Tracks

It has been said that the opening of the Liverpool to Manchester Railway on September 15th 1830 was one of the most important developments in engineering since the invention of the wheel. It had economic and social consequences that changed the world.

And it was laid on tracks. Tracks which crossed difficult terrain but using techniques such as bridges and cuttings which had been used previously for canals and viaducts. However, there was one section that George Stephenson had been told was impossible to cross. And his solution still knocks me for six.

Chat Moss was a huge swamp of mossy peat and he was convinced that the solution to crossing it was to spread the loads over a wide area and distribute the pressure, in effect to form a floating raft on top of the peat upon which to build the railway track bed.

The peat and moss ranges from 4.6m to 11m deep, swelling in wet weather and shrinking in when dry. It was so wet that for every cubic metre of embankment formed, 2.4 cubic metres of raw peat was used (allowing for water to drain when the turf was compressed).

Heather bundles, brushwood mattresses and timber hurdles 2.4-2.7m long and 1.2m wide were placed in layers to form the raft. Ballast, sleepers, chairs and rails were then fixed over the timber base. Old tar barrels were joined end-to-end to make wooden culverts to drain the two parallel side ditches 14.6m apart.

It worked well except at the east end, where progress was negative owing to the quantities of material subsumed by the swamp. Conditions for the labourers were difficult. They had to strap planks to their feet to stop themselves sinking into the mire.

It was suggested to Stephenson that he should abandon his strategy and instead build a viaduct across the bog. Stephenson refused to accept defeat, and no doubt influenced by the large amounts of money already used at Chat Moss, decided to keep trying.

One of the onsite team, East Anglian marshland specialist Robert Stannard, suggested laying down timber in a herring bone pattern to support the tracks. Workers constructed and sank wooden hurdles into the bog using stones and earth until they provided a solid foundation. The work went on for weeks.

L&M Railway crossing Chat Moss

The track across Chat Moss still floats on these hurdles today, supporting engines twenty-five times the weight of the steam-driven Rocket, the first train over the Moss in January 1830 as it tested the track. (Information from the Institute of Civil Engineering and engineering-timelines website.)

I wasn't going to go off track, so to speak, but I can't resist the following from actress, author and anti-slavery campaigner Fanny Kemble, who accompanied George Stephenson on a test of the L&M prior to its opening:

"We were introduced to the little engine which was to drag us along the rails. She (for they make these curious little fire horses all mares ) consisted of a boiler, a stove, a platform, and bench, and behind the bench a barrel containing water enough to prevent her from being thirsty for fifteen miles, the whole machine not bigger than a common fire engine. She goes upon two wheels, which are her feet, and are moved by bright steel legs called pistons; these are propelled by stream, and in proportion as more steam is applied to the upper extremities (the hip-joints, I suppose ) of these pistons, the faster they move the wheels; and when it is desirable to diminish the speed, the steam, which unless suffered to escape would burst the boiler, evaporates through a safety valve into the air. The reins, bit, and bridle of this wonderful beast, is a small steel handle, which applies or withdraws the steam from its legs or pistons, so that a child might manage it. The coals, which are its oats, were under the bench, and there was a small glass tube affixed to the boiler, with water in it, which indicates by its fullness or emptiness when the creature wants water, which is immediately conveyed to it from its reservoir...

"You cannot conceive what that sensation of cutting the air was; the motion is as smooth as possible, too. I could either have read or have written; and as it was, I stood up, and with by bonnet off 'drank' the air before me. When I closed my eyes this sensation of flying was quite delightful, and strange beyond description; yet strange as it was, I had a perfect sense of security, and not the slightest fear...

"Now for a word or two about the master of all these marvels, with whom I am most horribly in love. He is a man from fifty to fifty-five years of age; his face is fine, though careworn, and bears an expression of deep thoughtfulness; his mode of explaining his ideas is peculiar and very original, striking, and forcible; and though his accents indicate strongly his north country birth, his language has not the slightest touch of vulgarity or coarseness. He has certainly turned my head."

And here's a poem from the Liverpool end:

Café, Lime Street Station
At the table by the door
two people are drinking latte.
One of them's going away,
I think it's her,
they're leaning forward,
not touching, but close.
She says something
and he smiles,
relaxed in each other's company.
They remind me of swans
gliding round their coffee,
elegant and serene,
on a square, brown lake.

Below the surface is another story,
the one I want to know,
his legs are pumping, twitching.
Is each smile a lie, each word deceit?
Or is it her?
Too many bags for the weekend,
has he guessed that she's not coming back?
Does he know her lover's waiting?
Has she covered her tracks?
Of course I'll never find out.
To be honest I don't really want to,
for my friends were swans and mated for life
until I found out
that one was an ugly duckling.

(First published in Equinox, March 2007).

Terry Quinn