cture: Flange rail]

In 1789, Mr. William Jessop constructed a railway at Loughborough, in
Leicestershire, and there introduced the cast-iron edge-rail, with
flanches cast upon the tire of the waggon-wheels to keep them on the
track, instead of having the margin or flanch cast upon the rail itself;
and this plan was shortly after adopted in other places. In 1800, Mr.
Benjamin Outram, of Little Eaton, in Derbyshire (father of the
distinguished General Outram), used stone props instead of timber for
supporting the ends or joinings of the rails. Thus the use of railroads,
in various forms, gradually extended, until they were found in general
use all over the mining districts.

Such was the growth of the railway, which, it will be observed,
originated in necessity, and was modified according to experience;
progress in this, as in all departments of mechanics, having been
effected by the exertions of many men, one generation entering upon the
labours of that which preceded it, and carrying them onward to further
stages of improvement. We shall afterwards find that the invention of
the locomotive was made by like successive steps. It was not the
invention of one man, but of a succession of men, each working at the
proper hour, and according to the needs of that hour; one inventor
interpreting only the first word of the problem which his successors were
to solve after long and laborious efforts and experiments. "The
locomotive is not the invention of one man," said Robert Stephenson at
Newcastle, "but of a nation of mechanical engineers."

The same circumstances which led to the rapid extension of railways in
the coal districts of the north tended to direct the attention of the
mining engineers to the early development of the powers of the
steam-engine as a useful instrument of motive power. The necessity which
existed for a more effective method of hauling the coals from the pits to
the shipping places was constantly present to many minds; and the daily
pursuits of a large class of mechanics occupied in the management of
steam power, by which the coal was raised from the pits, and the mines
were pumped clear of water, had the effect of directing their attention
to the same agency as the best means for accomplishing that object.

Among the upper-ground workmen employed at the coal-pits, the principal
are the firemen, enginemen, and brakes-men, who fire and work the
engines, and superintend the machinery by means of wh