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Isambard Kingdom Brunel: Victorian icon, engineer, artist, architect, designer and visionary, entrepreneur and celebrity. His astounding feats changed the British landscape, and this talk tells the story of his achievements and innovations as a railway engineer.

New to the developing world of railways in the early 1830s, Brunel soon came to rival George and Robert Stephenson, as he embarked on what he called ‘the finest work in England’. The construction of the Great Western Railway, arguably the most revolutionary of British railways, opened in 1841. The talk chronicles how, in almost thirty tumultuous years, Brunel created a rail network covering much of the South and West of England, the Midlands and Wales.

The talk will also describe how Brunel’s successes were matched by ‘monumental failures’ – the ill-fated atmospheric system used on the South Devon Railway, and the far-reaching implications of the broad gauge for his railways, which ultimately cost millions of pounds when abolished. Iron, Stone and Steam is also the story of the great engineer’s complex character and the roles of the people who helped the creative, and sometimes dictatorial, genius create his railway.

About the Speaker

Tim Bryan was born in Bristol and since graduating from the University College of Wales Aberystwyth, has worked extensively with industrial maritime and transport collections, leading the curatorial team during the development of the STEAM Museum at Swindon, before moving to the British Motor Museum as Head of Collections & Interpretation in 2004. He joined the SS Great Britain Trust as Director of the Brunel Institute in 2019, and leads the collections, conservation, education and research teams there.

A Fellow of the Museums Association and Chair of the Association of British Transport & Engineering Museums, Tim has presented at conferences and seminars in the UK, Italy, Germany and the USA on a variety of railway, museum and heritage subjects. and has written more than twenty books on railway history. His most recent title ‘Iron Stone & Steam: Brunel’s Railway Kingdom‘ was published in November 2023.