206 History of Inland Transport 



road it was necessary to cross objected, on the ground that 

 the raised flange would be dangerous to traffic passing along 

 the road. Following on these objections, William Jessop, 

 the engineer of the proposed line, decided, in 1788, to abandon 

 flanged plates and flat wheels, and to substitute for them 

 flat rails and flanged wheels. 1 He proceeded to cast some 

 " edge-rails " which overcame the scruples of the road com- 

 missioners, and the Loughborough and Nanpantan rail-way 

 was opened in 1789, being the first having iron rails with a 

 flat surface, on the " edge " of which wheels with a flange on 

 their inner side were run. The plate, or tram, system of 

 flanged rails still had many advocates, and for a time there 

 was much controversy as to the respective merits of the two 

 systems; but the principle introduced by Jessop was eventually 

 adopted for railways in general, and became one of the most 

 important of the developments that rendered possible the 

 attainment of high speeds in rail transport. " The sub- 

 stitution of the flanged wheel for the flanged plate was," 

 said Mr. James Brunlees, C.E., in his presidential address 

 in the Mechanical Science Section at the 1883 meeting of the 

 British Association, " an organic change which has been the 

 forerunner of the great results accomplished in modern 

 travelling by railway." 



For some thirty years after Jessop's improvement, the 

 rails, of whichever kind, were still made of cast-iron, wrought- 

 iron rails, tried at Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1805, not coming 

 into general use until about 1820, when John Birkenshaw, 

 of the Bedlington iron-works, invented an efficient and 

 economical method of rolling iron bars suitable for use as 

 railway lines. 2 By 1785 iron rails, even though only cast- 

 iron rails, had widely taken the place of the wooden rails 

 which had then been in use for over a hundred years. 



1 In the first instance projections were cast on the rails to allow of their 

 being attached to the wooden sleepers ; but, as these projections were 

 found to break easily, they were cast separately in the form of "pedestals," 

 or "chairs," into which, after they had been fastened to the sleepers, the 

 rails could be fixed with pieces of wood. 



2 Mr Brunlees is of opinion that the plating of rails with a steel surface 

 was probably begun about 1854, and that it was not until eight or ten 

 years later they were made entirely of steel. "Now," he said in his 

 address, " owing to the improvements in the manufacture of steel rails, 

 they can be produced as easily and as cheaply as iron rails. " 



