Canadian Transport Sourcebook

CHAPTER II

THE GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY; OR, THE STRUGGLE OF THE GAUGES

When you think of the "G. W. R." you think of Brunel; and when you think of Brunel you have the Broad Gauge, and the Box Tunnel, and Saltash Bridge, and the Great Eastern floating across your mind, and know that here is a man of great ideas and great genius. The mammoth vessel is gone, and the broad-gauge is gone; but each has left behind romantic associations, and a story that loses little of its interest from being retold. The Box Tunnel and Saltash Bridge remain, silent monuments of the master's hand.

Among British railways the G. W. R. is facile princeps as a railway "with a past." That past terminated over thirty years ago, when the last through broad-gauge express left Paddington for Plymouth; it began in 1833, when certain prominent citizens of Bristol determined to connect the great western seaport with London by rail. To put the matter shortly, the history of this line falls into two parts: the first witnesses the birth, growth, struggles, decline, and fall of the "B. G."; the second the triumph and reign of the narrow-gauge, which continues to this day.

Let it be understood that the standard gauge for British, American, French, German, Austrian, Italian, and Canadian railways is 4 feet 8½ inches; that for Russian, 5 feet; for Indian, 5 feet 6 inches; and in some other countries, 3 feet 3 inches. For most of the civilised world, then, 4 feet 8½ inches—the distance between the wheels of the old coal waggons on the ante-locomotive tramways—has been irrevocably adopted: whether wisely or unwisely is a much debated point.

The younger Brunel, however, made up his mind seventy years ago that so narrow a track was too restricted for the lordly locomotive. So when invited to become the engineer of the G. W. R., he spoke up for a 7-foot gauge—and got his way. Unfortunately for his decision, it came too late in the history of the railway, so many miles of the narrower track already stretched across the country north and south, east and west. It—the broad—was born into a narrow-gauge world; and the narrow-gauge throttled it, as the infant Hercules strangled the serpent; but not until the serpent had fought long and hard for its life. Few, if any, chapters of "Life on the Line" are more interesting than that dealing with this conflict.

The Great Western received its charter in 1835, and construction began the same year. By 1849 the broad-gauge had reached Bristol, whence a few years later the Bristol & Exeter Railway carried the trains to the latter city. The South Devon to Plymouth was opened in 1846, and the Cornwall Railway to Truro in 1859. These were gradually amalgamated with the Great Western Railway, which by 1878 had a through track of its own from Paddington (London) to Penance—all, of course, broad-gauge.

Mr. Brunel's chief reason for adopting the 7-foot gauge was that it would enable a coach 6 feet 6 inches wide to be slung between the wheels, which, in, consequence, could be made much larger than the narrow-gauge wheels—of necessity placed under the vehicles they carried. As a matter of fact, outside wheels were employed in only one carriage built, as it soon became evident that 78 inches was much too limited a breadth for comfortable and economical passenger traffic. In 1838 a certain section of the shareholders raised objections to the broad-gauge, but Mr. Brunel in a long report stated his case so well that, on the matter being put to the vote, the broad-gauge was adopted as the standard for the main line throughout.

The chief engineering feats on the London to Bristol section were the Maidenhead Bridge and the Box Tunnel. The bridge is notable as one of the finest pieces of brickwork in the British Isles. The two main spans, each of 128 feet, have a spring of only 24¼ feet, which, in the opinion of the critics, was quite insufficient to render the arches safe for traffic. In fact, some people went so far as to say that as soon as the wooden centering of the arches was removed, the whole structure would collapse. A storm did remove the timber work, but in spite of all the croaking the brickwork stood solid, and has been practically untouched ever since. When the G. W. R. was widened from a double to a quadruple track in 1893, Brunel's design was repeated in a bridge running parallel to the old one.

Travellers, while passing over the bridge, are probably too much engaged with the view afforded of the Thames to give thought to the track carrying them across; but the Box Tunnel cannot be thus ignored. This tunnel is, curiously enough, the first on the line, though it does not occur till over ninety-eight miles have been traversed from Paddington. It is said that on one day a year the setting sun shines through the tunnel from end to end, a distance of nearly two miles. Thirty million bricks were used to fine the excavation, from which a million and a half cubic yards of matter was hewn and blasted. The westward-bound express passes through it in a couple of minutes, but an "up" train takes considerably longer, as there is a gradient throughout of 1 in 100. Yet the traveller does not, as it was prophesied in 1834 he would, experience a nausea from the transit, though to the very young and nervous there may be something rather terrific about the sudden plunge from sunlight into the rattle and roar of the dark tunnel. The years 1844 and 1845 were a time of struggles for the broad-gauge. In 1840, as will be remem­bered, a narrow-gauge line had been opened from Birmingham to Gloucester; while in 1844 a broad-gauge line was opened to Gloucester from Bristol. Thus at the meeting-point there was what is termed a "break of gauge," with all the inconveniences of transhipment of goods and changing of passengers from one train to another. Ultimately, after the amalgamation of the three Companies into the Midland system, the latter bought up the Birmingham to Bristol connection, and, as soon as conditions permitted, converted the broad-gauge section to narrow. In 1845 there was a grand fight over the Bill introduced by the G. W. R. to extend the already opened Didcot to Oxford branch to Worcester and Wolverhampton. Mr. Brunel had to justify his gauge in a whole days cross-examination. The Bill received the Royal Assent; but not until a Commission had been demanded for an examination of the whole subject of conflicting gauges, as it was already foreseen that sooner or later there would come a time when the one would prove an Aaron's serpent and swallow the other.

Accordingly, a Commission was appointed, including the Astronomer Royal of the time and a Professor of Mathematics, at whose appointment some criticism was levelled. After evidence had been collected and sifted for seven months the verdict appeared. A few words from the concluding passages give the gist of the whole lengthy report, and may be quoted in extenso.

"We are led to conclude," say the Commissioners, "First, that as regards the safety, accommodation, and convenience of the passengers no decided preference is due to either gauge, but that on the broad-gauge the motion is generally more easy at high velocities.

"Secondly. That in respect of speed, we consider the advantages are with the broad-gauge, but we think the public would be endangered in employing the greater capabilities of the broad-gauge much beyond their present use, except on roads more consolidated and more substantially and perfectly formed than those of the existing lines.

"Thirdly. That in the commercial case of the transport of goods, we believe the narrow-gauge to possess the greater convenience, and to be the more suited to the general track of the country.

"Fourthly. That the broad-gauge involves the greater outlay, and that we have not been able to discover, either in the maintenance of way, in the cost of locomotive power, or in the other annual expenses, any adequate reduction to compensate for the additional first cost. Therefore... we are inclined to consider the narrow-gauge as that which should be preferred for general convenience; and, if it were imperative to produce uniformity, we should recommend that uniformity to be produced by an alteration of the broad to the narrow gauge, more especially when we take into consideration that the extent of the former at present in work is only 274 miles, while that of the latter is not less than 1901 miles."

By permission of the ]   [Baldwin Locomotive Works

A Mighty Locomotive

This powerful engine was built by Messrs. Baldwin for heavy traffic on the Erie Railway. Its total weight is 853,050 lbs. or more than 380 tons. It is of the 2-8-8-8-2 type, that is each of the three sets of eight-driving wheels is coupled together.

The Commissioners, nevertheless, are loth to admit that 4 feet 8½ inches is the best possible gauge. Indeed, they probably felt, with Sir D. Gooch, the G. W. R. locomotive engineer, that, if 7-foot was too wide, 4 feet 8½ inches was too restricted. It is a matter for regret that railway construction is so expensive that trials could not have conclusively settled the standard to everybody's satisfaction before the lines had ramified to such an extent as to make it almost impossible to bring legislation to bear on all the Companies. For the G. W. R. to narrow their gauge was a comparatively easy matter, as will be seen, but for the narrow-gauge people to widen theirs would have entailed the enlargement of many existing tunnels and bridges, driven and built in the first instance at enormous cost.

The G. W. R. authorities had done their utmost in behalf of their cause while the Commission was sitting. Mr. D. Gooch made what is now called a "sporting offer" to pit his locomotives against any that the narrow-gaugers could produce, and to prove where the superiority lay. Trains were to be run with 90, 80, and 70 tons behind the engines. The "enemy" stuck out for 80, 70, and 60 tons as the respective standards, and the G. W. R. Directors agreed to the reduction all round.

The stretch from London to Didcot was the scene of the Broad trials, a level length between York and Darlington of the Narrow, the distances being 53 and 45 miles respectively. We read that the Broad locomotive negotiated the out journey in 64 minutes and the home journey in 61¼, with a train of nearly 82 tons behind the tender, and a strong wind blowing. A 71-ton train showed a little better results with 63½ and 56½ minutes; and a 60-tonner a further improvement with 62½ outwards, though the inward trip took 59 minutes. The statistics are interesting as showing how easily a good engine will take an extra vehicle or two over fairly level country.

The goods train—400 tons—maintained over the same course an average speed of 24 miles an hour.

Now for the Narrow trains. They shirked the 80-ton standard altogether, and began with a 50-ton load, which travelled its course at an average of 3g miles per hour, as compared with the 80-ton G. W. R. 47½ m.p.h. The following day, with a wind astern, the running improved to 48 m.p.h., and a 70-ton train did a 44 m.p.h. trip. It must be understood that the narrow-gauge trains had a "flying start" of 10 or 12 miles an hour, whereas the Broad started from rest. So that the G. W. R. authorities had every reason to be content with the performances of their engines, which had not, like one at least of the opposition "fliers," been built especially for the occasion.

In the face of these results, the broad-gauge advocates were not a little surprised at, the Commissioners verdict. They soon issued pamphlets to give a counterblast to those conclusions, and in 1846 had the satisfaction of receiving permission to construct a broad-gauge line through South Wales and another from a station on the Oxford line to Birmingham, which thus became the converging point of three rival systems the G. W. R., the Midland, and the London 5 Birmingham. At the same time, however, the famous Gauges Act was passed, which henceforward made it illegal "to construct any railway for the conveyance of passengers on any other gauge than 4 feet 8½ inches in Great Britain," though exceptions were made in the case of any future connection between the South Wales Railway and the city of Bristol, the Oxford, Rugby, Wolverhampton Railway, and any connection of the G. W. R. that should be built south of the main line. The narrow-gauge party gained a further victory in 1848, when they persuaded Parliament to compel the introduction of " mixed" broad and narrow gauges on the Oxford–Birmingham line. The G. W. R. authorities decided that the mixture should be effected by laying a third metal for narrow vehicles, the outside, or platform, rail being common to both gauges. Little by little the length of "mixed" line increased. On October 1, 1861, the first narrow-gauge train left Paddington station, bound for Birmingham, and by 1874 "narrow" metals extended to Exeter, where transhipments had to be effected for the South Devon and Cornwall stretches, which remained pure broad till their final conversion to narrow in 1892.

Though a special chapter has been reserved for a description of typical locomotives, mention should here be made to the broad-gauge engines designed by Mr. D. Gooch in 1846, and following years, as a set-off against the improved narrow-gauge engines being then introduced by Stephenson and others. The first locomotive of the series, the "Great Western" was built in thirteen weeks at the G. W. R. works. It had cylinders of 18-inch bore and 24-inch stroke, fed from a boiler with 1751 square feet of heating surface. The driving wheels were 8 feet in diameter, and the engine and tender together weighed 45 tons.

This fine locomotive soon attracted attention. Mr. G. A. Seton, in his interesting "History of the Great Western Railway," writes (pp. 184 foll.):—

"One of its first remarkable trips was from Paddington to Swindon and back with a train of fourteen carriages, weighing zoo tons, the entire journey performed at an average travelling speed of 57 miles an hour. On another occasion she took the 9.45 A.M. express from Paddington to Exeter, 193¾ miles, in 3 hours 28 minutes, or at the rate of 53 miles an hour for the whole journey. On Saturday, 13th June, 1846, a sensational trip was made. . . . The train (the 'Great Western') weighed 100 tons, and consisted of ten first-class carriages, seven of which were ballasted with iron, the other three being occupied by the Directors and those interested in the experiment. The train started from Paddington at 11 hours 47 minutes 52 seconds; at Didcot a stop of 5¼ minutes was made; Swindon was reached in 78 minutes. After staying there 4 minutes 27 seconds the journey was continued to Bristol, the whole distance of 118½ miles being covered in 2 hours 12 minutes, or at the rate of 54 miles an hour, or, excluding the 9¾ minutes spent in the two stoppages, at about 59 miles an hour for the complete journey, including the slowing down and getting up speed again on three occasions."

The best bit of travelling recorded on this trip was 10 miles in 9 minutes 8 seconds, or 66 miles an hour.

These times were considerably beaten in 1851, when an express ran regularly from Paddington to Slough (18 miles) in 15½ minutes, or over 70 miles an hour! To-day the best long-distance time on the G.W.R. is to Bath (107 miles) in 105 minutes, or 61.7 miles an hour. It should, however, be re­membered that the train-weight has increased considerably since the forties. It is on record that in these early days an engine-driver offered to take his engine from London to Bristol in one hour if the company would provide for his wife and family in case of the run coming to a disastrous conclusion! The offer was naturally refused, though probably more than one of the Directors secretly wished that circumstances would justify such a trial.

Besides being speedy, they were tough, these old "broad-gaugers." One of them, the "Lightning," during a merry life of thirty-one years, covered 816,601 miles; while nearly a dozen more of the same class exceeded 700,000 miles before being "mended with a new one."

The South Devon Railway, extending from Exeter to Plymouth, is interesting on account both of the route it follows along the seashore near Dawlish, and of the manner in which Brunel decided to propel trains over its metals by the atmospheric system.

From Exeter the railway runs almost due south along the river Exe for about ten miles, then, turning south-west, follows the seacoast another ten miles to Teignmouth, and the estuary of the Teign five more miles to Newton Abbot. It then makes a long inland reach westwards over broken country for the remaining thirty odd miles to Plymouth.

To Teignmouth the line is practically level, but it necessitated considerable embankments, sea-walls, and tunnelling. At Dawlish the railway embankments run between the sea and the town, which is thus cut off from a good view of the rolling waves.

The railway to Newton Abbot was opened in 1847. Along the track ran a fixed iron pipe having on the top a longitudinal slit closed by a valve of leather. One carriage of the train was provided with an arm projecting downwards and passing through the slit into the tube, where it terminated in a piston. At the extremities of the line stood large pumping engines to exhaust the air from the tube on. that side of the piston facing the direction in which the train was to travel. The vacuum thus produced caused the air on the other side of the piston to exert a pressure of nearly fourteen pounds to the square inch, and the impulse transmitted by the arm to the carriage was sufficient to propel a light train at as high a speed as Jo miles an hour. In order to maintain a vacuum in the tube, it was, of course, necessary that the slit should be closed by a flexible tongue of leather that would allow the passage of the arm, while admitting a minimum quantity of air.

On January 10, 1848, "all the trains except the first and last each way commenced running by atmospheric power, and the trial fully answered all the expectations. Notwithstanding the disadvantages attending the commencement of every new undertaking, not a single instance of stopping or delay occurred on the new piece of road from Teignmouth to Newton. On the first day the express train was unusually heavy, and it started from Newton six minutes after its proper time, but reached Exeter at the regular period, gaining six minutes on the 20 miles. On the 12th the down express train was thirty minutes late at Exeter, but on arriving at Newton ten minutes had been recovered—so much, therefore, in praise of the system." On 29th February the general meeting of the Company was held, and the Chairman then stated: "The atmospheric had proved so successful that the locomotive had been entirely withdrawn from the line between Newton and Exeter. Out of 884 trains which had then been run, 790 had either gained time or performed the Romance of Moder journey in the exact time. Of the remainder, 70 lost from one to five minutes, 14 from six to ten minutes, 3 from eleven to fifteen minutes, and from sixteen minutes and upwards."¹

All this sounded very satisfactory, and we may imagine the disgust of the shareholders when, at the end of the first six months of 1848, the Directors announced that, as the result of a report by Mr. Brunel on the condition of the atmospheric system plant, they had decided to replace it by steam locomotive power 1 The longitudinal valve, upon the proper action of which depended the possibility of maintaining a vacuum in the piston tube, had been so deteriorated by but a single year's traffic that it required renewing, at a cost of £1600 per mile; and the Directors, rather than face the yearly repetition of such a charge, preferred to sacrifice the hundreds of thousands of pounds already expended. That they were justified in their decision is now evident, since on no line where the atmospheric system has been installed has it not ultimately given place to the locomotive. In this case the abandonment must have come when the South Devon and Great Western lines amalgamated, seeing that a "break of propulsive system" would have proved inconvenient for all through track.

The Cornwall Railway, from Falmouth to Plymouth, was not opened till 1859. It contains one peculiarly interesting engineering feat in the great suspension bridge which crosses the Tamar estuary near Saltash. In the designing of this bridge Brunel fully regained the reputation lost over the "atmospheric" fiasco of the South Devon Railway.

The two main spans of the bridge are each 455 feet long—only 5 feet less than the spans of Stephenson's famous tubular bridge over the Menai Straits. These rested on three masonry piers, two of which were built up from foundations in the shallow water at the estuary sides, the third rising from a point in mid-channel. To make a firm foundation for the central pier it was necessary to pierce deep mud down to hard rock by means of a circular caisson 35 feet in internal diameter. This was gradually sunk until its lower edge rested on the greenstone bed of the river; and as soon as the mud had been cleared out and all influx of water stopped, the masons bonded in the lowest course of granite ashlar work, and built up to a point 12 feet above high-water level. The top part of the caisson was then removed in two parts, leaving the masonry exposed to view.

The great trusses for the main spans were a combination of arch and suspension chains, the outward thrust of the former exactly counterbalancing the inward pull of the latter. The track platform was attached to both elements by vertical bars.

After being built on land the trusses were launched on iron pontoons and in turn warped, by means of ropes and chains, into position over the pier foun­dations. The pontoons were then sunk sufficiently to let the truss ends down on to the piers. At each extremity three very powerful hydraulic rams lifted the truss a few feet at a time, while the masons built in the gap. The jacks were then placed on the top of the new course, and the process was repeated until the full height had been reached. The Royal Albert Bridge, as it was named after the Prince Consort, was opened on May 3, 1859.

The important South Wales line, joining the Great Western Railway system at Bristol was first put into direct communication with London on September 5, 1885, when a train passed through the famous Severn Tunnel carrying the Chairman of the Great Western and a party of friends. This, the longest tunnel in the British Isles, runs for a distance of 42 miles under the Severn bed between Sudbrook in Gloucestershire and Portskewett in Wales. The difficulties of constructing the tunnel may justly be described as enormous, owing to the inrush of fresh water from subterranean springs, and an incursion of the sea after an exceptionally high tide. Mr. T. A. Walker, the contractor for the main part of the work, considered that "one such tunnel was sufficient for a single lifetime." The tunnel consumed over 77,000,000 bricks for its 27-inch thick lining, and the laying of these occupied fourteen years. Though the "headings" had to be driven from both sides of the river on a falling gradient to a short level stretch under the bed, the calculations were so well worked out that "no deviation from absolute straightness could be detected by instruments."¹

Years before the completion of this, the most important of all the G. W. R. engineering achievements, the doom of the broad-gauge had been foreshadowed. In 1868 the line between Wycombe and Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire was converted to narrow-gauge. Then every year saw more conversions made on the branch lines to Oxford from Maidenhead, from Oxford to Wolverhampton, Didcot to Oxford, Bristol to Milford, Twyford to Henley hundreds of miles in all. The final doom of Brunel's gauge came in 1892. On May 20, 1892, the last broad-gauge train left Paddington for Penance. It has been said that there is something sad about doing anything for the last time. And no doubt it was a feeling of genuine sentiment which on that day attracted a crowd to the London terminus to witness the closing of the last chapter in broad-gauge through traffic. At all the principal stations on the route farewell cheers were sent after the train as it swung out of the platforms.

Now followed the conversion of the 106¼ miles from Truro to Exeter and the western broad-gauge connections. In order to reduce to a minimum the dislocation of traffic, arrangements were made whereby an army of over four thousand men was distributed over the scene of operations. Every detail had been thought out carefully; each man knew exactly what he had to do. At daybreak on May 21, 1892, the work began of slewing the inside metals 27½ inches towards the outside of the track. By nightfall the broad-gauge was dead: the moved rails had not, of course, been permanently fixed in position, but narrow-gauge trains could now pass from Paddington to Plymouth. Two days later the great army dispersed.

Since 1892 the Broad metals of the mixed-gauge portions of the main line have been removed, and the longitudinal replaced by transverse sleepers, which are said to give more elastic running, and are certainly more convenient to handle than the heavy timber baulks carrying the broad-gauge. Here and there, in sidings, one may still see the old "mixture," a memento of the Great Western's youth.