In mentioning the name of Brunel, we are reminded of him as the principal rival and competitor of Robert Stephenson. Both were the sons of distinguished men, and both inherited the fame and followed in the footsteps of their fathers. The Stephensons were inventive, practical, and sagacious; the Brunels ingenious, imaginative, and daring. The former were as thoroughly English in their characteristics as the latter perhaps were as thoroughly French. The fathers and the sons were alike successful in their works, though not in the same degree. Measured by practical and profitable results, the Stephensons were unquestionably the safer men to follow.
Robert Stephenson and Isambard Kingdom Brunel were destined often to come into collision in the course of their professional life. Their respective railway districts "marched" with each other, and it became their business to invade or defend those districts, according as the policy of their respective boards might direct. The gauge of 7 feet fixed by Brunel for the Great Western Railway, so entirely different from that of 4 feet 8-1/2 inches adopted by the Stephensons on the Northern and Midland lines,[86] was from the first a great cause of contention. But Brunel had always an aversion to follow any man's lead; and that another engineer had fixed the gauge of a railway, or built a bridge, or designed an engine in one way, was of itself often a sufficient reason with him for adopting an altogether different course. Robert Stephenson, on his part, though less bold, was more practical, preferring to follow the old routes, and to tread in the safe steps of his father.
Mr. Brunel, however, determined that the Great Western should be a giant's road, and that traveling should be conducted upon it at double speed. His ambition was to make the best road that imagination could devise, whereas the main object of the Stephensons, both father and son, was to make a road that would pay. Although, tried by the Stephenson test, Brunel's magnificent road was a failure so far as the shareholders in the Great Western Company were concerned, the stimulus which his ambitious designs gave to mechanical invention at the time proved a general good. The narrow-gauge engineers exerted themselves to quicken their locomotives to the utmost. They improved and reimproved them. The machinery was simplified and perfected. Outside cylinders gave place to inside; the steadier and more rapid and effective action of the engine was secured, and in a few years the highest speed on railways went up from thirty to about fifty miles an hour. For this rapidity in progress we are in no small degree indebted to the stimulus imparted to the narrow-gauge engineers by Mr. Brunel.
It was one of the characteristics of Brunel to believe in the success of the schemes for which he was professionally engaged as engineer, and he proved this by investing his savings largely in the Great Western Railway, in the South Devon Atmospherical line, and in the Great Eastern steam-ship, with what results are well known. Robert Stephenson, on the contrary, with characteristic caution, toward the latter years of his life avoided holding unguaranteed railway shares; and though he might execute magnificent structures, such as the Victoria Bridge across the St. Lawrence, he was careful not to embark any portion of his own fortune in the ordinary capital of these concerns. In 1845 he shrewdly foresaw the inevitable crash that was about to succeed the mania of that year, and while shares were still at a premium he took the opportunity of selling out all that he held. He urged his father to do the same thing, but George's reply was characteristic. "No," said he "I took my shares for an investment, and not to speculate with, and I am not going to sell them now because people have gone mad about railways." The consequence was, that he continued to hold the £60,000 which he had invested in the shares of various railways until his death, when they were at once sold out by his son, though at a great depreciation on their original cost.
One of the hardest battles fought between the Stephensons and Brunel was for the railway between Newcastle and Berwick, forming part of the great East Coast route to Scotland. As early as 1836 George Stephenson had surveyed two lines to connect Edinburg with Newcastle: one by Berwick and Dunbar along the coast, and the other, more inland, by Carter Fell, up the vale of the Gala, to the northern capital. Two years later he made a farther examination of the intervening country, and reported in favor of the coast line. The inland route, however, was not without its advocates. But both projects lay dormant for several years longer, until the completion of the Midland and other main lines as far north as Newcastle had the effect of again reviving the subject of the extension of the route as far as Edinburg.
On the 18th of June, 1844, the Newcastle and Darlington line—an important link of the great main highway to the north—was completed and publicly opened, thus connecting the Thames and the Tyne by a continuous line of railway. On that day George Stephenson and a distinguished party of railway men traveled by express train from London to Newcastle in about nine hours. It was a great event, and was worthily celebrated. The population of Newcastle held holiday; and a banquet given in the Assembly Rooms the same evening assumed the form of an ovation to Mr. Stephenson and his son.
After the opening of this railway, the project of the East Coast line from Newcastle to Berwick was revived, and George Stephenson, who had already identified himself with the question, and was intimately acquainted with every foot of the ground, was again called upon to assist the promoters with his judgment and experience. He again recommended as strongly as before the line he had previously surveyed; and on its being adopted by the local committee, the necessary steps were taken to have the scheme brought before Parliament in the ensuing session. The East Coast line was not, however, to be allowed to pass without a fight. On the contrary, it had to encounter as stout an opposition as Stephenson had ever experienced.
We have already stated that about this time the plan of substituting atmospheric pressure for locomotive steam-power in the working of railways had become very popular. Many eminent engineers avowedly supported atmospheric in preference to locomotive lines; and many members of Parliament, headed by the prime ministers, were strongly disposed in their favor. Mr. Brunel warmly espoused the atmospheric principle, and his persuasive manner, as well as his admitted scientific ability, unquestionably exercised considerable influence in determining the views of many leading members of both houses. Among others, Lord Howick, one of the members for Northumberland, advocated the new principle, and, possessing great local influence, he succeeded in forming a powerful confederacy of the landed gentry in favor of Brunel's atmospheric railway through the country.
George Stephenson could not brook the idea of seeing the locomotive, for which he had fought so many stout battles, pushed to one side, and that in the very county in which its great powers had been first developed. Nor did he relish the appearance of Mr. Brunel as the engineer of Lord Howick's scheme, in opposition to the line which had occupied his thoughts and been the object of his strenuous advocacy for so many years. When Stephenson first met Brunel in Newcastle, he good-naturedly shook him by the collar, and asked "what business he had north of the Tyne?" George gave him to understand that they were to have a fair stand-up fight for the ground, and shaking hands before the battle like Englishmen, they parted in good-humor. A public meeting was held at Newcastle in the following December, when, after a full discussion of the merits of the respective plans, Stephenson's line was almost unanimously adopted as the best.
The rival projects went before Parliament in 1845, and a severe contest ensued. The display of ability and tactics on both sides was great. Robert Stephenson was examined at great length as to the merits of the locomotive line, and Brunel at equally great length as to the merits of the atmospheric. Mr. Brunel, in his evidence, said that, after numerous experiments, he had arrived at the conclusion that the mechanical contrivance of the atmospheric system was perfectly applicable, and he believed that it would likewise be more economical in most cases than locomotive power. "In short," said he, "rapidity, comfort, safety, and economy are its chief recommendations."