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.
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: The Transport Revolution, BBC 2003
The very last steam loco was withdrawn from British Rail service in 1968.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.
Mallard was one of the many A-4 class steam locomotives built by [Nigel] Gresley for the London and North East Railway. Fred Dibnah’s Age of Steam: Steam and the Modern Age e6, BBC 2003
There are more than fifty steam railways around the country all run by enthusiasts. ibid.
In the great days of steam railways there were like two routes up England - one up the West Coast and one up the East Coast. In 1893 the Great Central built one up the middle. Fred Dibnah’s Made in Britain s1e12: A Lifetime’s Achievement, BBC 2005
Robert Stephenson and his company of course didn’t just build locomotives, they built the lines and the bridges and all the engineering works. Fred Dibnah’s World of Steam, Steel and Stone s4: Men of Steel, BBC 2006
They’re magnificent on a moonlit night. Fred Dibnah’s Railway Collection: The Great Days of Steam e5, BBC 2008
I always wanted to be an engine driver. ibid.
I wish I’d have lived then. ibid.
And this is probably the most famous locomotive from that time – built at Doncaster – The Flying Scotsman. ibid.
1926 – Mallard left Grantham heading towards Peterborough ... A hundred and twenty six miles per hour. ibid.
The skills of building a mainline locomotive have almost died. But here in Darlington they are keeping the skills alive. ibid.
It makes you wonder if they’d carried on with the development of the steam locomotive what could have happened. ibid.
The speeds increased and train loads grew heavier. Locomotives grew in size and in the 1920s the Great Western Railway locomotives were amongst the most advanced. By the 1930s famous streamlined locomotives like Mallard were being built. Fred Dibnah’s Railway Collection e6: Railway Preservation
In 1955 the first diesel locomotive – Deltic – was built, and signalled the end of the line for the steam locomotive. ibid.
All these lovely old engines started to rust away in scrapyards. ibid.
The Railway Preservation Movement was born. 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 1 in 7. 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 1.2m in length. They are all straight. Mark Williams, Industrial Revelations s1e2: Pants for All, Discovery 2002
This locomotive was built in 1957 and was the pinnacle of steam engineering. Mark Williams, On the Rails s1: Cornish Steam Giant, Discovery 2004
Richard Trevithick ... He was a natural talent. A natural engineer. A problem solver. But even so no-one at the time imagined this was the man who would build the first high-pressure steam-engine, the first car, and the world’s first railway locomotive. ibid.
It’s called the Puffing Devil ... The steam goes up the chimney. Chuff, chuff, chuff. ibid.
The destruction of his first locomotive didn’t seem to worry Trevithick. ibid.
His most ambitious project yet – a machine to run on rails. Britain’s first railway locomotive was about to be born. This locomotive was built over the winter of 1802. And its steam trials were kept highly secret. ibid.
Trevithick’s engine was a technological breakthrough. It was now clear the future of the high-pressure steam-engine was not on the common road but on the railroad. ibid.
The brittle cast-iron tram-tracks at the time smashed under the weight of the Loco. ibid.
In 1829 Rocket won the Liverpool & Manchester Railways competition to find the best steam locomotive. ibid.
The Founding Father of the Railways – but that title rightfully belongs to the Cornish genius Richard Trevithick. ibid.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century steam-engines were on the move. But they were unreliable, dangerous and smashed the rails they ran on. Steam was out of control. Mark Williams on the Rails s1e2: Rocketmen
George Stephenson is remembered as the Father of the Railways. After all, his son Robert designed Rocket, the most famous steam locomotive ever built. ibid.
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.