Railway History Affecting the Workshops

Abstract

The nineteenth century in Britain, a period of momentous and exciting change, was the era when the railway workshops appeared on the industrial scene in which they were to play a decisive role. The spread of the ‘iron way’ across the country, the development of locomotives and rolling stock, the story of the railway founding fathers, all conjure up a romantic picture closely associated with Britain’s industrial progress. Once the idea of the railway had been conceived, there had to be a place where rails were cast and iron plates and castings made to produce the component parts of the locomotives, carriages and wagons, and where they could be assembled, aided only by the simplest equipment and powered largely by human muscle.