Editing Thomas Bouch (section)

== Early career ==
[[File:Our iron roads- their history, construction and administration (1883) (14759978792).jpg|thumb|Bouch's pioneering [[ferry ramp]]]]
Bouch's father (a retired sea-captain) kept the Ship Inn at Thursby and Thomas was educated locally (Thursby and then Carlisle) before at the age of 17 beginning his [[civil engineering]] career as assistant to one of the engineers constructing the [[Lancaster and Carlisle Railway]]. After a short spell working in [[Leeds]] (1844–45) he was for four years one of the Resident Engineers on the [[Stockton and Darlington Railway]], leaving in 1849 to become manager and engineer of the [[Edinburgh and Northern Railway]], one of the precursors of the [[North British Railway]].<ref name="ICEobit"/> He introduced the first roll-on roll-off train ferries in the world, across the [[Firth of Forth]] from [[Granton, Edinburgh|Granton]] to [[Burntisland]] in Fife (3 February 1850.)<ref>{{Marshall-GuinnessRail}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=October 2016}} Others had had similar ideas, but Bouch put them into effect, and did so with an attention to detail (such as design of the [[ferry slip]]) which led a subsequent President of the [[Institution of Civil Engineers]]<ref>[[George Parker Bidder]]; not to be confused with the lawyer (his son)who represented Bouch at the Tay Bridge Inquiry</ref> to settle any dispute over priority of invention with the observation that "there was little merit in a simple conception of this kind, compared with a work practically carried out in all its details, and brought to perfection."<ref name="ICEobit"/>