Page 66 - BBC History The Story of Science & Technology - 2017 UK

Heaven & Earth / Railways

RAILWAY
MILESTONES virtually no compensation. Charles Dickens This project was
writes about this memorably. It was felt that
these people couldn’t be allowed to get in the more significant
1604 way of modernity and so they were left with
The first wagonway in Britain is nowhere to go. than the Great
constructed in the east Midlands by
Huntington Beaumont to help transport Aside from the industrial and Wall of China, the
coal towards the river Trent transport revolutions, how else
did railways affect Britain? Roman road system
1769 They affected the country in virtually every
Scottish inventor James Watt way imaginable. What I find fascinating is or the pyramids
patents a vastly improved steam simply the scale of it. This was one of the
engine. Together with partner Matthew biggest building projects in history, more
Boulton he goes on to make crucial
significant than the Great Wall of China, and hostile and the land became the bridge.
the Roman road system or the pyramids. Entire countries and empires were carved out
developments to steam power
One of the reasons it was so amazing was of this. It’s not an exaggeration to say that
1804 that, unlike those previous projects, it was modern Russia, the USA and Germany were
The world’s first steam locomotive built with private investors’ money. It was created by railways. Without them, they
railway journey takes place in Penydar- the first democratic infrastructure boom wouldn’t have been able to bind these vast,
ren in Wales. The vehicle has been built and that is crucially important. sprawling places into one state.
by Cornish engineer Richard Trevithick
Not a penny of the funding for the early In the end, the railways actually under-
railways came from the public purse. It all mined the legitimacy of the British empire.
1825 came from private individuals, from the very There was a new focus on land communica-
The Stockton and Darlington railway rich right down to people giving a tiny part tion and so it became illegitimate for Britain
opens. Designed by George Stephenson,
it is the world’s first public railway of their meagre paycheck because they to own these territorial possessions on the
wanted to become investors. other side of the world, linked by water.
There was virtually no part of public life America is just as much an empire as the
1829
George and Robert Stephenson’s that remained unaltered. Railways changed British empire was, but because it’s joined
Rocket triumphs in the Rainhill Trials the way people lived and worked, what they and you can travel over it by land there are far
contest to find the best locomotive for the ate and even what they read. Penguin Books fewer questions about its legitimacy. These
Liverpool and Manchester railway that famously originated on a railway platform huge continental-sized nation states were
will open the following year and WHSmith developed through railways. developed – and Britain, in the end, simply
They give birth to the consumer revolution. could not compete.
1840s Thomas Cook’s travel agency was born on
Railway mania takes hold the railways. His first expedition was a Did the railways also create
in Britain. By 1854 the network temperance excursion and he went on to a new mentality in Britain?
stretches over 6,000 miles make vast amounts of money taking people They created a national mentality in many
to the seaside on trains. ways. Railways bind people together,
However, the railways were also the enfant enabling them to organise themselves
1853
The Crimean War begins. During terrible of the 19th century because no one nationally, quickly. Trade union activism
the conflict, Britain creates the really knew where it would end. The railway and Chartism, for example, would have been
mania eventually brought about the impossible without the railways. Newspapers
Grand Crimean Central Railway
to aid with logistics legendary financial collapse of 1866. It could travel around the country almost
brought the British banking system to its instantaneously and there was a huge
knees. Not even Napoleon managed that. movement of goods and people, which
1914 As someone who has studied the navy and brought about a nation state where one
The First World War sees railways maritime history, I am also conscious of the had not existed previously.
playing a crucial role for
the combatants in the transportation way railways inverted our understanding of Railways also introduced a national time.
of food and other materials how the world works. Before the 19th Various towns around Britain once had their
century, human beings were largely a littoral own time zones, which was fine then, but
species. We lived along coastlines and rivers. when you have train timetables you need to
1938 The great cities of the world like London, have a national timetable. The time in
The British train Mallard sets Paris, Beijing and New York were dependent London became the time everywhere else.
a world record speed of 126mph. This on waterborne transport for their trade. The
remains a record for a steam locomotive sea was a bridge linking one place to another What did the railways mean for
and it was actually the land that was hostile. Britain as a military power?
The Pennines were virtually impassable, They had a huge impact, starting with the
1948
Britain’s railways are nationalised but if you were in Newcastle you could sail Crimean War. They were vital in the First
by the Labour government at a time to London no problem. World War, where millions of tonnes of
when motor cars are beginning to Yet, within a generation, the railways supplies were carried to the battlefield on rail.
supersede train travel carved links to the landscape that forever The early tanks, for example, couldn’t
changed the way we thought about our place possibly go over land all the way between
in the world. Suddenly we saw the sea as slow battlefields, so they were all carried on the

66 The Story of Science & Technology