The Midland Railway was a favourite line of Mr. Stephenson’s for several reasons. It passed through a rich mining district, in which it opened up many valuable coalfields, and it formed part of the great main line of communication between London and Edinburgh. The Act was obtained in 1836, and the first ground was broken in February, 1837.
Although the Midland Railway was only one of the many great works of the same kind executed at that time, it was almost enough of itself to be the achievement of a life. Compare it, for example with Napoleon’s military road over the Simplon, and it will at once be seen how greatly it excels that work, not only in the constructive skill displayed in it, but also in its cost and magnitude, and the amount of labour employed in its formation. The road of the Simplon is 45 miles in length; the North Midland Railway is 72½ miles. The former has 50 bridges and 5 tunnels, measuring together 1338 feet in length; the latter has 200 bridges and 7 tunnels, measuring together 11,400 feet, or about 2¼ miles. The former cost about £720,000
sterling, the latter above £3,000,000. Napoleon’s grand military road was constructed in six years, at the public cost of the two great kingdoms of France and Italy; while Stephenson’s railway was formed in about three years, by a company of private merchants and capitalists out of their own funds, and under their own superintendence.
It is scarcely necessary that we should give any account in detail of the North Midland works. The making of one tunnel so much resembles the making of another,—the building of bridges and viaducts, no matter how extensive, so much resembles the building of others,—the cutting out of “dirt,” the blasting of rocks, and the wheeling of excavation into embankments, is so much a matter of mere time and hard work,—that is quite unnecessary for us to detain the reader by any attempt at their description. Of course there were the usual difficulties to encounter and overcome,—but the railway engineer regarded these as mere matters of course, and would probably have been disappointed if they had not presented themselves.
On the Midland, as on other lines, water was the great enemy to be fought against,—water in the Claycross and other tunnels,—water in the boggy or sandy foundations of bridges,—and water in cuttings and embankments. As an illustration of the difficulties of bridge building, we may mention the case of the five-arch bridge over the Derwent, where it took two years’ work, night and day, to get in the foundations of the piers alone. Another curious illustration of the mischief done by water in cuttings may be briefly mentioned. At a part of the North Midland Line, near Ambergate, it was necessary to pass along a hillside in a cutting a few yards deep. As the cutting proceeded, a seam of shale was cut across, lying at an inclination of 6 to 1; and shortly after, the water getting behind the bed of shale, the whole mass of earth along the hill above began to move down across the line of excavation. The accident completely upset the estimates of the contractor, who, instead of 50,000 cubic yards, found that he had about
500,000 to remove; the execution of this part of the railway occupying fifteen months instead of two.
The Oakenshaw cutting near Wakefield was also of a very formidable character. About 600,000 yards of rock shale and bind were quarried out of it, and led to form the adjoining Oakenshaw embankment. The Normanton cutting was almost as heavy, requiring the removal of 400,000 yards of the same kind of excavation into embankment and spoil. But the progress of the works on the line was so rapid in 1839, that not less than 450,000 cubic yards of excavation were removed monthly.
