The Evolution of Permanent

TECHNICAL ARTICLE AS PUBLISHED IN The Journal January 2018 Volume 136 Part 1 If you would like to reproduce this article, please contact: Alison Stansfield MARKETING DIRECTOR Permanent Way Institution [email protected] PLEASE NOTE THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN THIS JOURNAL ARE NOT NECESSARILY THOSE OF THE EDITOR OR OF THE INSTITUTION AS A BODY. TECHNICAL The evolution of AUTHOR: Charles E. Lee permanent way Associate Fellow PWI PAPER READ TO THE PERMANENT WAY INSTITUTION, LONDON, ON MONDAY MARCH 8TH 1937. PART 5 This seems to be the period that the word renewed. This was done on a new plan; and it railway came into use on Tyneside. The “Term is now acknowledged to be the most complete This is the fifth and final part of this Reports” for 1798 give details of an appeal in Britain. The sleepers are very broad, and fascinating paper. I have not edited this against a poor rate assessed on “a piece or only 18 in. from centre to centre. A rail of paper due to its historical nature. parcel ground called a wagon-way situate at foreign fir, 4 in. Square, is pinned down to Wallsend and leading from a colliery there to them and another rail, of the same dimensions, Returning to the main channel of development, the River Tyne.” In this report is the following is laid over it, and the whole well beat up in we find that, after the introduction of cast-iron statement: “The appellants . made and laid good clay; on the top of the upper rail is laid facings on wagon-ways, the next step was to a wagon-way in, through, and over . .and to a bar of malleable iron, of 1¾ in. breadth; and eliminate the timber longitudinals and cast the complete it they erected a bridge, and also in nearly ¾ in. thick. The wagons have cast iron whole rail as iron. Here the pioneer seems many places removed the soil and levelled to wheels, 27½ in. diam., and are supposed to to have been William Jessop who devised a rising ground, and for the whole length of the weigh altogether about a ton.” Tredgold3 tells rail 3 ft. long called the edge rail, of which the way in the line, as the same was staked out to us that the Alloa colliery railway was about running surface was level but the under edge them, they put and placed sleepers or dormant 2½ miles long, and that one horse drew eight was elliptical, a form frequently called fish- timbers below the surface of the soil, and to loaded wagons of which contained a ton of bellied. It seems that the first rails of this kind the sleepers or dormant timbers they affixed coal. He said, however, that the line was laid were cast in 1788 and were laid on a railway rail-ways or wagon-ways.” In a similar case1 in with cast-iron rails, so presumably the wrought- between the canal dock at Loughborough 1787 the word used is “wagon-way” only, and iron strips laid on timber were later replaced by and Nanpanton, which opened in June 1789. there is no mention of “rail-way.” complete rails of cast-iron. This line, which was of 4 ft. 8½ in. gauge, afterwards became a link in a chain of canal The next stage in the development of Complete wrought-iron rails were probably and railway communications serving the iron rails took place in Scotland, and it is first used on the railway at Sir John Hope’s Charnwood Forest district. See image 1. therefore convenient here to notice briefly collieries at Pinkie which was laid by George the introduction of railways in that country. In Grieve; the rails were simple 1¼ in. bars. The According to Nicholas Wood, the first iron comparison with other parts of Great Britain, Mechanics Magazine of December 25, 1824, railway in the North of England was built in little has been written on the subject of the very quoting from The Scotsman said: “The wagons 1797 by Thomas Barnes on the line from early days of rail transport in Scotland, and generally used run upon four wheels of from Lawson Main colliery (Walker) to the River it is not generally realised that the beginning two to three feet diameter, and carry from 20 to Tyne. Stone blocks were used instead of railway construction north of the Border 50 cwt. Four or five of them are drawn by one of wooden sleepers, and both these and dates from the early years of the eighteenth horse. On the dead level railway, constructed fish-bellied rails were novelties to the century. As in other parts of the world, the first by Mr John (sic) Grieve for Sir John Hope, near neighbourhood of Newcastle. Barnes played a Scottish railways were wagon tracks laid to Musselburgh, which is one of the most perfect leading part in the advancement of both railway facilitate local goods traffic consisting chiefly in Britain, a single horse draw five loaded and mining practice in the North, and would of coal and iron. The first line appears to have wagons, each containing 30 cwt. Of coals, at probably have become one of the great names been one from the coal mines of Tranent to a rate of four miles an hour – in all seven tons of the early nineteenth century had he not died the small harbour of Cockenzie on the Firth and a half, exclusive of the waggons, which at Walker in 1801 at the age of 36. of Forth, which was laid down in 1722. The weigh three tons more.” route passed close to the scene of the battle of Prestonpans, at which point it was carried Wrought-iron rails of a stronger kind were on an embankment across the marsh, and at used4 by Mr Neilson of Glasgow for a railway the time of the rising of Prince Charles Edward on the property of the Earl of Glasgow, in 1745 a portion of this line was selected by beginning at the Hurlet coal and lime works General Cope as a position for his cannon. The and running some 2½ miles to the Paisley original wooden rails are stated to have been Canal. These rails were 2¼ in. deep, ¾ in. replaced by iron in 1815, but this was by no thick, and 9 ft. long, supported every 3 ft.; the means the first use of iron rails in Scotland. wagons carried about 35 cwt. The wrought-iron rail thus appears to be one of the contributions Another Scottish wagon-way deserving of its of Scotland to railway progress, and, place in history is one laid down at Alloa, on the Firth of Forth, in 1768. According to Sir Although it was introduced north of the Border John Sinclair’s “Statistical Account of Scotland” only in a primitive form, Scottish experience 2 this “proved to be so great an advantage, was directly responsible for the invention of that it induced the proprietor to extend it to John Birkinshaw’s famous rail that made the the Collyland in 1771 . In 1785 the Alloa use of wrought-iron a practical proposition. Image 1: Edge rail 1789 (Newbold wagon-way was worn out, and required to be Heritage Rail Group) 20 TECHNICAL For much of our information on early Scottish expected upon the Edinburgh Railway, two sets induced greater friction than edge rails and railways we are indebted to a lengthy report of wheel-tracks will require to be laid – one for were more liable to get clogged with gravel and prepared by Robert Stevenson, the famous the wagons or carriages coming to town, and small stones. I think that the remark about plate Scottish civil engineer and lighthouse builder. another for those going to the country. This rails being used by the earlier railways must be Having been commissioned at a public meeting double railway, with the necessary allowance interpreted as referring to public railways – the on September 3, 1817, he submitted this report for driving-paths, etc., will occupy at least 20 ft. subject with which Stevenson was dealing. in 1818 on a scheme called the Edinburgh of space in the cross section viz., 4 ft. 3 in. for On the subject of wrought-iron rails, Robert Railway which was presented to His Grace the each set of tracks; a space of 4 ft. between the Stevenson’s Edinburgh report stated that the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensbury and other respective wagon-ways; and 3 ft. 9 in. on each application of wrought-iron instead of cast-iron subscribers to the survey of a railway from the side for a driving-path, fences and gutters. The rails was likely to be attended with the most coalfield of Midlothian to the City of Edinburgh horse-paths, or spaces between the wagon important advantages to the railway system, and the port of Leith. He mentioned the name tracks of the railway, as proposed above, will and added that 3½ miles of this description of the late Mr. Jessop who was “the engineer be 4 ft. 3 in. in breadth or the width of the of line had been in use for about eight years for the magnificent works of His Grace the square part of the common cart axle, it being (therefore from about 1810) on Lord Carlisle’s Duke of Portland in Scotland, connected also a great advantage for the convenience works at Tindale Fell, near Brampton in with which there was a double railway from of loading, etc., and for the stability of the Cumberland, where there were also two miles Kilmarnock to Troon, which is ten miles in railway, to have broad and rather low wagons.

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