The Railway Image. What does that mean to you?

Some people may think of the steam express crossing Glenfinnan on its magic journey from Platform 9¾, or perhaps of that famous blue tank engine with a smiling face.

But the real railways were – and are – an essentially utilitarian business, carrying multitudes to work or pleasure, or bringing thousands of tons of stone from Somerset quarries to London at a fraction of the effort which the same task would mean by road.

Two centuries ago today the story was just beginning, although the significance of that date is disputed by some, who maintain that the Stockton & Darlington Railway was not really chapter one but the preface, on the grounds that steam engines did not haul passenger trains regularly on the S&D until 1833, and that by then the Liverpool & Manchester had been open for three years, using steam locomotives from the start.

But we believe the modern railway story really begins on an autumn day in County Durham in 1825. Word has spread through that countryside that a remarkable fire-breathing machine is going to haul a ‘train’ along an iron road, and hundreds of passengers secure places in its wagons.

The journey to Stockton is accomplished with George Stephenson on the footplate and a man on a horse trotting ahead of Locomotion No.1 as a precaution, while crowds of spectators gaze from the lineside at the wonder which is being achieved on their doorsteps.

This is surely the start. Ahead lies the forging of main lines with spectacular bridges and tunnels – under Severn and over Tamar, Forth and Tay – the construction of great stations at Euston and New Street, Paddington and Temple Meads, the painful lessons that safety does not come naturally and that the telegraph will be a vital ally, tubes bored under London to get the traffic moving, clean ‘Southern Electric’ bringing workers to the capital from Surrey, Sussex and Kent, and the ‘Race to the North’.

And the people who will lead this revolution! The celebrated Stephensons, father and son; Mr Brunel, whose own father built the Thames Tunnel before young Isambard was appointed chief engineer of God’s Wonderful Railway; civil engineer Mr Locke; locomotive engineers Gooch, Stirling and Webb – and, less happily, unscrupulous railway promoter Mr Hudson and tragic Mr Bouch, whose poorly designed bridge would collapse in a storm, taking a train of passengers with it.

But all good stories have elements of light and shadow, and the railway story is no exception.

The railways rebuilt a nation. They would go on to rebuild the world.

The Railway Image will be published by Railnews in December. 


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