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Rail to the Rescue - Part 1

© John Barham

In the 1850s, rail travel was a 'state of the art' development, endowed with an aura of glamour that thrilled its passengers. Born into a world that accepted the horse as the fastest means of transport, they had the impression of passing through a time warp as their locomotive ate up the miles between major towns at speeds previously considered the stuff of science fiction. But it would not have occured to these same passengers that a totally unglamorous rail system could be installed and operated in the Crimea to overcome the well publicised communication problems posed by the need to rely on inadequate roads over rough heavily contoured terrain and rendered impassible by perrenial severe winter weather. They would at least have considered rail an unsuitable, and probably impossible solution. Nevertheless Thomas Beatty and his intrepid band of navvies achieved the probably impossible in the early part of 1855.

Although it was barely thirty years since the opening of the first railway line, the industry had expanded at an impressive rate throughout Western Europe and North America. In Britain alone, 3000 miles of track had been laid, and employment provided for 200,000 navvies, hardy often dangerous men, as rough and tough as the conditions they were forced to work under. Rail was becoming a world-wide industry, developing in countries as far-flung as Argentina, Algeria and Russia, and driven by British expertise and technology, headed up by confident charismatic and vigorous entrepreneurs. Prominent among these was Samuel Morton Peto.

Peto was an experienced railway contractor, responsible for organising railway construction, obtaining all the necessary materials and personnel - engineers, administrators, supervisors, and labour - at the right place and time and delivering the finished product within strict deadlines. He had progressed into railways from the building trade and had worked with Brunel in the 1840s. A visionary loth to refuse any challenge, he had also taken a few knocks along the way, learning from experience to share the constant stress and massive workloads with other wise experienced heads. 1854 found him in partnership with Edward Betts, a gifted administrator, and Thomas Brassey, a like minded entrepreneur, long-time friend of George Stephenson, and whose vast experience of large scale projects helped to keep Samuel's vision within the horizons of the achievable and profitable.

This formidable grouping, known unsurprisingly as Peto, Betts & Brassey, had recently completed the Royal Danish Railway Jutland to Schleswig link in record time, and mid-November 1854 saw Samuel Peto in Copenhagen, to receive the Order of the Danebrog from King Frederick VII for his pains. Credit for planting the seed of the idea for the Crimean railway could arguably go to the Danish Foreign Minister. Just before Samuel set off back to England, he took him aside and informed him that he had just received news from their Constantinople embassy that the British Army was in serious trouble following an immensely destructive hurricane which had wiped out the road communications between Balaklava, now a morass, and the troop encampments, now marooned on the heights with minimal supplies. The implication, unconscious or otherwise, was that a railway was desperately urgently needed to assure the supply of the Army,or it was in danger of perishing. This conclusion formed in Peto's mind during the voyage home and immediately after arrival at Lowestoft on the 22nd, he called on Thomas Brassey to elicit his views.