Part 12

A gentleman went to Liverpool in the morning, purchased, and took back with him to Manchester, 150 tons of cotton, which he sold, and afterwards obtained an order for a similar quantity. He went again, and actually, that same evening, delivered the second quantity in Manchester, “having travelled 120 miles in four separate journeys, and bought, sold, and delivered, 30 miles off, at two distinct deliveries, 300 tons of goods, in about 12 hours.” The occurrence is perfectly astounding; and, had it been hinted at fifty years ago, would have been deemed impossible.

—_Railway Magazine_, 1840.

RAILWAYS AND THE POST-OFFICE.

It might naturally be thought that the new and quicker means of transport afforded by the railway would be eagerly utilised by the Post-office. There were, however, difficulties on both sides. The railway companies objected to running trains during the night, and the old stage-coach offered the advantage of greater regularity. The railway was quicker, but was at least occasionally uncertain. Thus, in November, 1837, the four daily mail trains between Liverpool and Birmingham on ten occasions arrived before the specified time, on eight occasions were exact to time, and on 102 occasions varied in lateness of arrival from five minutes to five hours and five minutes. There were all sorts of mishaps and long delays by train. The mail guard, like the passenger guard, rode outside the train with a box before him called an “imperial,” which contained the letters and papers entrusted to his charge. In very stormy weather the mail guard would prop up the lid of his imperial and get inside for shelter. On one occasion when the mail arrived at Liverpool the guard was found imprisoned in his letter-box. The lid had fallen and fastened in the male travesty of “Ginevra.” Fortunately for him it was a burlesque and not a tragedy. Bags thrown to the guards at wayside stations not unfrequently got under the wheels of the train and the contents were cut to pieces. On one occasion, on the Grand Junction, an engine failed through the fire-bars coming out. The mails were removed from the train and run on a platelayer’s “trolly,” but unfortunately the contents of the bags took fire and were destroyed. But many of these mishaps were obviated by the invention of Mr. Nathaniel Worsdell, a Liverpool coachbuilder, in the service of the railway, who took out a patent in 1838 for an appliance for picking up and dropping mail bags while the train was at full speed. This is still used. The loads of railway vehicles, it may be mentioned, were limited by law to four tons until the passage of the 5 and 6 Vic., c. 55. In 1837, when the weight of the mails passing daily on the London and Birmingham line was only about 14cwt., the late Sir Hardman Earle suggested that a special compartment should be reserved for the mail guard in which he could sort the letters _en route_. The first vehicle specially set apart for mail purposes was put upon the Grand Junction in 1838. From this humble beginning has gradually developed the express mails, in which the chief consideration is the swift transit of correspondence, and which are therefore limited in the number of the passengers they are allowed to carry. The cost of carrying the mails in 1838 and 1839 between Manchester and Liverpool by rail, including the guard’s fare, averaged about £1 a trip, or half of the cost of sending them by coach. The price paid to the Grand Junction for carriage of mails between Manchester and Liverpool and Birmingham was 1d. a mile for the guard and ¾d. per cwt. per mile for the mails. This brought a revenue of about £3,000 a year. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed and carried the imposition of the passenger duty, in 1832, the company intimated to the Post-office that they should advance the mail guard’s fare ½d. per mile. In 1840 an agreement was negotiated between the Post-office and railway authorities to convey the mails between Lancashire and Birmingham four times daily for £19 10s. a day, with a penalty of £500 on the railway company in case of bad time keeping. This agreement was not carried into effect.

—_Manchester Guardian_.

RAILWAY SIGNALS.

The history of railway signals is a curious page in the annals of practical science. For some years signals seem scarcely to have been dreamt of. Holding up a hat or an umbrella was at first sufficient to stop a train at an intermediate station. At level crossings the gates had to stand closed across the line of rails, and on the top bar hung a lamp to indicate to drivers that the way was blocked. In 1839, Colonel Landman, of the Croydon line, said that he should avoid the danger at a junction during a fog by going slowly, tolling a bell, beating a drum, or sounding a whistle. The first junction signal was denominated a lighthouse. The difficulties attending junctions may be judged of by the fact that when the Bolton and Preston line was ready for opening it was agreed that no train should attempt to enter or leave the North Union line at Euxton junction within fifteen minutes of a train being due on the main line which might interfere with it. The movable rails at junctions had to be removed by hand and fixed into position by hammer and pin. Mr. Watts, engineer to the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, is believed to have been one of the first to use the tapering movable switch. One of Mr. Watts’s men invented the back weight, another designed the crank, while a third suggested the long rod. These improvements were all about the year 1846. The first fixed signal set up at stations was an ordinary round flag pole having a pulley on the top, upon which was hoisted a green flag to stop a train and a red one to indicate danger on the road. The night signal was a hand lamp hoisted in the same way. These were superseded by a signal on which an arm was worked at the end of a rod, and a square lamp with two sides, red and white, having blinkers working on hinges to shut out the light. These were used until 1848. The semaphores only came into practical use some 20 years ago, and it is remarkable that the first time they were used on the Liverpool and Manchester line they were the cause of a slight collision. The use of signal lights on trains was much advanced by two accidents which occurred on the North Union line on the 7th September, 1841. One of these happened at Farrington, where two passenger trains came into collision. The other happened at Euxton, where a coal train ran into a stage coach which was taking passengers to Southport. The Rev. Mr. Joy was killed, and several others, including the station master, who lost one leg, were injured. These were the first serious accidents investigated by the now Government Inspector of Railways, Sir Frederic Smith, who was appointed by the Board of Trade under Lord Seymour’s Act.

—_Manchester Guardian_.

FOG-SIGNALS.

During the prevalence of fogs, when neither signal-posts nor lights are of any use, detonating signals are frequently employed, which are affixed to the rails, and exploded by the iron tread of the advancing locomotive. All guards, policemen, and pointsmen who are not appointed to stations, and all enginemen, gatemen, gangers and platelayers, and tunnel-men, are provided with packets of these signals, which they are required always to have ready for use whilst on duty; and every engine, on passing over one of these signals, is to be immediately stopped, and the guards are to protect their train by sending back and placing a similar signal on the line behind them every two hundred yards, to the distance of six hundred yards; the train may then proceed slowly to the place of obstruction. When these detonating signals were first invented, it was resolved to ascertain whether they acted efficiently, and especially whether the noise they produced was sufficient to be distinctly heard by the engine driver. One of them was accordingly fixed to the rails on a particular line by the authority of the company, and in due time the train having passed over it, reached its destination. Here the engine driver and his colleague were found to be in a state of great alarm, in consequence of a supposed attack being made on them by an assassin, who, they said, lay down beside the line of rails on which they had passed, and deliberately fired at them. The efficiency of the means having thus been tested, the apprehensions of the enginemen were removed, though there was at first evident mortification manifested that they had been made the subjects of such a successful experiment.

—F. S. Williams’s _Our Iron Roads_.

“ALMOST DAR NOW.”

The following anecdote, illustrative of railroad facility, is very pointed. A traveller inquired of a negro the distance to a certain point. “Dat ’pends on circumstances,” replied darkey. “If you gwine afoot, it’ll take you about a day; if you gwine in de stage or homneybus, you make it half a day; but if you get in one of _dese smoke wagons_, you be almost dar now.”

WORDSWORTH’S PROTEST.

Lines written by Wordsworth as a protest against making a railway from Kendal to Windermere:—

“Is there no nook of English ground secure From rash assault? Schemes of retirement sown In youth, and ’mid the world kept pure As when their earliest flowers of hope were blown, Must perish; how can they this blight endure? And must he, too, his old delights disown, Who scorns a false, utilitarian lure ’Mid his paternal fields at random thrown? Baffle the threat, bright scene, from Orrest-head, Given to the pausing traveller’s rapturous glance! Plead for thy peace, thou beautiful romance Of nature; and if human hearts be dead, Speak, passing winds; ye torrents, with your strong And constant voice, protest against the wrong!”

THE HON. EDWARD EVERETT’S REPLY TO WORDSWORTH’S PROTEST.

The Hon. Edward Everett in the course of his speech at the Boston Railroad Jubilee in commemoration of the opening of railroad communication between Boston and Canada, observed, “But, sir, as I have already said, it is not the material results of this railroad system in which its happiest influences are seen. I recollect that seven or eight years ago there was a project to carry a railroad into the lake country in England—into the heart of Westmoreland and Cumberland. Mr. Wordsworth, the lately deceased poet, a resident in the centre of this region, opposed the project. He thought that the retirement and seclusion of this delightful region would be disturbed by the panting of the locomotive and the cry of the steam whistle. If I am not mistaken, he published one or two sonnets in deprecation of the enterprise. Mr. Wordsworth was a kind-hearted man, as well as a most distinguished poet, but he was entirely mistaken, as it seems to me, in this matter. The quiet of a few spots may be disturbed, but a hundred quiet spots are rendered accessible. The bustle of the station-house may take the place of the Druidical silence of some shady dell; but, Gracious Heavens, sir, how many of those verdant cathedral arches, entwined by the hand of God in our pathless woods, are opened to the grateful worship of man by these means of communication?

“How little of rural beauty you lose, even in a country of comparatively narrow dimensions like England—how less than little in a country so vast as this—by works of this description. You lose a little strip along the line of the road, which partially changes its character; while, as the compensation, you bring all this rural beauty,

‘The warbling woodland, the resounding shore, The pomp of groves, the garniture of fields,’

within the reach, not of a score of luxurious, sauntering tourists, but of the great mass of the population, who have senses and tastes as keen as the keenest. You throw it open, with all its soothing and humanizing influences, to thousands who, but for your railways and steamers, would have lived and died without ever having breathed the life-giving air of the mountains; yes, sir, to tens of thousands who would have gone to their graves, and the sooner for the prevention, without ever having caught a glimpse of the most magnificent and beautiful spectacle which nature presents to the eye of man, that of a glorious curving wave, a quarter-of-a-mile long, as it comes swelling and breasting toward the shore, till its soft green ridge bursts into a crest of snow, and settles and digs along the whispering sands.”

REMARKABLE ADVERTISEMENT.

The most astonishing kind of property to leave behind at a railway station is mentioned in an advertisement which appeared in the newspapers dated Swindon, April 27th, 1844. It gave notice “That a pair of bright bay horses, about sixteen hands high, with black switch tails and manes,” had been left in the name of Hibbert; and notice was given that unless the horses were claimed on or before the 12th day of May, they would be sold to pay expenses. Accordingly on that day they were sold.

—_Household Words_.

RAILWAY EPIGRAM.

In 1845, during the discussions on the Midland lines before the Committee of the House of Commons, Mr. Hill, the Counsel, was addressing the Committee, when Sir John Rae Reid, who was a member of it, handed the following lines to the chairman:—

“Ye railway men, who mountains lower, Who level locks and valleys fill; Who thro’ the _hills_ vast tunnels _bore_; Must now in turn be _bored by Hill_.”

SINGULAR CIRCUMSTANCE.

A certain gentleman of large property, and who had figured, if he does not now figure, as a Railway Director, applied for shares in a certain projected railway. Fifty, it seems were allotted to him. Whether that was the number he applied for or not, deponent saith not; but by some means nothing (0) got added to the 50 and made it 500. The deposit for the said 500 was paid into the bankers’, the scrip obtained, and before the mistake could be detected and corrected—for no doubt it was only a mistake, or at most a _lapsus pennæ_—the shares were sold, and some £2000 profit by this very fortunate accident found its way into the pocket of the gentleman.

—_Herepath’s Journal_, 1845.

LOUIS PHILIPPE AND THE ENGLISH NAVVIES.

Whittlesea Will, William Elthorpe, from Cambridgeshire, had a large railway experience; during the construction of Longton Tunnel, he told me the following story:—“Ye see, Mr. Smith (Samuel Smith, of Woodberry Down), I was a ganger for Mr. Price on the Marseilles and Avignon Line in France, and I’d gangs of all nations to deal with. Well, I could not manage ’em nohow mixed—there were the Jarman Gang, the French Gang, the English, Scotch, and Irish Gangs, of course; the Belgic Gang, the Spanish Gang, and the Peamounter Gang—that’s a Gang, d’ye see, that comes off the mountains somewhere towards Italy.” “Oh, the Piedmontese, you mean.” “Well, you may call ’em Peedmanteeze if you like, but we call’d ’em Peamounters—and so at last I hit on the plan of putting each gang by itself; gangs o’ nations, the Peamounter gang here, the Jarman gang there, and the Belgic gang there, and so on, and it worked capital, each gang worked against the other gang like good ’uns.

“Well one day our master, Mr. Price, gave the English gang a great entertainment at a sort of Tea Garden place, near Paris, called Maison Lafitte, and we were coming home along the road before dark—it was a summer’s evening—singing and shouting pretty loud, I dare say, when a fat, oldish gentleman rode into the midst of us and pulling up said, taking off his hat—‘I think you are English Navigators.’ ‘Well, and what if we are, old fellow, what’s that to you?’ ‘Why, you are making a very great noise, and I noticed you did not make way for me, or salute me as we met, which is not polite—every one in France salutes a gentleman. I’ve been in England, I like the English,’ by this time his military attendants rode up, and seeing him alone in the midst of us were going to ride us down at once but the old boy beckoned with his hand for them to hold back, and continued his sarmont. ‘I should wish you,’ says he, quite pleasant, ‘whilst you remain in France to be orderly, obliging, civil, and polite; it’s always the best—now remember this: and here’s something for you to remember Louis Philippe by;’ putting his hand into his pocket, he pulled out what silver he had, I suppose, threw it among us, and rode off—but, my eyes, didn’t we give him a cheer!”

ADVANTAGES OF RAILWAY-TUNNELS.

We cannot help repeating a narrative which we heard on one occasion, told with infinite gravity by a clergyman whose name we at once inquired about, and of whom we shall only say, that he is one of the worthiest and best sons of the kirk, and knows when to be serious as well as when to jest. “Don’t tell me,” said he to a simple-looking Highland brother, who had apparently made his first trial of railway travelling in coming up to the Assembly—“don’t tell me that tunnels on railways are an unmitigated evil: they serve high moral and æsthetical purposes. Only the other day I got into a railway carriage, and I had hardly taken my seat, when the train started. On looking up, I saw sitting opposite to me two of the most rabid dissenters in Scotland. I felt at once that there could be no pleasure for me in that journey, and with gloomy heart and countenance I leaned back in my corner. But all at once we plunged into a deep tunnel, black as night, and when we emerged at the other end, my brow was clear and my ill-humour was entirely dissipated. Shall I tell you how this came to be? All the way through the tunnel I was shaking my fists in the dissenters’ faces, and making horrible mouths at them, and _that_ relieved me, and set me all right. Don’t speak against tunnels again, my dear friend.”

—_Fraser’s Magazine_.

DAMAGES EASILY ADJUSTED.

It is related that the President of the Fitchburg Railroad, some thirty years ago, settled with a number of passengers who had been wet but not seriously injured by the running off of a train into the river, by paying them from $5 to $20 each. One of them, a sailor, when his terms were asked, said:—“Well, you see, mister, when I was down in the water, I looked up to the bridge and calculated that we had fallen fifteen feet, so if you will pay me a dollar a foot I will call it square.”

LIABILITIES OF RAILWAY ENGINEERS FOR THEIR ERRORS.

An action was tried before Mr. Justice Maule, July 30, 1846—the first case of the kind—which established the liability of railway engineers for the consequences of any errors they commit.

The action was brought by the Dudley and Madeley Company against Mr. Giles, the engineer. They had paid him £4,000 for the preparation of the plans, etc., but when the time arrived for depositing them with the Board of Trade they were not completely ready. The scheme had consequently failed. This conduct of the defendant it was estimated had injured the company to the extent of £40,000. The counsel for the plaintiff did not claim damages to this amount, but would be content with such a sum as the jury should, under the circumstances, think the defendant ought to pay, as a penalty for the negligence of which he had been guilty. For Mr. Giles, it was contended, that the jury ought not, at the worst, to find a verdict for more than £1,700, alleging that the remainder £2,300 had been paid by him in wages for work done, and materials used.

The jury, however, returned a verdict to the tune of £4,500, or £500 beyond the full sum paid him.

But, what said the judge? That “it was clear that the defendant had undertaken more work than he could complete, and that he should not be allowed to gratify with impunity, and to the injury of the plaintiffs, his desire to realise in a few months a fortune which should only be the result of the labour of years.”

EXTRAORDINARY ACCIDENT.

Yesterday afternoon, as the Leeds train, which left that terminus at a quarter-past one o’clock, was approaching Rugby, and within four miles of that station, an umbrella behind the private carriage of Earl Zetland took fire, in consequence of a spark from the engine falling on it, and presently the imperial on the roof and the upper part of the carriage were in a blaze. Seated within it were the Countess of Zetland and her maid. The train was proceeding at the rate of forty miles an hour. Under these circumstances, Her Ladyship and maid descended from the carriage to the truck, when—despite the caution to hold on given by a gentleman from a window of one of the railway carriages—the maid threw herself headlong on the rail, and was speedily lost sight of. On the arrival of the train at Rugby an engine was despatched along the line, when the young woman was found severely injured, and taken to the Infirmary at Leicester. Lady Zetland remained at Rugby, where she was joined by His Lordship and the family physician last night, by an express train from Euston-square. How long will railway companies delay establishing a means of communication between passengers and the guard?

—_Times_, Dec. 9th, 1847.

PROVIDENTIAL ESCAPE.