Search

In 1853, Robert Stephenson (1803–1859) travelled to North America, principally in connection with the design and construction planning of the Victoria Bridge across the River St. Lawrence at Montre...

There have been several books written about the Liverpool & Manchester Railway, the world’s first inter-urban railway, dealing with its design, construction, and its locomotives, including the Rain...

A characteristic of I.K. Brunel’s approach to engineering was to challenge established practice to see if a better understanding of scientific principles would offer improved specifications. This approach led to failures as well as successes. This paper discusses his programme of trials using steam turbine driven fans to provide a continuous draft of air through locomotive fire-grates to encourage the burning of coke in lieu of the normal blast-pipes. This arose after 1839 trials with a constricted blast-pipe on the Stephenson-built North Star locomotive gave poor fuel use results. The narrower the blast-pipe the more back-pressure problems were experienced, whilst partially-burnt coke was pulled from the fire and ejected. Brunel pursued the notion that either an exhaust or boiler-pressure steam fan creating a vacuum would provide continuity of air flow giving sufficient draft for adequate steam generation with reduced fuel consumption. Initial trials were held using a previously unknown small locomotive,...

This is a remarkable book providing extraordinary background details to the many coal mines that were established in the Great Northern Coalfield from 1605, largely made possible by the introductio...

A biography of Sir John Hawkshaw has been long overdue, and Martin Beaumont has filled that gap admirably. This is a very readable volume about one of the great civil engineers of the ‘heroic’ age ...