Pamphlets, letters and histories

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The argument over the railways, as it was printed

Every new line had to be argued for before it was built, and the arguments went into print. In 1832 a letter to a friend weighed the merits of canals against railways. In 1833 Elias Horry addressed the public on the Charleston and Hamburgh Railroad, and in 1834 a pamphlet set out the advantages and profits of the Southampton Railway. Other writers wanted a different kind of railway altogether: in 1833 John Vallance wrote to the Kensington Canal Company on the substitution of the pneumatic railway.

Once a line was open, it could be shown off. Views on the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway, made at the suggestion of the company’s directors, came out in 1839 with engravings from drawings by J. W. Carmichael and descriptions by J. Blackmore, engineer to the company. It follows the line across the north of England plate by plate: the branch on the south bank of the Tyne at Newcastle, Allerwash, Haltwhistle, the three arches of Gelt Bridge and the viaduct at Corby, each with a page of text facing it.

The histories began early. George Stephenson’s letter to his son Robert, written from Liverpool on 5 April 1828, is on the site, and so are the editions of Samuel Smiles’s Life of George Stephenson from 1857 onwards.