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=What was the historical significance of the career of Isambard Kingdom Brunel?=

Introduction
Isambard Kingdom Brunel changed the shape of England through his designs and constructions. He was born in April 1806 and died September 1859, he was a British engineer best know for his famous bridges and the creation of the great western railway and a series of steamships that were able to cross the Atlantic. His inventions were longstanding solutions to the problems all engineers faced.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel seen with top hat and cigar.

**Trains**
In the earlier stages of Brunel’s life trains and railways as a means of transport and goods delivery became very important. As an engineer this influence him to get more involved with the development of this transport.

Before the Thames Tunnel was finished, in 1833, Brunel got the job of chief engineer for the Great Western Railway. It was to run from London to Bristol and later it would run on to Exeter. The plan was settled on and a company was founded in 1833, during a public meeting in Bristol it was then incorporated by parliament in 1835.

Gauges
Brunel took two major decisions in the design of his railway. He decided he would use a broad gauge of two metres fourteen for the track because he had reason to believe that it would offer the ability to reach higher speeds. The other decision take as to run the line through the north o the Larlborough Downs, this are had no important towns though it did give the option of connections to Oxford and Gloucester and then onto London.

The reason that his choice of gauge was viewed as controversial by most, was due to the fact that all railways to that date had been using what was known as the standard gauge. Brunel believed that the standard gauge was just a carry over from George Stephenson’s mine railways and the worlds first ever passenger railway line. Through a series of equations and trials Brunel realised that the broader gauge he was proposing to use would offer a higher speed, a more comfortable ride, more capacity aboard freights and larger cabins. He surveyed himself the whole length of the route between London and Bristol.

Using the knowledge that he picked up from the Themes Tunnel, the Great Western included a run of impressive achievements, stations specially designed for the railway, viaducts set in the sky and tunnels long and wide, namely the famous box tunnel, the longest railway tunnel in the world at the time of its creation.

Locomotives
Brunel ordered a set of locomotives that fitted the requirements of his design, though upon receiving said locomotives he found them to be very displeasing. Though there was one deemed satisfactory, the North Star locomotive Daniel Gooch was employed as Locomotive superintendent. The pair, Brunel and Gooch, decided that they wanted to base their locomotive works in the town of Swindon, the place where the slow accent to London changed to a steeper downward incline towards the Avon valley at Bath.

Achievements
The achievements of Brunel inspired many engineers and he soon became one of the most famous men in the whole of England. After his death a decision was made, and it was decided that the standard gauge would be used for all of Britain’s railways. Despite the proof presented by the Great western, the decision swung in the favor of Stephenson’s standard gauge due to the fact that the majority of the countries lines were already using it. By the time may 1892 arrived, once the broad gauge had officially been abolished the transition to standard gauge was made easier because the Great Western was already re-laid as a dual-gauge track.

Paddington Station was one of Brunel’s designs and it was opened in 1854. There are many different examples of his station designs though none as big as Paddington station. Other smaller stations designed by Brunel are located along the Great Western. There are also a few examples of wooden train sheds, though they would have been restored.

The engine house at Rotherhithe put there by Brunel to house the steam trains and to power all of the tunnel pumps is still there today though for a different purpose. It is now a museum dedicated to the life and works of Marc and Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

Swindon
Brunel has been credited with turning the small town of Swindon into one of the fastest growing towns in Europe in the 1800’s. Due to the placement of the locomotive sheds, put up to work on them, there was a need for housing. Brunel the reason to build several hospitals for the sick, housing estates for the workers and churches for the holy. The housing estates soon became known as New Swindon. Today the area is sometimes referred to as the railway village. There is also a mechanics institution left behind by Brunel. The many hospitals and clinics set up by Brunel for his workers gave Aneurin Bevan the base needed to set up her project, the National Health Service.

Bridges
The beginning of Brunel’s solo engineering career was mostly to do with bridges. The Royal Albert Bridge traversing the river Tamar, in the vicinity of Plymouth, and a rather original bridge, near Bridgewater, framed with timer, were two of Brunel’s early works.

Maidenhead
In 1838 Maidenhead Railway Bridge was built over the Berkshire region of the Themes. It was the widest and flattest brick arch bridge in the world, to this day it still supports the main train lines to the west of England. The bridge is comprised of two arches both spans totaling to thirty nine metres each, and a vertical height of just seven metres, across the width of the bridge lay four tracks. The seemingly flat arches were perpously build to help the train engines avoid steep slopes, such as on hump back bridges. The trains used today are almost ten times as heavy as Brunel had ever anticipated, the design therefore is perfect for the type of train used now.

A suspension bridge near Charing cross station was declared open to the public in 1845, only to then be replaced in 1859 by a new railway bridge.

Royal Albert Bridge
Designed in 1855 for a Cornish Railway Company, the Royal Albert Bridge is comprised of two main spans of one hundred and thirty nine metres. Parliament rejected Brunel’s original plans for a train ferry that would stretch across the estuary of the tidal Tamar, Tavy and Lynher. The bridge was completed, and declared open by Prince Albert, the year that Brunel passed away.

Clifton Suspension Bridge
Though perhaps one of Brunel’s most famous works is located in Clifton in Bristol. The Clifton Suspension Bridge spans two hundred and thirteen metres, and sits sixty one metres above the river Avon. When the bridge was constructed it held the record for longest span in the world. Before the bridges construction Brunel submitted four designs to a committee before gaining their approval. Though he never lived to see the realisation of his plans, an organisation of his colleagues and admirers at the Institution of Civil Engineers though it would be the perfect memorial and raised the funds needed to build such a bridge. Work on the bridge began in 1862 and ended in 1864, just five years after Brunel’s passing. Clifton Suspension Bridge form an angle.

Designs
During Brunel’s railway building career, though mainly in the south Devon and Cornwall tracks, where money was required due to the need to traverse many valleys, he incorporated wood into many of his plans. The wood was used in many of the bridges that were needed and over the years since their construction the wood has been replaced many times. Nearly all of the bridges designed by Brunel are still in us today; The themes tunnel, also designed by Brunel is now a part of the London underground.

The Great Western
Before the finishing touches had been place upon the great western railway, Brunel was already working on a new project, this project was transatlantic shipping. He used his prestige to persuade the railway company workers to build his newest idea, the great western. It would go onto be the biggest steamship in the world. She first sailed in 1837. The ship was seventy two metres long, made of wood and powered by sail and paddlewheels. The first sail to newyork took just twenty nine days, whereas before on a normal sailing ship it would take around two months. Seventy four crossings were made in total. The Great Britain, another ship, was built in 1843, it was much lager at ninety eight metres long, it was the first ever iron hulled propeller driven ship to cross the Atlantic Ocean.

The Great Eastern
Looking over these great successes, in 1852 Brunel moved onto a third ship, said ship was even bigger than the two of its predecessors and was build for traversing the oceans to India and Australia. The Great Eastern was very advanced for its time, it was almost two hundred metres long, and included the most luxurious appointments and was able to carry over four thousand passengers. The ship was designed to cruise under its own power non-stop from London all the way to Sydney and all the way back again. At that time most engineers believed that there were no coal mines in Australia and until the turn of the centaury came around it was the biggest ship ever built. The ship soon ran over budget and fell behind schedule like most of Brunel’s bigger projects. The Great Eastern’s legacy lays at the bottom of the ocean in the form of the Trans Atlantic cable. It failed as a mean of transporting passengers though a role was found for the ship laying cable, meaning Europe and America had a telecommunications link.

This is a painting of the Great Eastern in all its glory.

Faliers
It can be argued that one of Brunel’s great failures was that his ship designs were just too many years ahead of their time. The economic and industrial difficulties of the time made Brunel’s all metal, screw driven, giant ships only a partial reality. Partial because it would be decades before the transoceanic steamships were ever a viable industry.

Significance
The significance of his career is all of the engineering feats that he accomplished and the designs that influenced many more to come. Without Brunel it could have been years before some of these designs were ever even imagined. The ships, trains and bridges changed the shape of England.