THE IRON ROAD

Evening Star, Issue 19785, 8 February 1928, Page 5

THE IRON ROAD

TRIALS OF RAILWAY PIONEERS It is perhaps difficult nowadays for travellers, rushing through the green English countryside and probably lulled into a comfortable lethargy by good food and the rhythmic song of the railway carriage to realise the problems which beset the pioneers of railway construction (says ‘John o’ London’s Weekly ’). Wc are in danger of accepting the iron road without a thought of those who made jt, and it is well that we should bo reminded of the problems which were solved and the battles which were fought before railways destroyed the prejudices of earlier days and won over tho imaginations of the public. ‘The History of tho Great Western Railway,’ by B. T. MacDe/mot, published in two parts by the Great Western Railway Company, is a complete and authoritative history of the rise of that system, which alone of tho great railway companies retained the privilege of using its own name in the amalgamation which followed upon tho passing of tho Railway Act in 1921. Some measure of the early opposition to the suggested railway between Bristol and London can bo gained from the fact that the provost of Eton College said that “no public good whatever could possibly come from such an undertaking, and he should bo wanting in his duty to the establishment over which ho presided if lie did not oppose it to the utmost of his ability.'’ Eton College wished to preserve its splendid isolation, and the inhabitants of Windsor objected on the grounds that the railway did not come close enough to (heir town!

Eton was singularly determined in opposition. Tho lawyers even suggested that tho morals and discipline of the school would bo ruined by tho proximity of the railway; but tho advantages to bo gained were eloquently demonstrated by the fact that a special train was commissioned to convey scholars from Eton to London in the midst of the litigation. Of course, the idea of a tunnel appalled the imagination of the timorous, and a witness, an engineer, said that the consequences of constructing a projected tunnel with an incline of one in a hundred would be wholesale slaughter of human life; another that “no person would desire to bo shut out from (he. daylight with a consciousness that he had a, superincumbent weight of earth sufficient to crush him in case of accident”; and a third that “the noise of two trains pasing in the tunnel would shake the nerves of this assembly. I do not know such a muse. No passenger would be induced to go twice!'’ However, notwithstanding the force of the opposition, the Royal assent was given lo the Bill on August 31, 1835. The outstanding feature of the story of the Great Western Railway is, of course, tho battle it waged, with various degrees of intensity, and for a number of years over the question of the gauge—that is, the width between the two railway lines. This battle of the gauge lasted ten years. Tho width between the railway hues is 4ft B£in. Curious people might ask why, and the answer would bo “just accident. Actually the gauge of the British railways | was determined by the simple fact that the width of the old wooden tramways ot the Northumberland collieries was fixed on ' tho distance between the wheels of the j carts of the district. When wooden tramways gave place lo iron rails these were laid oil the existing timbers. j But Isambard Kingdom Brunei, the famous engineer on the Great Western Railway, gave considerable thought to the question, and, in fact, determined that a ’(ft gauge would be to tho advantage of both passengers and directors, and he advocated his cause with such persistent eloquence and vigor that tho gauge of 7ft was sanctioned on October HU, 1835. Luring the battle, says Nr MacDcrnwt, “ the broad gauge was slabbed in the back, and its ultimate defeat hasteued by the mutiny of tho Uxtord, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway.” “This rebellious daughter,’’ in spite of laws, contracts, and agreements, went over to the enemy, and, though it had laid down broad-gauge rails in accordance with agreements, it laid down narrow with them, and used tho latter. When the Great Western was first opened in 1838 and for some time _ afterwards there was no careful regulation of traffic, and the most extraordinarily {as it appears to us to-day) erratic working was permitted. Trains, says Mr Mac Dermot, were not even always confined to the proper up and down road. One of tho thorns in the flesh of the practical engineers of this time was Dr Dionysius Lardner, who seemed to have elected himself as the official representative of the British public. It was ho who opposed the practical engineers with all manner of arguments, which he thought would refute their claims, and it was ho who, in September and October of 1858, drove an experimental train up and down the line, here, there, and everywhere, in the midst of the ordinary traffic. It is recorded that on September 26 “the 8 o’clock train ran into the experimental train this morning and injured three of the carriages very much.” All this took place in the eagerness of the early months, but within a year such dangerous practices were avoided, and the authorities were soon warn id of tho dangers of allowing eager but innocent experimentalists the freedom of the line.