It was about the year 1818 that Thomas Gray of Nottingham, travelling in
the north of England, happened to visit one of the collieries. As he
stood watching a train of loaded waggons being propelled by steam along
the tram-road which led from the mouth of the pit to the wharf where the
coals were shipped, the idea flashed through his mind that the same
system was applicable to the ordinary purposes of locomotion.
"Why!" he exclaimed to the engineer who was showing him over the
place,--"why are there not tram-roads laid down all over England so as
to supersede our common roads, and steam engines employed to drag
waggons full of goods, and carriages full of passengers along them,
instead of horse-power?"
"Propose that to the nation," replied his companion, "and see what you
will get by it. Why, sir, you would be worried to death for your
pains."
Gray was not to be balked, however. The idea took firm possession of his
mind, and became the one great subject of his thoughts and conversation.
He talked about it to everybody whom he met, and who had patience to
listen to him, wrote letters and memorials to public men, and afterwards
appealed to the people at large. He was laughed at as a whimsical,
crochetty fellow, and no one gave any serious attention to his views.
Mr. Jones of Gromford Manor, and Mr. Pease of Darlington, also
distinguished themselves by their agitation in favour of railways, at a
time when they were regarded with suspicion and alarm. The growing trade
of Liverpool and Manchester, and other large towns, however, spoke more
imperatively and forcibly in favour of the new project than any amount
of individual agitation. The means of communication between the various
manufacturing towns had fallen far behind their wants; and it was at
length felt that some new system must be adopted. The railroad and the
locomotive got a trial; and before long the carriers' carts and the
stage coaches were driven off the road for want of custom, although the
conveyance of goods and passengers throughout the country went on
multiplying an hundred-fold. One can fancy the astonishment and awe with
which the country-folk watched the progress of the first railway train
through their peaceful acres,--how old and young left their work and
rushed out to see the marvellous spectacle,--how the "oldest
inhabitants" shook their heads, and muttered about changed times,--how
the horses in the field trembled with fear, and threw up their heels at
their iron rival as it went snorting past--a strange, iron monster, the
handicraft of man, able to drag the heaviest burdens, and yet outstrip
_Flying Childers_ or _Eclipse_, as fresh at the end of a journey as at
the beginning, and never to be tired out by any toil, if only kept in
meat and drink. Just as in the days of Charles the First, honest,
short-sighted folk prophesied the ruin of the empire and a judgment upon
the use of coaches, and bewailed the misfortunes of the hundreds of
able-bodied men who would be thrown out of employment; so in the early
days of the railroad, great fears were entertained that the horses'
occupation would be gone, and that the noble breed would quickly become
extinct. There was no measure to the lamentations over the ruin of that
great institution of English life--the stage-coach, with its gallant
driver and guard, and spanking team.
The extension of the railway system is one of the wonders of our time.
The few score miles of railroad planted in 1825 have put forth offshoots
and branches, till now a mighty net-work of some ten thousand miles in
all, is spread over the three kingdoms, with many fresh shoots in bud.
Up to the end of 1834, when not a hundred miles of railway were open,
the annual average of travellers by coach was some six millions a year;
ten years afterwards there were more than four times that number, and
to-day the annual average is more than a hundred millions! The number of
persons employed upon the working railroads of the United Kingdom amount
to about one hundred and thirty thousand, while nearly half as many find
employment in the construction of new lines.
A few facts, stated by the late Mr. Robert Stephenson, illustrate in a
very striking manner the gigantic proportion of the railway system of
Great Britain:--The railway has pierced the earth with tunnels to the
extent of more than fifty miles, and there are about twelve miles of
viaducts in the vicinity of London alone. The earthworks which have been
thrown up would measure 550,000,000 cubic yards, beside which St. Paul's
would shrink to a pigmy, for it would form a pyramid a mile and a half
high, with a base larger than the whole of St. James's Park. Every
moment four tons of coal flashes into steam twenty tons of water--as
much water as would suffice to supply the domestic and other wants of a
town the size of Liverpool, and as much coal as equals half the
consumption of the metropolis. The wear and tear is so great that twenty
thousand tons of iron have to be replaced annually, and three hundred
thousand trees, or as much as five thousand acres could produce, have to
be felled for sleepers.
When George Stephenson was planning the Liverpool and Manchester line,
the directors entreated him, when they went to Parliament, not to talk
of going at a faster rate than ten miles an hour, or he "would put a
cross on the concern." George was sanguine, however, and spoke of
fifteen miles an hour, to the astonishment of the committee, who began
to think him crazy. The average speed is now twenty-five miles an hour,
and a mile a minute can be done, if need be. The wind is hard pushed to
keep ahead of a good engine at its fullest speed.[C] The express trains
on the "broad gauge" of the Great Western travel at the rate of
fifty-one miles an hour, or forty-three, including stoppages. To attain
this rate, a speed of sixty miles an hour is adopted midway between some
of the stations, and even seventy miles an hour have been reached in
certain experimental trips. The engines on this line can draw a
passenger-train weighing one hundred and twenty tons at a speed of sixty
miles an hour, the engine and tender themselves weighing an additional
fifty-two tons. The ordinary luggage-trains weigh some six hundred tons
each. The locomotive, however, goes on the principle that the labourer
is worthy of his hire; if it works hard, it eats voraciously. At
ordinary mail speed the engine consumes about twenty lbs. of coke per
mile; so that, costing L2500 to begin with, and spending an allowance of
L2000 a year--as much as an under-secretary of state--the locomotive is
rather an extravagant customer--only, it works very hard for the money,
and earns it over and over again. With all its strength and size, the
locomotive is a much more delicate concern than would be supposed; the
5416 different pieces of which it is composed must be put together as
carefully as a watch, and, though guaranteed to go two years without a
doctor, exacts the most devoted attention from its guardians to keep it
in order.
It would fill a volume of huge dimensions to dilate on all the phases of
the social revolution which the modern railway has wrought in our own
and other countries; how it is daily annihilating time and space, and
making the Land's End and John o'Groat's House next door neighbours;
rubbing down old prejudices and jealousies, both national and
provincial, promoting commerce, developing manufacture, transforming
poor little villages into flourishing towns, and industrious towns into
mighty cities; carrying civilization into the heart of the jungle and
the desert, and, with its twin-brother, the steam-ship, joining hands
and hearts in peace and amity all the world over. After the wonders of
the last thirty years, who can doubt that our children, at the close of
the century, will regard us as little less backward than we now do our
fathers at its dawn?