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Themes Gallery: Brunel |
 Strange but true
- On several occasions Brunel had lucky escapes from death. He once
swallowed a coin which stuck in his windpipe, apparently for several
weeks. After designing a pair of forceps for an unsuccessful operation
he had a frame made which could be turned upside down and spun around,
using centrifugal force to bring out the coin.
- There were many objections to Brunel’s railways including fears that
they would 'poison the air, spoil the countryside and corrupt schoolchildren'.
- Liverpool’s Anfield football ground has a flagpole which came from
Brunel’s ship the Great Eastern.
- The running of trains was originally controlled by policemen.
- In the early days of railways Britain used ‘local’ time. Exeter local
time was 14 minutes 18 seconds after GMT. This made it very difficult
to write timetables and so everywhere in Britain adopted Greenwich Mean
Time.
- Brunel did not patent any of his ideas or inventions. Many including
a rifle barrel were copied and patented by others who made a great deal
of money from them.
- In 1849 two men boarded a train at Starcross and committed what is
thought to be the first mail train robbery on the way to Bristol. On
their return they raided a second train but were caught and sentenced
to fifteen years transportation.
- As the railway system expanded Brunel’s broad gauge met other ‘standard’
gauge lines and through traffic had to be transferred from one truck
to another. Ordinary everyday traffic was bad enough but records refer
to 'five elephants, a pack of hounds and a den of lions' having to change
trucks!
- The tubes of the Royal Albert Bridge are made of wrought iron plates
riveted together. There are some rivets missing and this can work like
a pin hole camera to create an image of the shoreline on the inside
of the tube.
- The ownership of the land used for the railway near Powderham became
the cause of Britain’s longest running legal case.
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