was scarcely a single rail-way in all South
Wales, whilst in the year 1812 the rail-ways, in a finished state,
connected with canals, collieries, iron and copper works, &c., in the
counties of Monmouth, Glamorgan and Carmarthen alone extended to upwards of
one hundred and fifty miles in length, exclusive of a very considerable
extent within the mines themselves, of which one company at Merthyr Tydvil
possessed upwards of thirty miles underground connected with the stupendous
iron works at that place; and so rapid has been the increase of rail-ways
in South Wales of late years that at the present period they exceed four
hundred miles, exclusive of about one hundred miles underground."
The whole of these lines were on the tram-plate, or flanged-rail,
principle, while solid blocks of stone were, in Wales, generally
substituted for wooden sleepers. Cumming further says:--
"In the extensive mining districts south of the Severn, including South
Wales, the rail and tram roads are very numerous, and here, perhaps, more
than in any part of the {214}United Kingdom, owing to the steepness, great
irregularity and impracticable nature of the ground, they have been of the
most essential utility in supplying the place of canals....
"There are numerous tram roads connected with the canal between Cardiff and
Merthyr Tydvil, in Glamorganshire. The extent of rail road about Merthyr
Tydvil alone is very considerable; besides which, in the same neighbourhood
are the Hirwaen, Aberdare, and Abernant tram roads, and a great variety of
others communicating with the vast works on the hills in the vicinity."
One of the South Wales tramroad schemes--though not specifically mentioned
by Cumming--is of exceptional interest inasmuch as it represented,
probably, the first attempt ever made to introduce a railway as a direct
rival of and competitor with a canal, instead of being simply a feeder
thereof. The attempt was a failure, but it nevertheless constitutes a
landmark in early railway history.
The story begins with the granting, in 1790, of an Act for the cutting of a
canal between Merthyr and Cardiff by the Company of Proprietors of the
Glamorganshire Canal Navigation, improved means of transport being then
much needed in the interests of the iron-works and other industrial
undertakings in the district. The Act of 1790 authorised the company to
spend £90,000 on the canal; but this amount was found to be inadequate, and
in 1796 a second Act sanctioned the raising of a further £10,000, and,
also, the cutting of a short extension at the Cardiff end.
The opening of the canal for traffic is thus recorded by J. Phillips in the
fourth edition (1803) of his "General History of Inland Navigation":--
"Feb. 1794. The canal from Cardiff to Merthir-Tidvil is completed, and a
fleet of canal boats have arrived at Cardiff laden with the produce of the
iron works there, to the great joy of the whole town. The rude tracks,
through which the canal passes in some places are constantly improving,
from the happy and healthful toil of the husbandman, and in a few years
will be forgotten in a garden of verdure and fertility. This canal is 25
miles long; it passes along the sides of stupendous mountains. Nothing
appears more extraordinary than, from a boat navigating this canal, to look
down on the river Taaf, dashing among the rocks 100 yards {215}below. The
fall from Merthir-Tidvil to Cardiff is nearly 600 feet."
In a later reference, dated 1802, Phillips says that the completion of the
Glamorganshire Canal "has opened a ready conveyance to the vast manufacture
of iron established in the mountains of that country, and many thousands of
tons are now annually shipped from thence."
The canal, however, failed to meet all requirements, a scheme for a
railway, or dram-road, between Cardiff and Merthyr being projected in the
same year that the waterway was first opened.
In "Rees' Cyclopædia" (1819) it is stated: "The rail-ways hitherto
constructed were private property, or for the accommodation of particular
mines or works, and it was not, we believe, until about the year 1794 that
Mr Samuel Homfray and others obtained an act of Parliament for constructing
an iron dram-road, tram-road or rail-way between Cardiff and Merthyr
Tidvill in South Wales, that should be free for any persons to use, with
drams or trams of the specified construction on paying certain tonnage or
rates per mile to the proprietors." Tredgold, in his "Practical Treatise on
Rail-roads" (1825), makes a similar statement as regards the granting of an
Act in 1794, saying that "in consequence of the upper part of the Cardiff
or Glamorganshire canal being frequently in want of water, the Cardiff and
Merthyr rail-way or tram-road was formed parallel to it, for a distance of
about nine miles, chiefly for the iron works of Plymouth, Pendarran and
Dowlais," with a continuation, however, making a total distance of about
26¾ miles. The tramway, he further says, "appears to have been constructed
under the first Act ever obtained for this species of road."
These statements have been accepted and repeated by various writers; but a
search of the "House of Commons Journals" for 1794 fails to show that any
such Act was passed. The scheme in question seems to have been projected,
in 1794, by certain ironmasters, who found that their own traffic on the
canal was being prejudiced by a preference given to the traffic of their
rivals; but the project for a tramway or railway from Merthyr to Cardiff
was abandoned--for a time--in favour of one from Merthyr to a place then
called Navigation, and now known as Abercynon, {216}where the canal would
be joined, and traffic could be transhipped.
The tramway in question is thus referred to in "The Scenery, Antiquities
and Biography of South Wales, from Material Collected during two Excursions
in the year 1803," by B. H. Malkin (second edition, 1807):--
"At the Aqueduct, where the Canal is carried over the River, an iron
rail-road for the present ends; and from the Wharf at this place
[Navigation] the Canal is the only conveyance for heavy goods to Cardiff;
the length of it--as far as it has already been completed--is 10 miles, but
it was designed to have extended from Merthyr Tydfil to Cardiff, and it is
said that one horse would have been able to draw 40 tons of iron the whole
distance of 26 miles in one day; I understand, however, that it is not
likely to be finished, and, indeed, it is much more necessary where it is
now made from the occasional want of water lower down where the confluence
of many and copious streams affords a more certain supply to the Canal."
The line had evidently been constructed, not under any special Act, but by
the authority of powers already granted by clause 57 of the Glamorganshire
Canal Company's own Act, which, framed on the general lines already
mentioned, conferred upon all persons owning, renting, leasing, or
occupying property containing any mines of coal, iron-stone, limestone or
other minerals, or the proprietors of any furnaces or other works lying
within the distance of four miles from some part of the canal the right to
make any railways or roads over the lands or grounds of any person or
persons, or to make any bridges over any river, brook or watercourse, for
the purpose of conveying the coal, iron, etc., to the said canal.
It will be noticed that this clause appears to limit to four miles the
length of any tramway constructed in virtue of its provisions, whereas the
length of the line actually made was, in effect, nine miles from Merthyr
and ten from Dowlais. It is understood, however, that the constructors of
the tramway successfully contended that, so long as their mines or works
were within four miles of the canal, they were at liberty to lay down the
tramway to such point on the canal as they thought proper to select, and
they chose Navigation because it suited them best.
{217}There is reason to believe, although actual proof is lacking, that the
original design of continuing this tramway to Cardiff was not carried out
because of the opposition of the canal company. Certain it is that the
project for such a tramway was revived in 1799. Under date February 18, in
that year, the "House of Commons Journals" record that William Lewis
(Alderley), William Taitt, Thomas Guest, Joseph Cowles, and John Guest,
being a firm of ironmasters in the parish of Merthyr Tydvil, known as the
Dowlais Iron Company; Jeremiah Homfray, Samuel Homfray, Thomas Homfray and
William Forman, ironmasters, of Merthyr Tydvil, known by the name of
Jeremiah Homfray and Co.; Richard Hill and William Lewis (Pentyrch Works)
petitioned the House for leave to bring in a Bill for the construction of a
"dram road" from or near Carno Mill, in the parish of Bedwelty and the
county of Monmouth to Cardiff, with branches to Merthyr and Aberdare.[34]
The petitioners declared that such dram-road would "open an easy
Communication with several considerable Ironworks, Collieries, Limestone
Quarries and extensive Tracks of Land, abounding with Coal, Limestone and
other Minerals, whereby the Carriage and Conveyance of Iron, Coal, Lime,
Timber and all kinds of Merchandize to or from the different Places
bordering on the said intended Road will be greatly facilitated and
rendered less expensive than at present, and will tend greatly to improve
the Lands and Estates near the said Road, and the said Undertaking will, in
other Respects, be of great Public Utility."
The petition was referred to a Committee, who reported favourably on March
8, and the Bill was presented and read a {218}first time on March 15. Then,
however, came the opposition from the canal company. On April 8, as the
"Journals" further record, the Commons received a petition from the Company
of Proprietors of the Glamorganshire Canal Navigation setting forth that
they had been authorised under two Acts to make and maintain a navigable
canal from Merthyr to Cardiff; that they had expended on this undertaking a
sum of £100,000; that they had seen the Bill above-mentioned, and, they
proceed:--
"That the Dram Road or Way, proposed to be made by the said Bill, will pass
from one End thereof to the other, nearly parallel, and in almost every
Part near to the said Canal; and in some places will cross the same; and
that the Petitioners were induced to undertake the making of the said
Canal, in hopes of being repaid the Expence thereof, with proper
remuneration for the Risk of the said Undertaking, by the Carriage of Coal,
Lime, Iron, Timber, and other goods and Merchandizes thereon, but if the
said Dram Road or Way should be made as proposed they would be deprived of
a great Part of those Advantages which they apprehend they have had granted
and secured to them, and are therefore now fully entitled to, by the said
Two Acts, without the Country adjacent or the Public in General, receiving
any particular Benefit or Advantage."
The company further pleaded that under their Acts they were "restrained
from ever receiving more than a moderate Dividend on their Shares, and
whenever the Profits of the Canal shall be more than sufficient to pay the
same, their Rates of Tonnage are to be lowered;[35] and for that reason, as
well as many others, of equal Justice, they conceive they should be secured
in the possession of all the advantages proposed to be granted to them by
the said Acts."
The House ordered that the petition do lie upon the table until the said
Bill be read a second time, and that counsel be then heard on both sides.
On May 3 a day was appointed for the second reading, and on May 4 the House
received a further petition from landowners, tradesmen and others in
support of the Bill. The "Journals," however, contain no record of the
second reading having been reached, and their {219}only further reference
at all to the Bill is in the "General Index" to the volumes for 1790-1801,
where, under the heading "Navigations: Petitions to make Dram Roads to
Canals, &c.," it is said of the Bill in question "Not proceeded in."
There is no reason to doubt that this first scheme for the construction of
a railway--even though under the name of a "dram road"--which would have
been not only independent of canal transport but in direct competition
therewith, was killed through the opposition of the then powerful canal
interests. The tradition in Cardiff is that the Glamorganshire Canal
Company "got hold" of the leading promoters, and persuaded them to abandon
their scheme by electing them members of the managing committee of the
canal. Whether or not some additional inducement was offered to them is not
known. In any case, there was no further attempt to set up a railway in
direct and avowed competition with a canal until the great fight over the
Liverpool and Manchester Railway Bill, a quarter of a century later.
The significance of all these facts will be found still greater in the
light of what I shall have to say subsequently in regard to the influence
of canal interests and canal precedents alike on railway development and on
railway legislation.
In some instances the railways belonging to the period here under review
were constructed by the canal companies not merely as feeders to the canals
but as substitutes for lengths of canal where the making of an artificial
waterway presented special difficulties. The Lancashire Canal Company,
incorporated in 1792, laid a line of railway for five miles, passing
through the town of Preston, to connect two sections of canal. The Ashby
Canal Company, under an Act of 1794, avoided a considerable expense in the
construction of locks by supplementing thirty miles of canal on the level
with intermediate lengths of railway to the extent of another twenty miles.
Writing in 1884, Clement E. Stretton says, in his "Notes on Early Railway
History," concerning these old tram-roads of the Ashby Canal Company: "One
part has since been altered and absorbed into the Ashby and Worthington
Railway;[36] but the branch from Ticknall {220}tramway wharf to Tucknall
has never been relaid or altered in any way, and, therefore, is a most
interesting relic of ancient times. To see waggons with flat wheels drawn
over cast-iron rails one yard long by a horse, cannot fail to interest
those who watch the workings of railways, and it most clearly shows the
great improvements made and the perseverance which has been required to
develop the present gigantic railway system out of such small beginnings."
The Charnwood Forest Canal, again, concerning which I shall have more to
say later, was a connecting link between two lines of edge-railway, the
purpose of the combined land and water route being to enable Leicestershire
coal to reach the Leicester market.
It will thus be seen that, whilst the coalowners introduced railways in the
first instance, it was the canal companies themselves who, in the days
before locomotives, mainly developed and established the utility of a new
mode of traction which was eventually to supersede to so material an extent
the inland navigation they favoured. It was open to those companies to
adapt their undertakings much more completely to the new conditions, if
they had had sufficient foresight and enterprise so to do.
The signs of the times were obvious enough to those who were able and
willing to read them, and there were many indications that canals would
assuredly be not only supplemented, but supplanted, by railways. An
impartial authority like Thomas Telford, in adding a postscript to an
article on "Canals" which he had contributed to Archdeacon Plymley's
"General View of the Agriculture of Shropshire," wrote under date November
13, 1800:--
"Since the year 1797, when the above account of the inland navigation of
the county of Salop was made out, another mode of conveyance has frequently
been adopted in this country to a considerable extent; I mean that of
forming roads with iron rails laid along them, upon which the articles are
conveyed on waggons, containing from six to thirty cwt.; experience has now
convinced us that in countries whose surfaces are rugged, or where it is
difficult to obtain water for lockage, where the weight of the articles of
produce is great in comparison with their bulk, and where they are mostly
to be conveyed from a higher to a lower {221}level,--that in those cases,
iron rail-ways are in general preferable to a canal navigation.
"On a rail-way well constructed, and laid with a declivity of 55 feet in a
mile, one horse will readily take down waggons containing from 12 to 15
tons, and bring back the same waggons with four tons in them....
"This useful contrivance may be varied so as to suit the surface of many
different countries at a comparatively moderate expense. It may be
constructed in a manner much more expeditious than navigable canals; it may
be introduced into many districts where canals are wholly inapplicable; and
in case of any change in the working of the mines or manufactures, the
rails may be taken up and put down again, in a new situation, at a moderate
expense."
Thomas Gray, writing in 1821, warned investors in canal shares that the
time was "fast approaching when rail-ways must, from their manifest
superiority in every respect, supersede the necessity both of canals and
turnpike roads, so far as the general commerce of the country was
concerned." He further expressed the conviction that "were canal
proprietors sensible how much their respective shares would be improved in
value by converting all the canals into rail-ways, there would not,
perhaps, in the space of ten or twenty years remain a single canal in the
country."
Blinded by their prosperity, however, the canal companies failed to adopt
the necessary measures for ensuring its continuance, though the Duke of
Bridgewater himself saw sufficient of the new rival to get an uneasy
suspicion of what might happen. "We may do very well," he is reported to
have said to Lord Kenyon, when asked about the prospects of his canals, "if
we can keep clear of those ---- tram-roads." Unfortunately for the canal
interests, though fortunately for the country, the qualified tram-roads
were not to be kept clear of, but, with the encouragement they got from
those they afterwards impoverished, were to bring the Canal Era to a close,
and to inaugurate the Railway Era in its place.
{222}CHAPTER XIX