For Fred the greatest of the Victorian engineers was Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Fred Dibnah’s World of Steam, Steel and Stone e9: Changing the Landscape
The canals were like the arteries of the Industrial Revolution. They helped to provide cheaper goods and raw materials. ibid.
By the middle of the nineteenth century we were constructing some magnificent spinning mills with beautiful chimney stacks. Fred Dibnah’s World of Steam, Steal and Stone s1e10: Great British Builders
With this business of jettying, they actually protrude over the wall ... There’s nothing in between me and the moat, only these floorboards ... You can get a room maybe as much as eight or nine feet bigger than you would inside the actual stone walls. ibid.
The thing that distinguishes these great Norman cathedrals from the Saxon buildings they replaced is the sheer size and scale of them. ibid.
Three tiers of arches! And all quite slender really. ibid.
All for the glory of God. ibid.
This love of fine craftsmanship led us to a greater appreciation of the skills of craftsman of the past, and of the work of craftsmen and women today who carry on the traditions. Fred Dibnah’s World of Steam, Steal and Stone s1e11: Masters of Their Trade
‘Fred will have opened the eyes of lots of people to the joy of craftsmanship, and the small-scale perfection people put into things.’ ibid. John Yates, English Heritage
Fred Dibnah’s real heroes were the ordinary workers and labourers of the people like him who got their hands dirty. From the labourers and stone masons who built great medieval castles and cathedrals to twentieth century coal miners, mill workers and steel workers. He will always be remembered for the respect he had for all those people who made their living for making things. Wherever Fred went it was always the workers he related to. Fred Dibnah’s World of Steam, Steal and Stone s1e12: A Good Day’s Work
They’re magnificent on a moon-lit night. Fred Dibnah’s Railway Collection e5: The Great Days of Steam, 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 e6
In 1955 the first Diesel locomotive – Deltic – was built, and singled 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.
Steam power is one of history’s great leaps forward. Dr Lucy Worsley, Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency 3/3, BBC 2011
Britain had pioneered the age of Steam. Empires: Queen Victoria’s Empire I: Engines of Change, PBS 2000
They had pioneered the age of steam. They made more than half the world’s industrial goods, and three-quarters the world’s trade was carried in British ships. But despite this success Victoria’s cities were pits of poverty and deprivation. Empires: Queen Victoria’s Empire III: The Moral Crusade
This locomotive was built in 1957 and was the pinnacle of steam engineering. Mark Williams, On the Rails s1e1: 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.
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