Dublin ami Kingstown Railway. 321 



conveyance of coal and other mineral products, was introduced 

 in the neighbourhood of Newcastle so long ago as the sixteenth 

 century ; and this species of road, although it possesses many 

 disadvantages is still in use in some of the old mining districts, 

 both of England and Scotand. 



At Colebrookdale Iron-Works in Shropshire, Mr Reynolds, 

 the proprietor of these works, in the year 1767, first substituted 

 the metalh'c plate railway for the wooden road, a most import- 

 ant era in the history of what has appropriately been termed the 

 '* British Roadway." Emboldened by the success which at- 

 tended the introduction of the cast-iron railway, it was the same 

 person who, in the year 1777, erected over the river Severn the 

 first cast-iron bridge constructed in this country. 



A great improvement was undoubtedly effected in the con- 

 struction of railways, by the introduction of the cast-iron rail. 

 However, from the brittle nature of that material, it was soon 

 found to be very unfit for giving support to the great weights 

 which pass along railways. Accordingly, in the year 1811, a 

 malleable iron railway was constructed at Lord Carlisle's coal- 

 works in Cumberland, which forms another important era in the 

 history of the railway, and this system was first publicly noticed 

 in my father's Report of the Edinburgh Railway in the year 1819. 

 Malleable iron has been more or less used since that date, and 

 is now universally employed with the greatest success in the 

 construction of railways. Indeed, it must be obvious, that the 

 speed at which we now travel, and the liability of cast-iron rails 

 to break, render them quite inapplicable to the improved state of 

 railway conveyance. 



Merthyr Tidvil in Glamorganshire, which I visited on my 

 way from Holyhead to Plymouth, is by far the greatest iron 

 district in the kingdom. Here I found the extensive works of 

 Mr Guest, Mr Crashey, and others, directing their whole re- 

 sources to the manufacture of malleable iron rails for almost all 

 parts of the world. What a striking change in the arts pre- 

 sents'* itself to our observation, when we consider that it is no 

 more than thirty-five or forty years since the attention of the 

 engineer was wholly engrossed in the formation of canals ; and 

 Europe and America were without an iron railway excepting 

 that of Colebrookdale in Shropshire. 



