Railway Adventures and Anecdotes Part 8

The first application of the telegraph to police purposes took place in 1844, on the Great Western Railway, and, as it was the first intimation thieves got of the electric constable being on duty, it is full of interest. The following extracts are from the telegraph book kept at the Paddington Station:-

"Eton Montem Day, August 28, 1844.-The Commissioners of Police having issued orders that several officers of the detective force shall be stationed at Paddington to watch the movements of suspicious persons, going by the down train, and give notice by the electric telegraph to the Slough station of the number of such suspected persons, and dress, their names (if known), also the carriages in which they are."

Now come the messages following one after the other, and influencing the fate of the marked individuals with all the celerity, certainty, and calmness of the Nemesis of the Greek drama:-

"Paddington, 10.20 a.m.-Mail train just started. It contains three thieves, named Sparrow, Burrell, and Spurgeon, in the first compartment of the fourth first-cla.s.s carriage."

"Slough, 10.50 a.m.-Mail train arrived. _The officers have cautioned the three thieves_."

"Paddington, 10.50 a.m.-Special train just left. It contained two thieves; one named Oliver Martin, who is dressed in black, _c.r.a.pe on his hat_; the other named Fiddler d.i.c.k, in black trousers and light blouse.

Both in the third compartment of the first second-cla.s.s carriage."

"Slough, 11.16 a.m.-Special train arrived. Officers have taken the two thieves into custody, a lady having lost her bag, containing a purse with two sovereigns and some silver in it; one of the sovereigns was sworn to by the lady as having been her property. It was found in Fiddler d.i.c.k's watch fob."

It appears that, on the arrival of the train, a policeman opened the door of the "third compartment of the first second-cla.s.s carriage," and asked the pa.s.sengers if they had missed anything? A search in pockets and bags accordingly ensued, until one lady called out that her purse was gone.

"Fiddler d.i.c.k, you are wanted," was the immediate demand of the police officer, beckoning to the culprit, who came out of the carriage thunder-struck at the discovery, and gave himself up, together with the booty, with the air of a completely beaten man. The effect of the capture so cleverly brought about is thus spoken of in the telegraph book:-

"Slough, 11.51 a.m.-Several of the suspected persons who came by the various down-trains are lurking about Slough, uttering bitter invectives against the telegraph. Not one of those cautioned has ventured to proceed to the Montem."

RUNAWAY MATCH.

Sir Francis Head in his account of the London and North-Western Railway remarks:-"During a marriage which very lately took place at -, one of the bridesmaids was so deeply affected by the ceremony that she took the opportunity of the concentrated interest excited by the bride to elope from church with an admirer. The instant her parents discovered their sad loss, messengers were sent to all the railway stations to stop the fugitives. The telegraph also went to work, and with such effect that, before night, no less than four affectionate couples legitimately married that morning were interrupted on their several marriage jaunts and most seriously bothered, inconvenienced, and impeded by policemen and magistrates."

A RAILWAY ROMANCE.

An incident of an amusing though of a rather serious nature occurred some years ago on the London and South-Western Railway. A gentleman, whose place of residence was Maple Derwell, near Basingstoke, got into a first-cla.s.s carriage at the Waterloo terminus, with the intention of proceeding home by one of the main line down trains. His only fellow-pa.s.sengers in the compartment were a lady and an infant, and another gentleman, and thus things remained until the arrival of the train at Walton, where the other gentleman left the carriage, leaving the first gentleman with the lady and child. Shortly after this the train reached the Weybridge station, and on its stopping the lady, under the pretence of looking for her servant or carriage, requested her male fellow-pa.s.senger to hold the infant for a few minutes while she went to search for what she wanted. The bell rang for the starting of the train and the gentleman thus strangely left with the baby began to get rather fidgety, and anxious to return his charge to the mother. The lady, however, did not again put in any appearance, and the train went on without her, the child remaining with the gentleman, who, on arriving at his destination took the child home to his wife and explained the circ.u.mstance under which it came into his possession. No application has, at present, it is understood, been made for the "lost child," which has for the nonce been adopted by the gentleman and his wife, who, it is said, are without any family of their own.

GIGANTIC POWER OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINES.

Sir Francis Head remarks:-"The gigantic power of the locomotive engines hourly committed to the charge of these drivers was lately strangely exemplified in the large engine stable at the Camden Station. A pa.s.senger engine, whose furnace-fire had but shortly been lighted, was standing in this huge building surrounded by a number of artificers, who, in presence of the chief superintendent, were working in various directions around it. While they were all busily occupied, the fire in the furnace-by burning up faster than was expected-suddenly imparted to the engine the breath of life; and no sooner had the minimum of steam necessary to move it been thus created, than this infant Hercules not only walked _off_, but without the smallest embarra.s.sment walked _through_ the 14-inch brick wall of the great building which contained it, to the terror of the superintendent and workmen, who expected every instant that the roof above their heads would fall in and extinguish them. In consequence of the spindle of the regulator having got out of its socket the very same accident occurred shortly afterwards with another engine, which, in like manner, walked through another portion of this 14-inch wall of the stable that contained it, just as a thorough-bred horse would have walked out of the door. And if such be the irresistible power of the locomotive engine when feebly walking in its new-born state, unattended or una.s.sisted even by its tender, is it not appalling to reflect what must be its momentum when, in the full vigour of its life, it is flying down a steep gradient at the rate of 50 miles an hour, backed up by, say, 30 pa.s.senger carriages, each weighing on an average 5 tons? If ordinary houses could suddenly be placed in its path, it would, pa.s.sengers and all, run through them as a musket-ball goes through a keg of b.u.t.ter; but what would be the result if, at this full speed, the engine by any accident were to be diverted against a ma.s.s of solid rock, such as sometimes is to be seen at the entrance of a tunnel, it is impossible to calculate or even to conjecture. It is stated by the company's superintendent, who witnessed the occurrence, that some time ago an ordinary accident happening to a luggage train near Loughborough, the wagons overrode each other until the uppermost one was found piled 40 feet above the rails!"

NOVEL NOTICE TO DEFAULTING SHAREHOLDERS.

In the early days of railway enterprise there was often much difficulty in obtaining the punctual payment of calls from the shareholders. The Leicester and Swannington line was thus troubled. The Secretary, adopting a rather novel way to collect the calls, wrote to the defaulters:-"I am therefore necessitated to inform you, that unless the sum of 2 is paid on or before the 22nd instant, your name will be furnished to one of the princ.i.p.al and most pressing creditors of the company." The missives of the Secretary generally had the desired effect.

A QUICK DECISION.

The elder Brunel was habitually absent in society, but no man was more remarkable for presence of mind in an emergency. Numerous instances are recorded of this latter quality, but none more striking than that of his adventure in the act of inspecting the Birmingham Railway. Suddenly in a confined part of the road a train was seen approaching from either end of the line, and at a speed which it was difficult to calculate. The spectators were horrified; there was not an instant to be lost; but an instant sufficed to the experienced engineer to determine the safest course under the circ.u.mstances. Without attempting to cross the road, which would have been almost certain destruction, he at once took his position exactly midway between the up and down lines, and drawing the skirts of his coat close around him, allowed the two trains to sweep past him; when to the great relief of those who witnessed the exciting scene, he was found untouched upon the road. Without the engineer's experience which enabled him to form so rapid a decision, there can be no doubt that he must have perished.

-_The Temple Anecdotes_.

THE VERSAILLES ACCIDENT IN 1842.

Mr. Charles F. Adams thus describes it:-"On the 8th of May, 1842, there happened in France one of the most famous and horrible railroad slaughters ever recorded. It was the birthday of the king, Louis Phillipe, and, in accordance with the usual practice, the occasion had been celebrated at Versailles by a great display of the fountains. At half-past five o'clock these had stopped playing, and a general rush ensued for the trains then about to leave for Paris. That which went by the road along the left bank of the Seine was densely crowded, and was so long that it required two locomotives to draw it. As it was moving at a high rate of speed between Bellevue and Menden, the axle of the foremost of these two locomotives broke, letting the body of the engine drop to the ground. It instantly stopped, and the second locomotive was then driven by its impetus on top of the first, crushing its engineer and fireman, while the contents of both the fire-boxes were scattered over the roadway and among the _debris_. Three carriages crowded with pa.s.sengers were then piled on top of this burning ma.s.s, and there crushed together into each other. The doors of the train were all locked, as was then, and indeed is still, the custom in Europe, and it so chanced that the carriages had all been newly painted. They blazed up like pine kindlings. Some of the carriages were so shattered that a portion of those in them were enabled to extricate themselves, but no less than forty were held fast; and of these such as were not so fortunate as to be crushed to death in the first shock perished hopelessly in the flames before the eyes of a throng of impotent lookers-on. Some fifty-two or fifty-three persons were supposed to have lost their lives in this disaster, and more than forty others were injured; the exact number of the killed, however, could never be ascertained, as the telescoping of the carriages on top of the two locomotives had made of the destroyed portion of the train a visible holocaust of the most hideous description.

Not only did whole families perish together-in one case no less than eleven members of the same family sharing a common fate-but the remains of such as were destroyed could neither be identified nor separated. In one case a female foot was alone recognisable, while in others the bodies were calcined and fused into an undistinguishable ma.s.s. The Academy of Sciences appointed a committee to inquire whether Admiral D'Urville, a distinguished French navigator, was among the victims. His body was thought to be found, but it was so terribly mutilated that it could be recognized only by a sculptor, who chanced some time before to have taken a phrenological cast of his skull. His wife and only son had perished with him.

"It is not easy now to conceive the excitement and dismay which this catastrophe caused throughout France. The new invention was at once a.s.sociated in the minds of an excitable people with novel forms of imminent death. France had at best been laggard enough in its adoption of the new appliance, and now it seemed for a time as if the Versailles disaster was to operate as a barrier in the way of all further railroad development. Persons availed themselves of the steam roads already constructed as rarely as possible, and then in fear and trembling, while steps were taken to subst.i.tute horse for steam power on other roads then in process of construction."

AN AMATEUR SIGNALMAN.

Mr. Williams in his book, _Our Iron Roads_, gives an account of a foolish act of signalling to stop a train; he says:-"An Irishman, who appears to have been in some measure acquainted with the science of signalling, was on one occasion walking along the Great Western line without permission, when he thought he might reduce his information to practical use.

Accordingly, on seeing an express train approach, he ran a short distance up the side of the cutting, and began to wave a handkerchief very energetically, which he had secured to a stick, as a signal to stop. The warning was not to be disregarded, and never was command obeyed with greater alacrity. The works of the engine were reversed-the tender and van breaks were applied-and soon, to the alarm of the pa.s.sengers, the train came to a 'dead halt.' A hundred heads were thrust out of the carriage windows, and the guard had scarcely time to exclaim, 'What's the matter?' when Paddy, with a knowing touch of his 'brinks,' asked his 'honour if he would give him a bit of a ride?' So polite and ingenuous a request was not to be denied, and, though biting his lips with annoyance, the officer replied 'Oh, certainly; jump in here,' and the pilgrim was ensconced in the luggage van. But instead of having his ride 'for his thanks,' the functionary duly handed him over to the magisterial authorities, that he might be taught the important lesson, that railway companies did not keep express trains for Irish beggars, and that such costly machinery was not to be imperilled with impunity, either by their freaks or their ignorance."

STEAM WHISTLE.

In the early days of railways, the signal of alarm was given by the blowing of a horn. In the year, 1833, an accident occurred on the Leicester and Swannington railway near Thornton, at a level crossing, through an engine running against a horse and cart. Mr. Bagster, the manager, after narrating the circ.u.mstance to George Stephenson, asked "Is it not possible to have a whistle fitted on the engine, which the steam can blow?" "A very good thought," replied Stephenson. "You go to Mr.

So-and-So, a musical instrument maker, and get a model made, and we will have a steam whistle, and put it on the next engine that comes on the line." When the model was made it was sent to the Newcastle factory and future engines had the whistle fitted on them.

EXEMPTION FROM ACCIDENTS.

Mr. C. F. Adams, remarks:-"Indeed, from the time of Mr. Huskisson's death, during the period of over eleven years, railroads enjoyed a remarkable and most fortunate exemption from accidents. During all that time there did not occur a single disaster resulting in any considerable loss of life. This happy exemption was probably due to a variety of causes. Those early roads were in the first place, remarkably well and thoroughly built, and were very cautiously operated under a light volume of traffic. The precautions then taken and the appliances in use would, it is true, strike the modern railroad superintendent as both primitive and comical; for instance, they involve the running of independent pilot locomotives in advance of all night pa.s.senger trains, and it was, by the way, on a pioneer locomotive of this description, on the return trip of the excursion party from Manchester after the accident to Mr. Huskisson, that the first recorded attempt was made in the direction of our present elaborate system of night signals. On that occasion obstacles were signalled to those in charge of the succeeding trains by a man on the pioneer locomotive, who used for that purpose a bit of lighted tarred rope. Through all the years between 1830 and 1841, nevertheless, not a single serious railroad disaster had to be recorded. Indeed, the luck-for it was nothing else-of these earlier times was truly amazing.