On the Origin of the Broad Gauge
Few modern inventions sprang into being out of a clear sky. While the Broad Gauge seems to have come from one man, I. K. Brunel, the Broad Gauge Railway was no exception. It came into being as a logical improvement on a system which had been worked in the North of England for 225 years. The first fully traceable railway in England was built at Wollaton near Nottingham, England. An agreement dated 1604 allows one Huntington Beaumont "to carry coals through Wollaton alonge the passage now laide with Railes, and with suche or the lyke Carriages are now in use for that purpose." It probably looked something like this:
Over the next 200 years a welter of waggon ways came into use. In Wales and the South of England L shaped rails guided ordinary wagon wheels. In the North, especially Tyneside raised rails and flanged wheels were the norm. Gauge varied from 39 inches to 5 feet. Each area and even individual mines had different gauges. As it happened, when Stevenson was asked to provide locomotive power for the Killingworth Waggonway it's gauge was 4 feet 8 inches. Stevenson was not invited to decided what gauge would be considered Standard, or even to pick the best gauge for the job. He was simply asked to provide locomotive power for an existing system. It was a system which 200 years of experience said was the correct gauge when one horse pulled one 55cwt waggon.
Stevenson became involved in other projects and won the Rainhill Trials. By then he had experience with the 4 foot 8 inch gauge and kept to it. In the early days there was little problem. The railways of the time continued to haul coal and 4 feet 8 inches gauge, or as became common 56.5 inches, on a permanent way of 9 feet served very well. Soon it was found railways could haul bulky goods such as cotton, wool and people. For a time in it seemed each successive railway added two feet to the permanent way thus allowing an increased loading gauge. The permanent way for a single line went from 9 feet to 11 to 13.
The next railway happened to be I K Brunel's Great Western. He argued that because the GWR was so lightly graded journal friction would be the major loss on the GWR and that larger diameter wheels were the answer; thus the railway could best be served by waggons and carriages 6 feet 6 inches broad sitting between wheels at 7 foot gauge. With such and arrangement the wheels could be any diameter desired. Keeping with recent precedent he increased the permanent way to 15 feet, all that the stockholders would accept. What was unprecedented was the Gauge; Seven Feet one quarter inch. Roughly one and one half times 4 feet 8 inches. In fact, only a few goods waggons were built with the body completely between the wheels, according to Brunel's idea. In just under a year the loading gauge was increased to slightly over 10 feet which left the waggon body limiting the wheel diameter. The following pictures of Gauge War engines give and Idea of the difference between Broad and Standard Gauge
On the left the Standard Gauge Engine A. On the Right the Broad Gauge Engine Ixon. Note the difference in the size of the fireboxes.
On the left the Broad Gauge Ixon. On the right the Standard Gauge A. Note again the difference in the size of the firebox and the long boiler configuration adapted by Stevenson to compensate for the lack of area between the frames.
Needless to say when the haulage trials were made, it was no contest. The broad gauge Ixon won going away, pulling an 80 Ton train 53 mph. What neither Ixon nor Brunel could win was the political and economic side of the Gauge War. First the narrow "standard" gauge forces won in Parlment by sheer force of numbers and argument of economic impact. Then as time went by interchange between railways became more and more important. Over the same period the cost of labor increased, so that the cost of moving material from broad to standard gauge grew to a percentage of the total shipping cost that could not be ignored. By 1892 is was no longer economically feasible to retain the Broad Gauge and in May 1892 it was abolished, and tracks were narrowed to the "standard" 56.5 inch gauge. But, to this day, the British permanent way is 15 feet wide, the loading gauge is 9 feet 6 inches and Gooch's 13 foot high chimneys would still fit under the modern bridges an tunnels. In the end narrow minded men forced coal waggon gauge on all the world, but Brunel's generous permanent way and loading gauge remain.