Curr, Butler and Outram: the Childhood of the Plateway
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RAILWAY AND CANAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY EARLY RAILWAY GROUP Occasional Paper 200 Curr, Butler and Outram: the childhood of the plateway Michael Lewis The year 1787 was of momentous importance in railway history. It was then that, in South Wales, the all-iron edge rail first appears, 1 and it was then that, at Sheffield Park colliery, John Curr introduced the iron plate rail. 2 While no doubt their significance went largely unrecognised at the time, the repercussions proved to be immense. We are here concerned with the early days of the plate rail, up to the point when Benjamin Outram became its undisputed champion. ‘Most of Outram’s railway engineering,’ Philip Riden has written, ‘had its immediate origins in the work of John Curr at Sheffield, transmitted it seems through Joseph Butler. Outram’s main contribution was to improve the devices first employed by Curr and to use them on a much larger scale than either Curr or Butler.’ 3 True words. But what were the details of the transmission and improvement? Curr’s plateways were small and, in their original form, confined (except for a few yards on the discharging platform at the shaft head) to the underground levels of coal mines, where they carried trains of 12 to 14 tubs hauled by a single horse. 4 He called his tubs corves , transferring the name from their wickerwork predecessors. Underground, his plate rails were rapidly if not widely imitated elsewhere. 5 But their full contribution to the railway story began only when they came to the surface. The date of this was about 1788, but details of the two lines involved , both about four miles south of Chesterfield, are sadly elusive. For all practical purposes our only source is John Farey,6 repeating information supplied to him by Joseph Butler who owned the lines and whose help he acknowledges. The two railways are so interesting that his various passages deserve quoting at length. First, a general introduction on the evolution of railways (pp. 288-90): In the use of these wooden Rail-ways, the flanch or projecting rib for keeping the Waggon on the Rail-way, was on the wheel: but now, the flanches of iron Rail-ways are almost universally cast on the bars, and the wheels are plain, by which they are fitted for being occasionally drawn off the Rails on common Roads: I have heard it said, that the earliest use of these flanched Rails above ground (for they were first introduced in the Underground Gates of Mines, it is said) was on the S of Wingerworth Furnace, leading to the Ironstone Pits, by Mr. Joseph Butler, about the year 1788. Next, a short account of this first line (p.451): 1 John van Laun, Early Limestone Railways (London 2001), 203-4. 2 John Liffen in OP 184 and John Liffen and Martin Fairbrother in OP 192 confirm that it was introduced in early 1787 or even late 1786. 3 Philip Riden, The Butterley Iron Company 1790-1830 , Derbyshire Record Society vol. xvi (Chesterfield 1990), 64. 4 As reported in 1796: Arthur Raistrick (ed.), The Hatchett Diary (Truro 1967), 71. 5 For instance in 1788 at Cyfarthfa in South Wales: van Laun, 205. The manager there was James Cockshutt, who at the same time was also manager of Wortley Forge near Sheffield. 6 General View of the Agriculture of Derbyshire , all references to vol. 3 (London 1817). 1 WINGERWORTH AND WOODTHORP Rail-way .— A private one, constructed about the year 1788, by Mr. Joseph Butler, for the use of his Iron Furnace in Wingerworth . its direction is nearly S, for about a mile, from the Bridge-loft of the Furnace, to Woodthorp-end Ironstone Pits: the bars are four feet long, weighing about 32 lb. and are spiked down to wooden bearers, across the Rail-way, at 20 inches apart: this is said to have been the earliest use of flanched Bars, except under-ground in Mines, and although the ground was very unfavourable, chiefly along an old bell-work, not yet thoroughly settled, yet it answered perfectly, in reducing the cost of Team-labour . (pp.289-90) Mr. Butler found two Asses fully able to do the work, that had previously occupied four horses constantly, with Carts, besides an extra 3-horse Cart, hired one day weekly, to assist them. Then an account of the other line (pp.295-7): ANKERBOLD and LINGS Rail-way : —A private one, constructed by Mr. Joseph Butler, as an appendage to his Lings Colliery, on the N side of North Winfield [i.e. Wingfield] Town: its general direction is nearly E, by a crooked course of near 1¼ mile, its eastern end being rather considerably elevated: its object is to bring down Coke, burnt at Lings Colliery, on its way to Wingerworth Iron Furnace, and Killamarsh Forge . it commences at a Crane, in the Road by the small village of Ankerbold, and terminates at the several Pits and Coke-hearths at Lings Colliery. The bars of this Rail-way are 4 feet long, and weigh 32 lb . laid at 20 inches apart, nailed down to wooden bearers, across the Road: the bodies of the Trams are large Boxes, made to hold a Ton of Cokes, and are contrived to lift off the carriages and low wheels of the Tram, by means of the Crane . which the Men work, by means of a Winch-handle: while the body full of Cokes remains suspended from this Crane, a pair of wheels, axle and shafts of the common height and construction for Roads, and drawn by one horse, is backed under the Crane, and the body is lowered down, and becomes fixed on the axle, by means of steady pins, and catches thereon; and by this means the Cokes are part of them conveyed on the Roads, to the Bridge-loft-door of Wingerworth Furnace, for its supply, and the remainder of them are conveyed to the Wharf at the head of the Chesterfield Canal. Here, he goes on in a wordy passage, the boxes were craned into boats which took them to a point nine miles down the canal, from where they were taken, on road wheels again, to Butler’s Killamarsh forge. The empties were returned to Ankerbold in the same way. By means of these same Bodies on the Road Wheels, the Charcoal, burnt in the Wingerworth Woods for Mr. Butler, is collected and brought to the Wharf at Chesterfield, and is conveyed thence by the Barge, and on other Wheels, to his Forge at Killamarsh. Mr. Butler remarked to me concerning Rail-ways, that using several light Waggons (instead of one heavy one) is essential to economy in weight of Iron and first cost in laying a Rail-way, in the repair of broken Bars, and also in draught, because the chief friction and cause of labour to the horse, arises from the wheels grinding against the flanch or rib on the Bar, and this is greatly increased by heavy loads. The two coke furnaces at Wingerworth were built in or shortly before 1784 by Joseph Butler senior, a York land agent, and after his death next year were run by his son, another Joseph (1763-1837), who became a substantial coal and iron master in the Rother valley. In 1787 he took over a foundry at Stonegravels a mile north of the centre of Chesterfield and close to the terminus of the canal, where castings were made from Wingerworth pig iron; but it was not until 1800 that he bought Killamarsh forge. 7 Farey’s description, therefore, of the transport of boxes by canal does not apply to the original system, although it is likely that even then the boxes carried charcoal and coke by road to the Stonegravels 7 For the sites and railways, Philip J. Riden, ‘Tramroads in north-east Derbyshire’, Industrial Archaeology 7 (1970), 378-9, 392-3. The furnaces were at SK 384662, Woodthorpe End ironstone pits at about 384648, Lings coal pits 413665, and the Ankerbold crane 399656. Neither railway is recorded on any map. The Wingerworth line is still in part traceable, but not even the approximate route of the Ankerbold & Lings is known. For the sadly skimpy details of Butler’s career, see P. J. Riden, ‘Joseph Butler, coal and iron master 1763-1837’, Derbyshire Arch. Jnl. 104 (1984), 87-95. 2 foundry. It is not clear why the Ankerbold line was not continued westwards all the way to the furnace it supplied; 8 the intervening distance is only three quarters of a mile, but possibly there were wayleave problems. The furnaces, and presumably therefore the railways, closed in the post-war depression, probably in 1816. Butler’s track closely matched Curr’s (as described in his Coal Viewer of 1797). Both used wooden sleepers. Where Curr’s plate rails weighed 23½-25 lb per yard, Butler’s weighed 24, and an example found on the site of Wingerworth furnace is said to be very similar to Curr’s in design. 9 It is true that Butler’s rails were 4ft long in contrast to Curr’s normal 6ft; but Curr had designed his for corves carrying 5½ cwt, adding that ‘when greater burdens are necessary’ – a ton, in Butler’s case – the plates should be 4ft or 4ft 6in long. Butler’s gauge of 20in is close to Curr’s 22½ or 24in. While Butler was early in advocating the train of small waggons on a narrow gauge as opposed to a single large waggon on a broader gauge, his philosophy of saving rail breakages by spreading the load tallies exactly with Curr’s.