Zerah Colburn (locomotive designer) to England to take up a job as editor of "The Engineer", Britain’s leading weekly technical journal. In this position, Colburn made friends with members of the Institutions of Civil and Mechanical Engineers and became a member of both. He gave frequent lectures and contributed at meetings. It is almost certain that while in London Colburn met Isambard Kingdom Brunel. In 1860, Colburn returned to America on the maiden voyage of the "Great Eastern", Brunel's leviathan steamship. In America he launched a new weekly engineering newspaper, "The Engineer", but this lasted only a few months and Colburn returned to England
Isambard Kingdom Brunel year. Brunel designed many bridges for his railway projects, including the Royal Albert Bridge spanning the River Tamar at Saltash near Plymouth, Somerset Bridge (an unusual laminated timber-framed bridge near Bridgwater), the Windsor Railway Bridge, and the Maidenhead Railway Bridge over the Thames in Berkshire. This last was the flattest, widest brick arch bridge in the world and is still carrying main line trains to the west, even though today's trains are about ten times heavier than in Brunel's time. Throughout his railway building career, but particularly on the South Devon and Cornwall Railways where economy was needed and there