The use of wooden rails gradually extended, and they were laid down between most of the collieries on the Tyne and the places at which the coal was shipped. Roger North, in 1676, found the practice had become extensively adopted, and he speaks of the large sums then paid for way-leave—that is, the permission granted by the owners of lands lying between the coal-pits and the river-side to lay down a tram-way for the purpose of connecting the one with the other.
A century later, Arthur Young observed that not only had these roads become greatly multiplied, but formidable works had been constructed to carry them along upon the same level. "The coal wagon-roads from the pits to the water," he says, "are great works, carried over all sorts of inequalities of ground, so far as the distance of nine or ten miles. The tracks of the wheels are marked with pieces of wood let into the road for the wheels of the wagons to run on, by which one horse is enabled to draw, and that with ease, fifty or sixty bushels of coals."[4]
Saint Fond, the French traveler, who visited Newcastle in 1791, described the colliery wagon-ways in that neighborhood as superior to any thing of the kind he had seen. The wooden rails were formed with a rounded upper surface, like a projecting moulding, and the wagon-wheels being "made of cast iron, and hollowed in the manner of a metal pulley," readily fitted the rounded surface of the rails. The economy with which the coal was thus hauled to the shipping-places was urged by Saint Fond as an inducement to his own countrymen to adopt a like method of transit.[5]
Similar wagon-roads were early laid down in the coal districts of Wales, Cumberland, and Scotland. At the time of the Scotch rebellion in 1745, a tram-road existed between the Tranent coal-pits and the small harbor of Cockenzie, in East Lothian; and a portion of the line was selected by General Cope as a position for his cannon at the battle of Prestonpans.
In these rude wooden tracks we find the germ of the modern railroad. Improvements were gradually made in them. Thus, at some collieries, thin plates of iron were nailed upon their upper surface, for the purpose of protecting the parts most exposed to friction. Cast-iron rails were also tried, the wooden rails having been found liable to rot. The first iron rails are supposed to have been laid down at Whitehaven as early as 1738. This cast-iron road was denominated a "plate-way," from the plate-like form in which the rails were cast. In 1767, as appears from the books of the Coalbrookdale Iron Works, in Shropshire, five or six tons of rails were cast, as an experiment, on the suggestion of Mr. Reynolds, one of the partners; and they were shortly after laid down to form a road.
In 1776, a cast-iron tram-way, nailed to wooden sleepers, was laid down at the Duke of Norfolk's colliery near Sheffield. The person who designed and constructed this coal line was Mr. John Curr, whose son has erroneously claimed for him the invention of the cast-iron railway. He certainly adopted it early, and thereby met the fate of men before their age; for his plan was opposed by the laboring people of the colliery, who got up a riot, in which they tore up the road and burned the coal-staith, while Mr. Curr fled into a neighboring wood for concealment, and lay there perdu for three days and nights, to escape the fury of the populace.[6] The plates of these early tram-ways had a ledge cast on their outer edge to guide the wheel along the road, after the manner shown in the preceding cut.
In 1789, Mr. William Jessop constructed a railway at Loughborough, in Leicestershire, and there introduced the cast-iron edge-rail, with flanches cast upon the tire of the wagon-wheels to keep them on the track, instead of having the margin or flanch cast upon the rail itself; and this plan was shortly after adopted in other places. In 1800, Mr. Benjamin Outram, of Little Eaton, Derbyshire (father of the distinguished General Outram), used stone props instead of timber for supporting the ends or joinings of the rails. Thus the use of railroads, in various forms, gradually extended, until they became generally adopted in the mining districts.
Such was the growth of the railroad, which, it will be observed, originated in necessity, and was modified according to experience; progress in this, as in all departments of mechanics, having been effected by the exertions of many men; one generation entering upon the labors of that which preceded it, and carrying them onward to farther stages of improvement. The invention of the locomotive was in like manner made by successive steps. It was not the invention of one man, but of a succession of men, each working at the proper hour, and according to the needs of that hour; one inventor interpreting only the first word of the problem which his successors were to solve after long and laborious efforts and experiments. "The locomotive is not the invention of one man," said Robert Stephenson at Newcastle, "but of a nation of mechanical engineers."
Down to the end of last century, and indeed down almost to our own time, the only power used in haulage was that of the horse. Along the common roads of the country the poor horses were "tearing their hearts out" in dragging cumbersome vehicles behind them, and the transport of merchandise continued to be slow, dear, and in all respects unsatisfactory. Many expedients were suggested with the view of getting rid of the horse. The power of wind was one of the first expedients proposed. It was cheap, though by no means regular. It impelled ships by sea; why should it not be used to impel carriages by land?