Railway Across Chat Moss, Coloured View of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway
Resource Type: Image | Posted on 3rd May 2011 by Jenny Porter
One of the Bury prints, painted by Thomas Talbot Bury, who was commissioned to paint depictions of the Liverpoool and Manchester Railway. This painting shows the Railway passing through Chat Moss, a peat bog area in Salford. The bog initially threatened the completion of the Railway, because it was hard to provide a solid basis for the line. In fact, all the earliest proposals for the route circumvented Chat Moss: George Stephenson surprised the owners of the Railway Company by insisted that the bog could be crossed, and such scepticism was so widespread that in 1824 Parliament rejected a bill to allow the Railway to be constructed: it relented two years later after Stephenson refused to budge. At first, a footpath of heather was laid; after this proved a success, it was broadened to carry a constructors’ line for the wagons bearing the building material. More than 200 men laid drains on either side of the proposed track area. However, this had no impact on the deeper areas of the bog, so Stephenson replaced the drains with barrels and casks, linked and coated with clay to form a pipe. Nevertheless, in one area, the Blackpool Hole, the barrels kept rising to the surface. But Stephenson rejected suggestions to build a viaduct instead, and accepted a proposal from one of his workers, Robert Stannard, to lay down timber in a herring-bone fashion, combined with moss, heather and brushwood hurdles. This worked, and has been hailed as a “great triumph of engineering”: the line is still used today
Categorised under: Landmarks, Landscapes & Locomotives
Comments
i have a copy of this picture, i paid to have it renovated about 50 years ago and was told it was an original hand coloured engraving. It was reframed as picture but has the original details within the frame. is this of interest or value? The shop that did the work offered me fifty pounds for it, about one months wages.