Isambard Kingdom Brunel
Isambard Kingdom Brunel was a British engineer who built the Great Western Railway and designed the steamships Great Western, Great Britain, and Great Eastern for transatlantic service.
What they did and why it matters
Brunel thought of rail and sea as one connected route, an early version of the intermodal thinking behind modern freight networks. As chief engineer of the Great Western Railway from 1833, he planned a line from London to Bristol that would link with his steamship Great Western to reach New York. His SS Great Britain combined an iron hull with a screw propeller, the design that later ships followed. Today's port-to-rail container flows and through bills of lading carry on the idea of a single journey across modes.
Related people
Events
Sources
- Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859) (Network Rail) networkrail.co.uk
- Who was Isambard Kingdom Brunel? (Royal Museums Greenwich) rmg.co.uk