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
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.
They would have stayed purely as industrial machines if it hadn’t been for Robert Stephenson. Ronald Top, Industrial Revelations: The European Story s3e4: The Impossible Railway, Discovery 2005
This is the cutting made for Stephenson’s railway. At three and a half kilometres long and twelve metres deep it took forty barrel runs to take away the earth. At times 20,000 navvies were employed to build the line to Birmingham. ibid.
Berlin decided to clean up its act, and made plans to replace this time-consuming tram journey with a modern rail link and a modern train. And the most modern of all these trains were powered not by steam but by 1898 onwards by electricity. Ronald Top, Industrial Revelations: Europe s4e3: The City
In 1886 the world’s first deep underground railway was dug in London. ibid.
When steam-power really got going as a moving force it wasn’t on the roads, it was on the railways. By the 1860s locomotives were criss-crossing Europe, but on the roads self-powered vehicles were in for a bumpy ride especially in England. Ronald Top, More Industrial Revelations: Europe s4e6: Exploding Engines
British pioneer George Stephenson came to Switzerland in the late 1840s to advise on railway construction. The trouble was a conventional train could never climb such a steep slope because the smooth train wheels don’t have enough grip against the smooth rails ... The funicular railway is amazingly simple. Two cars on a cable, some water and a pair of buckets! Ronald Top, More Industrial Revelations: Europe s4e9: Steaming up the Alps
It was all about clogs and teeth. ibid.
Welcome aboard the steepest rack railroad in the world ... Over a hundred and fifteen years later tourists are still happy to trust their lives to a nineteenth century technology of cogs and racks. ibid.
Trains occupy a special place in our hearts. We grew up wanting to drive Thomas the Tank Engine ... York is a puffing Mecca: it has the largest railway museum in the world ... Mallard set the record back in 1938 when she reached 126 [125.88] miles an hour. Rory McGrath’s Industrial Revelations: Best of British Engineering s5e4: Vehicles, Discovery 2008
One of the great engineering marvels of the nineteenth century. One railway in particular enthralled the general public – the GWR or Great Western Railway. Soon to be known as God’s Wonderful Railway. And it was considered the crowning achievement of its young engineering chief, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Rory McGrath’s Industrial Revelations: Best of British Engineering s5e6: Transport Networks
The Underground: no-one had done it before ... In 1863 the world’s very first subterranean railway opening linking Farringdon to Paddington. ibid.
The magnificent steam locomotives of the Great Western Railway: a combination of elegance and raw power. They still evoke a spirit of adventure. Great Railway Adventures with Dan Cruickshank: Brilliant Brunel, Channel 5 2010
Brunel was obsessed about every detail, building wonderful stations to suit his great enterprise. Nothing deters him. The Great Western Railway was just part of his steam-driven revolution. ibid.
The construction of the Great Western Railway between Bristol and London was inspired by Brunel’s vision to bring speed and comfort to the experience of travel. ibid.
It was the coming of the railway that led to Britain adopting a standard time across the country. ibid.
Brunel would eventually lose the battle of the gauges. ibid.
When the Great Eastern was launched its paddles were driven by the biggest marine steam-engine of its day. ibid.
After a journey of just fifteen days and five hours his Great Western steamship made a triumphant entry into New York Harbor. ibid.
Brunel had produced two of the finest ocean steamers in the world, but the city of Bristol failed to take advantage of his genius. ibid.
The forgotten men and women of the railways didn’t fight with guns and bombs, they transported troops, fuel, food and tanks – whatever it took to defend these shores. Great Railway Adventures with Dan Cruickshank: War Heroes
This was the kind of railway technology desperately needed in the battlefields of northern France – small powerful trains running on tracks that could quickly be moved and laid. ibid.
Railways had proved themselves an invaluable part of the machinery of war. ibid.
In the first four days of September 1939 nearly three million were transported from cities and towns to places of safety in the countryside. ibid.