Early Railways 2

From waggonway to Liverpool & Manchester: from Blenkinsop to locomotion

This book, edited by MJT Lewis, is based on the Second International Early Railways Conference (September 2003) in Manchester. It contains nineteen papers discussing many aspects of the railways that preceded the main lines of the Railway Age.

These authoritative studies – the fruit of wide research – embrace history and archaeology, locomotives and permanent way, financing and management. They shed new light and offer new perspectives on the formative years of railways, in Britain and overseas.

In this conference volume, papers are divided into four groups: history, infrastructure, mechanical and overseas, and include such subjects as:

• Early Shropshire railways
• Robert Stephenson
• The development of steam traction
• Artists, Chartists, railways and riots
• Liverpool & Manchester and Cromford & High Peak railways
• The Clarence
• All-iron edge rails
• Rope haulage – the Lambton railway
• John Blenkinsop and the patent steam carriages
• The Hedley mysteries
• The Patent Office Museum and railway locomotive preservation
• Richard Roberts’ experiments on friction
• The coupling rod
• Follonica to Montebamboli railway in Tuscany
• The Champlain & St Lawrence railway

The papers are generally richly illustrated with contemporary and modern images, maps, diagrams and tables. They are well referenced so that readers will be able to discover sources with ease. There are 288 pages and 88 illustrations in total.

The book is sponsored by the Newcomen Society; Beamish – the North of England Open Air Museum; The Institute of Railway Studies and Transport History; The Locomotion Trust; the Railway and Canal Historical Society.

Early Railways 2 is published by the Newcomen Society (2003)