19th Century Railway Investment
19th Century Railway Investment You can see the deceptive bounty Derived from West Indies plantations In classical, elegant Clifton, And the Regency spa splendour In the streets of Bath and Cheltenham: The honey-stone Age of Enlightenment, Sweet reason, proportion and...
Miles and Furlongs and Chains and Springs
Miles and Furlongs and Chains and Links and Springs Have you ever looked at the distance posts along the railway line from your carriage window or ever studied the measurements painted on a railway bridge? We all know what a mile is – but a chain? There are, as many...
Trainspotting
Do you remember that lazy afternoon? Back in August 1958? Well, I bloody well do mate. We were sitting on the bunker At the end of platform four, Just by the giant semaphore signal, When 5050 ‘The Earl of St Germans’ Came steaming, Brunswick green and brass dome...
Trains and Stroud Scarlet
Stroud, the Five Valleys and the Globe A painting from about 1785 shows Stroud scarlet cloth stretched out on tenterhooks in Rodborough Fields – these fields lie just beyond platform two. Stroud scarlet cloth links this area’s history with that of the world in...
Navvies and Legerdemain and Sapperton Tunnel
Navvies and Legerdemain: Who Built the Railways? Two thousand miles of bucket-lift airshafts, A million men in diseased shanty towns, Or lost on the tramp in city or county, No Navvy’s Head or Arms in the country, A damp clay embankment instead for a bed – Or...
Who Built the Railway?
Who Built the Railway? Everyone knows the name Isambard Kingdom Brunel; And everyone knows that sepia photograph: The top hat, the waistcoat, the cigar, And the giant chain-link in the background – The busy preoccupied self-assured pride Of the foremost Victorian...