When we’ve finished with the boiler we always have to blow it down: this is to get rid of the sediment which forms in the bottom. Fred Dibnah’s Industrial Age e2: Mills & Factories
Arkwright built himself a factory in Derbyshire powered by water to house these machines. And he is really regarded as the father of the factory system. ibid.
It were really coal and iron that started the industrial revolution. Iron to make the boilers similar to this one, and coal of course to burn on them to make the steam to drive all the machinery. Fred Dibnah’s Industrial Age e3: Iron & Steel
There are still some coal mines around where you can see what it was like to be a miner. Fred Dibnah’s Industrial Age e4: Mining, BBC 1999
The cage would go down as much as 3,000 feet. ibid.
A strong sense of comradeship developed. ibid.
In 1947 there were nearly three quarters of a million miners in this country. ibid.
National Railway Museum in York: the world’s greatest collection of locomotives … Stephenson’s Rocket: that’s the original inside the museum. Fred Dibnah’s Industrial Age s5: Railways
It was Robert Stephenson’s father George who is credited as being the father of the railways. ibid.
At the beginning of Queen Victoria’s reign they were already building some fairly large and substantial steam engines, and it were about this period when they built the first iron ships. Fred Dibnah’s Industrial Age s6: Ship & Engineering
The first steam-powered iron ship was the SS Great Britain. ibid.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel: My hero. ibid.
The Victorian age was an age when Britain led the world in making and inventing things; an age when engineering achievement was seen as a symbol of national greatness. Everything was getting bigger and faster. Everything was on a grand scale. Fred Dibnah’s Victorian Heroes s1e1, BBC 2001
These were the men who transformed the face of the country and the world, and turned the Victorian age into the great age of the engineer. ibid.
George Stephenson had a great interest in mechanics and he was involved in the early development of the railways. He is known as the Father of the Railways. ibid.
Robert Stephenson was in the forefront of creating a railway network which was to transform the lives of millions. It was the age of iron. ibid.
Railways, bridges, ships, the lot: Isambard Kingdom Brunel. ibid.
Armstrong never had any formal training in engineering … The greatest armament supplier of the time. ibid.
The eighteenth century saw the building of the first canals and with it the birth of civil engineering. Fred Dibnah’s Building of Britain e5: Building the Canals
The canals were like the arteries of the industrial revolution. ibid.
[James] Brindley was actually a mining engineer ... Work on the Bridgewater Canal started in 1759 ... It was opened in 1765. It was an immediate success ... A major engineering achievement. ibid.
His Barton aqueduct which carried boats forty feet above the river was so amazing in its time it was considered one of the wonders of the world. There’s not much of it left now. ibid.
A canal across the Pennines from Leeds to Liverpool ... A hundred and twenty seven miles and climbed over the Pennine chain – the backbone of England. ibid.
The whole enterprise was incredibly expensive. ibid.
There’s more to lock gates than meets the eye. ibid.
Elm is a beautiful timber for chucking in water and lasting for ever. ibid.
It took six years to build this tunnel under atrocious conditions ... Cut and cover – where they dig a great tunnel through the hillside and then put in the centring ... Lay the masonry which had all been cut to shape ... Cover the whole lot up ... Withdraw the wedges from underneath the centring ... And keep advancing like that ... A beautiful stone arch tunnel. ibid.
Those early civil engineers who built the Leeds and Liverpool Canal helped to revolutionise transport in Britain. They made cheap travel across the Pennines possible, and laid the foundations for the Industrial Age. They helped turn Britain into the Workshop of the World in the Victorian Age. ibid.
First of all there was water and wind, the earliest forms of power to drive machinery. Then came steam, and in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Britain led the world in harnessing the power of coal, water and steam to drive the engines that revolutionised transport and made mass production possible. The steam engine really is a fascinating thing. Fred Dibnah’s Age of Steam e1: The Early Pioneers, BBC 2003
The steam-engine really is a fairly simple thing. There’s two main principles: the expansion of steam in a cylinder pushing a piston which is connected to a crank shaft or a connecting rod. And the second principle of course is the condensation of steam which creates a vacuum in the cylinder. ibid.
The steam turbine isn’t only used for generating electricity. It serves dozens of purposes in the world of industry. ibid.
Thomas Newcomen invented a brand new type of steam-engine which was designed solely for one purpose: to pump water from deep mine shafts. The first one was installed here at Staffordshire at a colliery, and it proved to be the world’s most successful steam-engine. ibid.
What was needed was a more efficient engine. And this is where James Watt came on to the scene ... In 1769 James Watt came up with the answer: he put together all the existing technology that were known about the steam engine at the time and came up with the revolutionary design that of course earned him the name the Father of the Steam Engine. ibid.
It was a Cornishman called Richard Trevithick who made some of the greatest advances in the 1790s and the early 1800s. ibid.
Mining was still a difficult and dangerous business. Sometimes it was the steam-engine itself that made it dangerous. ibid.
In 1803 Richard Trevithick builds a second road carriage which he drove around the streets of London. ibid.
So Trevithick turned his attention to developing a steam locomotive that would run on rails. ibid.
Steam power brought about a revolution in transport. It was one of Britain’s greatest contributions to the industrial world. In the age of steam the railways moved everything and everybody. Fred Dibnah’s Age of Steam e2: The Transport Revolution
The very last steam loco was withdrawn from British Rail service in 1968. ibid.
Locomotive engineering reached its peak between the 1930s and the 1950s. It was the time when the great passenger express locos were built. ibid.
By this time the first steam powered locos designed to run on metal tracks appeared on the scene. And the pioneer as with so many things associated with steam was the great Cornish engineer Richard Trevithick. ibid.
Stephenson wasn’t the inventor of the locomotive, but he played a leading part in turning it into a practical means of hauling coal and transporting passengers over long distances. It was the beginning of the railways as we know them. ibid.
Originally there were nine of these winding-engine houses, and this is the only one left. And it actually still works. ibid.
As the railway network spread across the country it was the locomotive that won the day. ibid.
The development of the railways wasn’t straightforward, especially when the great engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel was involved. While Britain’s network had developed with a four-foot-eight-and-a half-inch gauge, Brunel’s Great Western Railway was built with a completely different seven-foot-and-a-quarter-inch gauge ... They did away with Mr Brunel’s extra line on the outside. A shame really. ibid.
In spite of losing the battle of the gauges, Great Western Railway went from strength to strength. And in 1902 they appointed George Jackson Churchward as their locative superintendent, and he produced a range of designs that were far ahead of their time and very successful. ibid.
Between 1804 and 1971 Britain built an incredible one hundred and ten thousand steam locomotives. ibid.
Steam power brought about a revolution in transport. It was one of Britain’s greatest contributions to the industrial world. In the age of steam the railways moved everything and everybody. Fred Dibnah’s Age of Steam e2: The Transport Revolution
The very last steam loco was withdrawn from British Rail service in 1968. ibid.
Locomotive engineering reached its peak between the 1930s and the 1950s. It was the time when the great passenger express locos were built. ibid.
By this time the first steam powered locos designed to run on metal tracks appeared on the scene. And the pioneer as with so many things associated with steam was the great Cornish engineer Richard Trevithick. ibid.
Stephenson wasn’t the inventor of the locomotive, but he played a leading part in turning it into a practical means of hauling coal and transporting passengers over long distances. It was the beginning of the railways as we know them. ibid.