Stephenson chose to begin his experiments exactly at the same time as Davy. Given Stephensonâs inventive nature, and given that for the previous twenty years heâd been working in the collieries and that he was more than aware of the danger of fire damp, why had he not started experimenting sooner? Why did he wait until August 1815? This was the month when Sir Humphrey Davy was called in. In all the evidence Stephenson is presented as having, quite by chance, started his experiments just a week or two before the day in August that Davy came up to Newcastle.
There is probably a simple reason. George was too busy elsewhere. He didnât begin his safety lamp work till it reached the proportions of a national scandal, which was the same reason which brought in Davy. It would explain why he did not become too furious or too involved in all the subsequent arguments and mud slinging. He simply didnât have the time. It was a huge blow to Davyâs pride but to George the safety lamp was a little one-off job, an interlude from his major preoccupation. Once he had invented his lamp it probably didnât occupy his thoughts any more than in the past the clay engines had done, or the sundial, or the shoes, or the clocks or the many other small-scale, small-time devices heâd turned his mind to. By now, and throughout the whole of the safety lamp row, he had a much more ambitious, truly scientific project, a project which, as he saw it, could change the world.
3
L OCOMOTION
T hree elements came together to form what we now know as railways and George Stephenson invented none of them. The three elements are the wheel, the track and the power. The origins of the wheel are lost forever in antiquity. The origins of laid down rails or tracks are a little clearer, but they too go back for many centuries and no one has ever been able to date them. As for steam power â the first automatic source of power in the history of civilisation â this was by comparison an overnight phenomenon. It is, however, a subject where outsiders must step very carefully. The problem is the superabundance of facts, most of them contradictory. So many people had a hand in steam and as many hands have spent lifetimes trying to sort out the facts. Luckily, the origins of the steam engine have been more than amply covered by at least a hundred books in the last forty years so there is no need to do more than list a few of the more important stages.
The use of wheels must have been a magical discovery, whenever it was made, greatly reducing the man or oxen-power that was needed to carry any object, but the idea of then running the wheels on rails was an equal stroke of true genius, or perhaps accident. In some ways, there is still a trace of magic. Scientists find it very hard to explain exactly why it is that wheels running on rails can do much more work than wheels running on ordinary ground. The early coal miners certainly didnât worry about friction or tractive forces when they observed that a horse could pull one cart on a road but manage four or even five carts along a line of rails. It is generally accepted that the use of rails was normal practice in mining from the seventeenth century, though the secret was known in medieval times, probably even Roman.
Horsedrawn wooden trucks running on wooden boards appear in a drawing of a German mine as early as 1530, but it was in England early in the seventeenth century that the practice became widespread thanks to the sudden increase in coal mining. This was when the rise in the size of London first led to a massive demand for coal from the north east. As the demand increased, new collieries were opened, away from the immediate area of the Tyne and Wear, and horsedrawn wagon ways became the most efficient method of getting the coal to the riverside staithes. There were wagon ways elsewhere in the country, such as Ralph Allenâs wooden wagon way which he had built in 1731 to
There is probably a simple reason. George was too busy elsewhere. He didnât begin his safety lamp work till it reached the proportions of a national scandal, which was the same reason which brought in Davy. It would explain why he did not become too furious or too involved in all the subsequent arguments and mud slinging. He simply didnât have the time. It was a huge blow to Davyâs pride but to George the safety lamp was a little one-off job, an interlude from his major preoccupation. Once he had invented his lamp it probably didnât occupy his thoughts any more than in the past the clay engines had done, or the sundial, or the shoes, or the clocks or the many other small-scale, small-time devices heâd turned his mind to. By now, and throughout the whole of the safety lamp row, he had a much more ambitious, truly scientific project, a project which, as he saw it, could change the world.
3
L OCOMOTION
T hree elements came together to form what we now know as railways and George Stephenson invented none of them. The three elements are the wheel, the track and the power. The origins of the wheel are lost forever in antiquity. The origins of laid down rails or tracks are a little clearer, but they too go back for many centuries and no one has ever been able to date them. As for steam power â the first automatic source of power in the history of civilisation â this was by comparison an overnight phenomenon. It is, however, a subject where outsiders must step very carefully. The problem is the superabundance of facts, most of them contradictory. So many people had a hand in steam and as many hands have spent lifetimes trying to sort out the facts. Luckily, the origins of the steam engine have been more than amply covered by at least a hundred books in the last forty years so there is no need to do more than list a few of the more important stages.
The use of wheels must have been a magical discovery, whenever it was made, greatly reducing the man or oxen-power that was needed to carry any object, but the idea of then running the wheels on rails was an equal stroke of true genius, or perhaps accident. In some ways, there is still a trace of magic. Scientists find it very hard to explain exactly why it is that wheels running on rails can do much more work than wheels running on ordinary ground. The early coal miners certainly didnât worry about friction or tractive forces when they observed that a horse could pull one cart on a road but manage four or even five carts along a line of rails. It is generally accepted that the use of rails was normal practice in mining from the seventeenth century, though the secret was known in medieval times, probably even Roman.
Horsedrawn wooden trucks running on wooden boards appear in a drawing of a German mine as early as 1530, but it was in England early in the seventeenth century that the practice became widespread thanks to the sudden increase in coal mining. This was when the rise in the size of London first led to a massive demand for coal from the north east. As the demand increased, new collieries were opened, away from the immediate area of the Tyne and Wear, and horsedrawn wagon ways became the most efficient method of getting the coal to the riverside staithes. There were wagon ways elsewhere in the country, such as Ralph Allenâs wooden wagon way which he had built in 1731 to
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