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July, 1938

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Sufficient evidence has survived of transport in the early civilisations of the Near East to indicate that some of the essentials of the railway were used many centuries ago, so far as they were applicable to prevailing conditions. Heavy engineering works were undertaken to secure level tracks; standardised axle lengths were often used, sometimes in conjunction with parallel lines of stone and sometimes to enable vehicles to run in rutways; a standard gauge, varying in different parts of the world from 4 ft. 6 in. to 5 ft. 4 in., was a known feature; and a single line of way with passing places was recognised as a measure of economy where traffic was not heavy. After the fall of the Roman Empire there is no evidence of road maintenance or construction on a national basis, and even the use of the wheeled vehicle seems to have been severely limited. During this period there are no traces of rail transport and it is extremely unlikely that ancient practice had any effect on the reintroduction of rails.

A recognisable form of narrow-gauge mineral railway was developed as an adjunct to the mediaeval mining industry of Central Europe, and it is from this modest device of an unknown "mining engineer" that both the efficient transport of the modern mine and also the public railway systems of the world have been evolved. Researches of German historians tend to show that wooden tracklines were used in the Harz mines and in those of the Tyrol as early as the twelfth century, but we have little definite evidence of the form of these lines and their vehicles until the sixteenth century, when various illustrated works on mining practice were published.

The earliest known book to illustrate a mine railway is one in German bearing a lengthy title of which the first three words are "Der Ursprung gemeynner". This is a very scarce work, and of the four or five copies known to exist none is in this country. It was published by Johan Haselberger, a publisher who had various books printed for him in different towns in Germany between the years 1515 and 1538. "Der Ursprung gemeynner" appears to be the only undated book he published, but its date has been placed at about 1519. The illustration reproduced appears both on the title page and in the text; this is from the copy in the library of the University of Halle, and shows a gnome-like figure pushing what appears to be a four-wheel truck of ore along a narrow-gauge wooden railway. The only textual reference to the track is a 23-word sentence stating that the Treckwerk is a haulage device consisting of a pathway of planks laid between the lower and upper headings (or galleries) on which vehicles are moved in and out, and serve to bring forth material.

Apart from its transport interest, this little 44-page volume is of great historical importance as being the first known printed collection of facts and views on mining laws and rights. An approximate translation of the full title is as follows: "The origin of common mining law (or rights) as received long since from our ancestors and the various royal and princely dispensations thereon, of which anyone, such as mine masters and other officials, may fairly make use of in mining negotiations. Likewise an account of how the clefts and veins of metallic ore are to be found in hill and dale." The contents comprise :–

The functions of the staff of a mine are set out, and brief details given of the tools and their uses, followed by the "Mining Master's oath, and that of other officials" :–

Apart from the brief reference already quoted, mining railways are not accorded a description, so that it would seem the author accepted them as a recognised feature of mining equipment, and not an innovation.

The next known railway illustration in order of date is to be found in the "Cosmographiae Universalis" by Sebastian Munster. The first edition was published in Latin at Basle in 1550 (ab incarnato filio dei M.D.L.), and, in describing the silver mine at Leberthal (Alsace), illustrates a miner pushing a four-wheel truck along a narrow-gauge railway. The same illustration appears elsewhere in the volume and it is possible that the picture refers to contemporary mining practice rather than to Leberthal in particular, but the text headed De argentifodina Leberthalensi clearly states that the vehicles there ran on four small iron wheels (cum alveis in quatuor parvis ferreis rotulis currentibus), and the French edition of 1552 records the same thing (ilz ont des tombereaux fut quatre petites roues de fer); here we have our first mention of iron wheels on a mining railway. The whole process of transport is outlined thus: "Workmen are available to receive whatever is excavated, whether stones or earth; they have vehicles running on four small iron wheels and in these they take it to the nearest shaft. where there are other workmen with tackle to haul it to the surface, where it is handed over to other workmen to take away on vehicles (or trolleys)." The hauling gear is marked in the illustration Instrumentum Tractorium; indeed all the equipment is described in Latin, but the functions of the workmen are given in German.

At the same period a work of outstanding importance on mining practice was being compiled by Georgius Agricola, and was first published in 1556 in Latin under the title "De Re Metallica." Agricola, whose real name was Georg Bauer, was born at Glauchau in Saxony on March 24, 1494, but, after the custom of the time with students, his name was Latinised as Georgius Agricola. After an early career as a lecturer he became in 1527 town physician at Joachimstal, the centre of a famous Bavarian mining district and during the next few years travelled extensively in the mining areas. He died on November 21, 1555, and, as already mentioned, the following year the first Latin edition of "De Re Metallica" — a work on which he had spent 20 years-was published. In 1557 a German translation appeared, and subsequently other editions in both languages, for Agricola's monumental work was a standard mining treatise for nearly 200 years. Agricola illustrated mining railway equipment, giving details of a mining wagon designed to run on two wooden rails laid to a narrow gauge, and therefore with only a small space intervening between their inside faces. The wheels were not flanged, but to keep the vehicle on the rails it was fitted with an iron prong that ran in the narrow gap left between the rails. Agricola says that these wagons were given the name canis (dog) by reason of the noise they made as they passed over the rails, but he wrote in Latin — the scholar's language — and doubtless his readers appreciated that the miners actually called their vehicles Hund. Even at the present time, the modern variety of unflanged wagon with a guiding prong is known in the German mining industry as the Hund.

The Latin editions of "De Re Metallica" are the only ones worth studying; the German editions are comparatively poor translations, and the only version in English is a 1912 translation by Herbert Clark Hoover (afterwards President of the U.S.A.) and his wife Lou Henry Hoover. This English translation renders the passage describing the wagon and its track (Book VI, page 156) as follows :–

Information on these sixteenth century mining railways is further amplified by an exhibit in the Verkehrs- und Baumuseum, Berlin, which came from the collection of Herr A.. Haarmann, a former General Manager of the Georg-Marien Mining and Blast Furnace Union at Osnabruck. This consists of a wooden wagon and section of track stated to date from the sixteenth century and to have come from the gold mines in Transylvania (Siebenburgen), once a province of Hungary, but now in Roumania. The track is composed of rounded wooden bars laid on wooden sleepers to a gauge of 48 c.m. (1 ft. 6 7/8 in.). An interesting feature is a movable point consisting of a rail pivoted at the apex of the legs and serving equally well for each direction of running. Our illustration of this exhibit is reproduced from a photograph specially taken for the author by the Direktor of the Verkehrs- und Baumuseum. A similar, but undated, section of track is illustrated in one of the standard American histories of railways, but the author has fallen into the error of commenting that "the artist failed to complete the switch." Actually, as the track gauge was narrow, one movable part sufficed, and points of this type are still used in the Apostel mines at Brad, in Transylvania. Use of a short tongue which also forms the wing portion of the point is now considered satisfactory for this type of work on mining lines up to about 40 c.m. (1 ft. 3¾ in.) gauge.

The requirements of Continental Europe prior to the nineteenth century were not such as to result in railways extending beyond the special needs of mines, where heavy concentrated loads of ore were required to be transported along a fixed route, and the only early permanent way development outside Great Britain that remains to be recorded is the use, on curves and gradients, of strips of wrought iron called Reibeisen fixed on top of the wooden rails. The word means, of course, rubbing iron, and thus indicates its use at points of greatest friction.

Drawings and Photographs accompanying the article