A History of Inland Transport and Communication in England

by Edwin A. Pratt

The first attempt to overcome the difficulties of the situation was in the direction of laying parallel courses of stone or wood for the waggon wheels to run upon; but here we have the equivalent of a partially-paved roadway rather than of actual rails. The latter came when the parallel wheel-courses of wood were reduced to what William Hutchinson, in his "View of Northumberland" (1778), calls "strings of wood," for the accommodation of "large unwieldy carriages or waggons."

Nicholas Wood says that these wooden rails had a length of about six feet, and were five or six inches in thickness, with a breadth of about the same proportions. They were pegged down to sleepers placed across the track at a distance of about two feet apart, so that one rail reached across three sleepers. The spaces between the sleepers were filled in with ashes or small stones, to protect the feet of the horses. The waggons were in the form of a hopper, being much broader and longer at the top than at the bottom. At first all four wheels of the waggon were made either of one entire piece of wood or of two or three pieces of wood fastened together, the rim, in either case, being so shaped as to have on one side a projection, or flange, which would keep the wheel on the rails.

This, then, was the earliest example of a railway—the fundamental principle of which is, of course, the use of rails to facilitate the drawing or the propulsion of a moving body, and not the particular form of motive power (however great the importance, in actual practice, of this matter of detail) by which the traction is secured.

The date of the first "rail-way" (so called) in the form described, and in accordance with the principle mentioned, is uncertain; but Galloway, in his "History of Coal Mining," mentions a document dated 1660 which refers to a sale of timber used in the construction of waggon-ways; while Roger North, writing in 1676, describes the then existing railways in terms which suggest that they were, at that date, a well-established institution. Speaking generally, therefore, one may assume that the pioneer rail-ways were brought into operation somewhere about the middle of the seventeenth century—if not still earlier. Taking 1650 as an approximate date, this would mean that the first rail-way must have been made about one hundred and eighty years before the opening of that Liverpool and Manchester line with which the history of railways is often assumed to have begun.

Hutchinson speaks of the collieries on the Tyne as being, at the time he wrote (1778), "about twenty-four in number," and he further says of them that they "lie at considerable distances from the river." On account of these considerable distances the colliery managers had to secure way-leaves for their rail-ways from the owners of intervening land, so as to obtain access to the Tyne. Thus Roger North, in the account he gives of the railways in the Newcastle district, says: "When men have pieces of land between the collieries and the rivers, they sell leave to lead coals over their ground, and so dear that the owner of a rood of ground will expect 20l. per annum for this leave." In some instances the total payment for a way-leave seems to have amounted to £500 a year. Statutory powers were not required for the rail-ways so long as they were used only for private purposes, though when they crossed a public road the assent of the local authorities was necessary.

The rails, sleepers and wheels, all of wood, came mostly from Sussex or Hampshire, and the writer of an article on the Tyne railways, published in the "Commercial and Agricultural Magazine" for October, 1800, speaks of the use on them of so much timber as "the more extraordinary" because the necessities of the coal mines had previously "used up every stick of timber in the neighbourhood," so that "the import from returning colliers (coal-ships) was the sole resource." Such import, also, would appear to have been considerable, the making of wooden rail-ways on the north-east coast being the means of developing an important industry in rails and wheels in the southern counties.

One of the importers on the Tyne was William Scott, father of Lords Stowell and Eldon, and his "Letters," included in M. A. Richardson's "Reprints of Rare Tracts" (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1849), give some interesting details on the subject. Scott, in addition to being himself engaged in mining, acted as agent for southern producers of wooden rails and wheels for colliery rail-ways; and his letters show that in and about the year 1745 the consignments were coming to hand in "immense quantities." Scott seems to have had great trouble in restraining the zeal of the southerners. He tells one correspondent that "Wheels are at present a great drug from so many yt. came last year. Rails will be wanted, but the people pays so badly for them that wo^d weary eny body to serve them." To another he says: "I find the best oak rails will scarcely give 6d. p yd this year." To correspondents at Lyndhurst, New Forest, he writes: "I fancy the dealers in wn. wheels will expect to have wheels soon 'em given, if such great numbers continue coming." Mr West, of Slyndon, near Arundel, Sussex, is told that not more than five shillings can be got for the best wooden wheels, and that "dealers are so full that they have not room for any wheels." On March 27, 1747, Scott writes concerning wheels: "No less than about 2000 com'd within these 14 days from Lyndhurst consign'd to different people"; and two months later he announces that he has resolved to receive "no more such goods as wooden wheels, rails and such like from anybody."

Most of the Tyne collieries were at a higher level than the river, and in the construction of the rail-ways it was sought to obtain a regular and easy descent, regardless of route or distance, to the "staith," or shipping-stage, from which the coal would be loaded either into the keels (barges) employed to take it along the river to the colliers, or, in the case of longer distance rail-ways, direct into the collier itself, the bottom of the waggons being made after the fashion of a trap-door to facilitate discharge. Gradual descent was further aimed at because it allowed of the loaded waggons moving along the rail-way by reason of their own weight.

How this prototype both of the railway and of express trains as known to us to-day was operated is well shown in a "Description of a Coal-Waggon," with an accompanying illustration, contributed to the "General Magazine of Arts and Sciences" for June, 1764, by John Buddie, of Chester-le-street, Durham, who subsequently became manager of the Wallsend Colliery. In the illustration a horse is depicted drawing, by means of two ropes fastened to its collar, a loaded four-wheeled coal waggon along a rail-way preceded by a man who, having a bundle of hay underneath one arm, holds some of the hay a few inches in front of the horse so that the animal, stretching forward to get the hay, draws along the waggon more readily. Buddle explains that the waggon is "conducted or drove by a single man, called the Waggon-man, whose most common action on the road is, inticing the horse forward with a bit of hay in his hand, which he supplies from under his arm, a quantity of hay sufficient for a day being kept in the Hay-poke," that is, in a receptacle at the back of the waggon. Suspended over one of the hind wheels is a "convoy," or brake, formed of a curved and strong-looking piece of wood (described in the text as alder-wood), which is attached at one end to the waggon, and held in a loop at the other. "Its use," says Buddle, "is to regulate the motion of the waggon down the sides of the hills (called by the waggon men runs) making it uniform.... The waggon-man, taking the end out of the loop, lets it down upon the wheel, and, placing himself astride upon the end, with one foot on the waggon-soal he presses more or less, according to the declivity of the run; the Convoy acting at that time as a leaver."

Buddle further says: "Waggon men, in going down very steep Runs, commonly take their horses from before, and fasten them behind their waggons,[^[27]] as they would inevitably be killed was the convoy to break (which frequently happens) or any other accident occasion these waggons to run amain. Nor is this fatal consequence attendant only on the horses, but the drivers often receive broken bones, bruises, and frequently the most excruciating deaths. Indeed, in some places, a most humane custom is established, which is, when any waggon-man loses his horse, the other Waggon-men go a Gait for the poor sufferer, which is little out of their profits, and purchase him another horse."