Note 45 — Chapter IV · RAILWAY WORKS. A.D. 1835—1859. ÆTATIS 30—54.

Sir William Armstrong’s hydraulic machinery at Paddington is described by him in a communication printed in the Report of the British Association for 1854, p. 418: ‘I have also applied it [water pressure machinery] extensively to railway purposes chiefly under the direction of Mr. Brunel, who has found a multitude of cases involving lifting or traction power in which it may be made available. Most of these applications are well exemplified at the new station of the Great Western Railway Company in London, where the loading and unloading of trucks, the hoisting into warehouses, the lifting of loaded trucks from one level to another, the moving of turn-tables, and the hauling of trucks and traversing machines are all performed, or about to be so, by means of hydraulic pressure supplied by one central steam engine with connected accumulators.’