BARLOW, William Henry On the construction of the permanent way of railways; with an account of the wrought-iron permanent way laid down on the main line of the Midland Railway. London, Excerpt Min.Proc. Inst.Civ.Eng. 1850
8vo. 25 + (1)pp, folding litho plate. Seemly modern cloth. The design of permanent way and in particular the form of rail preoccupied some of the greatest names in British railway history, amongst them Brunel and Locke, throughout the middle years of the 19th century. In 1849, W.H.Barlow, engineer of the Midland Railway, patented the distinctive shape of rail that bears his name. Of “saddle-back” or “top-hat” form, it tapered into two prongs which would hold it down in the ballast without sleepers or other supports. The present item is Barlow’s own account of the design, discussing its advantages, both technical and financial, and including experiments made to ascertain its strength. The joints between the sections were to be made using his brother, P.W. Barlow’s cast-iron chair, also tested and the results included here. The paper concludes with the lively discussion between the Barlows and Brunel, Locke and Hawkshaw among others.Although Barlow rail was laid down in short stretches on a number of lines, it was never as successful as its designer hoped and possibly its most famous use was when sections of it, discarded from the South Wales Railway, were bolted back to back and used to make up the legs of Clevedon Pier.
£130
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