The Class 390 Pendolino is an electric high-speed train operated by Virgin Trains in the United Kingdom. It uses Fiat Ferroviaria’s tilting train Pendolino technology and is built by Alstom.
The Advanced Passenger Train (APT) – this one pictured in 1972 – was a short-lived, early attempt to bring tilting train technology to Britain’s railways.
The InterCity 125 was the brand name of British Rail’s High Speed Train (HST) fleet, which was built from 1975 to 1982 and was introduced in 1976.
“THE BENEFITS TO PEOPLE WHO TRAVELLED BY STEAM RAILWAY WERE THAT THIS METHOD OF TRAVEL WAS BOTH CHEAPER AND FASTER.”
As with any new technology, it took time to work out how to make passenger trains profitable. The Stockton and Darlington railway (1825) had one passenger carriage named ‘Experiment’ and although it was pulled by a steam engine during special ceremonies and the like, it was usually pulled by horse. Horse-drawn railways were not new, as the rails allowed the horse to pull a much heavier load. This could just as easily be people as goods. One such example is the short-lived Swansea to Mumbles horse-drawn passenger railway of 1807.
The Liverpool and Manchester Railway is considered by many to be the first true steam-hauled public railway service, featuring compartmentalized coaches and a proper timetable. The design of this railway’s coaches influenced many others, and early passenger travel on the steam railways began. The benefits to people who travelled by steam railway were that this method of travel was both cheaper and faster. The drawback was that, at times, it could be very uncomfortable. The movement of the train itself could cause discomfort, and driving wind and rain often added to the misery of the passengers. Sometimes, during or after heavy downpours, water would slosh around the bottom of the carriages and soot, smoke and cinders from the engine would find their way into passengers’ eyes or down their collars. However, this was the way of the future – and nothing was going to stop the railways.
BUILDING THE PERMANENT WAY
Once it became apparent that the railways were the way forward, several companies formed and many railways were built. Not all came to fruition and not all were successful, but the one thing that all the companies had in common was that they needed someone to construct the track, known as the ‘permanent way’. That someone was the ‘navvy’.
The word ‘navvy’ is an abbreviation of ‘navigator’ and is synonymous with the construction of the British railways. By the end of the nineteenth century, one in every hundred people in the UK was a navvy. The work of navvies – labourers, essentially – is often equated with large historical building projects, such as the great pyramid at Giza. However, it is much harder to envision the scale of the railway navvies’ work compared with that involved in a single-site construction project. Additionally, whereas an individual monument will often show evidence of an associated workers’ village, the very nature of the permanent way meant that the transient camps that navvies established left little or no remaining trace on the landscape.
NAVVY CAMP
In order to better understand how navvies lived and worked, we travelled to Herefordshire, where Colin Richards had erected a navvy camp based on a nineteenth-century photograph. Stepping into the camp was like going back in time. We had certainly picked the day for it, as we had had a relatively mild winter but this was the first truly cold day. The night before temperatures had dropped as low as minus ten degrees, and during the day they never got above freezing. The surrounding countryside looked magical, with trees covered in a heavy frost, but it was so cold that even the smallest leaves hanging directly above the blacksmith’s forge never thawed out.
My father used to say to me that ‘any fool can be cold and wet’. I have spent much of my life outdoors and have always heeded these words, but the one part of my body that I find the hardest to keep warm is my feet, especially when I am wearing hobnail boots. The metal studs seem to conduct the cold and no amount of socks ever seem to help.
We met Colin Richards next to the still. He was brewing up a carrot whisky and we had a glass as we talked about health and safety. The nineteenth-century navvies were relatively well paid when compared with farm labourers or factory workers, but they had to work very hard. They had a reputation for playing hard, too. It is a common misconception that the navvies were Irish. Although some navvies who worked on the railways came from Ireland, they represented only about ten per cent of the total number of men who worked on the permanent way.
“THE WORK OF NAVVIES – LABOURERS, ESSENTIALLY – IS OFTEN EQUATED WITH LARGE HISTORICAL BUILDING PROJECTS, SUCH AS THE GREAT PYRAMID AT GIZA.”
Presenter Ruth Goodman looking out of the train window on her way to navvy camp.
Many of the navvies were local men, but the promise of good money also attracted seasonal workers, who often came from the farms that the railways disrupted. However, many workers were dedicated, full-time navvies who operated in groups known as gangs and followed the work around the countryside. These groups started out pretty small, but grew in size as the demand for railways increased.
Many established communities feared the arrival of the navvies, as they passed through villages and towns constructing the permanent way. They had no roots and were often viewed as having no religion. Their rough lifestyle, combined with a disposable income, meant that the local innkeepers were generally kept happy. However, the navvies had a reputation for fighting, and tensions between rival gangs competing for work were often settled in a bar room brawl.
Anyone who has ever visited Camden in north London has probably noticed the sheer amount of urban infrastructure there that is associated with the railways. Camden was at one time quite a rural area, but the railways quickly changed that. The district lies in spitting distance of three of Britain’s largest train stations: King’s Cross, Euston and St Pancras. It also proudly boasts the Camden roundhouse, one of the oldest railway buildings to survive, and is criss-crossed by sidings, main lines and the underground.
Peter Ginn and Alex Langlands being welcomed by Colin Richards at the navvy camp.
To build all of this, navvies had to be in the area for a long time. Thus, in order to prevent trouble and to avoid injuries from fighting that might prevent a gang from working, multiple pubs were constructed to segregate the different nationalities. The four pubs in question were the Edinburgh castle, the Dublin castle, the Windsor castle (no longer a pub) and the Pembroke castle.
When navvies moved through towns or villages, they would generally stay in local lodgings. However, much of the urbanization we see associated with railway lines post-dates the lines being built. Indeed, much of the housing in Camden, especially around Primrose Hill, consists of cottages that were hastily erected in order to house railway workers.
Many of the navvies working on the permanent way would have found themselves effectively in the middle of nowhere, living in makeshift dwellings, and drinking homemade hooch, rather like Colin Richards’ carrot whisky. As we sipped from our glasses and the burn in our throats fended off the chill in the air, Colin gave each of us a bowler hat.
In the mid-nineteenth century, life was cheap and health and safety was in its infancy. Industrial accidents were commonplace and a navvy’s work was often dangerous, especially during the construction of tunnels or deep embankments. A navvy had to trust that the environment they were working in was as safe as possible. They also had to trust those around