The only option was a relatively untested sideways launch. Nothing on this scale had ever been attempted before. ibid.
Having already built two smaller transatlantic steamships The Great Britain and The Great Western, Brunel believed it could be done. ibid.
East London shipbuilding had grown into a vast industry. ibid.
So well-built was the Great Eastern that it apparently took two years to dismantle. ibid.
Three million rivets. ibid.
He [Brunel] was constantly pushing the boundaries of what was possible. ibid.
Human error and muddy conditions had caused one slip to be steeper than the other. The ship’s weight was evenly distributed and it stuck fast. 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, National Geographic 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.
They would build a railroad: it’s completion would be one of the greatest technological achievements of the age. Ken Burns: The West V, The Grandest Enterprise Under God, PBS 1996
By 1874 railroads had brought millions of settlers to the West opening up new lands for homesteads. Ken Burns: The West VI, Fight No More Forever
The transcontinental railway opened up half a billion acres of land and eight new states, using two hundred thousand miles of track. Hewn out of hostile terrain. America: The Story of the US: Superpower, History 2010
From this day in 1830 nothing would be the same again. This is where the modern world begins. Locomotion: Dan Snow’s History of Railways, BBC 2013
One billion passengers still travel these lines each year. ibid.
By the early 1800s Britain was at the centre of a world-wide trading web. ibid.
The people fell in love with them. ibid.
The Stockton & Darlington became world famous. ibid.
The Railways came along and changed everything. ibid.
In the late 1830s a great swathe of Victorian London was ripped apart. The railway had arrived in the capital. Locomotion: Dan Snow’s History of Railways II
Hills was being mined and blasted, valleys were being bridged. ibid.
Trains could already hit fifty miles an hour. ibid.
The working classes got their first taste of the railway … Cheap excursions were being offered. ibid.
As the investors vowed never to gamble on the railways again, the whole banking system teetered on the edge. The government had to step in. ibid.
Britain begins to export the railways to the rest of the world. ibid.
‘The man who discovered how to power the world ... was James Watt, and his steam engine was to drive the industrial revolution.’ Genius of Britain II: A Roomful of Brilliant Minds, James Dyson, Channel 4 2012
The answer was to cool and condense the steam in a separate chamber outside the main cylinder. ibid.
Watt’s monsters throbbed day and night. ibid.
James Watt’s invention changed the world ... This was the start of the Industrial Revolution. ibid.
The steam-engine – invented in England in the early eighteenth century and perfected by James Watt. Michael Wood, The Great British Story: A People’s History 7/8: Industry and Empire, BBC 2012
In the 18th century, James Hargreaves invented the Spinning Jenny, and Richard Arkwright pioneered the water-propelled spinning frame which led to the mass production of cotton. This was truly revolutionary. The cotton manufacturers created a whole new class of people – the urban proletariat. The structure of society itself would never be the same. A N Wilson
Britain leads the world in manufacture, trade and engineering. But at a terrible human cost. The British VI: Tale of Two Cities, Sky Atlantic 2012
I turn my eyes to the Schools and Universities of Europe,
And there behold the Loom of Locke, whose Woof rages dire,
Wash’d by the Water-wheels of Newton: black the cloth
In heavy wreaths folds over every Nation: cruel Works
Of many Wheels I view, wheel without wheel, with cogs tyrannic,
Moving by compulsion each other; not as those in Eden, which,
Wheel within wheel, in freedom revolve, in harmony and peace. William Blake, Selections from ‘Jerusalem’
British bridges are world renowned. Monumental superstructures built by the best engineering brains in the country. How Britain Bridges the World, Channel 5 2016
Gateshead Millennium Bridge ... The first and only tilting bridge in the world. ibid.
Sky Bridge in the picturesque highlands of Scotland is another groundbreaker in bridging Britain. Its arched girder pushes the free cantilever method with its incredible 250 metre span. ibid.
London’s Millennium Bridge is the first new crossing over the River Thames for more than a century ... 325 metres long and 4 metres wide steel blade. ibid.
This is the Millau Viaduct in France ... the tallest towers, the highest pylons and the highest road deck. ibid.
Two thousand years old. An engineering miracle. A stadium for fifty thousand people. Here stars were made. Lives were ended. It revealed the glory of Rome, but also its ugly heart ... Rome built the Colosseum and the entertainment industry. Rome Revealed: Blood in the Sand, National Geographic 2010
It takes three and a half million cubic feet of stone. Marble cladding. Statues. Evidence suggests that water is piped to drinking fountains – as many as forty-four per level. ibid.
The strongest creative impulse at the time didn’t go into architecture but into engineering. Kenneth Clarke, Civilisation 13/13: Heroic Materialism, BBC 1969
Isambard Kingdom Brunel: he was a born romantic ... He remained all his life in love with the impossible. ibid.
The aqueduct is powered by gravity: it needs to drop one foot in every three hundred. Mankind: The Story of All of Us III, History Channel 2012
Rome’s aqueducts will deliver almost a billion litres of water a day. ibid.
In 1930 he [Whittle] patented his design for the world’s first jet engine. The Genius of Invention II: Speed, BBC 2013
Suck – Squeeze – Bang – Blow = thrust out the back. ibid.
The modern jet engine contains thousands of parts. ibid.
The systems engineering method recognizes each system is an integrated whole even though composed of diverse, specialized structures and sub-functions. It further recognizes that any system has a number of objectives and that the balance between them may differ widely from system to system. The methods seek to optimize the overall system functions according to the weighted objectives and to achieve maximum compatibility of its parts. Harold Chestnut, Systems Engineering Tools
How did the Romans manage to defy gravity and make millions of litres of water flow uphill over mountains? How did the ancient Egyptians carve massive granite obelisks thousands of years before the Washington monument was built? And why would the Roman army build their own mountain? Monuments more colossal than our own … The ancient world was far from primitive. Ancient Impossible s1e1: Moving Mountains, H2 2016