The Growth and Impact of Railways
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The Growth and Impact of Railways
Early railways
the first iron rails were laid at Coalbrookdale.
1790s-1800s
the period of the French Wars
1804
Trevithick's "Wylam" locomotive at Pen-y-Darren. (Click here for picture)
1808
Blenkinsop's rack locomotive. (Click here for picture)
1813
Hedley's "Puffing Billy" (click here for picture) and "Wylam Dilly".
1815
Stephenson's "Bl�cher".
1825
opening of the Stockton to Darlington line, built by Stephenson. His engine, Locomotion 1 carried the          first railway passengers. The line comprised 27 miles of 4' 8½" track. (Click here for picture)
Early railways were a combination of horse power, fixed steam engines and locomotives.    The adaptation of steam engines to railways was slow.
1826
An Act of Parliament was passed to allow the building of the Liverpool          to Manchester line.
1829
The Rainhill Trials took place, to decide          what form of power should be used on the Liverpool- Manchester line
1830
the official opening of the Liverpool to Manchester line, an all-steam          line from the start. Unfortunately, William Huskisson was injured in an accident and died of his          injuries.
The importance of this first passenger line cannot be too strongly stressed.    After the Liverpool-Manchester line was opened, passenger traffic increased    dramatically: the Manchester to Liverpool line catered for passengers right from the start and other lines followed suit.
1838
Freight was also catered for, and freight costs were much reduced.
Railway Building
An Act of Parliament was necessary to build a railway .    Committees of MPs studied proposals and objections and there was much scope    for bribery from those who both proposed and opposed the building of new lines.
Opponents of railways included:
shareholders in turnpikes and canals
those whose livelihoods depended on coach travel
landed gentry who feared the destruction of their estates      and livestock - or who said they did, so they could ask more money for the      land that the railway companies wanted.
farmers who might lose land
Landowners demanded high compensation and soon realised that they could hold    railway companies to ransom. The result was that by 1850 it cost about £40,000    to build one mile of railway.
By 1860 each mile of railway cost:
United Kingdom
Nasmyth's steam hammer allowed for longer          and faster forgings.
The first railway boom broke because of
the external drain on gold to America
the domestic financial crisis
too many small railway companies
1842:Queen Victoria made her first railway journey from Slough to Paddington.    This gave respectability to railways.
Railway Mania: 1844-1846
By 1844 cheap money was available: the lending rate had been cut to 3¼%.    Also, the 1844 Bank Charter Act created    stability and confidence in the pound. The result was a great deal of wild speculation    on railway construction.
1844
805 miles of line were sanctioned
1845
2700 miles of line were sanctioned
These lines were built entirely by private enterprise. They were often built    through slum areas of towns, making the housing problem worse, because of the demolition of the houses.
1859-67:
c. 38,000 persons were made homeless because of railway construction.
1866:
4,000 houses were demolished to build St. Pancras station.
Even the dead were not allowed to rest in peace if they got in the way of the    railway, as Engels described in his Condition    of the Working Classes, 1844
Between 1839-1853, six government committees discussed railway policy.    Only Gladstone 's 1844 Committee recommended even    a gradual take-over of railways by the State. Because of a lack of co-ordination,    communications were haphazard and wasteful of resources and money. Rotherham    had three stations, eventually. There was much rivalry between the 104 railway companies.
George Hudson, the "Railway King" made his fortune from railways    and fraudulent dealings in stocks and shares. He was responsible for the first    amalgamations, however. He created the Midland Railway. By 1845 he controlled    33% of the entire railway system.
1846:
the Great Exhibition of 1851
the standardisation of time
George Bradshaw, the originator of railway timetables, was an engraver    and printer at Manchester. The first Bradshaw's Railway Time Tables and Assistant    to Railway Travelling was published on 19 October 1839. It contained route    maps, town plans, coach fares in London, Liverpool and Birmingham, and a table    to enable passengers to reckon their speed in miles per hour by timing the train    over a quarter of a mile in seconds. The railroads for which full timetables    were given were the London to Birmingham, the Grand Junction, Liverpool and    Manchester, Great Western, and Newcastle and Carlisle. The London to Birmingham    line was started in 1834, opened in instalments from 1837 and completed in September    1838. The London terminus was at Euston Grove.
Railway Legislation
Parliament welcomed railways as competition for roads and canals, but allowed    piecemeal development because it was reluctant to interfere: laissez-faire.    Eventually the government was forced to do something to regulate the railways.
1830 Railway Act required the Stockton-Darlington railway to keep a    record of all its financial dealings. It applied to all other railways.
1838 Railways (Conveyance of Mails) Act said that railways had to carry    the Royal Mail.
N.B. Sir Charles Wheatstone had patented the    telegraph in 1837. Telegraph lines ran alongside railways and were used as signalling    systems by 1839.
1840 Railway Regulation Act. The Board of Trade was given the power    to inspect all lines before they opened. It was also given powers to supervise    fares, rates and traffic and to investigate accidents if it so wished.
1842 Railway Act. This was mainly a safety Act to ensure that railways ran safe services. New lines had to be inspected by    the Board of Trade, which could demand traffic returns and inquire into accidents.
1842 Railway Clearing House was set up to co-ordinate through traffic    over the lines of different companies.
1843 Budget allowed the export of machinery. Railway rolling-stock,    locomotives and expertise were exported world-wide by such men as Brassey, Peto    and Sarin.
1844 Railway Act (the "Parliamentary    Trains" Act). This followed Gladstone's Committee of inquiry into railway    policy.
Government assumed the right to buy all railways constructed      after 1841, after a period of 21 years, if it so wished. This clause was not      implemented.
Government assumed the absolute right to take control      of all railways in times of national emergency.
Government assumed the right to fix fares and freight      charges.
Railway companies had to provide a minimum service: one      train each day each way, travelling at not less than 12 miles per hour and      stopping at every passenger station, charging no more than 1d. per mile for      third class passengers.
1845 Railway Act: parliament imposed a maximum charge for freight.
1846 Gauges Act prohibited the extension of the 7' gauge, except on    the Great Western Railway and said that a third line of 4' 8½' had to be    laid where 7' track met 4' 8½" line.
1849 Railway Act ratified the Railway Clearing House.
1854 Railway and Canal Traffic Act made it statutory to provide facilities    for through traffic.
1854 Cardwell's Act made the railways public carriers and outlawed 'preferences'    which levied different rates on different customers for particular goods.
The Railway Navvies
These were skilled men, named from the canal navigators. Many came from Yorkshire,    Lancashire and Ireland. Casual labour was used for unskilled work. Old navvies    were rare: 40 was a good age. They lived in isolated communities near constructions    in shanties.
In 1845, some ¼ million navvies were working on 3,000 miles of line and    1,100 lived in shanties working on Woodhead tunnel which ran under the Pennines to link Sheffield and Manchester. Navvies changed the face of the country, building viaducts,    cuttings, tunnels and embankments by using sheer muscle power. Steam shovels    were available by 1843 but men were cheaper.
Railway companies appointed an engineer to devise the route and appointed a    contractor to build the railway. The 'butty system' developed whereby sub-contractors    negotiated with gangs of navvies for a section of track. Brassey preferred this    system. The truck system was the worst evil of railway building - isolation    helped to encourage it, and the 1831 Truck Act did not apply to railways. Few    people cared about navvies, anyway.
The Woodhead tunnel was built between 1839 and 1852. By 1842, a thousand men    were employed in the construction. Initial estimates of the cost of £60,000    had risen to £200,000 by 1852. Provisions had to be taken 12 miles from Glossop,    but prices were 50% higher than in Manchester: there was systematic 'robbery'    by the contractors via truck. Men working on Woodhead were exhausted    and ill because:
they were permanently soaked, with little chance of getting      dry
they suffered from fumes and gas in the tunnels
they had poor food and polluted water (1849 - cholera killed 28)
there were an incredible number of deaths and injuries
there was 24-hour shift work, with no time off
the conditions were appalling
Men paid into a club for a doctor, themselves - the company gave no help or    compensation.
Edwin Chadwick led the protest against the wretched    lives of navvies, as publicised in the Woodhead scandal. He proposed:
legislation to control railway work
compensation for accident, injury or death, so more care would be taken      of men's lives
no work on Sundays: this was as much utilitarian as religious - one day's      rest would reduce inefficiency and the resultant accidents
A Parliamentary Select Committee recommended these reforms, but was ignored.