NEW APRIL 2025. This is a 450-page book, published in 1846.  Robert Ritchie described himself as a civil engineer. The full title of his book is "Railways; their rise, progress and construction: with remarks on railway accidents and proposals for their prevention".  It is illustrated with 64 woodcuts, many of them small ones.

The book broadly divides into three parts: the track and infrastructure, motive power and accidents. You can read a list of its contents HERE.

There is an good account of all four contestants at the Rainhill Trials, but he seems to think the future is poised - locomotive haulage, or atmospheric railways.  He adds the comment "Experiments have also been tried on railways to make use of electro-magnetism as the motive power, but, as yet, with little prospect of success."  A fascinating observation when electric currents were as much in their infancy as railways!

He describes several accidents. The railways of East Anglia seem to crop up with more than their expected share of them after so few years.  It was not feasible to highlight these in the text, but the file is searchable.  Look for 'Eastern' to find all the ones mentioned on the ECR and the N&ER, and also 'Norfolk' for the Norfolk Railway.

The file also has bookmarks. It will be available to download as soon as payment has been made. You go to your account and click on ‘Downloads’. New customers create an account as they place their order.