Robert Stephenson Robert Stephenson 60% of the world’s railways use the Stephenson’s ‘standard’ gauge of 4ft81/4in Civil and mechanical engineer Robert Stephenson built on the considerable achievements of his father, George. His forward thinking enabled the significant expansion of railways during the ‘railway mania’ of the mid nineteenth century. His expertise in both civil and mechanical engineering established the concept of the railway which developed in this country, and was then exported to the world. Robert Stephenson, the only son of George Stephenson was born on 16 October 1803. Times were hard for the Stephenson family, often living in one room dwellings while George worked on various machines at different collieries and mills. Despite this, George made sure that Robert received a full education, the quality of which increased with the father’s fortunes. After leaving the Bruce Academy in Newcastle in 1819, the young Robert was taken on as an apprentice mining engineer at Killingworth Colliery. With his increasing understanding of engineering, he helped his father in surveying the Stockton & Darlington Railway line, experience which led him to assist in the first surveys of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway.

Railway Mania After the successful opening of both the Stockton & Darlington Railway and the Liverpool & Manchester Railway, Robert was in demand as a railway engineer. During the years of ‘railway mania’ during the 1830s and 1840s, he was appointed engineer to a great number of railways in the midlands, north of England and north Wales. His first major commission was the London & Birmingham Railway; opened in 1838 it was the first railway into London. With its terminus at Euston it went north west to Birmingham Curzon Street, forming a junction with the Grand Junction Railway and connecting the new line with the cities of Liverpool and Manchester. Works at Kilsby Tunnel (near Rugby) and the cuttings at Tring and Roade were major civil engineering undertakings. For the Chester & Holyhead Railway and the Newcastle & Berwick Railway he designed four very notable and different railway bridges, all of which are still in use today. The highly distinctive Conway (1848) and Britannia (1850) bridges in North Wales both incorporated box section wrought iron tubes.

The High Level Bridge (1849), between Newcastle and Gateshead carried both a railway and a roadway from the outset on cast iron spans, while the Royal Border Bridge (1850) was a simple masonry structure. Locomotives and the Rainhill Trials Robert Stephenson & Co, Newcastle was established by George Stephenson in 1823, Robert being the firm’s managing partner. Foreseeing the demand for steam engines for the new railway, it was the first locomotive works in the world. The firm completed its first steam engine Locomotion just in time for the ceremonial opening of the Stockton & Darlington Railway in September 1825. As early as 1822 while working on the Liverpool & Manchester Railway, Robert Stephenson strongly advocated the use of ‘travelling’ rather than fixed engines on the line, despite the preference of both the company directors and his father George for a fixed arrangement. After his return from South America in 1827, Robert found the question still under debate. The Directors proposed a competition to decide the best mode of traction for their new railway.

Robert Stephenson & Co entered their locomotive Rocket into the Rainhill Trails in October 1829. It won, and convinced a watching world that locomotives were the future for the new railway. Robert Stephenson continued to improve on Rocket’s design, its multi-tubular boiler providing the template for steam locomotives built worldwide during the 19th and 20th centuries. Railways for the world With his growing reputation for railway engineering, both civil and mechanical, Robert Stephenson was able to travel abroad on various consultancies for overseas railways during the 1840s and 1850s. His most notable structures were all tubular bridges; the Victoria Bridge over the St Lawrence River in Montreal, and bridges over the Nile for the Egyptian Railway between Alexandria and Suez via Cairo. As either chief engineer or consultant to railway projects his work influenced the development of railways in Belgium, Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, Italy, and India. It is no coincidence that these railways made use of the Stephenson ‘standard’ gauge and had locomotives designed and built by Robert Stephenson & Co, Newcastle.

By the time of his death, Robert Stephenson had received honours from many of the countries that had made use of his engineering talents; his vision of the railway had been taken to the world. BBC - History - Isambard Kingdom Brunel z Isambard Kingdom Brunel © Brunel was one of the most versatile and audacious engineers of the 19th century, responsible for the design of tunnels, bridges, railway lines and ships. Isambard Kingdom Brunel was born on 9 April 1806 in Portsmouth. His father Mark was a French engineer who had fled France during the revolution. Brunel was educated both in England and in France. When he returned to England he went to work for his father. Brunel's first notable achievement was the part he played with his father in planning the Thames Tunnel from Rotherhithe to Wapping, completed in 1843. In 1831, Brunel's designs won the competition for the Clifton Suspension Bridge across the River Avon. Construction began the same year but it was not completed until 1864.

The work for which Brunel is probably best remembered is his construction of a network of tunnels, bridges and viaducts for the Great Western Railway. In 1833, he was appointed their chief engineer and work began on the line that linked London to Bristol. Impressive achievements during its construction included the viaducts at Hanwell and Chippenham, the Maidenhead Bridge, the Box Tunnel and Bristol Temple Meads Station. Brunel is noted for introducing the broad gauge in place of the standard gauge on this line. While working on the line from Swindon to Gloucester and South Wales he devised the combination of tubular, suspension and truss bridge to cross the Wye at Chepstow. This design was further improved in his famous bridge over the Tamar at Saltash near Plymouth. As well as bridges, tunnels and railways, Brunel was responsible for the design of several famous ships. The 'Great Western', launched in 1837, was the first steamship to engage in transatlantic service. The 'Great Britain', launched in 1843, was the world's first iron-hulled, screw propeller-driven, steam-powered passenger liner.

The 'Great Eastern', launched in 1859, was designed in cooperation with John Scott Russell, and was by far the biggest ship ever built up to that time, but was not commercially successful. Brunel was also responsible for the redesign and construction of many of Britain's major docks, including Bristol, Monkwearmouth, Cardiff and Milford Haven. Brunel died of a stroke on 15 September 1859. BBC - History - British History in depth: Victorian Technology Print this page A powerful trading nation During the reign of Queen Victoria Britain emerged as the most powerful trading nation in the world, provoking a social and economic revolution whose effects are still being felt today. Since the latter part of the eighteenth century the process of industrialisation had built a firm foundation for nineteenth century growth and expansion. At the heart of this was the successful development and application of steam technology. Before 1800 brilliant engineers and entrepreneurs such as James Watt and Matthew Boulton had made steam power a practical reality that had radically improved Britain's core industries, namely the mining of coal, minerals and other raw materials and the production of iron, textiles and manufactured goods.

With its advanced industrial technologies Britain was able to attack a huge and rapidly expanding international market. Between 1809 and 1839 exports grew from £25.4 to £76 million. Ten years later the figure was £124.5 million, with the major export markets being Europe, India and Asia and, increasingly, the United States. At the start of Queen Victoria's reign, Britain's standing as a global industrial and trading power was already unrivalled. The complex structures of international trade developed by the Victorians and the maintenance of the process of wealth generation derived from them were dependent upon efficient means of communication. In many ways, the Victorians owe their unique place in history to their imaginative and successful exploitation of three new communication technologies, the steamship, the railway and the electric telegraph. During the reign of Queen Victoria Britain emerged as the most powerful trading nation in the world... The steamship has a long, pre-Victorian ancestry, dating back at least to 1783 when the Marquis de Jouffray d'Abbans steamed his little boat, the Pyroscaphe, across the Seine.

The first steam-assisted crossing of the Atlantic took place in 1819 when the Savannah sailed from Georgia to Liverpool in 633 hours. By 1833 the Atlantic crossing had been reduced to 22 days and steam ships had begun to operate on the major Imperial and trade routes to India, South Africa and Australia. The 1830s were also marked by the founding of three major shipping lines, the British and American Steam Navigation Company, the Great Western Steamship Company and the Peninsular Steam Navigation Company. The first two concentrated their efforts on the Atlantic and their rivalry launched the period of frenetic competition on that route that was to continue throughout the Victorian period and well into the twentieth century. In April 1838 the Great Western sailed from Bristol to New York in 14 days and 12 hours, establishing the modern steamship era and the famous Blue Riband contest for the fastest transatlantic passage by passenger ships. Competition was intensified by the setting up by Samuel Cunard of a new shipping line. In July 1840 his first ship, the Britannia, crossed the Atlantic in 11 days and 4 hours.

By 1901 the German liner the Deutschland could cross the Atlantic in under 5 days. Top Great pioneers Isambard Kingdom Brunel © The designer of the Great Western was the brilliant young engineer of the Great Western Railway, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who had persuaded his directors that a transatlantic shipping line was the natural way to expand the services offered by their railway. Brunel's response to the challenge posed by his rivals was to design a bigger and better ship. In July 1839, the keel was laid in Bristol for a new 3270 ton iron super ship. Designed for speed and comfort, this was to be the most revolutionary steamship of the early Victorian period. Equipped with cabins and state rooms for 360 passengers and the largest and most lavish dining room afloat, and the first large ship to be screw-driven, the Great Britain set the standard for large liners for many decades to come. By 1853 the Great Britain, refitted to accommodate up to 630 passengers, was operating an efficient London to Australia service and continued to do so for nearly twenty years. The success of the Great Britain encouraged Brunel and his backers to create one more ship.

In 1854 work started at Millwallon the Thames in east London on the building of the Great Eastern. Designed to carry 4000 passengers and enough coal to sail to Australia without refuelling en route, the ship was 693 feet long, 120 feet wide and weighed over 18,900 tons. Nothing on this scale had ever been considered before, and when she was finally broken up in 1888, the Great Eastern was still the largest ship in the world. The records of scale set by the Great Eastern were only finally broken by the super liners of the Edwardian era, the Lusitania of 1907, the Titanic of 1912 and the Imperator of 1913. On the Great Eastern's maiden voyage in June 1860 the ship carried only 38 paying passengers. Scale and technical virtuosity were not enough and the smaller, simpler and faster ships of Samuel Cunard captured the traffic. This became a pattern and the ship never sailed with all berths filled.

Scale and technical virtuosity were not enough and the smaller, simpler and faster ships of Samuel Cunard captured the traffic. Increasingly a white elephant, the Great Eastern came out of passenger service in 1863 and was chartered by the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company to lay telegraph cables across the Atlantic and from India to Aden, a task for which her huge size and powerful engines made her eminently suitable. From an early date the British government realised that the successful operation and maintenance of an expanding trade empire depended upon fast, regular and reliable steamship services, supported by coaling and supply stations scattered all over the world. The primary function of the Royal Navy in Victorian Britain was the protection of these trade routes and their supply bases. As a result, the government sponsored the development and maintenance of the routes and, increasingly, the cost of building the ships. In 1840 the Peninsular Company became the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, with government contracts to operate services to Egypt, South Africa, India, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand.

In the process, as the Cunard name was becoming synonymous with the Atlantic so P&O developed its long term association with routes east of Suez. Top Booming railways Representation of the Rocket which heralded the dawn of the railway age. © Equally important were the links established between shipping lines and ship yards. During the Victorian period British shipyards on the Clyde, the Tyne, the Mersey, the Thames, at Barrow and Belfast came to dominate the world, having pioneered the use of iron and steel in ship-building, and developed marine technology to a high level. In 1900, for example, 739,000 tons of shipping was built and registered in Britain. British yards built ships for owners all over the world and were still in a dominant position at the end of the century, despite increasing competition offered by ship builders in Germany. Cunard had close links with the Glasgow yard of Robert Napier, while the Belfast firm of Harland & Wolff backed a new Atlantic challenger, the White Star Line, launched in 1871 and went on to have interests in other shipping companies, including the Union Castle Line. Like the steamship, the railway predates the Victorian era.

The start of the modern railway age is usually marked by the opening in 1825 of the Stockton & Darlington line. Other, mostly local, lines followed, the most important of which was the Liverpool and Manchester of 1830, famous for Robert Stephenson's Rocket locomotive. With its multitube boiler, blast pipe exhaust, pistons connected directly to the driving wheels and its ability to haul its train at over 30 miles per hour, this machine set the standard for locomotive design. The first long distance lines were opened in the first years of Queen Victoria's reign, the London and Birmingham in 1838, part of Brunel's London to Bristol route the same year and the London and Southampton in 1840. A railway boom and mania followed during the 1840s, with promoters and speculators planning lines all over Britain. Like the steamship, the railway predates the Victorian era. By 1845 2441 miles of railway were open and 30 million passengers were being carried.

The railways, offering as they did new opportunities for travel and commerce, and breaking down social barriers in the process, were immediately popular, a popularity encouraged by acts of parliament that ensured that trains conformed to standards of speed and comfort and offered rates that were affordable by all. The spread of the railways also brought about, through time-tabling, a regularisation of time throughout Britain. Excursions and day trips, particularly to the seaside, became a familiar part of British social life. In 1851 many of the six million visitors to the Great Exhibition travelled by train to London in organised excursions. Queen Victoria made her first train journey on 13 June 1842 and then became a regular user of the rail network, for speed and convenience and because it gave her ample opportunity to show herself and her family to her subjects. Expansion of the rail network was rapid and continuous. Between 1861 and 1888 the mileage grew by 81 percent and the traffic carried by 180 percent. By 1900, 18,680 miles were in use and over 1100 million passengers were being carried, along with huge quantities of freight.

From 1852 the carriage of freight provided the railway companies with the bulk of their income. Safety standards, at first almost non-existent, gradually improved with advances in signalling and vehicle technology. By the end of the century trains ran regularly, and with complete safety, at speeds in excess of 70 miles per hour. Comfort also improved. The first lavatories appeared in family saloons in the 1860s, the first proper sleeping cars were introduced in 1873 and dining cars came into use from 1879. Top Communication revolution The building of the railway network was the major achievement of the Victorian period, changing for ever both social patterns and the landscape of Britain. The great engineers, Stephenson, Brunel, Locke, Vignoles and many others built their lines across hills and valleys, across mountains and marshland and over great rivers with determination and style, and often regardless of cost. Their legacy are the great embankments, viaducts, tunnels and bridges that cover the face of Britain, in many cases still visible long after the trains they served have disappeared.

Their stations, wondrous constructions in iron and glass and great cathedrals to modernity, brought a new building type into British culture. As the railway was, in essence, a British creation, it was readily exported to many parts of the world, as a concept, and in component form. British engineers, British construction teams and British capital built railways throughout the Empire, in the Americas and in many parts of Europe. The famous railway contractor Thomas Brassey built railways in France, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Russia, India, Argentina and Australia. Imperial railway building projects were often inspired by strategic as well as industrial and commercial motives, but such projects, notably in India and Africa, opened up huge and long lasting markets to British manufacturers.British-made locomotives, rolling stock and railway equipment were exported around the world throughout the Victorian period. The building of the railway network was the major achievement of the Victorian period, changing for ever both social patterns and the landscape of Britain. The spread of the railway in Victorian Britain was closely linked to the development of the electric telegraph.

The idea of communicating via electricity dates back to the eighteenth century but it was the understanding of electromagnetism from the 1820s that gave the idea a practical reality. In 1837 Cooke and Wheatstone developed the electric telegraph which used an electric current to move magnetic needles and thus transmit messages in code. The first operational telegraph system linked Euston station and Camden town, and from there it spread all over the railway network, used both to carry messages and to control signalling. The technology of the telegraph rapidly expanded, making possible mass communication on both national and global scales. With instruments in every post office, the telegraph, and its visible offspring, the telegram, personal communication on a scale hitherto inconceivable became commonplace. A telegraph cable was laid across the Channel in 1851, followed by others across the Irish and North Seas. In 1866 Brunel's huge ship, the Great Eastern, laid a durable telegraph cable across the Atlantic. The global network spread rapidly, with many countries establishing their own systems. Colonial, military and commercial implications were quickly appreciated.

By 1878 Britain had constructed two overland and one maritime telegraph links to India, part of a network that by the end of the century had reached almost every corner of the world. Related to the telegraph, but far more practical on a personal level, was the telephone, developed by the Scotsman Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. By 1887 there were 26,000 telephones in use in Britain (and 150,000 in the United States) and multiple switchboards had been installed in most major towns and cities. With the development by Marconi of practical radio transmissions at the very end of the nineteenth century, the foundations for the global communications systems of the twenty first century were in place in Victorian Britain. In Britain, the attitudes and achievements of the Victorians are still part of many aspects of modern life today. These legacies are probably most tangible in the fields of communication. The Victorians not only built a British railway network which was more than twice as large as today's network but often operated with greater effiency. Urban transport systems such as buses and underground railways were also created by the Victorians.

With those systems came the habit of commuting, one of the most durable and least appealing of nineteenth century legacies. The post service, the electric telegraph which was the forerunner of today's internet and the phone paved the way for the making of a world which relies heavily on complex structures of domestic and worldwide communications. Victorian Things by Asa Briggs (London, 1988) Companion to Britain in the Nineteenth Century, 1815-1914 by Chris Cook (Longman, 1999) Brunel: The Great Engineer by Tim Bryan (Ian Allan, 2000) The Railways of Britain by O S Nock (London, 1947) The Railway Heritage of Britain by Gordon Biddle & O S Nock (Studio Editions 1990) The Oxford Companion to British Railway History by Jack Simmons & Gordon Biddle (Oxford, 1997) The Railway Empire by Anthony Burton (Murray, 1994) Top About the author Since 1981, Paul Atterbury has been a freelance writer, lecturer, broadcaster and exhibition curator.

He has written or edited over thirty books, mostly on ceramics, antiques and the decorative arts as well as travel. For the last eleven years Paul has been a member of the Antiques Roadshow team of experts. He was the curator of a major exhibition about the Victorians at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Steam & Speed: The Power of Steam on Land Steam & Speed: The Power of Steam on Land Like the steamship, the railway predates the Victorian era. Steam locomotives were extensively used on colliery and quarry lines, particularly in the north east of England, and experimentally in other areas, during the first decades of the 19th century, with the technology being constantly improved by engineers such as George Stephenson and Richard Trevithick. However, the start of the modern railway age is usually marked by the opening of the Stockton and Darlington line in 1825. Other early steam-hauled lines included the Canterbury and Whitstable and the Liverpool and Manchester, both opened in 1830. It was on the latter's line that the Rainhill locomotive trials were held in 1829, won comprehensively by Robert Stephenson's Rocket.

With its multi-tube boiler, blast-pipe exhaust and pistons connected directly to the driving wheels, it set the standard for locomotive design. It also hauled its train easily at 30 miles per hour, proving to the world that locomotive haulage was the way to the future. Class 5XP 4-6-0 engine locomotive, London Midland & Scottish Railway express, 1920s. Science and Society Picture Library Railway building now began apace and a number of predominantly local lines opened during the 1830s. The first trunk routes to be completed, in 1837 and 1838, were the Grand Junction Railway, linking Birmingham to Manchester, and the London and Birmingham Railway, engineered by Robert Stephenson. The same year saw the opening of the first section of Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Great Western Railway, which was finally completed between London and Bristol ten years later. Other early lines were the Midland Counties Railway, linking Derby, Nottingham, Leicester and Rugby, and the London and Southampton, completed in 1840.

A railway boom and mania followed during the 1840s, with promoters planning lines the length and breadth of Britain. By 1845 some 2441 miles of railway were open and over 30 million passengers were being carried. The success of the railway was in part due to the legislation pushed through Parliament in 1844 by Gladstone, which ensured that trains conformed to standards of speed and comfort and that cheap travel was broadly available. This Act also compelled railway companies to allow the new electric telegraph to be carried alongside their lines. There is no doubt that the popularity of the railways was immediate, despite public dismay expressed by figures as diverse as the Duke of Wellington and William Wordsworth. From the earliest days railway companies ran excursions, to race meetings, to temperance gatherings, even to public executions. In 1840 an excursion from Leeds to Hull carried 1250 passengers in a 40-carriage train and by 1844 a newspaper had commented that excursions were becoming 'our chief national amusement'. A considerable number of the visitors to the Great Exhibition in London in 1851 travelled on excursion trains.

This traffic greatly increased after the Bank Holiday Act of 1871, when a day at the seaside became almost a national necessity. Public enthusiasm for the railway was greatly increased after Queen Victoria made her first journey, from Slough to Paddington on 13 June 1842. (Albert had made his first journey soon after their marriage.) Throughout her reign she travelled regularly by train, for speed and convenience, and because it gave her ample opportunity to show herself and family to her subjects, thus turning monarchy into a physical reality. The first royal carriages, built by the Great Western and London and Birmingham companies, date from this period. Though relatively primitive by later standards, they established the pattern for royal trains that continues today. The trains were used particularly for the many journeys to Osborne and Balmoral. Expansion of the network was rapid and continuous. Between 1852 and 1861, for example, the mileage grew by 43 percent, while the traffic carried by that mileage increased by 71 percent. Between 1861 and 1888, the mileage grew by 81 percent and the traffic carried by 180 percent.

By 1900 18,680 miles were in use and over 1100 million passengers were being carried. The great increases in weight of traffic were due more to freight than passenger movements, for from 1852 freight provided the railway companies with the bulk of their income. In the 1860s it regularly generated 30-50 percent more income, a pattern that remained unchanged until the end of the century. Constant expansion brought problems. Accidents were frequent, the result usually of excessive speed, inadequate brakes and poor traffic control. Signalling was rudimentary until the electric telegraph and the block control system came into widespread use. The effects of accidents were often compounded by the fragile nature of the carriages, usually built of wood, and by the risk of fire that was frequently sparked off by the gas lighting. Despite the availability of electric lighting from quite an early date, gas-lit carriages were still in use as late as 1928. Overall, improvements in comfort, convenience and safety marked the steady progress of the Victorian railway.

The first lavatories appeared in family saloons in the 1860s, and the first proper sleeping cars were introduced by the North British Railway between London and Glasgow in 1873. Dining cars were pioneered by the Great Northern Railway in 1879, on the service between Leeds and King's Cross. Locomotive technology increased at the same rate, and by the end of the century the steam locomotive was virtually indistinguishable from its 20th-century counterpart. By this time, trains were run regularly at speeds in excess of 70 miles per hour. Unlike some European countries, Britain remained wedded to steam power. An experimental electric locomotive, drawing its power from a third rail, was exhibited at the Crystal Palace in London in 1882 and electric traction was subsequently used by narrow-gauge and tourist railways, tramways and underground railways. However, it was not applied widely to main-line railways until the start of the twentieth century. The building of the railway network was a major achievement of the Victorian period, influencing in a lasting way both social patterns and the landscape of Britain.

The great engineers - Stephenson, Brunel, Locke and many others - threw their lines across hills and valleys, across marshland, mountains and great rivers with determination and style, and often regardless of cost. Viaducts, embankments, tunnels and bridges changed the landscape forever, and their stations - wondrous constructions in iron and glass, cathedrals to modernity - brought a new building type into British culture. Railway engineering is often the most tangible legacy of the Victorian world, simply because so much still survives, even if the trains themselves have long disappeared. Their greatest achievements are too numerous to list; their legacy so rich. Sometimes it is an entire railway, such as Brunel's Great Western, built to such generous standards because of its original 7-foot gauge, and sometimes it is the sheer power of the structures, for example the tunnels through the Pennines, Stephenson's Britannia Bridge over the Menai Straits, Brunel's Royal Albert Bridge at Saltash, the Ribblehead viaduct on the Settle to Carlisle line, the four miles of the Severn Tunnel and, towering above everything else, the Forth Bridge.

As the railway was, in essence, a British creation, it was readily exported to many parts of the world, as a concept, and in component form. British capital and British engineers and constructors were involved throughout the Empire and also in many parts of Europe and South America. A notable figure before 1870 was the contractor Thomas Brassey, who built railways in France, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Russia, India, Argentina and Australia. In France, the entire Western Railway from Paris to Rouen and Le Havre was a British creation, paid for with British capital, engineered by Locke, built by Brassey, and supplied with locomotives and most of its components by British manufacturers. British locomotives were displayed, and admired, at the Paris exhibitions of 1878, 1889 and 1900. By the late 1830s locomotives built by Robert Stephenson & Co. and the Vulcan Foundry had been supplied to France, Germany, Austria and Russia, and locomotives and rolling stock continued to be exported to many countries, both within and outside the Empire throughout the Victorian period.

Over 100 locomotives were supplied to the United States before 1841, and iron and steel rails, often from rolling mills in South Wales, represented a major and long-lasting export business for British companies, to North America and other parts of the world. Imperial railway building projects were often inspired by strategic as well as commercial and industrial motives, but such activities, notably in India and Africa, opened up huge and long-lasting markets to British manufacturers. By the end of the century British locomotive manufacturers, including those owned by railway companies as well as the independent private companies, were making 2000 locomotives a year, many of which were sold abroad. By this time, railways had come to be seen as a vital aspect of nation-building. The British provided India with one of the largest railway networks in the world and it has been seen as vital to the development of modern Indian nationalism. Canadian confederation in 1867 was to be followed by the binding of Canada together with rails of steel. The trans-continental line, connecting every Canadian province, was completed in 1885.

When the Australian Commonwealth, bringing together the six Australian colonies, was created at the very end of the queen's reign, again a trans-continental railway (not completed until the inter-war years) was part of the agreement. Railways were vital in tapping the resources of West, East and Southern Africa, although they generally simply linked the interior to the coast, demonstrating their significance in the development of international trade. White settlers were also spread across Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand by the railways. But the Cape to Cairo line, one of the great visions of late Victorian imperialists, was never built. Paul Atterbury Paul Atterbury is a specialist in 19th- and 20th-century art and design, with an interest in the history of technology. He was the curator of the Pugin: A Gothic Passion (V&A, 1994) and co-curator of Inventing New Britain: The Victorian Vision (V&A, 2001). Publications include Victorians at Home and Abroad (V&A Publications, 2001).

Brunel: genius, maverick, risk-taker | News | Construction News Brunel: genius, maverick, risk-taker 6 April, 2006 By Emma Crates BRUNEL - Isambard Kingdom Brunel has been hailed as one of the greatest engineers of all time.But what is his legacy for the 21st century? To mark his 200th birthday Emma Crates asks engineers and historians to assess his achievements IF YOU ARE anywhere near Kensal Green on April 9, consider paying your respects at the grave of Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel. That day marks the 200th birthday of this halfFrench, half-English maverick whose name is attached to some of the most impressive engineering achievements ? and some of the most spectacular failures ? of the 19th century. Brunel was working in an age when an engineer could be a superstar, and none was more so than he. Charismatic, workaholic, brilliant, but also bloody-minded, he led his projects from the front and had that rare gift, the ability to persuade shareholders to part with vast amounts of money, even after commercial failure.

'He didn't just incrementally advance, he advanced in great leaps, ' says Gordon Masterton, president of the Institution of Civil Engineers. Brunel was a visionary, a prolific producer of ideas who left more pragmatic rivals standing. He grappled with concepts that are still considered to be at the cutting edge: branding, integrated transport, prefabrication, value engineering. He also worked across disciplines, designing railways, steamships, locomotives and docks, as well as advising on drinking water systems and dabbling with new technology and materials. Some of his projects did not succeed because he was years ahead of his time, others because he was too blinkered. 'He had this way of taking things back to first principles, of having no preconceptions of what had gone before, ' says ICE head librarian Mike Chrimes. One of Brunel's great motivations was the desire to stand out, par t icularly from his great rival, the railway engineer Robert Stephenson. 'My personal view is that Brunel had a st reak of envy in him about Stephenson's achievements. That drove him more down the route of being different for the sake of it, ' says Mr Masterton.

Like the winning team of Robert Stephenson and his father George, who were famous for developing The Rocket locomotive, Brunel's early career owes much to his close working relationship with his French father, Marc Brunel. After his education in France, Brunel joined his father on a project that was without precedent: the tunnel under the Thames between Rotherhithe and Wapping. Two previous attempts had failed because the excavation had met quicksand, but Marc Brunel, a prolific inventor, had invented and patented a tunnelling shield which made it possible to tunnel through water-bearing strata. The young Isambard started by helping out, but by the time he was 21 he was appointed the project's resident engineer. His father had undoubtedly helped him to get to that position but, once there, Brunel led from the front. Within months of his appointment he had to deal with the river breaking in and went down in a diving bell himself to investigate the problem. The second time it happened Brunel was seriously injured during the rescue operation, but managed to save several lives. It was while he was convalescing that Brunel heard about the plans to build a bridge across the river Avon at Clifton.

The competition for the project was overseen by other renowned engineer, Thomas Telford, who was Ycelebrated for designing the bridge over the Menai Straits, one of the first long-span suspension bridges of its day. As chairman of the judging panel, Telford rejected all the initial designs, and submitted his own. But his solution required very tall piers built of stone, and proved too costly for the shareholders. The panel cast around for other approaches. Brunel's solution, which was accepted in 1836, was audacious. The span was almost twice as long as Telford's, and required shorter piers. The cost savings were significant. But again financial problems held up the job and only the piers were constructed in Brunel's lifetime. The bridge was completed after his death by a subscription from members of the ICE. Some of the credit must also go to William Henry Barlow, who designed, among other things, St Pancras Station. Barlow took on the design and refined it after Brunel had died. Historians now view the bridge as a hybrid achievement of the two designers. At the age of 26 Brunel was appointed chief engineer of the newly-formed Great Western Railway company.

The first stretch of the GWR, from London to Bristol, was constructed in under six years. Some of the highlights of the route include the termini at Temple Meads and Paddington; Maidenhead Bridge, which boasted the flattest brick arch in the world, and Box Tunnel, between Bath and Swindon, which was 2 miles long and excavated mainly through limestone. Brunel, a reluctant delegator, oversaw every aspect of the railway's design, from the civils work to the rolling stock, even down to the lamp posts at the railways stations. But it stands as a testament to his project management skills that when the two crews excavating from each end of the Box Tunnel finally met they were a mere one and a quarter inches out of alignment. While the GWR was under way Brunel was winning work on a host of other rail projects. In his lifetime he was responsible for the construction of more than 1,000 m iles of track in Britain, and also designed schemes in Italy, India and Australia. Brunel also pioneered the concept of prefabrication, producing at a speed that would still be impressive today, and demonstrating how he could think on his feet.

In 1855, he was commissioned to design a prefabricated hospital to be used in the Cr imean War. Brunel developed a timber-based structure that was designed, built and shipped out in a matter of days. The structures became a model for other barrack buildings used by the army. In parallel with his railway work, Brunel was also embarking on his great steamship projects. The first of which, the SS Great Western, could be argued to be one of the first examples of integrated transport. 'It started as a chance remark that, once he'd built the London to Bristol connection, why stop there, why not carry on to America?' says Mr Chrimes. 'It was another of his great visionary ideas.' His other two great ships, the Great Britain and the Great Eastern, were each in turn the largest of their kind in the world. Neither were commercial successes; they suffered from being too advanced for the world around them. The Great Britain was intended to revive the fortunes of Bristol, but was too big for the docks, and had to be relocated to Liverpool. The Great Eastern, a leviathan twice the length of the Great Britain, suffered technical problems and never became a passenger carrier.

During sea trials workers were killed by an explosion in the heating room. The problems were an added strain on Brunel's deteriorating health. A few days before he died, in September 1859, Brunel was carried over one of his last great projects, the Royal Albert Bridge over the Tamar at Saltash. He was 53, and had been designing a grand house for his retirement in the West Country, but never got a chance to realise it. Thousands of people turned out for his funeral. Brunel may not always been successful, but his ideas captured the imagination of the public. While other engineers may have had more commercial success, his appetite for risk-taking and his breadth of ambition make him the most glamorous of all of the Victorian engineers. That is why he is still a household name today. The battle of the gauges IT WAS 1835 when Brunel persuaded his shareholders that the Great Western Railway should be built to a broader gauge than other rail schemes springing up around the country. His timing was unlucky. The world's first passenger railway, the Stockton to Darlington, designed by George Stephenson, had been open for 10 years and work on other routes was gathering pace.

Stephenson was building a 4 ft 8 in (1.44 m) gauge . Brunel experimented and concluded that setting rails 7 ft (2.1 m) apart would increase speed, stability, efficiency and ride quality. But Stephenson's gauge was being used extensively on other schemes at the time, and the decision was to have profound implications for the connectivity of the expanding rail network. In reality, the or iginal broad gauge may not have given a ride as comfortable as has been reported. Nicholas Wood, a colliery engineer, was asked to carry out his own experiments to assess the viability of the Brunel's arguments. While Wood agreed that it allowed locomotives to reach higher speeds, he uncovered other problems. Brunel was advocating that the sleepers lie longitudinally, directly under the line of the rails, rather than transversely across the rails. There were piles below the sleepers to pin them down. But instead of tying sleepers down, they did the opposite. But Brunel's charisma and sheer force of personality persuaded shareholders that his design was better. The decision had a dramatic impact on the cost and timescale of construction.

Every cutting and embankment had to be wider, requiring a significant increase in the earthworks. Brunel eventually had to bow to commercial pressure. Later in his career he designed the South Wales railway to standard gauge. The GWR was converted entirely to standard gauge in 1892, 33 years after his death. Out of puff THE SOUTH Devon Atmospheric Railway was one of Brunel's most spectacular failures. The concept was that carriages would be propelled along a track by a vacuum extraction of air. A pipe was laid in between the tracks. When the train was about to move, a stationary pumping house would start up, pumping out air from a pipe ahead of the vehicle. The system had been demonstrated in Dublin and Croydon, and worked for short distances. 'Stephenson had looked at this system for the Chester to Holyhead railway in 1843, and ruled it out. But three months later Brunel was advocating its use in South Devon. He had this faith that he could make things work that other engineers couldn't, ' says Mr Masterton. But one major problem was maintaining a vacuum th roughout the 41 m ile leng th of t rack.

A series of leather f laps inside the pipe, were intended to seal in the air along the route, but they were eaten by rats and kept failing. Within six months the track was converted to a locomotive system. Bad habits BRUNEL may have been an engineer ahead of his time, but his labour relations strategy and management sk ills are best lef t in the 19th century. Mr Masterton says: 'He was a hard-liner in terms of what he thought was a fair claim, or in his view unjustified.' This adversarial approach came to a head with a monolithic court case against the contractor MacIntosh, which had worked on the Great Western Railway. In 1839, the time that the claim was put in, the railway company was undergoing a financial crisis. Brunel's decision not to pay the £100,000 ? a huge sum then ? was most probably made to protect his shareholders. The claim was eventually settled in 1875, in favour of the contractor, when both the original claimant and Brunel had been dead for some years. Brunel also used high-handed tactics when dealing with striking workers at Mickleton tunnel in 1852.

The contractor, Mudge-Marchant, was sitting in on the works because of a dispute over pay. Brunel organised a 3,000-strong army from another contractor to drive the navvies off the site. You might also like...

Question: British engineers Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Robert Stephenson built their most impressive structures and locomotives in which century?
Answer: 19th