This may be as close as we get to the Little Bang - that first run-out of slack, on the very first consist in history, which brought us all that beloved maxi-series of more than two centuries: Railroads.
In effect, this is Season 1, Episode 1.
I didn't expect to be back here so soon, but aimless research sometimes leads to unexpected results. Here we are again at Newcastle-on-Tyne in the north of England. Our favourite brakeman has a full service application on his train of coal as he descends the grade to his objective terminal staith. (Staith is explained later.)
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| from: Early Railways; JB Snell; 1964; Weidenfeld & Nicolson. |
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| from: The Coal and Iron Industries of the United Kingston; Richard Meade; 1882; Crosby Lockwood. archive.org https://archive.org/details/cu31924004666404/page/n4/mode/1up |
Newcastle is hard to see in the cross-hatching, but if you find Iron Ore Workings on the map title and look to the left, it is just up the Tyne River from Tynemouth.
Below is the masthead of the railway publication which - over the ages - evolved into Railway Age.
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| from: American Rail-Road Journal Vol 1, No 1 ; 2 January 1832. archive.org https://archive.org/details/sim_railway-locomotives-and-cars_1832-01-02_1_1/mode/1up |
In the first edition of this long-running series of railway publications, the American publishers chose to present the earliest historical-technical research they knew of to interpret the origin of railways ...
from: Wikipedia, "Nicholas Wood" ...
"Nicholas Wood FGS FRS (24 April 1795 – 19 December 1865) was an English colliery and steam locomotive engineer. He helped engineer and design many steps forward in both engineering and mining safety, and helped bring about the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers, holding the position of president from its inauguration to his death."
Link to the book at archive.org:
There are a couple of copies of Chorographia, Survey of Newcastle at archive.org. I have linked the original. The passages referred to above about Beaumont appear on Page 25 ... of the original document.
Archive.org link to Page 25
This was Huntington Beaumont (1560-1624) who introduced wooden wagonways to the Newcastle area circa 1621 after he had constructed one in Nottinghamshire.
From about 1650 to the 1770s wooden wagonways (horse-powered rail-ways) were the dominant method of moving coal from the Newcastle mines to the staiths.
The wagon in the top image looks the same as a 'chaldron'.
At the end of the following paragraph, I'll 'translate' their track structure into a modernized point form.
... Don't get discouraged ...
- Where the grade is generally constant, a roadbed which is 6 feet wide is excavated - with some light levelling, if required.
- Oak ties, 4-8 inches square are spaced at an interval of 2-3 feet. As long as the ends are squared, the rest of the tie requires no additional shaping.
- Rails (really: simple boards) are made of wood, 6-7 inches wide, 5 inches inches high and wooden pegs are used as spikes.
- The gauge is four feet. [Insert your joke that old standards are generally determined by "horse's behinds" ... if you must!]
* * *
Below: But ... they found that the wooden rails wore down quickly, and broke before they were completely worn out. Furthermore, because of the 'standard gauge', the 'spike holes' became reamed out from repeated re-spiking, and so the ties were condemned too early - only because of this weakness.
So, still using wood, they developed a 'double way' which maintained a long-term structural lower rail and a short-term wearing upper rail.
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| from: Views on the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway; John Blackmore; 1836; Currie & Bowman. https://archive.org/details/viewsonnewcastle00blac/page/n4/mode/1up |
I think this view is looking down the Tyne River, with Newcastle on the left bank.
The view above, is virtually contemporary with the date of this publication and the beginning of Canada's railway age - although our very first railways were simply 'portage lines' which connected established steamboat routes.
- The evolved double-way employed 6-foot oak ties, 5-6 inches square, with a 2-foot spacing.
- The lower-rail was 6 feet long, first oak ... fir was later adopted ... 5 inches wide, 4-5 inches high.
- The lower-rail was then tamped to provide support (ashes or earth).
- The upper-rail was about the same dimensions and made of beech or plane trees.
- They still used wooden 'spikes' to fasten the rails-ties.
- The centre of the track was filled with ash or stone ballast and this solved the problem of horses' shoes causing premature tie destruction. The horses were often rough-shod for better traction in the winter.
Below is another example of the ability of smooth rails
to increase the capacity of land transportation ...
- The wood-railed railroad (compared to the original colliery roads without rails) increased what a horse could pull down to the staiths from 1700 pounds up to 4200 pounds - moving roughly an additional 150% - and this became the new 'standard load'.
- In fact, during the classic era of the wagonways circa 1650-1770s, the capacity of a single horse might have been considerably higher.
Have a look at this map from 1812.
The blog software is making things difficult to size in the usual predictable way.
Below the map, I have enlarged some map details for clarity.
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| from: The Picture of Newcastle upon Tyne; 1812; D Akenhead & Sons. archive.org https://archive.org/details/pictureofnewcast00newc/page/n8/mode/1up |
Above: "NB. the Waggon ways from the Collieries to the Staiths on each River are represented by dotted Lines."
Above: You can see a couple of areas in which the wagon ways (I assume they are generally horse-powered railways) are particularly dense. In some cases, the original map shows areas of double track.
As you probably know, staiths - illustrated at the end - were special loading cranes used at coal docks.
And please award yourself 100 bonus points if you noticed that the mine depths are often recorded on the map in fathoms (Fa) .
The article, reprinted from Nicholas Wood's book (1825) concludes below, remarking on the limited use of iron on these wagon ways.
Here is a particularly nice overview of staiths.
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| from: Fossil Fuel, the Collieries and Coal Trade; John Holland; 1835; Whittaker & Co. archive.org https://archive.org/details/historydescripti00holluoft/page/n6/mode/1up |
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