Railway Adventures and Anecdotes Part 2

A train of carriages was attached to a locomotive engine of the most improved construction, and built by Mr. George Stephenson, in the following order:-(1) Locomotive engine, with the engineer and a.s.sistants; (2) tender with coals and water; next six wagons loaded with coals and flour; then an elegant covered coach, with the committee and other proprietors of the railway; then 21 wagons fitted up on the occasion for pa.s.sengers; and, last of all, six wagons loaded with coals, making altogether a train of 38 carriages, exclusive of the engine and tender.

Tickets were distributed to the number of nearly 300 for those whom it was intended should occupy the coach and wagons; but such was the pressure and crowd that both loaded and empty carriages were instantly filled with pa.s.sengers. The signal being given, the engine started off with this immense train of carriages. In some parts the speed was frequently 12 miles per hour, and in one place, for a short distance, near Darlington, 15 miles per hour, and at that time the number of pa.s.sengers was counted to 450, which, together with the coals, merchandise, and carriages, would amount to nearly 90 tons. After some little delay in arranging the procession, the engine, with her load, arrived at Darlington a distance of eight miles and three-quarters, in 65 minutes, exclusive of stops, averaging about eight miles an hour. The engine arrived at Stockton in three hours and seven minutes after leaving Darlington, including stops, the distance being nearly 12 miles, which is at the rate of four miles an hour, and upon the level part of the railway the number of pa.s.sengers in the wagons was counted about 550, and several more clung to the carriages on each side, so that the whole number could not be less than 600.

EARLY RAILWAY COMPEt.i.tION.

The first Stockton and Darlington Act gave permission to all parties to use the line on payment of certain rates. Thus private individuals might work their own horses and carriages upon the railway and be their own carriers. Mr. Clepham, in the _Gateshead Observer_, gives an interesting account of the compet.i.tion induced by the system:-"There were two separate coach companies in Stockton, and amusing collisions sometimes occurred between the drivers-who found on the rail a novel element for contention. Coaches cannot pa.s.s each other on the rail as on the road; and at the more westward public-house in Stockton (the Bay Horse, kept by Joe Buckton), the coach was always on the line betimes, reducing its eastward rival to the necessity of waiting patiently (or impatiently) in the rear. The line was single, with four sidings in the mile; and when two coaches met, or two trains, or coach and train, the question arose which of the drivers must go back? This was not always settled in silence. As to trains, it came to be a sort of understanding that light wagons should give way to loaded; as to trains and coaches, that the pa.s.sengers should have preference over coals; while coaches, when they met, must quarrel it out. At length, midway between sidings a post was erected, and a rule was laid down that he who had pa.s.sed the pillar must go on, and the coming man go back. At the Goose Pool and Early Nook, it was common for these coaches to stop; and there, as Jonathan would say, pa.s.sengers and coachmen 'liquored.' One coach, introduced by an innkeeper, was a compound of two mourning coaches, an approximation to the real railway coach, which still adheres, with multiplying exceptions, to the stage coach type. One Dixon, who drove the 'Experiment' between Darlington and Shildon, is the inventor of carriage lighting on the rail.

On a dark winter night, having compa.s.sion on his pa.s.sengers, he would buy a penny candle, and place it lighted amongst them, on the table of the 'Experiment'-the first railway coach (which, by the way, ended its days at Shildon, as a railway cabin), being also the first coach on the rail (first, second, and third cla.s.s jammed all into one) that indulged its customers with light in darkness."

CALCULATION AS TO RAILWAY SPEED.

The Editor of _The Scotsman_, having engaged in researches into the laws of friction established by Vince and Coloumb, published the results in a series of articles in his journal in 1824 showing how twenty miles an hour was, on theoretic grounds, within the limits of possibility; and it was to his writings on this point that Mr. Nicholas Wood alluded when he spoke of the ridiculous expectation that engines would ever travel at the rate of twenty, or even twelve miles an hour.

ALARMIST VIEWS.

A writer in the _Quarterly Review_, in 1825, was quite prophetical as to the dangers connected with railway travelling. He observes:-"It is certainly some consolation to those who are to be whirled at the rate of 18 or 20 miles an hour by means of a high-pressure engine, to be told that there is no danger of being sea-sick while on sh.o.r.e, that they are not to be scalded to death, nor drowned, nor dashed to pieces by the bursting of a boiler; and that they need not mind being struck by the flying off or breaking of a wheel. What can be more palpably absurd or ridiculous than the prospect held out of locomotives travelling _twice as fast_ as stage coaches! We should as soon expect the people of Woolwich to suffer themselves to be fired off upon one of Congreve's Ricochet Rockets, as trust themselves to the mercy of such a machine going at such a rate. We will back old Father Thames against the Woolwich Railway for any sum. We trust that Parliament will, in all railways it may sanction, limit the speed to _eight or nine miles an hour_, which we entirely agree with Mr. Sylvestor is as great as can be ventured on with safety."

PARLIAMENTARY OPPOSITION.

On the third reading of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Bill in the House of Commons, The Hon. Edward Stanley moved that the bill be read that day six months, a.s.signing, among other reasons, that the railway trains worked by horses would take ten hours to do the distance, and that they could not be worked by locomotive engines. Sir Isaac Coffin seconded the motion, indignantly denouncing the project as fraught with fraud and imposition. He would not consent to see widows' premises invaded, and "how," he asked, "would any person like to have a railroad under his parlour window? . . . What, he would like to know, was to be done with all those who had advanced money in making and repairing turnpike-roads? What with those who may still wish to travel in their own or hired carriages, after the fashion of their forefathers? What was to become of coach-makers and harness-makers, coach-masters and coachmen, innkeepers, horse-breeders, and horse-dealers? Was the House aware of the smoke and noise, the hiss and whirl, which locomotive engines, pa.s.sing at the rate of ten or twelve miles an hour, would occasion?

Neither the cattle ploughing in the fields or grazing in the meadows could behold them without dismay. . . . Iron would be raised in price 100 per cent., or, more probably, exhausted altogether! It would be the greatest nuisance, the most complete disturbance of quiet and comfort in all parts of the kingdom, that the ingenuity of man could invent!"

SPEED OF RAILWAY ENGINES.

At the present day it is amusing to read the speeches of the counsel employed against an act of Parliament being pa.s.sed in favour of the railway between Liverpool and Manchester. Mr. Harrison, who appeared on behalf of certain landowners against the scheme, thus spoke with regard to the powers of the locomotive engine:-"When we set out with the original prospectus-I am sorry I have not got the paper with me-we were to gallop, I know not at what rate, I believe it was at the rate of twelve miles an hour. My learned friend, Mr. Adam, contemplated, possibly in alluding to Ireland, that some of the Irish members would arrive in wagons to a division. My learned friend says, that they would go at the rate of twelve miles an hour, with the aid of a devil in the form of a locomotive, sitting as a postillion upon the fore-horse, and an Honourable Member, whom I do not see here, sitting behind him to stir up the fire, and to keep it up at full speed. But the speed at which these locomotive engines are to go has slackened; Mr. Adam does not now go faster than five miles per hour. The learned Sergeant says, he should like to have seven, but he would be content to go six. I will show you he cannot go six; and probably, for any practical purposes, I may be able to show, that I can keep up with him by the ca.n.a.l. Now the real evidence to which you alone can pay attention shows, that practically, and for useful purposes, upon the average, and to keep up the rate of speed continually, they may go at something more than four miles an hour. In one of the collieries, there is a small engine with wheels four feet in diameter, which, with moderate weights has gone six; but I will not admit, because, in an experiment or two, they may have been driven at the rate of seven or eight miles an hour-because a small engine has been driven at the rate of six, that this is the average rate at which they can carry goods upon a railroad for the purpose of commerce, for that is the point to which the Committee ought to direct their attention, and to which the evidence is to be applied. It is quite idle to suppose, that an experiment made to ascertain the speed, when the power is worked up to the greatest extent, can afford a fair criterion of that which an engine will do in all states of the weather. In the first place, locomotive engines are liable to be operated upon by the weather. You are told that they are affected by rain, and an attempt has been made to cover them; but the wind will affect them, and any gale of wind which would affect the traffic on the Mersey, would render it impossible to set off a locomotive engine, either by poking up the fire, or keeping up the pressure of the steam till the boiler is ready to burst. I say so, for a scientific person happened to see a locomotive engine coming down an inclined plane, with a tolerable weight behind it, and he found that the strokes were reduced from fifty to twelve, as soon as the wind acted upon it; so that every gale that would produce an interruption to the intercourse by the ca.n.a.ls, would prevent the progress of a locomotive engine, so that they have no advantage in that respect."

DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED IN MAKING RAILWAY SURVEYS.

Difficulties connected with making surveys of land were encountered from the very commencement of railway enterprise. The following dialogue on the subject took place in the Committee of the House of Commons, April 27, 1825. Mr. Sergeant Spankie was the questioner and George Stephenson was the respondent.

_Q_. "You were asked about the quality of the soil through which you were to bore in order to ascertain the strata, and you were rather taunted because you had not ascertained the precise strata; had you any opportunity of boring?"

_A_. "I had none; I was threatened to be driven off the ground, and severely used if I were found upon the ground."

_Q_. "You were right, then, not to attempt to bore?"

_A_. "Of course, I durst not attempt to bore, after those threats."

_Q_. "Were you exposed to any inconvenience in taking your surveys in consequence of these interruptions?"

_A_. "We were."

_Q_. "On whose property?"

_A_. "On my Lord Sefton's, Lord Derby's, and particularly Mr. Bradshaw's part."

_Q_. "I believe you came near the coping of some of the ca.n.a.ls?"

_A_. "I believe I was threatened to be ducked in the pond if I proceeded; and, of course we had a great deal of the survey to make by stealth, at the time the persons were at dinner; we could not get it by night, and guns were discharged over the grounds belonging to Captain Bradshaw, to prevent us; I can state further, I was twice turned off the ground myself (Mr. Bradshaw's) by his men; and they said, if I did not go instantly they would take me up, and carry me off to Worsley."

Committee. _Q_. "Had you ever asked leave?"

_A_. "I did, of all the gentlemen to whom I have alluded; at least, if I did not ask leave of all myself, I did of my Lord Derby, but I did not of Lord Sefton, but the Committee had-at least I was so informed; and I last year asked leave of Mr. Bradshaw's tenants to pa.s.s there, and they denied me; they stated that damage had been done, and I said if they would tell me what it was, I would pay them, and they said it was two pounds, and I paid it, though I do not believe it amounted to one shilling."

_Q_. "Do you suppose it is a likely thing to obtain leave from any gentleman to survey his land, when he knew that your men had gone upon his land to take levels without his leave, and he himself found them going through the corn, and through the gardens of his tenants, and trampling down the strawberry beds, which they were cultivating for the Liverpool market?"

_A_. "I have found it sometimes very difficult to get through places of that kind."

In some cases, Mr. Williams remarks, large bodies of navvies were collected for the defence of the surveyors; and being liberally provided with liquor, and paid well for the task, they intimidated the rightful owners, who were obliged to be satisfied with warrants of committal and charges of a.s.sault. The navvies were the more willing to engage in such undertakings, because the project, if carried out, afforded them the prospect of increased labour.

LIVERPOOL AND MANCHESTER RAILWAY.

Mr. C. F. Adams, jun., remarks:-"It was this element of spontaneity, therefore,-the instant and dramatic recognition of success, which gave a peculiar interest to everything connected with the Manchester and Liverpool railroad. The whole world was looking at it, with a full realizing sense that something great and momentous was impending. Every day people watched the gradual development of the thing, and actually took part in it. In doing so they had sensations and those sensations they have described. There is consequently an element of human nature surrounding it. To their descriptions time has only lent a new freshness. They are full of honest wonder. They are much better and more valuable and more interesting now than they were fifty years ago, and for that reason are well worth exhuming.

"To introduce the contemporaneous story of the day, however, it is not necessary even to briefly review the long series of events which had slowly led up to it. The world is tolerably familiar with the early life of George Stephenson, and with the vexatious obstacles he had to overcome before he could even secure a trial for his invention. The man himself, however, is an object of a good deal more curiosity to us, than he was to those among whom he lived and moved. A living glimpse at him now is worth dwelling upon, and is the best possible preface to any account of his great day of life triumph. Just such a glimpse of the man has been given to us at the moment when at last all difficulties had been overcome-when the Manchester and Liverpool railroad was completed; and, literally, not only the eyes of Great Britain but those of all civilized countries were directed to it and to him who had originated it. At just that time it chanced that the celebrated actor, John Kemble, was fulfilling an engagement at Liverpool with his daughter, since known as Mrs. Frances Kemble Butler. The extraordinary social advantages the Kemble family enjoyed gave both father and daughter opportunities such as seldom come in the way of ordinary mortals. For the time being they were, in fact, the lions of the stage, just as George Stephenson was the lion of the new railroad. As was most natural the three lions were brought together. The young actress has since published her impressions, jotted down at the time, of the old engineer. Her account of a ride side by side with George Stephenson, on the seat of his locomotive, over the as yet unopened road, is one of the most interesting and life-like records we have of the man and the enterprise. Perhaps it is the most interesting. The introduction is Mrs. Kemble's own, and written forty-six years after the experience:-

"While we were acting at Liverpool, an experimental trip was proposed upon the line of railway which was being constructed between Liverpool and Manchester, the first mesh of that amazing iron net which now covers the whole surface of England, and all civilized portions of the earth.

The Liverpool merchants, whose far-sighted self-interest prompted to wise liberality, had accepted the risk of George Stephenson's magnificent experiment, which the committee of inquiry of the House of Commons had rejected for the Government. These men, of less intellectual culture than the Parliament members, had the adventurous imagination proper to great speculators, which is the poetry of the counting house and wharf, and were better able to receive the enthusiastic infection of the great projector's sanguine hope than the Westminster committee. They were exultant and triumphant at the near completion of the work, though, of course, not without some misgivings as to the eventual success of the stupendous enterprise. My father knew several of the gentlemen most deeply interested in the undertaking, and Stephenson having proposed a trial trip as far as the fifteen-mile viaduct, they, with infinite kindness, invited him and permitted me to accompany them: allowing me, moreover, the place which I felt to be one of supreme honour, by the side of Stephenson. All that wonderful history, as much more interesting than a romance as truth is stranger than fiction, which Mr. Smiles's biography of the projector has given in so attractive a form to the world, I then heard from his own lips. He was rather a stern-featured man, with a dark and deeply marked countenance: his speech was strongly inflected with his native Northumbrian accent, but the fascination of that story told by himself, while his tame dragon flew panting along his iron pathway with us, pa.s.sed the first reading of the Arabian Nights, the incidents of which it almost seemed to recall. He was wonderfully condescending and kind, in answering all the questions of my eager ignorance, and I listened to him with eyes brimful of warm tears of sympathy and enthusiasm, as he told me of all his alternations of hope and fear, of his many trials and disappointments, related with fine scorn, how the "Parliament men" had badgered and baffled him with their book-knowledge, and how, when at last they had smothered the irrepressible prophecy of his genius in the quaking depths of Chat Moss, he had exclaimed, 'Did ye ever see a boat float on water? I will make my road float upon Chat Moss!' The well-read Parliament men (some of whom, perhaps, wished for no railways near their parks and pleasure-grounds) could not believe the miracle, but the shrewd Liverpool merchants, helped to their faith by a great vision of immense gain, did; and so the railroad was made, and I took this memorable ride by the side of its maker, and would not have exchanged the honour and pleasure of it for one of the shares in the speculation."

"LIVERPOOL, August 26th, 1830.

"MY DEAR H-: A common sheet of paper is enough for love, but a foolscap extra can only contain a railroad and my ecstasies. There was once a man born at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, who was a common coal-digger; this man had an immense constructiveness, which displayed itself in pulling his watch to pieces and putting it together again; in making a pair of shoes when he happened to be some days without occupation; finally-here there is a great gap in my story-it brought him in the capacity of an engineer before a Committee of the House of Commons, with his head full of plans for constructing a railroad from Liverpool to Manchester. It so happened that to the quickest and most powerful perceptions and conceptions, to the most indefatigable industry and perseverance, and the most accurate knowledge of the phenomena of nature as they affect his peculiar labours, this man joined an utter want of the 'gift of gab;' he could no more explain to others what he meant to do and how he meant to do it, than he could fly, and therefore the members of the House of Commons, after saying 'There is a rock to be excavated to a depth of more than sixty feet, there are embankments to be made nearly to the same height, there is a swamp of five miles in length to be traversed, in which if you drop an iron rod it sinks and disappears; how will you do all this?' and receiving no answer but a broad Northumbrian, 'I can't tell you how I'll do it, but I can tell you I _will_ do it,' dismissed Stephenson as a visionary. Having prevailed upon a company of Liverpool gentlemen to be less incredulous, and having raised funds for his great undertaking, in December of 1826 the first spade was struck in the ground. And now I will give you an account of my yesterday's excursion. A party of sixteen persons was ushered into a large court-yard, where, under cover, stood several carriages of a peculiar construction, one of which was prepared for our reception. It was a long-bodied vehicle with seats placed across it back to back; the one we were in had six of these benches, and was a sort of uncovered _char a banc_. The wheels were placed upon two iron bands, which formed the road, and to which they are fitted, being so constructed as to slide along without any danger of hitching or becoming displaced, on the same principle as a thing sliding on a concave groove.

The carriage was set in motion by a mere push, and, having received this impetus, rolled with us down an inclined plane into a tunnel, which forms the entrance to the railroad. This tunnel is four hundred yards long (I believe), and will be lighted by gas. At the end of it we emerged from darkness, and, the ground becoming level, we stopped. There is another tunnel parallel with this, only much wider and longer, for it extends from the place we had now reached, and where the steam carriages start, and which is quite out of Liverpool, the whole way under the town, to the docks. This tunnel is for wagons and other heavy carriages; and as the engines which are to draw the trains along the railroad do not enter these tunnels, there is a large building at this entrance which is to be inhabited by steam engines of a stationary turn of mind, and different const.i.tution from the travelling ones, which are to propel the trains through the tunnels to the terminus in the town, without going out of their houses themselves. The length of the tunnel parallel to the one we pa.s.sed through is (I believe) two thousand two hundred yards. I wonder if you are understanding one word I am saying all this while? We were introduced to the little engine which was to drag us along the rails.