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I do occasionally get through a book these days, and a recent one was about George and Robert Stephenson of early locomotives fame, the book being a modern edition of 'Lives of the Engineers' by Samuel Smiles...
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27710/27710-h/27710-h.htm
It's a good read, even if the two Stephensons (father and son) can do no wrong in the writer's eyes.
Along with inventing ever better steam trains, George Stephenson was also in charge of laying out lots of railway lines. One formidable obstacle was Chat Moss, a peat bog near Manchester. The following paragraph about the difficulty of crossing this amused me...
"The greatest difficulty was, however, experienced in forming an embankment upon the edge of the bog at the Manchester end. Moss as dry as it could be cut, was brought up in small waggons, by men and boys, and emptied so as to form an embankment; but the bank had scarcely been raised three or four feet in height, when the stuff broke through the heathery surface of the bog and sank out of sight. More moss was brought up and emptied with no better result; and for weeks the filling was continued without any visible embankment having been made. It was the duty of the resident engineer to proceed to Liverpool every fortnight to obtain the wages for the workmen employed under him; and on these occasions he was required to colour up, on a section drawn to a working scale suspended against the wall of the directors’ room, the amount of excavation and embankment from time to time executed. But on many of these occasions, Mr. Dixon had no progress whatever to show for the money expended on the Chat Moss embankment. Sometimes, indeed, the visible work done was less than it had appeared a fortnight or a month before!"
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27710/27710-h/27710-h.htm
It's a good read, even if the two Stephensons (father and son) can do no wrong in the writer's eyes.
Along with inventing ever better steam trains, George Stephenson was also in charge of laying out lots of railway lines. One formidable obstacle was Chat Moss, a peat bog near Manchester. The following paragraph about the difficulty of crossing this amused me...
"The greatest difficulty was, however, experienced in forming an embankment upon the edge of the bog at the Manchester end. Moss as dry as it could be cut, was brought up in small waggons, by men and boys, and emptied so as to form an embankment; but the bank had scarcely been raised three or four feet in height, when the stuff broke through the heathery surface of the bog and sank out of sight. More moss was brought up and emptied with no better result; and for weeks the filling was continued without any visible embankment having been made. It was the duty of the resident engineer to proceed to Liverpool every fortnight to obtain the wages for the workmen employed under him; and on these occasions he was required to colour up, on a section drawn to a working scale suspended against the wall of the directors’ room, the amount of excavation and embankment from time to time executed. But on many of these occasions, Mr. Dixon had no progress whatever to show for the money expended on the Chat Moss embankment. Sometimes, indeed, the visible work done was less than it had appeared a fortnight or a month before!"