Railway and Canal Historical Society Early Railway
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RAILWAY AND CANAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY EARLY RAILWAY GROUP Occasional Paper 255 [ editor’s note: this paper is in reply to a query in Circular 37: “Charnwood Forest Canal tramway rails. The following enquiry is from Michael Gillingham via Wendy Freer: I wondered if you would be able to give me any leads on some of my investigations re the cast iron fish belly rails that are said to have been used on the tram road at Nanpantan. It is said that this was the first time edge rails were used! …” And see the related notes on the Kidderminster rail in Circular 37 and Railway & Canal Historical Society, Early Railway Group Occasional Paper [ERG OP]256, Rowan Patel, ‘Butterley Company Edge Rails: their use at Belvoir Castle and elsewhere’. ____________________________ The Leicester Navigationʼs Forest Line: a myth debunked Michael Lewis One of the least successful projects of the Canal Mania was the Charnwood Forest Line of the Leicester Navigation, which was intended to bring coal from pits around Coleorton to the main waterway at Loughborough. It was to be a hybrid transport route, with railways on the steeper stretches at each end but a canal on the level central portion. “The bodies of the Trams were made to lift off, or to be placed on their wheels, by means of cranes” and stowed in canal boats1: an early instance of containerisation. And not only was the system a fiasco, but there are few early railways whose story has been more befogged by misinformation and misinterpretation. Although the general outline was elucidated in an invaluable paper of 19552, until recently the nature of the rails has remained obscure, for none has been found in the field. The first published record, by John Farey who saw the railways when derelict in 1807, seems reliable. He describes the rails as “bars flat at top.” But the waters were soon muddied. In 1824 Robert Stevenson wrote in his Highland Essays, The first Public Railway Company seems to have been instituted at Loughborough in the year 1789 under the direction of the late Mr William Jessop [1745-1814]. Here this eminent engineer introduced the Edge-rail, the upper part of which was of an elliptical figure, with flanges upon the wheels to guide them upon the tracks of the road; for hitherto the Plate or broad rail, under various forms, is understood to have been solely in use.3 1 John Farey, General View of the Agriculture of Derbyshire (London 1817), vol. 3, 379. 2 Robert Abbott, ‘The railways of the Leicester Navigation Company,’ Trans. Leicestershire Archaeological & Historical Society 31 (1955), 51-61. 3 Robert Stevenson, ‘Notes by Mr Stevenson, in reference to the preceding Essays,’ Prize Essays and 1 Much of this was copied by Wood in his first edition of 18254, and is simply wrong. Ironically, it did not originate with Stevenson but with Josias Jessop, William's second son (1781-1826), whom Stevenson consulted in connection with his forthcoming Highland Essays. Jessop told him on 15 September 1823, The first public Railway was the Loughborough which was began in 1790 under the direction of Mr Wm Jessop (my father) – The Rails were of Cast Iron of the description called Edge rails / the flanch being on the wheel, the tops of the Rails were elliptical that they might be always clean & run with as little obstruction as possible; but there [sic] advantages were more than counterbalanced by the destruction of the wheels which running on a small surface were worn out into grooves5. In a later letter, too, Josias mentioned “the Loughbroʼ which was made by the Leicester Canal Co . in 1789”6. All this, despite the seemingly reliable source, is thick with errors. The claim that here was the first public railway has little to commend it, and in any event is hardly relevant to this paper. Edge rails, mostly in wood, of course long preceded plate rails. The elliptical head will call for discussion later. And the date of 1789 has no leg to stand on, because it was only in 1791 that the Forest Line received its Act and William Jessop was appointed its engineer, and only in 1794 that the railways were ready for traffic. Before long, too, Jessopʼs and Stevensonʼs description of the rail was fundamentally misread. Their “elliptical figure,” which really referred to the transverse section of the rail head – i.e. a convex running surface to reduce friction – was transferred to the longitudinal elevation; in other words, the rail was turned into a fish-belly. Thus Hebert in 1836 said, In 1789, Mr Jessop introduced a cast iron edge-rail in the public road at Loughborough, the upper surface of which was flat, and the under of an elliptical shape.7 So the myth was begun; and in the late nineteenth century it was not only perpetuated but intensified by Clement Stretton. He was early railwaysʼ counterpart to Charles Dawson who fabricated, amongst other antiquities, the infamous Piltdown Man, a fraud that was not exposed for 41 years. Although even now the lesson is not yet fully learned, most historians distrust and even discount anything that emanates from Strettonʼs pen. He reiterated the supposed date of the Loughborough line by quoting a report of Jessopʼs of 1790-1 that recommended the intended Belvoir Castle railway “to be in every way similar to the Loughborough and Nanpantan Edge-rail-way which I laid down in 1789, and which has been working nearly two years”8. This is no mere mistake but an outright fiction, for the Belvoir Castle railway was designed only in 1813 and completed in 18159. It was laid with fish-bellies of distinctive design with elaborate interlocking joints, which we now call the Jessop rail. As far as we know it was first used here and, William Jessop senior having died in 1814 after a long decline, was probably the brainchild of his third son William junior (c.1783-1852). Transactions of the Highland Society 6 (1824), 132. 4 Nicholas Wood, A Practical Treatise on Rail-roads (London 1825), 48. 5 Martyn Taylor-Cockayne, ‘Josias Jessop's Railways Observed’, ERG OP 223, 2012), 2. 6 Taylor-Cockayne 2012, 4 7 Luke Hebert, The Engineerʼs and Mechanicʼs Encyclopaedia (London 1836), 381. 8 C. E. Stretton, The history of the Belvoir Castle edge-railway (pamphlet 1893). Not seen by me, but quoted by C. F. Dendy Marshall, A History of British Railways down to 1830 (London 1938), 51. 9 Charles E. Lee (Railway Magazine, June 1938, 391) corrected the traditional date of the Belvoir but not of the Forest Line. 2 Belvoir Castle rail, 1815 (Narrow Gauge Railway Museum) Elsewhere Stretton adds that the Loughborough rails were cast-iron, 3ft long, and laid at 4ft 8½in gauge, and gives the closer date of June 178910; of which four “facts” only the first and the second are correct. In 1892, moreover, Stretton presented the Science Museum with a fish-belly rail from his collection which he claimed to be from Loughborough11. It is indeed of Jessop type but, though worn on the head, it is identical in all respects to the Belvoir rail. Both weigh about 40 lb. It is beyond belief that, in an age of rapid technical experimentation and progress, this sophisticated type preceded by four years the earliest authenticated fish-belly rail (Walker near Newcastle of 1798, of very simple design), and that it lay wholly fallow and wholly unchanged between 1794 when the Forest Line was ready for traffic and 1815 when the Belvoir opened. In all probability Strettonʼs rail came from Belvoir, and it is certainly yet another red herring. Evidence for the true story was put forward in 1979 by Hadfield and Skempton12, but they failed to appreciate it. The contract dated 6 July 1792 between the Leicester Navigation Company and Pinkertons, its contractors for the railways, includes this specification, here published in full for the first time. The ground to be formed into Declivities by cutting and banking as marked upon the Sections with red lines. Where the Ground requires cutting the bottom to be Twelve feet wide the sides sloped in the proportion of one foot horizontal to one foot perpendicular. The Bankings to be made fifteen feet top and the sides sloped Eighteen Inches horizontal to one foot perpendicular. A trench to be dug under each rail two feet wide and two feet deep and filled with Stone closely laid together of such Quality as may be approved by the Engineer. In the embankments or any other Parts where the foundation is loose it must be well rammed and consolidated before the Stone is laid in. Upon this Stone work the Sleepers or cross bars are to be laid well and firmly bedded at the Distance of three feet from middle to middle. They are to be of good Heart of Oak, Six feet in length, seven inches wide and three inches thick, with a pad or piece Twelve Inches in length and of the same scantling laid on each end of the Sleepers and pinned together with strong Oak Pins, upon which the Cast Iron Rails are to be spiked down as shown in the Plan and Section, and each iron rail to be firmly underpinned with proper stone upon the Foundation. The Rails of Iron to be cast in lengths of three feet. Each length weighing Twenty eight Pounds and of such quality as may be approved of by the Engineer (for the form of the Rail a Model will be hereafter given.). The Spaces between the Sleepers and Rails to be filled up with Stone properly broken, and laid in a convex form .