Fire and Steam (65 page)

The railway network in 1851: 6,100 route miles across Great Britain.

The railway network in its heyday in 1907: 19,500 route miles across Great Britain. Detail of north-east England.

The death of the branch line: The railway network in north-east Scotland in 1947 (above) and 2007 (below).

A lithograph commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the opening in 1825 of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, with images of George Stephenson and his
Locomotion
engine, as well as later developments such as the first railway suspension bridge.

The opening of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway in 1830 attracted enormous local and worldwide interest.

Early opposition to the railway was widespread, as shown in this satirical cartoon by Henry Hughes from 1831, which illustrates concerns about the dangers of this new form of transport.

This caricature of John Bull drunkenly accepting numerous proposals for railway bills was published in 1836 during one of several periods of excessive speculation in railways.

The class divide: illustration from the
Mirror
in 1837 portraying the three types of carriages on the new London & Birmingham Railway.

Ladies ticket from 1840: women were often offered the opportunity to sit in their own compartments in the early days of rail travel. Ladies' compartments continued to exist until the 1960s.

A view of open carriages crossing the Bridgwater Canal on the Liverpool & Manchester Railway in the 1830s. The gauge looks rather wide but is in fact the standard 4ft 8ins used across nearly all the railway network at this time, apart from on the lines of the Great Western.

Bristol Temple Meads station in 1846 before platforms became the norm.

An illustration from the
Illustrated London News
highlighting the difficulties caused at Gloucester station, which for many years in the mid-nineteenth century was the meeting point of railways operating different gauges. Passengers travelling between Bristol and Birmingham had to change trains, creating delay and scenes of chaos.