Unfortunately I’m unable to comment directly on Andrew Cowie’s post. But it’s nice to see the railway station from my home town. The station shown was designed by John Dobson (a famous northern architect) and constructed by Robert Stephenson (that’s the bloke who invented the train).
Now for all this set of tracks may look overly complex it actually isn’t, the reason it hits such a weirdly dense set of tracks at the station is quite simple, there are two railway bridges going south, originally only one, these bridges were pretty much the only way to connect the north and south for a long time (well until IKB got his act together and finished the great western). From Newcastle the railways would carry coal from Spital Tongues and the Rising Sun coal mines, and from further north in places such as Ellington, to the south of England.
Essentially Newcastle central station became a major crossing point between the north and south. You can see that on the left of the picture Andrew posted there are 4 sets of tracks which don’t even stop at the station. I’ve heard that some trains did stop, on the bridge that they are visible on, toward the back of the station. From there a crane would load up the trains with goods, including coal. When it was built it was one of the most heavily used stations in Britain, and incredibly important to the industrial revolution. These tracks have now been replaced with another platform and it doesn’t quite look the same anymore;
Newcastle central station, C.1990s
Obviously this happened as a result of the closing of both the Spital Tongues mine and the Rising Sun which is now a nature reserve and country park. Now if you go down to the Rising Sun, you can see the original train tracks (there are earlier tracks of course, but these were the first to run locomotives) from the first test railways and you can walk down Middle Engine Lane where the Rocket was tested at 30mph! All just a little bit of awesome in my backyard…
The Rocket, the first one made, with a hack to allow the piston to move from the original 45 degree position.
Yes, I am a bit of a geek about this stuff… Point me at the Clifton Suspension bridge and I’ll probably sing a song from the animation “The Great IKB”
The First photo doesn’t seem from ’80 to me.. on the right parking you can see a car that really seems a Ford Focus (’98 model) ^^
but I can be wrong…
@Berserker, yeah, looks like you’re right… The photo came from wikipedia and I kinda guessed at the age from the front of the trains which colouring suggests they’re British Rail Intercity 225s. But I can see the centre for life in the background too, so yeah it’s def newer than the 70s or 80s, probably around the late 90s though as GNER got round to redoing the train paint around that time.
Of course if you travel just a few miles from your backyard you will find individuals that contest Stephenson’s claim to fame, and it was Hedley who invented the train
@David, this is always a bone of contention… I already knew about this Dilly locomotive but… and its a big but!
The machine was a badly designed heavy lump that almost shook itself apart every time it moved. So he invented a really really bad train by trying to build a steam engine on wheels without actually understanding much of what he was doing…
Stephenson’s rocket which is credited in most places as the first locomotive improved on Hedley’s design in two key areas to make it a viable locomotive.
Firstly, by turning the piston to a 45 degree angle Stephenson managed to stop the engine from shaking itself apart, later (and as you can see in the picture of Stephenson’s hacked up train) he experimented with further reducing the angle of the piston eventually Stephenson’s trains all had pistons level with the ground as it seemed to be the best trade off of fuel/speed efficiency.
The second improvement made was that the boiler was a viable boiler, not too heavy, not too slow to the boil he achieved this by having the furnace lick through to a series of tubes where the water was forced through to the boil.
So yeah, I agree that Hedley did build a locomotive, but it was terrible and less effective than a couple of horses. The rocket was very effective, and a very good hackable piece of kit for Stephenson to build up the rail company that’s now synonymous with rail travel.
There again though, the idea of a locomotive goes back even a little further than either of them but wasn’t implemented until the dilly…
I really don’t ever see fit to mention the Dilly locomotive but I will grant you props for bringing it up
As a side note, I went to see the birthplace of Stephenson just tonight… What a lovely little cottage
I had no idea there were any gnome hackers in my neck of the woods..
Sure
Facebook me or something if you want
Good to see there are more Free Desktop hackers from the North East.
Have you seen the Stephenson cottage at Killingworth too? I’m no relative but I went to first school there and so was always getting asked.
Why don’t we organise a drinking session?
Hackers of the north UNITE!
also, haven’t seen the cottage in killingworth