Jack Simmons (1) (1915–2000)

Jack Simmons was one of the great pioneers of British railway history. During his many years at the University of Leicester Simmons wrote several books on railways, co-founded the Journal of Transport History, and helped establish both the National Railway Museum in York and the London Transport Museum. This book was meant to be the first part of his magnum opus: a four-volume history of railways in England and Wales from the advent of the steam locomotive to the outbreak of the First World show more War, one that would cover every aspect of their development and impact upon the country. To lay the groundwork for this massive undertaking, Simmons started with a volume that would provide his readers with a summary of the evolution of railways south of the Borderlands during this period, as well as the particulars of their operation.

Simmons’s book can be divided into two parts. The first half of the book offers a chronological description of the establishment of railway networks throughout England and Wales during the Victorian era. Though rail transportation existed prior to 1830, the introduction of the steam engine as a source of motive power dramatically increased the possibilities it offered. As railways demonstrated their capabilities and usefulness, the number of lines proposed grew until a “mania” had taken ahold of the country. By the time it subsided in the mid-1850s it left England and Wales with a widespread but uncoordinated network of lines that was the envy of the world. Throughout this period, Simmons emphasizes the preeminence of private enterprise in this process: though each line was established through an Act of Parliament, there was nothing like the state-directed process that took place in France and Belgium during this period.

The British approach to railway development brought with it a set of advantages and disadvantages that Simmons details. While generally admiring of the system that emerged, he notes the growing complacency of railway managers as the industry matured in the second half of the 19th century as a series of companies emerged to dominate various regions of the country. Each of these companies developed a distinct character that made coordination difficult whenever the need for consolidation arose, yet together they provided a means of transportation across the country that became not just indispensable by the end of the period but iconic as well.

In the second half of the book, Simmons looks at the operations of the railways and the equipment they used. What could have been a dry description of rolling stock and signaling methods is used by Simmons to explain why English and Welsh railways adopted the forms and processes that they did. Much of it was shaped by circumstance, albeit with some variety between the various companies that hardened into custom over time. While he notes the diminishing degree of innovation as the period came to an end, Simmons acknowledges that this was not universal, as various companies continued to improve processes and introduce innovations into the 20th century, sometimes in the face of resistance from workers and even executives who saw little need to change what had worked successfully for so long.

Throughout the book Simmons notes topics that he planned to address in future volumes. This points to a design he had worked out before the initial book was published which, had it been completed, would have resulted in a truly magnificent work. Yet Simmons would publish just one more installment, The Railway in Town and Country, 1830-1914, before circumstances forced him to wrap it up with a catch-all work, The Victorian Railway, that offers us only a glimpse of what he intended. This loss is especially regrettable given the splendid quality of this book. While it is unfortunate that we do not have the full work that Simmons envisioned giving us, what he did complete remains an extremely valuable resource that everyone interested in English and Welsh railways should read. show less

This book complements Prof. Simmons' earlier books on the effects of the railway on Victorian Britain by looking at the way the Victorians themselves perceived the railway and its effects, good and bad. It's a very interesting and readable account, although perhaps not an ideal starting point if you're new to the subject, as Simmons does not waste much time on the more familiar material. Fanny Kemble's trip on the Rocket is dismissed in half a line; Dickens' railway accident experience gets show more only slightly more; Ruskin does not get a chance to fulminate about the Buxton to Matlock railway. Even the illustrations mostly manage to avoid the obvious (we do get Frith's "Railway Station", though) .

Simmons has managed to bring together a remarkable range of material, much of which I hadn't come across before, covering the whole of Great Britain (with a couple of minor excursions across the Irish Sea), and the whole period from the 1820s to 1914. This is a huge subject, but Simmons has the benefit of many years of research in the field and is able to select what is interesting and relevant from the mass of material available. He puts the material into context succinctly, and tests the Victorian writers' (often contradictory) perceptions against statistical data wherever it is available. He clearly did quite a bit of original research, for example in trying to estimate the development of excursion traffic, or the role of the railways in transporting daily commuters. And there are some interesting little inquiries into unexpected side-issues, like disentangling the roles of sabbatarianism from penny-pinching in the development of the British "railway Sunday".

Definitely well worth the effort for anyone who's interested in railways in 19th century Britain. show less

This book has gone through several, rather different, editions: I have the 1986 3rd edition, which presents a slightly uneasy compromise in format between coffee-table book and serious academic history. As you would expect from Professor Simmons, the text is intelligent, well-argued, and supported by a useful bibliography and references. A concise but comprehensive sketch of British railway history up to 1985 is followed by essays on particular topics (buildings, motive power, people, etc.) show more and a few case-studies, each presenting a journey along a particular route and putting what the modern (i.e. 1985) traveller sees into an historical context. It's a book that's quite fun to dip into, but it doesn't really serve any obvious purpose: too serious (and not glossy enough) for the coffee table, too superficial for anyone really interested in the subject. While there are plenty of illustrations, some of them in colour, the quality of the paper and printing in this edition doesn't do them justice. The binding on my copy is also looking a bit dodgy, with a number of pages held in only by willpower. Probably the sort of book that other people buy you as a present. show less

An erudite guide by one of the key writers on industrial history of his time on a temporary museum in an old tram depot in Leicester, which I suspect very few people now remember. Somehow, Leicester Council acquired on loan a number of locomotives from the National Collection and proposed a major transport museum to house them. (This, of course, was in the days when a railway museum was a collection of cold, dead engines, stuffed and mounted to be looked at, but certainly never to be used, show more God forbid.) The museum at Stoneygate Tram Depot, which I visited once, was a stop-gap measure to show off the best of them until the main museum was ready. Of the four locomotives of the title, the two Midland engines - the Johnson 'Spinner' no.118 (later 673) and the Kirtley 2-4-0 no.158a - were the gems. The Spinner was restored to running order briefly during the 1980s, but is now back at York, I believe; 158a is at Butterley, under the care of the Midland Railway Trust. The North Eastern steeple-cab electric was of interest to Leicester because it was built by the Brush Company at nearby Loughborough; that is now also at York. The fourth locomotive was an industrial steam saddle tank, also built by Brush, and which actually was the property of Leicester Museums. I suspect that now to be somewhere at the Abbey Mills pumping station complex, though I didn't see it there last time I visited in 2003.

The booklet was a good attempt to put these four engines into context and describe them in an academic yet understandable way. show less