WI: Isambard Kingdom Brunel lives another 20-30 years?

Archimedes is supposed to have once said "Give me a lever long enough and somewhere to stand, and I shall move the World." Reading into IKB's career, it may seem like what he planned to be his final project would be a long enough lever. From bridges, tunnels, dockyards, big bloody massive ships, railroads, rail stations, big bloody massive trains, canals, the man certainly liked thinking big.

Unfortunately, he was also a heavy smoker, and he died at age 53 from a stroke, just before the first voyage of his crowning achievement, SS Great Eastern. I'm wondering if it is possible for him to have survived for another 20 to 30 years, up to 1889 at the latest, and how he might continue his career following Great Eastern. To compare, the first hydroelectric power plant in history opened in Wisconsin in 1882. What would IKB do with another few decades of life?
 
Would his professional reputation been what it was after the failure of Great Eastern, however?

A hypothetical PoD would be that the ship launches when the ship launches. As in, it doesn't get stuck on the slip for a few months. This saves on both his reputation and a monumental level of frustration and stress that almost certainly contributed to the stroke. It's still far too ahead of its own time, but him overseeing it finding reuse as a cable layer would hopefully let him recover whatever loss of reputation he had building it.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
It's an economic failure, however; which tends to put the whole "genius" reputation into question. Brunel was brilliant, but his grasp of the commercial realities of the shipping business was pretty slender.
 
Its a tough one to predict. There are a number of factors that would have complicated a long-life for Brunel.

On the positive:

- He lives to see the Clifton Suspension Bridge completed and his designs vindicated in practice.
- I disagree with TFSmith on Great Eastern. Even if it fails as OTL it doesn't really matter in the Victorian period. Not for an engineer with the standing of Brunel. The Victorians idolized the early railway engineers, including Brunel, even though many of them were poor commercial minds. I think Brunel's reputation would have been insulated as OTL from any economic failure.
- There are plenty of projects in the later period for him to get involved in.

On the more problematic:

- A surviving Brunel almost certainly prolongs the battle of the gauges over railways and surviving to 1889, say, would delay change-over on GWR and keep alive the pointless debate about the merits of broad gauge. More than that, he presumably would have continued trying to sell broad gauge abroad and to engineering students and proteges that came into his orbit, having further knock-ons globally.
 
It's an economic failure, however; which tends to put the whole "genius" reputation into question. Brunel was brilliant, but his grasp of the commercial realities of the shipping business was pretty slender.
Thing is the reason it was an economic failure was due to it being put on the wrong run. The reason it was so big was so it could get to Australia without refueling. IMO s better PoD would include keeping her on the Oz run.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Understand the ship was built for the UK-South Africa-Australia run, but the fact she never served that route would suggest there wasn't the business - why else try and use her on the North Atlantic?

Best,
 
Understand the ship was built for the UK-South Africa-Australia run, but the fact she never served that route would suggest there wasn't the business - why else try and use her on the North Atlantic?

Best,
Because basically the company panicked about the Suez Canal thinking the ship would be to big to fit it when it was finally built AND that it rendered her obsolete. As it turned out when finished the Canal could've handled her and the increase in traffic that followed would've made them a pretty penny.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Sorry, that doesn't make sense; Great Eastern was in service in 1859 and the canal didn't open until 1869, when she was already out of service. Seems clear the business didn't exist and she was a white elephant.
 
Sorry, that doesn't make sense; Great Eastern was in service in 1859 and the canal didn't open until 1869, when she was already out of service. Seems clear the business didn't exist and she was a white elephant.
The Canal was being planned in 59 and that actually was a worry to the builders. The Great Eastern is a perfect example of thinking to far ahead.(hell the canal wads worry when they were designing the ship.)
 

TFSmith121

Banned
True enough.

Brunel seems a little like Edison; brilliant in a chosen field (or two) but prone to head down questionable paths and stick to them for far too long...

Best,
 
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