Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Three names. Three people in one. Born in Portsmouth on 9 April 1806, there was Brunel the great engineer, who would habitually throw out the rule book of tradition and established practice, and start again with a blank sheet of paper, taking the technology of the day to its limits and then going another mile.
Then there was Brunel the visionary, who knew that transport technology had the power to change the world,...