ABSTRACT
In his History of British Railways down to the year 1830, Dendy Marshall draws attention to undated drawings in the Boulton & Watt Collection showing cast iron rails and stone sleepers for Lawson Main waggonway. He correlates the drawings with a statement by Nicholas Wood in A Practical Treatise on Rail-Roads that 'the late Mr Barns' employed stone supports for the rails 'in forming the first iron Rail-road which was laid down in the neighbourhood of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The drawings are of exceptional interest as they show details of well designed 'fish belly' edge-rails with chairs and cross sleepers. 'The late Mr Barns' to whom Wood refers is Thomas Barnes viewer of Walker Colliery, and one of the most able mining engineers of his day. At least sixty of his letters to Boulton & Watt have survived, chiefly dating from 1794 to 1798.
