Autobiography of Sir John Rennie, F.R.S 60

Autobiography of Sir John Rennie, F.R.S 60

In company with my friend Mr. George Remington, I designed the direct

London and Manchester Railway in the years 1844-45; this line would have

reduced the distance between London and Manchester to 176 miles, besides

affording railway communication to a number of the intermediate towns,

such as Bradford, Burton, Leicester, Congleton, and other places that

had not hitherto received the benefit of direct railway accommodation.

This line was pronounced by the Board of Trade to be the most important

and best laid down line that had been brought before Parliament, and

was strongly recommended by them; and it would have been carried, but

unfortunately there was another competing line by Mr. Rastrick, that was

ultimately abandoned by its promoters, who, before doing so, united with

us; but in doing this the reference books containing the names of the

owners and occupiers along both lines became mixed, and the result was,

that seven miles of the reference of the competing line was substituted

for seven miles of our line, and _vice versâ_. This was fatal, and the

Bill was consequently lost; and this valuable line, almost the best of

any in England, could never be resuscitated. The North-Western Railway,

thinking that they were safe from all competition, declined taking up

the line, though their interest imperatively called upon them to do so,

and further, would not unite with nor buy up the Midland from Leeds to

Rugby. The Midland Company then determined to make an independent line to

London, and took the identical course laid down by Remington and myself.

They have become a very formidable rival to the North-Western, and this

is precisely a similar case to that between the South-Eastern and the

London, Chatham, and Dover Companies. If the South-Eastern Company had

only adopted my Central Kent line, which was laid down in 1838, before

they had commenced their present line--and they promised to do so--the

London, Chatham, and Dover Railway would never have been made, and the

county of Kent would have been better served, many millions would have

been saved, and many thousand unfortunate shareholders would have avoided

ruin.

 

I laid down lines for the kingdoms of Sweden and Portugal, which have

been more or less adopted, and projected a line from Odessa to Moscow.

Also the London, Brighton, and South Coast as far as Salisbury, and from

thence to Warminster, which has since been adopted. A line from London

to Birmingham, Leeds, and Carlisle; Leeds and Bradford; Dumfries and

Port Patrick; Newry and Enniskillen, in Ireland; Bangor to Port Dyllaen,

North Wales; Cannock Chase line, in Staffordshire, through an undeveloped

coal district, another of my lines which has since been carried into

effect. The East Lincoln, from Lynn to Great Grimsby; the direct London

and Norwich, from Bishop’s Stortford to Thetford, which would have

shortened the distance between London and Norwich and Yarmouth. All these

lines were laid upon the direct principle, that is, taking the shortest

distance that the nature of the intervening country would permit between

the two termini; this principle is now proved to be the correct one, and

if it had only been acted upon before, we may readily conceive the vast

amount of capital which would have been saved, while the counties through

which railways have been made would have received a much greater benefit;

whereas, by the system which has hitherto been adopted, a great number of

unnecessary lines have been constructed, and a constant competition and

rivalry have taken place between the different companies, and now, with

reduced dividends and increased charges, they find out their error, when

it is too late to be remedied.

 

Another most important error has been committed by a too narrow gauge

having been adopted. My brother and myself, when we carried the Bill for

the Manchester and Liverpool through Parliament, in the year 1826--and

this may be considered almost the very commencement of the railway

system--after investigating the width between all the various carriage

wheels, whether for goods or passengers, we decided that the width of

gauge from centre to centre of the rails should be 5 feet 6 inches or 6

feet. When Mr. George Stephenson became the engineer for executing the

line, he decided that the gauge should be only 4 feet 8½ inches from

centre to centre of the railway, for no other reason than that the gauge

between the old colliery rails was 4 feet 8½ inches; hence arose all the

subsequent difficulties. It was quite clear that 4 feet 8½ inches was too

narrow. Brunel, seizing on this mistake, proposed at once to make the

gauge 7 feet from centre to centre of the rails for the Great Western

Railway. This was as evidently too much as Stephenson’s was too little.

The power of a locomotive engine is in proportion to its weight, and

the greater the weight the greater the power, acting as it does by its

adhesion to the rails; and to increase the power of an engine upon the

narrow gauge could only be done with safety by increasing its length;

for if it be done by increasing the height, the centre of gravity would

be raised also, and the motion of the engine would be rendered unsteady;

and by increasing the length the engine would be less adapted for going

round sharp curves. Now in the ordinary traffic of goods, such as

coals, &c., extraordinary velocity was not required, and therefore the

width of the gauge was not of so much consequence, but when it came to

carrying passengers the case was wholly altered. Latterly the coaches

and mails had travelled at the rate of 10 and 12 miles an hour, whereas

goods were seldom carried at the rate of more than 3 miles an hour. If

passengers were to travel by railway it would not be less than 12 miles

an hour, and therefore it was at length necessary to provide for this

velocity, and more; otherwise, as there was a certain prejudice on the

outset against railway travelling, the latter could not expect to have

the preference. But when it was ascertained, as it was at the trial of

engines upon the Rainhill plane of the Manchester and Liverpool Railway,

that the imperfect locomotives of that day could go at the rate of 30

miles an hour, the whole case was changed; the carriage of goods, which

at first was most important, gave way to that of carrying passengers,

and it was evident that the whole system of locomotion, whether of

goods or passengers, must be absorbed by railways. It was therefore

more especially necessary that the question of the gauge should be most

carefully considered. I may be answered, certainly, that the improved

locomotive engines upon the narrow gauge realize a speed of 50 to 60

miles an hour, and this is fast enough for anything; but then this cannot

be done without incurring greater risk than upon a broader gauge. The

Great Western realize a speed of 45 miles an hour without the least risk,

i.e. including stoppages, whereas the narrow gauge does not do more than

35 to 37 miles an hour, and that probably with a greater wear and tear of

the rails. A medium therefore between the two gauges, that is 5 feet 6

inches or 6 feet, instead of 4 feet 8½ inches or 7 feet, appeared to my

brother and self the proper gauge; and if such had been adopted we should

never have heard of the 7-feet gauge, and the 5 feet 6 inches or 6-feet

gauge would have been universally adopted, to the great advantage of all.

 

Before leaving railways, it may be proper to say something about the

atmospheric system. When an experiment was made on a large scale and

succeeded very well, it was subsequently reduced to practice upon the

Dublin and Bray Railway, between Kingstown and Dalkey, a length of

about 3 miles. Here it succeeded perfectly; the steepest incline was

completely mastered, and the smoothness and luxury of travelling were

unequalled. Brunel afterwards took it up, and employed it upon the South

Devon Railway. There it succeeded also perfectly as far as speed and

luxury of travelling were concerned. The difficulty however of making

the valve in the exhausting tube was so great that it was ultimately

abandoned, after having incurred great expense, and the locomotive system

was again resorted to. The Croydon Railway also adopted it, but gave it

up for the same reason as the South Devon. My brother and myself were

much taken with this system, and made several of the steam engines for

it, that answered their purpose perfectly, and we thought that by a

little more perseverance in it, the difficulties complained of might have

been overcome, but the proprietors would not listen either to Brunel

or ourselves. The Stephensons made a dead set against it, and, taking

the facts at the time, perhaps they were right; but it is very rarely

that a new invention succeeds at the first or second trial: it requires

time to ascertain the defects, and to study more minutely the remedy,

and, after a little while, the cure for the evil is found out. I should

not be surprised if ultimately the atmospheric system comes to life

again: indeed, the very strongest opponents of it have already adopted

it in London, with certain modifications, for conveying the mail bags

in London from the General Post Office to some of the railway stations,

with considerable success, and Mr. Rammell made an experimental line of

this kind at the Crystal Palace. The defects in the original lines were

principally those of workmanship, and can be remedied by degrees, as

is always the case whenever a principle is sound, for it only requires

perseverance to achieve ultimate success.

 

XIV. Drainage of lowlands upon a large scale I have carried into effect

in several instances already described. The completion of the Eau Brink

Cut, the designing and making the Norfolk Estuary Cut below Lynn, and the

Marshland works, by means of which from 350,000 to 400,000 acres of land

are drained; the Nene Estuary Cut, by which about 150,000 acres of land

are drained; the improvement of the Witham between Boston and the sea, by

which the drainage of about 250,000 acres has been materially improved;

the Ancholme drainage, by which 50,000 acres of lowlands have been well

drained; altogether amounting to between 800,000 and 900,000 acres.

 

XV. I may also say that I have embanked from the estuaries of the

Ouse, the Nene, and the Witham, about 6000 acres of fen land, which is

now more or less under cultivation. I have also laid down a plan, at

present being carried into effect, by which 32,000 additional acres

will be embanked from the estuaries of the Ouse and Nene; and another

plan for embanking 45,000 acres from the estuaries of the Welland and

Witham; indeed, my original plan of 1837 was for embanking from 150,000

to 200,000 acres of land from the estuaries of the Ouse, Nene, Welland,

and Witham, and the Great Wash; and I have no doubt that in time this

will be effected, and another large and most valuable county--all rich

agricultural land--will be added to the kingdom. I also obtained an Act

for embanking 32,000 acres from the north side of the estuary of the

Thames, near Shoeburyness. I believe that, in addition to this, three

times the amount may be taken from this and other parts of the Thames

estuary. Let to these be added the lands which may be saved from the

estuaries of the Humber, the Forth, the Tay, the Clyde, the Solway,

Morecambe Bay, and the Mersey, altogether from 500,000 to 600,000 acres

of land may be reclaimed, or three large new counties may be added to the

kingdom, capable of producing annually an additional supply of 3,500,000

quarters of corn, which, at 3_l._ per quarter, would, after deducting

20_s._ per quarter for the cost of production, add a revenue of about

6,000,000_l._ a year to the country. A great deal may be done in this

way also in Ireland. We should, however, deduct a million a year for the

first fifteen years to cover the cost of embankment. The clear annual

gain would be 5,000,000_l._ a year to the country; or, putting it in

another light, the land so acquired would maintain an additional number

of inhabitants. Besides this, large tracts of lowlands adjacent to these

estuaries might be greatly improved in their drainage, in connection with

the reclamation works, which would add considerably to their produce.