Joseph
Locke
was born in Attercliffe, near Sheffield
in 1805. He left school at 13 and after various jobs became an apprentice
under George Stephenson in 1823. Locke
worked with Stephenson on the building of the Stockton
& Darlington Railway and the Liverpool
& Manchester Railway. Locke's reputation grew and he was appointed
with Stephenson as joint chief engineer of the Grand
Junction Railway.
Stephenson, who did not find it easy to share power with his former
pupil and in 1835 decided to leave the project.
The Grand
Junction Railway,
opened on 20th July, 1837, was over eighty-two
miles long and linked Birmingham with
the Liverpool & Manchester line.The
line included 100 underbridges, 50 overbridges, 5 viaducts, 2 tunnels
and 2 aqueducts. On some parts of the line, Joseph
Locke used double-headed rails held in chairs mounted on wooden sleepers.
This proved to be very successful and this became the usual form of
track on British railways for many years.
Locke developed a reputation for building straight railway lines that
avoided expensive tunnelling. In doing so, he was forced in some places
to adopt gradients that were too steep for economical running. However,
he was the first railway engineer that realised that locomotives would
gradually be able to overcome steep gradients. By the 1840s improved
locomotives meant that Locke was able to build railway lines with
gradients as steep as 1 in 50.
Locke's success building the Grand Junction
Railway resulted in him being offered commissions to build railways
all over Europe, notably, the railway between Paris and Rouen. Joseph
Locke died in 1860.
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