archaeology

Research Memorandum GD-54

Written by: Rainer Fremdling
Groningen Growth and Development Centre, August 2002

1. Introduction
Hardly any other innovation symbolises and embodies the process of industrialisation during the 19th century as the railway does. The very symbol of rapid progress combined central innovations and materials of the first phase of industrialisation in Europe: The steam engine placed on iron wheels consumed coal and drew its load on iron and later steel rails. These rails had been rolled from wrought iron, which in turn was refined pig iron smelted in a coal-consuming blast furnace. The genesis of this new mode of transportation is traced back to the first industrial nation, namely Britain. Here, the points were switched for the path-breaking innovation of the railway for other countries as well. Hence it seems logical to discuss its coming into being in the country of origin.

2.1 England
Track dependent vehicles existed long before the locomotive was invented. The wooden tracks in German mines during the 16th century very often are considered as the forerunner of the railway. In the same century, they had been introduced to English coalmines. In the 17th century, wooden rails were also used on the surface in order to haul the coal from the mine to the river. As these wooden rails easily were damaged they increasingly were plated with iron sheets. During the last third of the 18th century, British engineers tinkered with different versions of cast iron rails. Fixed on wooden or stone sleepers, cast iron rails with a high profile and a head-like widening became very common. The wagons were still drawn by horses. Faster and cheaper than hitherto, they hauled heavy loads of coal over land. Due to the nature of cast iron the rails easily broke. The molten pig iron could be cast into the desired shape without major difficulties; the finished product was brittle, though. Not before the early 19th century, after a long process of trial and error, were English iron masters able to roll tough rails from wrought iron . Finally these wrought iron rails were rolled in a shape with a mushroom cross-section. For the Stockton-Darlington line (opened 1825) and the Liverpool-Manchester line (opened 1830) these rails were fixed with cast iron chairs on sleepers from wood or stone. Substituting the tough wrought iron rails for the brittle cast iron rails was an important precondition for the heavy steam locomotive to run on the tracks.