Building the Railways

Aims:

• Identify the methods used to build railway lines in Britain.

• Examine life as a worker on the railway lines.

The Challenge of the Railways

• As you can imagine, the building of railway lines could be very problematic.

• The geography of the landscape where they were being built could pose many problems.

• How do you think railway companies got round the problems of:

• Rivers• Hills

• Valleys

Navvies• The main labour force of railway building

was made up of Navvies or Navigators.• These workers travelled to where railway

lines were being built and took their own tools with them.

• They hired themselves out to the railway companies.

• Their work was dangerous e.g. explosions and cave-ins when tunnelling through rock living conditions were also poor as well.

Men laying railway tracks in 1908

Navvies at work. Note that they are having to cut into the landscape.

A Bad Press

• Many Irish immigrants who came to Scotland from the 1840s worked as ‘navvies’.

• Unfortunately some navvies often got into trouble in local villages and towns because of their drinking and rowdy behaviour.

• This added to the growing resentment towards the Irish in Scotland.

Tasks:

1. Complete the table from page 16 of your work guide to show how railway companies tackled problems in the landscape. USE A RULER!

2. Copy the passage from the top of page 17 into your jotter inserting the missing words. There is a word bank to help you.

3. Complete questions a to e from page 17 in sentences. Use pages 45 and 46 of your textbook to help you.

The Impact of the Railways

Aim:

• Identify the positive and negative effects of the railways.

The Negative Effects of the

Railways

Coach companies lost

business

Ruined the countryside

Canal companies lost business

Dangerous work building the

railways

Noise Pollution

Local businesses lost trade

Tasks:

1. As a group copy and complete the table from page 18 of your work guide.

2. What do you think were the three most important benefits that the railways brought to Britain?

Give a reason to support each example that you have chosen.

The Forth Rail Bridge

•From 1850 Edinburgh was connected to Perth by ferry.

•Plans to build a bridge began in 1879 but this was halted after the Tay Bridge Disaster on 28th December 1879.

•The bridge collapsed killing 70 passengers.

•An official enquiry stated that the bridge had been badly designed.

The Forth Rail Bridge

•The bridge to cross the River Forth was redesigned and work began in 1883.

•The Forth Rail Bridge was opened on 4th March 1890 by the Prince of Wales.

•The total cost of the bridge was £2.5 million.

•4,000 men were employed and 44 lives were lost. Safety boats were positioned in the river under working areas.

The Forth Rail Bridge:• The bridge is regarded

as a tremendous achievement of engineering.

• Some have even compared its structure to the Eiffel tower in Paris!

• At the time it was the largest steel bridge in the world.

• The bridge is now a listed structure and continues to carry around 150 trains a day.

The building of the bridge dramatically improved trade and transport links on the east coast of Scotland as well as transport links between Scotland and England