THE STAMPING SHOP--GENERAL ENVIRONMENT--THE “COALIES”--THE
ROLLING MILLS--PUDDLING AND SHINGLING--ACCIDENTS AT THE
ROLLS--THE SCRAP WAGGONS--WASTE
The Stamping Shop is square, or nearly so, each lateral corresponding to
a cardinal point of the compass--north, south, east, and west, the whole
comprising about an acre and a quarter. That is not an extensive
building for a railway manufactory. There are some shops with an area of
not less than five, six, and even seven acres--a prodigious size! They
are used for purposes of construction, for carriages, waggons,
locomotives, and also for repairs. The premises used for purely
manufacturing purposes, such as those I am now speaking of, are
generally much smaller in extent.
The workshop is modern in structure and has not stood for more than
fifteen years. Before that time the work proceeded on a much smaller
scale, and was carried on in a shed built almost entirely of wood and
corrugated iron--a dark, wretched place, without light or ventilation,
save for the broken windows and rents in the low, depressed roof. With
the development of the industry and general expansion of trade this
became altogether inadequate to cope with the requirements of the other
sheds, and a move had to be made to larger and more commodious premises.
Thereupon a site was chosen and a new shop erected about a quarter of a
mile distant. The walls of this are of brick, built with “piers” and
“panels,” thirty feet high, solid, massive, and substantial, with no
pretence to show of any kind. The roof is constructed in bays running
north and south, according to the disposition of the long walls, and
presents a serrated appearance, like the teeth of a huge saw. Of these
bays the slopes towards sunrise are filled in with stout panes of glass;
the opposite sides are of strong boards covered with slates, the whole
supported by massive sectional principals and a network of stout iron
girders.
The roof is studded with hundreds of wooden ventilators intended to
carry off the smoke and fumes from the forges. Above them tower numerous
furnace stacks and chimneys from the boilers, with the exhaust pipes of
the engines and steam-hammers. Towards summer, when the days lengthen
and the sun pours down interminable volumes of light and heat from a
cloudless sky, or when the air without is charged with electricity and
the thunder bellows and rolls over the hills and downs to the south, and
the forked lightning flashes reveal every corner of the dark smithy so
that the heat becomes almost unbearable, a large quantity of the glass
is removed to aid ventilation; the heat, assisted by the ground current,
rises and escapes through the roof. But when the rain comes and the
heavy showers, driven at an angle by the wind, beat furiously through
upon the half-naked workmen beneath, even this is not an unmixed
blessing. Or when the sun shoots his hot arrows down through the
openings upon the toilers at the steam-hammers and forges, as he always
does twice during the morning--once before breakfast, and again at about
eleven o’clock--it is productive of increased discomfort; the sweat
flows faster and the work flags. This does not last long, however.
Southward goes the sun, and shade succeeds.
The eastern and western ends of the shed are almost half taken up with
large sliding doors, that reach as high as to the roof. These rest on
wheels which are superimposed upon iron rails, so that a child might
push them backwards and forwards. Through several of the doors rails are
laid to permit of engines and waggons entering with loads of
material--iron and steel for the furnaces--and also for conveying away
the manufactures. A narrow bogie line runs round the shed and is used
for transferring materials from one part to another and to the various
hydraulic presses and forges. Here and there are fixed small turn-tables
to enable the bogies to negotiate the angles and move from track to
track.
Southward the shed faces a yard of about ten acres in extent. This is
bounded on every side by other workshops and premises, all built of the
same dingy materials--brick, slate, and iron--blackened with smoke,
dust, and steam, surmounted with tall chimneys, innumerable ventilators,
and poles for the telephone wires, which effectually block out all
perspective. To view it from the interior is like looking around the
inner walls of a fortress. There is no escape for the eye; nothing but
bricks and mortar, iron and steel, smoke and steam arising. It is ugly;
and the sense of confinement within the prison-like walls of the factory
renders it still more dismal to those who have any thought of the hills
and fields beyond. Only in summer does it assume a brighter aspect. Then
the sun scalds down on the network of rails and ashen ground with deadly
intensity; the atmosphere quivers and trembles; the fine dust burns
under your feet, and the steel tracks glitter under the blinding rays.
The clouds of dazzling steam from the engines are no longer visible--the
air being too hot to admit of condensation--and the black smoke from
the furnaces and boilers hangs in the air, lifeless and motionless, like
a pall, for hours and hours together.
But when the summer is over, when the majesty of July and August is past
and gone and golden September gives place to rainy October, or, most of
all, when dull, gloomy November covers the skies with its impenetrable
veil of drab cloud and mist day after day and week after week, with
scarcely an hour of sunshine, the utter dismalness and ugliness of the
place are appalling. Then there is not a vestige of colour. The sky,
roofs, walls, the engines moving to and fro, the rolling stock, the
stacks of plates and ingots of iron and steel, the sleepers for the
rails, the ground beneath--everything is dark, sombre, and repellant.
Not a glint upon the steel lines! Not a refraction of light from the
slates on the roof! Everything is dingy, dirty, and drab. And drab is
the mind of the toiler all this time, drab as the skies above and the
walls beneath. Doomed to the confinement from which there is no escape,
he accepts the condition and is swallowed up in his environment.
There is one point, and only one, a few paces west of the shed, from
which an inspiriting view may be had. There, on a fine day, from between
two towering walls, in the little distance, blue almost as the sky and
yet distinct and well-defined, may be seen a great part of Liddington
Hill, crowned with the _castellum_, the scene of many a lively contest
in prehistoric days, and the holy of holies of Richard Jefferies, who
spent days and nights there trying to fathom the supreme mystery that
has baffled so many great and ardent souls. When the sky is clear and
the air free from mist and haze--especially as it appears sometimes in
the summer months, under a southern wind, or before or after rain--so
distinct does the sloping line of the hill show, with its broad front
towards you, that you may even perceive the common features and details
of it. Then you may plainly view the disposition of the stone walls
running from top to base, with the white chalk-pits gleaming like snow
in the distance, and tell the outer wall of the entrenchment. In short,
you might imagine yourself to be standing within the mound and looking
out over the magnificent valley--north, east, and west; towards Bristol,
over Cirencester, and beyond Witney and Oxford. But in the winter even
this is denied. Then the dark lowering clouds sweep along the downs and
shut them out of view, or grey mist fills the intervening valley, or the
rain, falling in torrents or driving in the furious south-west gale,
hides it completely; or if it is at all visible under the cold sky, it
seems so far removed and the distance so intensified as to lose all
resemblance to a hill and to look like a dim blue cloud faintly seen on
the horizon, and which is no more than a suggestion, a shape phantasmal.
Everywhere about the yard is evidence of industry and activity; there
all is suggestive of toil, labour, and power. On the right, stretching
for a quarter of a mile, are hundreds upon hundreds of wheels, tyres,
and axles for carriages and waggons, in every phase and degree of
fitness; some fresh from the rolling mills--from Sheffield and
Scotland--some turned and fitted in the lathe, huge jointless tyres
newly unladen waiting to take their turn in the operation of fitting
them to the wheels, and others finished, wheels, tyres, and axle
compact, dipped in tar--except the journals--to prevent them from
rusting, and all ready to be placed underneath the waggons. There are
wheels of solid steel, wheels with spokes, and wheels of oak, teak, and
even of paper composition, of many sorts and sizes, for smooth-running
carriages. One would think there were enough of them to stock the whole
railway system, but a few weeks of steady consumption would thin them
down, and the yard would soon be bare and empty if fresh consignments
were not every day arriving.
In front of the wheels, in rows and lines, are the huge cast-iron blocks
and dies used for punching and pressing by the hydraulic machines. They
are of all shapes and dimensions, puzzling to the eye of the stranger,
but easily identified by those who are accustomed to use them, and who
have been acquainted with them perhaps from boyhood. There are sets for
“joggling” and “up-setting,” and others for shaping and levelling. In
the midst of them stands a stout, three-legged machine called a “sheer
legs.” To this is attached strong pulley blocks for lifting the sets
from the ground--many of them weigh considerably more than a ton;
afterwards a stout bogie is run underneath and the blocks are lowered
and so carried off to the field of operations.
Many an accident has happened in the conveyance of blocks and dies to
and from their destination; many a bruised foot or broken limb has
resulted from a lack of carefulness and attention on the part of the
workmen. The slightest disregard may lead to injury. The bogie may slip,
or the block slide, and woe be to the individual who chances to be in
the way of the falling mass. Unassuming, and even valueless as this
collection of dies may appear to the uninitiated, it is really worth a
huge sum, for manufacturing tools are of a very expensive character.
Close on the left is a long line of waggons laden with coal fresh from
the Welsh pits, and near by is a large bunk into which it is emptied to
allow of the speedy return of the vehicles--an important item in railway
administration. Here the dark and grimy coal heavers, with faces as
black as the mineral they are handling, grunt and sweat, their eyes
obtaining peculiar prominence from being inset in a ground of ebony, and
their teeth glistening pearly white through the blackened lips,
appearing the more remarkable if they should smile at you. For even they
will brighten up sometimes. Hard and laborious as their toil is, they
will now and then relax into pleasantry and relieve the tedium of work
with a snatch of song and hilarity.
The coalies are not highly paid. Their day wages are eighteen shillings
or a pound a week, but, as all the work of the shed is done at the piece
rate, they are enabled to earn a few shillings above that sum. The
dullest men--those whose misfortune it is to have missed the right
education, or those who are naturally slow and awkward--are usually
selected for coal-heaving. Very often, however, shrewd and capable,
smart and intelligent men, who might be more profitably employed than in
shovelling coal from the truck to the bunk or wheel-barrow, are put at
the task. Perhaps this is the result of carelessness on the part of the
overseer, or it may be dearth of hands, and very likely it is
intentional. The man is out of favour and has been clapped there as a
punishment.
Near the coal station stand piles upon piles of iron and steel, in
plates, bars, and ingots, some six and some ten feet high, in large
square stacks, and the long bars disposed between uprights to keep them
together and separate those of different lengths and sizes. The chief
part of this comes in from “abroad,” that is, from the midlands and the
north of England, for very little iron ore is now manufactured on the
premises. A small amount of pig iron is imported and worked up at the
local rolling mills, but the greater part of the metal is purchased of
the big firms and dealers away from the town.
The chief occupation of the factory rolling mills now is to receive the
iron scrap from the various workshops, such as clippings, shearings,
punchings, and drillings, with all the old iron proceeding from the
breaking up of worn-out engines and vehicles. This is first of all
reduced to convenient shape and then set up in “piles” on thin pieces of
wood to enable of its being placed in the furnace on the peels used for
the purpose. In the making of piles the flat pieces of metal are placed
around the outside, leaving a hollow within, which is filled up with
punchings and drillings, old rivets, nuts, bolts, and other similar
scrap. The pile is set in the furnace and heated, when it coalesces into
a mass; afterwards it is brought out to the heavy steam-hammer and
beaten into rough bars or slabs, several feet in length. This process is
called “shingling.” When the iron has become fairly solid and of
convenient length, the bars, still spluttering and fizzing--for they
have not been under the hammer for more than two or three minutes--are
hurried off to the rolls. There they are received by the men in charge,
who stand stripped to the waist, with tongs in hand, and dexterously
guide the rough ingots into the ponderous rollers that revolve at speeds
suited to the size and weight of the bars, and always with a loud
clanking noise.
As soon as the bar is rolled through--already drawn out to two or three
times its original length--the rolls stop and instantly revolve in the
other direction. The bar is again guided into the channel of the rollers
and emerges on the other side, longer and smoother. This process is
continued four or five times until the bars are finished; then other
small rollers in the floor are set in motion and the bars travel along
the ground to the steam saws, where they are cut up into the lengths
required. There they are loaded on iron bogies and carried off, or
rolled along as before to the weighing machines; everything is paid for
according to the weight of the finished material.
Punchings and drillings are also treated by the process known as
“puddling.” In this case, the furnaces will have a cavity in the floor,
into which the small scrap material is shovelled or tipped. The door is
now made fast and the heat applied, which must not be too fierce,
however, or the whole mass would soon be burned and spoiled. When the
drillings and chippings have cohered, the puddler, by an aperture
through the iron door, inserts a steel bar, curved at the end, and
prises the lump and turns it over and over. This is called “balling up.”
By and by, when the iron is thoroughly heated and fairly consistent, it
is brought to the “shingler,” who soon gives it shape and solidity. At
the first few blows a terrific shower of sparks shoots around, which
travel for a great distance, burning everything they meet. To protect
themselves against this the shinglers wear heavy iron jackboots,
reaching above the knees, with an iron veil over their eyes and faces.
As the steam-hammer block upon which the pounding is done is only a few
inches above the floor level and the sparks and splinters fly out with
the precision of shot from a gun barrel, the danger is confined to a
space within two feet of the floor.
When the heats come from the puddling furnaces they look soft and spongy
and soon become dull on the outer parts, so that a stranger might think
them not sufficiently hot to beat up, but after the first light blow or
two he will find himself mistaken. First of all the huge hammer--able to
strike a blow equal to a hundred tons pressure--is merely allowed to
squeeze the mass, without beating it. Then it rises gently and travels
up and down, scarcely touching the metal. Gradually the blows fall
harder and harder until the piece is fully consistent; then it is
rapidly drawn away to the rolls. Very rarely are the hammers required to
expend their full powers upon the melting slabs, unless they happen to
be of steel, which is very hard, even when whitehot. Then the blows fall
terrific. The steam spouts, roars, and hisses; the chains jingle and the
ground under your feet shakes as though in an earthquake.
When a better quality of iron is required the punchings, bolts, and
rivets are placed in a large drum which is afterwards set in motion and
continues to revolve for several hours. By this means all the rust,
paint, and dirt are removed from the metal, and when it is taken from
the cylinder it shines like silver. Special regard is had for this in
the furnaces. Care is taken to save it from over-heating and waste, and
when it finally emerges from the rolls it is set apart by itself and
labelled for its superior quality.
Various prices, ranging from 15s. to 50s. a ton, are paid for shingling
and forging. These depend upon the weight of the piece and the degree of
finish required. The shingler is clever and expert, and he is not highly
paid at the works, considering his usefulness, for he is a great
manufacturer. Thousands of tons of metal must pass through his hands in
the course of a year, and the work is very hot and laborious. By the age
of fifty the shinglers and forgemen are usually worn out and superseded
at the forge. When they can no longer perform their duties at the
steam-hammer they are removed from the manufacturing circle and
presented with a broom, shovel, and wheel-barrow. Their wages are cut
down to that of a common labourer, and thus they spend their few
remaining years of service. At an early age they drop off altogether,
and their places are filled by others who have gone through the same
experience.
The running of the iron from the furnace to the steam-hammer and back
again to the rolls is chiefly performed by boys and young men. The
majority of these come from the villages round about, for the town lads,
as a rule, are much too wideawake for the business; the work is too hard
for them. Living close to the factory they know by report which shops to
avoid, and if, by misadventure, they happen to get a start in such a
place they are very quickly out of it. Accordingly the more laborious
work usually falls upon those who dwell without the town. It is the same
with the men. Those who live in the borough nearly always obtain the
easier berths; John and George do the heavy lifting and heaving.
Accidents are frequent at the rolling mills. Burns are of common
occurrence, and they are sometimes very serious and occasionally fatal.
Great care is requisite in moving about amid so much fire and heated
material, for everything--the floors, principals, rollers, the bogie
handles, tools and all--is very hot. Some of the carrying is done with a
kind of wheel-barrow that requires a special balance. The least
obstruction will upset it, and a little awkwardness on the part of the
workman is sufficient to bring the weltering burden down to the ground.
Not long ago, as a youth was drawing a large, whitehot pile from the
furnace to the steam-hammer, he slipped on the iron floor and fell at
full length on his back upon the ground. As he fell the bogie inclined
forward and the huge pile slid down and lodged on his stomach,
inflicting frightful injuries. He was quickly rescued from his tortuous
position, but there was no hope of recovery from such an accident, and
he died a day or two afterwards. He, too, was of the neighbouring
village.
You can always tell these young men of the steam-hammer or rolling
mills, whenever you meet them. They are usually lank and thin and their
faces are ghastly white. Their nostrils are distended; black and blue
rings encircle their eyes. Their gait is careless and shuffling, and
their dress, on a holiday, is a curious mixture of the rural and urban
styles. On week-days they are as black as sweeps, and the blacker they
are the better, in their opinion, for they take pride in parading the
badge of their profession and are not ashamed of it as are their
workmates who dwell in the town.
I have said that formerly much more iron was manufactured on the
premises than is the case at this time. Then the steam-hammer shed, in
which nothing but forging is done, was a flourishing place. All the
wheels for the engines and waggons, together with piston rods, driving
gear, axles, and cranks, were made there. These are obtained elsewhere
now, some in England and Scotland, and other parts from abroad. Steel
has superseded iron in a great degree, too, being harder, tougher,
stronger and cheaper. The combined skill of the chemist and scientist
has simplified the manufacture of it, and it is to be obtained in large
quantities. But steel rusts much more quickly than iron, and does not
last nearly as long in exposed positions on the vehicles.
Formerly all wheels were made of wrought iron and a great part of the
work was done by hand. First of all the sections were made under the
steam-hammer, in “=T=” pieces and boss ends, and shut in the middle.
These were for the spokes. Then the “=T=” ends were incurved and joined
together all round till the rim of the wheel was finished. After that,
there remained to form the centre and make the “boss” solid and compact.
As the boss sections were made to fit together in the middle, they only
required to be heated and welded. Accordingly they were placed on an
open forge, built round with damp coal-dust to contain and concentrate
the heat, the boss being exactly over the centre of the fire. Another
forge, close at hand, contained a large round iron washer, similarly
placed, to which was attached an iron bar for lifting it from the fire.
Both heats were prepared simultaneously. Then the wheel, lifted by a
crane, was quickly removed from the forge, turned upside down and placed
on the steam-hammer block. The washer was brought out at once and
clapped on smartly, and down came the heavy monkey. Half-a-dozen blows
were sufficient to make the weld. Then it was removed from the
steam-hammer and laid on an iron table and the smiths set about it with
their tools to finish it off, three or four men striking alternately on
one “flatter” or “fuller,” with perfect rhythm and precision, the chief
smith directing operations and working with the rest.
Those were the palmy days for the smithy. Wages were high and the prices
good, and the work made was solid and strong. Now all wheels are
manufactured of cast steel and with little hand labour. The molten metal
is simply poured into moulds, allowed to cool and afterwards annealed in
special furnaces. One can easily imagine the immense amount of labour
saved in the operation, though the wheels are not as elastic and
durable.
Situated near the piles of new material are the scrap bunks. These are
old waggons that have served their turn on the railway and, instead of
being broken up, have been lifted bodily from the sets of wheels and
deposited on the ground as receptacles for the large quantities of scrap
made in the workshop. What miles these old waggons have gone! What storm
and stress they have endured! What burdens they have borne! East and
west, north and south, over hills and bridges, through valleys, past
miles upon miles of cornfields and meadows, green and gold, red and
brown by turn, in rain and snow, winter frost and summer sunshine, by
day and night, year after year together.
These waggons, if they could speak, would tell you they have visited
every station and town on the system. They have crossed the Thames, the
Severn, the Kennet, the Upper and Lower Avon, the Wye, the Dee, the
Towy, the Parrot and the Tamar, times out of number. They have gone
through dark tunnels, over dizzy viaducts, past cathedral cities and
quaint old market-towns, villages, and hamlets, sleeping and waking, at
all hours of the day and night, drawn on, and on, and on by the tireless
iron steeds, piled up with all sorts of goods and commodities for the
use of man--stones to build him houses, iron to strengthen them, corn to
feed him and his family, and materials to clothe them. They would tell
you of many lovely woods and forests through which they have journeyed,
and seaside towns, with the strong blue ocean in view, sometimes running
perilously near the beach, at others hidden in deep cuttings, where the
banks are blue with violets, and yellow with the pale gold of the
cowslip, followed by the endless array of the ox-eyes, toadflax, and
sweet wild mignonette. And they would tell you of long, dark, winter
nights, when the tempest howled madly through the trees and bridges and
sang shrilly in the telegraph wires; when the rain fell in a deluge from
the inky sky, or the sleet and snow drove in blinding clouds and was
piled upon the weatherproof tarpaulins. Or again they would relate of
running smoothly on summer nights under the pale southern moon, or when
the stars glittered in the frosty heavens, or dense fog, so troublesome
and dangerous to the ever-watchful and valiant old driver, shut
everything out of view, signals and all, so that their very whereabouts
were only known and identified by paying close attention to the loud,
shot-like explosions of the detonators placed along the line by the
fogmen.
Now all these things are at an end. They have run their race, and grown
old in the service. They have fulfilled their period of usefulness on
the line and, like old veterans returned from the war, they have come
back to their native town to end their days. Being fairly sound of
constitution and having escaped the shocks of collision and accident,
they were adjudged too solid to be broken up yet, so, as a last use,
they were placed here to receive the punchings and trimmings from the
shears and presses, and ingloriously waste away in their old age,
exposed to all the inclemencies and caprices of the weather.
The scrap, made daily, soon amounts to hundreds of tons. It is of all
shapes and sizes. There is plate from an eighth of an inch to an inch
and a half thick from the presses, ends and trimmings of rods and bars
from the shears and steam-hammers, burs from the stamping plant and
scrag ends from the forgings. In addition to this there are scores of
tons of old iron and steel, brought from all over the system to be cut
up at the hydraulic shears--sole-bars of waggons, stanchions and
“diagonals,” “=T=”-iron plates, and hundreds of old draw-bars and
buffers. The iron and steel are carefully observed and kept separate and
huge piles soon accumulate, far more than the waggons can hold. The iron
refuse is by and by passed on to the rolling mills, while the steel
scrap awaits a purchaser. No attempt is made to utilise that on the
premises. There are secrets in the manufacture of steel which are never
betrayed to outsiders, and it would be a waste of time and money for
the local furnacemen and forgers to attempt to do anything with it.
However carefully the furnaceman tends it in the fire he cannot get it
to cohere well in the piles, and if it is at all over-heated it bursts
and scatters in all directions, brittle and glassy, as soon as the
steam-hammer touches it with a gentle blow.
There is, at the same time, enormous waste in the matter of scrap iron
and steel, which intelligent supervision would certainly lessen.
Material that might economically be used in the workshop is
indiscriminately passed out with the rubbish and sold away at a cheap
rate--at a fraction of its real value. Tons of metal--good solid iron,
often of the highest quality--which might be used for forging and
stamping, are rejected and scrapped because it would take a trifle
longer to handle. Other large scrap material might be slabbed and used
without sending it to the mill, and thus large profits would accrue to
the shed; for the rolling mills people will only purchase,
theoretically, at trade prices, that is, at about two pounds a ton for
scrap iron.