Locomotives and telegraphy are mere snails compared to thought. Let us
therefore use our advantage, reader, stride in advance of the 6:30 p.m.
train (which by the way has now become a 7:45 p.m. train), and see what
little Joseph Tipps is doing.
There he stands--five feet four in his highest-heeled boots--as sterling
and warm-hearted a little man as ever breathed. He was writing at a
little desk close to a large window, which, owing to the station being a
temporary one and its roof low, was flimsy, and came nearer to the
ground than most windows do.
Mr Tipps wrote somewhat nervously. He inherited his mother's weakness
in this respect; and, besides, his nerves had been a little shaken, by
the sudden illness, with which his sister had been seized that day, at
his lodgings.
Outside on the platform a few people lounged, waiting the arrival of the
expected train. Among them was one whose bulky frame and firm
strongly-lined countenance spoke of much power to dare and do. He was
considerably above the middle height and somewhere about middle age.
His costume was of that quiet unobtrusive kind which seems to court
retirement, and the sharp glance of his eyes seemed to possess something
of the gimblet in their penetrating power. This was no less a personage
than Mr Sharp, the inspector of police on the Grand National Trunk
Railway. Mr Inspector Sharp had evidently an eye for the beautiful,
for he stood at the farther extremity of the platform gazing in rapt
attention at the sun, which just then was setting in a flood of golden
light. But Mr Sharp had also a peculiar faculty for observing several
things at once. Indeed, some of his friends, referring to this, were
wont to remark that he was a perfect Argus, with eyes in his elbows and
calves and back of his head. It would seem, indeed, that this, or
something like it, must really have been the case, for he not only
observed and enjoyed the sunset but also paid particular attention to
the conversation of two men who stood not far from him, and at the same
time was cognisant of the fact that behind him, a couple of hundred
yards or more up the line, a goods engine was engaged in shunting
trucks.
This process of shunting, we may explain for the benefit of those who
don't know, consists in detaching trucks from trains of goods and
shoving them into sidings, so that they may be out of the way, until
their time comes to be attached to other trains, which will convey them
to their proper destination, or to have their contents, if need be,
unloaded and distributed among other trucks. Shunting is sometimes a
tedious process, involving much hauling, pushing, puffing, and
whistling, on the part of the engine, and uncoupling of trucks and
shifting of points on the part of pointsmen and porters. There is
considerable danger, too, in the process,--or rather there _was_ danger
before the introduction of the "block system," which now, when it is
adopted, renders accidents almost impossible,--of which system more
shall be said hereafter. The danger lies in this, that shunting has
frequently to be done during intervals between the passing of
passenger-trains, and, on lines where passenger and goods traffic is
very great, these intervals are sometimes extremely brief. But, strange
to say, this danger is the mother of safety, for the difficulty of
conducting extensive traffic is so great, that a combination of all but
perfect systems of signalling, telegraphing, and organisation is
absolutely needful to prevent constant mishap. Hence the marvellous
result that, in the midst of danger, we are in safety, and travelling by
railway is really less dangerous than travelling by stage-coach used to
be in days of old. Yes, timid reader, we assure you that if you travel
daily by rail your chances of coming to grief are very much fewer than
if you were to travel daily by mail coach. Facts and figures prove this
beyond all doubt, so that we are entitled to take the comfort of it.
The marvel is, not that loss of life is so great, but that it is so
small.
Do you doubt it, reader? Behold the facts and figures--wonder, be
thankful and doubt no more! A "Blue Book" (Captain Tyler's General
Report to the Board of Trade on Railway Accidents during the year 1870)
tells us that the number of passengers killed on railways last year was
ninety. The number of passenger journeys performed was 307 millions,
which gives, in round numbers, one passenger killed for every three and
a half millions that travelled. In the best mail and stage-coaching
days the yearly number of travellers was about two millions. The
present railway death-rate applied to this number amounts to a little
more than one-half of a unit! Will any one out of Bedlam have the
audacity to say that in coaching days only half a passenger was killed
each year? We leave facts to speak for themselves, and common-sense to
judge whether men were safer then than they are now.
But to return. When Mr Sharp was looking at the distant waggons that
were being shunted he observed that the engine which conducted the
operation was moved about with so much unnecessary fuss and jerking that
he concluded it must be worked by a new, or at all events a bad, driver.
He shook his head, therefore, pulled out his watch, and muttered to
himself that it seemed to him far too near the time of the arrival of a
train to make it safe to do such work.
The calculations, however, had been made correctly, and the train of
trucks would have been well out of the way, if the driver had been a
smarter man. Even as things stood, however, there should have been no
danger, because the distant signal was turned to danger, which thus said
to any approaching train, "Stop! for your life." But here occurred one
of these mistakes, or pieces of carelessness, or thoughtlessness, to
which weak and sinful human nature is, and we suppose always will be,
liable. Perhaps the signalman thought the goods train had completed its
operation, or fancied that the express was not so near as it proved to
be, or he got confused--we cannot tell; there is no accounting for such
things, but whatever the cause, he turned off the danger-signal half a
minute too soon, and set the line free.
Suddenly the down train came tearing round the curve. It was at reduced
speed certainly, but not sufficiently reduced to avoid a collision with
the trucks on a part of the line where no trucks should be.
Our friend John Marrot was on the look-out of course, and so was his
mate. They saw the trucks at once. Like lightning John shut off the
steam and at the same instant touched his whistle several sharp shrieks,
which was the alarm to the guard to turn on _his_ brakes. No men could
have been more prompt or cool. Joe Turner and Will Garvie had on full
brake-power in a second or two. At the same time John Marrot instantly
reversing the engine, let on full steam--but all in vain. Fire flew in
showers from the shrieking wheels--the friction on the rails must have
been tremendous, nevertheless the engine dashed into the goods train
like a thunderbolt with a stunning crash and a noise that is quite
indescribable.
The police superintendent, who was all but run over, stood for a few
seconds aghast at the sight and at the action of the engine. Not
satisfied with sending one of its own carriages into splinters, the iron
horse made three terrific plunges or efforts to advance, and at each
plunge a heavy truck full of goods was, as it were, pawed under its
wheels and driven out behind, under the tender, in the form of a mass of
matchwood--all the goods, hard and soft, as well as the heavy frame of
the truck itself being minced up together in a manner that defies
description. It seemed as though the monster had been suddenly endued
with intelligence, and was seeking to vent its horrid rage on the thing
that had dared to check its pace. Three loaded trucks it crushed down,
over-ran, and scattered wide in this way, in three successive plunges,
and then, rushing on a few yards among chaotic _debris_, turned slowly
on its side, and hurled the driver and fireman over the embankment.
The shock received by the people at the station was tremendous. Poor
Tipps, standing at his desk, was struck--nervously--as if by
electricity. He made one wild involuntary bolt right through the
window, as if it had been made of tissue paper, and did not cease to run
until he found himself panting in the middle of a turnip-field that lay
at the back of the station. Turning round, ashamed of himself, he ran
back faster than he had run away, and leaping recklessly among the
_debris_, began to pull broken and jagged timber about, under the
impression that he was rescuing fellow-creatures from destruction!
Strange to say no one was killed on that occasion--no one was even
severely hurt, except the driver. But of course this was not known at
first and the people who were standing about hurried, with terrible
forebodings, to lend assistance to the passengers.
Mr Sharp seemed to have been smitten with feelings somewhat similar to
those of Tipps, for, without knowing very well how or why, he suddenly
found himself standing up to the armpits in _debris_, heaving might and
main at masses of timber.
"Hallo! lift away this beam, will you?" shouted a half-smothered voice
close beside him.
It came from beneath the carriage that we have described as having been
broken to splinters.
Sharp was a man of action. He hailed a porter near him and began with
energy and power to tear up and hurl aside the boards. Presently on
raising part of the broken framework of the carriage a man struggled to
his feet and, wiping away the blood that flowed from a wound in his
forehead, revealed the countenance of Edwin Gurwood to the astonished
Tipps.
"What! Edwin!" he exclaimed.
"Ay--don't stand there, man. Your mother is in the train."