It was in 1801 that the genius Cornish steam engineer Richard Trevithick made the quantum leap from this – a massive engine used to haul oar out of mines – to this – the world’s first self-propelled engine. His road locomotive. And just two years later Trevithick was experimenting with steam-engines on rails. ibid.
Coal mines were using steam engines to bring men and coal to the surface. The pits were the place to become a steam engineer. ibid.
Wrought iron made for much stronger lighter rails. ibid.
Like many of his contemporaries George Stephenson was a semi-literate self-made man. But that was no reflection on his engineering ability or his ambition. And his next project was huge – an intercity line – the first – between Liverpool and Manchester. ibid.
GWR – the Great Western Railway. It crossed over rivers, was blasted through hills, and hundreds died in its construction. And this gigantic wonderful radical piece of engineering was conceived and designed as a whole by one man – Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Mark Williams on the Rails s1e3: Brunel
The Clifton Suspension Bridge ... It was a mathematical masterpiece. ibid.
It took him nearly two years to complete his plans. ibid.
In the Railway Act he hadn’t mentioned what type of gauge he was going to use. He was ready to put forward his big idea ... Just because George Stephenson had started using a gauge of four-foot-eight-and-a half inches, it didn’t mean that all railways would have to be built to that dimension. So Brunel chose a broad gauge – seven feet from rail to rail. ibid.
Land was purchased at great expense from the Bishop of London at Paddington – the Terminus of the Great Western Railways. ibid.
His wide lines caused total devastation to the surrounding countryside. ibid.
Box Hill. Couldn’t go over it. Had to go through it ... He [Brunel] was going to drive two seven-foot broad-gauge lines through this hill. This is Box Tunnel – at nearly two miles long it was the greatest railway tunnel ever attempted, and an infamous piece of engineering if ever there was one. ibid.
Over a hundred men lost their lives, and many many more were seriously injured and maimed. ibid.
An engineering triumph: the Maidenhead Viaduct ... He flattened the arches. Brunel’s secret was in the maths. His pages of sketches are surrounded by detailed calculations. He had projected the force on every part of the bridge with great accuracy. Brunel had worked out how to design arches stronger and flatter than any ones built before. ibid.
He worked it all out by hand. ibid.
By 1892 the battle was lost – the standard gauge prevailed across the whole system. But just imagine what our railways would be like if Brunel had won! ibid.
This is the perfect roofing material ... And the Welsh had solved the problem by building a transport system ... Rails were first laid through the mountains of north Wales in 1833. Mark Williams on the Rails s1e4: Moving Mountains
The small locomotives were the perfect solution. They brought steam power to the mountains without the need to change the line built for the horse-drawn carts. Steam-power quickly spread through the Welsh hills. ibid.
General William Palmer was a man with big ideas ... He wanted to build a six-hundred-mile network of railways ... The Rockies: that didn’t stop him ... In 1871 he started building his line ... Palmer’s narrow-gauge network made millions. ibid.
In the early 1800s Britain was building its first steam-hauled railways. And it wasn’t long before people wanted to ride on the trains. Mark Williams on the Rails s1e5: Carriage Kings
Railway in Switzerland was the steepest highest railway ever constructed. ibid.
George Pullman was one of the first creators of luxury travel. His carriages were comfortable, robust and he went to town on the interiors. ibid.
The first Orient Express journey set out from Paris to the east in 1883. ibid.
By 1830 Britain had its first inter-city railway. Mark Williams on the Rails s1e6: Death on the Tracks
Boiler explosions were the biggest killers of drivers and firemen. ibid.
By the middle of the nineteenth century there was a railway building bonanza. ibid.
Safety signalling was starting to improve but for the new railway companies which were often cash strapped because of their huge initial investment safety wasn’t always their number one priority. ibid.
They have the biggest railway network in the world, carrying freight, supplying the biggest economy in the world using the biggest trains in the world. Mark Williams on the Rails s1e7: Big Country
But after all their sacrifices to build the transcontinental railroad the Chinese weren’t even given American citizenship. ibid.
The most ambitious railway in the world had united the states of America. ibid.
Big country: big trains. ibid.
That momentous event was the amalgamation of the 123 companies that made up Britain’s railways. Dubbed the Big 4 each new company would run a quarter of the network. Mark Williams on the Rails s1e8: Speed and Power
You don’t have to be a locomotive connoisseur to appreciate the Castle class; they are beautifully proportioned. ibid.
Long distance may have come first but it was speed the public loved. ibid.
Less than a year later the LNER snatched back the title with an A-4 Pacific called Mallard. ibid.
Midnight on December 31st 1947: every steam locomotive in Britain sounded their whistle ... The most radical shake-up Britain’s railways had ever seen: nationalisation. Mark Williams on the Rails s1e9: Diesel Generation
Steam was seen as dirty, inefficient and even worse than that – old fashioned. The last steam loco to be built for British Rail was a 9F ... Evening Star. ibid.
A hundred and fifty years of steam had come to an end – the new diesel era was dawning. ibid.
The Class 31 diesel electric marked a huge turning point: more efficiency meant fewer jobs. In the twenty years after its introduction, 400,000 railwaymen were laid off. ibid.
Thousands of families were forcibly displaced by the building of the lines and termini. Mark Williams on the Rails s1e10: Going Underground
There was just one place to go – London was going to have to go underground. ibid.
Twenty years after he [Pearson] first suggested the idea, work on an underground railway began. ibid.
By 1905 all the steam lines had been converted to electricity. ibid.
Coal: here at Worsley in the north-west commerce, necessity, raw materials and invention came together to kick-start the industrial revolution. Mark Williams, Industrial Revelations: Boom Time s1e1, Discovery 2002
Demand for coal was heavily outstripping supply ... The solution to the problem was found in the last place you’d expect: down the mine itself ... Water. And you’ve got to get rid of it because it runs downhill ... And this is the engine that powers the pump. It’s a very special engine. ibid.
Why not use the water? Why not treat it as a resource? In the same way you treat the coal you’ve so heavily won underground. Why not use it to create a canal so that you can transport your coal to your points of sale? ibid.
They laid rails but they treated the route as if it was a canal. Long flat sections interspersed with short steep inclines sometimes up to one in seven. The new railway reinforced Cromford’s importance as an industrial centre. Cheap cotton could now be sent to the weaving mills of Lancashire. These original Cromford & High Peak Company rails are cast-iron and one point two metres in length. They are all straight. Mark Williams, Industrial Revelations s1e2: Pants for Everyone
Creamware: a very pleasant tea-drinking vessel. The man who first made this genteel crockery was a hero of the industrial revolution: engineer, scientist, marketing genius – Josiah Wedgwood turned cups and saucers into an international business empire. Mark Williams, Industrial Revelations s1e3: Clocking On
The Wedgwood factory near Stoke ... A production line: consistent quality on a massive scale. ibid.