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1 Reading Pass

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Retro Football
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READING PASSAGE 1

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading
Passage 1.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859) — an extraordinary engineer
A Isambard Kingdom Brunel possessed the essential spark of engineering - the drive to
Innovate. His French father, Marc Isambard Brunel, was himself a famous engineer. Marc
settled in Britain and married an English woman, Sophia Kingdom. Isambard was born in
1806. At the age of 14, he was sent to France to study mathematics and science, later
returning to England to assist his father, who was building a tunnel under the River
Thames in London. Isambard was injured in a tunnel cave-in, and while recuperating
near
Bristol, in the west of England, he became involved with his own first major project - the Clifton
Suspension Bridge, over the River Avon.

B Two design competitions were held, and Brunel presented four proposals. He won with
a design for a bridge with a span longer than any existing at the time, at a height of about
75
metres above water. The technical challenges of this engineering project were immense, and
Brunel dealt with them with thoroughness and ingenuity. Unfortunately, he only got so far as to
put up the end piers in his lifetime. The Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol was completed by
engineering colleagues in 1864, and is still in use.

C While Brunel was still in Bristol, working on the bridge project, he learned that the civic
authorities saw the need for a railway link to London. Railway location was controversial,
since private landowners and towns had to be dealt with. Mainly, the landed gentry did not
want a messy, noisy railway anywhere near them. Brunel showed great skill in presenting his
arguments to the various committees and individuals, and won them over. He was awarded
the contract and constructed the railway line

D Brunel's ready acceptance of new ideas overpowered good engineering judgement (at
least in hindsight) when he advocated the installation of an 'atmospheric railway' in South
Devon. It had the great attraction of doing away with the locomotive, and potentially could
deal with steeper gradients. However, materials were not up to the task, and the mechanism
was troublesome and expensive to keep in good repair. The system was withdrawn from use
after a year.

E The idea of using steam to power ships to cross the ocean appealed to Brunel. He
formed the Great Western Steamship Company, and construction started on the Great
Western in Bristol in 1836. Built of wood, and powered by sail and steam-driven paddle
wheels, it was launched the following year. The first trip to New York took just 15 days one
way - a great success, as the normal sailing time was over a month. The Great Western was
the first steamship to be engaged in transatlantic service and made 74 crossings to New
York.

F Brunel immediately got to work on an even bigger ship. The Great Bntain was made of
iron and also built in Bristol. The initial design was for the ship to be driven by paddle
1
wheels, but Brunel had seen one of the first propeller driven ships to arrive in Britain, and he
abandoned his plans for paddle-wheel propulsion. The ship was launched in 1843 and was the

2
first screw-driven iron ship to cross the Atlantic. For years it sailed from England to Australia
and other parts of the world, setting the standard for ocean travel

G Conventional wisdom in Brunel's day was that steamships could not carry enough coal
to make long ocean voyages. But he correctly figured out that it was a question of size. He
designed a ship that was five times larger than any previously built, big enough to carry
enough fuel to reach Australia without refueling. In addition, it would carry 4,000
passengers. This was to be the Great Eastern.

H Brunel chose John Scott Russell, a well-established engineer and naval architect, to
construct the ship in London, beginning in 1854, but the contract did not go well. Among other
things, Scott Russell kept his estimates unrealistically low, costs soon rose, and the project
kept running out of money. Serious technical difficulties led to its launch date being put back
more than once, and the Great Eastern was finally ready for its maiden voyage in September
1859. Brunel was too sick to go, and died soon afterwards. Being intended to carry 4.000
passengers to Australia, the ship would have presented serious competition for sailing ships
and made a fortune. But the Suez Canal was now in operation and the Great Eastern was too
large to use it. Any journey the ship now made to Australia would not be competitive, and it
was too large to be economical on the Atlantic run. Although it crossed the Atlantic several
times, and survived hurricane conditions that would almost certainly have sunk any other
ship, it was not a financial success, and had to be sold in 1864.

I Its new owner used it to carry 5.000 tons of telegraphic cable, to be laid on the floor of the
Atlantic between Europe and North America. This inaugurated a hundred years of
transatlantic communication by cable. In 1874, the Great Eastern was superseded by a
custom-made ship. It was subsequently used as a funfair in Liverpool, and in 1888 was sold
for scrap.

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