We cannot presume to say what sort of a smiddy Vulcan's was, but we feel
strongly inclined to think that if that gentleman were to visit the
works of the Grand National Trunk Railway, which are about the finest of
the kind in the kingdom, he would deem his own old shop a very
insignificant affair!
The stupendous nature of the operations performed there; the colossal
grandeur of the machinery employed; the appalling power of the forces
called into action; the startling _chiaro scuro_ of the furnaces; the
Herculean activity of the 3500 "hands;" the dread pyrotechnic displays;
the constant din and clangour--pshaw! the thing is beyond conception.
"Why then," you will say, "attempt description?" Because, reader, of
two evils we always choose the less. Description is better than
nothing. If you cannot go and see and hear for yourself, there is
nothing left for you but to fall back on description.
But of all the sights to be seen there, the most interesting, perhaps,
and the most amusing, was the visage of worthy Mrs Marrot as she
followed Will Garvie and her son, and gazed in rapt amazement at the
operations, and listened to the sounds, sometimes looking all round with
a half-imbecile expression at the rattling machinery, at other times
fixing her eyes intently down on one piece of mechanism in the vain hope
of penetrating its secrets to the core. Bob was not much less amazed
than his mother, but he had his sharp wits about him, and was keenly
alive to the delight of witnessing his mother's astonishment.
The works covered several acres of ground, and consisted of a group of
huge buildings which were divided into different departments, and in
these the railway company manufactured almost every article used on the
line--from a locomotive engine to a screw-nail.
Here, as we have said, above 3500 men and boys were at work, and all
sorts of trades were represented. There were draughtsmen to make
designs, and, from these, detailed working drawings. Smiths to forge
all the wrought-iron-work, with hammermen as assistants. Pattern-makers
to make wooden patterns for castings. Moulders, including loam,
dry-sand and green-sand moulders and brass-founders. Dressers to dress
the rough edges off the castings when brought from the foundry. Turners
in iron and brass. Planers and nibblers, and slotters and drillers.
Joiners and sawyers, and coach-builders and painters. Fitters and
erecters, to do the rougher and heavier part of fitting the engines
together. Boiler-makers, including platers or fitters, caulkers and
riveters. Finishers to do the finer part of fitting--details and
polishing. In short almost every trade in the kingdom concentrated in
one grand whole and working harmoniously, like a vast complex machine,
towards one common end--the supply of railway rolling-stock, or "plant"
to the line.
All these were busy as bees, for they were engaged on the equitable
system of "piece-work,"--which means that each man or boy was paid for
each piece of work done, instead of being paid by time, which of course
induced each to work as hard as he could in order to make much as
possible--a system which suited both masters and men. Of course there
are some sorts of employment where it would be unjust to pay men by the
amount of work done--as, for instance, in some parts of tin-mines, where
a fathom of rock rich in tin is as difficult to excavate as a fathom of
rock which is poor in tin--but in work such as we are describing the
piece-work system suits best.
Like a wise general, Will Garvie began with the department in which the
less astonishing operations were being performed. This was the timber
and sawing department.
Here hard wood, in all sizes and forms, was being licked into shape by
machinery in a way and with an amount of facility that was eminently
calculated to astonish those whose ideas on such matters had been
founded on the observation of the laborious work of human carpenters.
The very first thing that struck Bob Marrot was that the tools were so
heavy, thick, and strong that the biggest carpenter he had ever seen
would not have been able to use them. Bob's idea of a saw had hitherto
been a long sheet of steel with small teeth, that could be easily bent
like a hoop--an implement that went slowly through a plank, and that had
often caused his arm to ache in being made to advance a few inches; but
here he saw circular steel-discs with fangs more than an inch long,
which became invisible when in a state of revolution.
"What _is_ that?" said Mrs Marrot concentrating herself on one of these
implements, after having indulged in a stare of bewildered curiosity
round the long shed.
"That's a circular saw," replied Will Garvie; "one of the large ones,--
about four feet in diameter."
"A saw!" exclaimed Mrs Marrot, in surprise. "W'y, Will, it's round.
How can a round thing saw? An' it han't got no 'andle! How could any
man lay 'old of it to saw?"
"The carpenter here don't require no handles," replied Will. "He's a
queer fellow is the carpenter of this shop, as well as powerful. He
works away from morning till night with the power of more than a hundred
horses, an' does exactly what he's bid without ever making any mistakes
or axin' any questions. He's a steam-carpenter, Missis, but indeed he's
a jack-of-all-trades, and carries 'em on all at the same time. See,
they're goin' to set him to work now--watch and you shall see."
As he spoke, two men approached the circular saw bearing a thick log of
oak. One of them fitted it in position, on rollers, with its edge
towards the saw; then he seized a handle, by means of which he connected
the steam-carpenter with the saw, which instantly revolved so fast that
the teeth became invisible; at the same time the plank advanced rapidly
and met the saw. Instantly there was a loud hissing yet ringing sound,
accompanied by a shower of sawdust, and, long before Mrs Marrot had
recovered from her surprise, the log was cut into two thick substantial
planks.
After two or three more had been cut up in this way in as many minutes,
Will Garvie said--
"Now, let's see what they do with these planks. Come here."
He led them to a place close beside the saw, where there was a strong
iron machine, to one part of which was attached a very large chisel--it
might have been equal to two or three dozen of the largest ordinary
chisels rolled into one. This machine was in motion, but apparently it
had been made for a very useless purpose, for it was going vigorously up
and down at the time cutting the atmosphere!
"It's like a lot of people as I knows of," observed Mrs Marrot, "very
busy about nothin'."
"It'll have somethin' to do soon, mother," said Bob, who was already
beginning to think himself very knowing.
Bob was right. One of the oak-planks had been measured and marked for
mortice-holes in various ways according to pattern, and was now handed
over to the guardian of the machine, who, having had it placed on
rollers, pushed it under the chisel and touched a handle. Down came the
implement, and cut into the solid wood as if it had been mere putty. A
dozen cuts or so in one direction, then round it went--for this chisel
could be turned with its face in either direction without stopping it
for the purpose--another dozen cuts were made, and an oblong hole of
three or four inches long by two broad and three deep was made in the
plank in a few seconds.
Even Mrs Marrot had sufficient knowledge of the arts to perceive that
this operation would have cost a human carpenter a very much greater
amount of time and labour, and that therefore there must have been a
considerable saving of expense. Had she been aware of the fact that
hundreds of such planks were cut, marked, morticed, and turned out of
hands every week all the year round, and every year continuously, she
would have had a still more exalted conception of the saving of time,
labour, and expense thus effected.
The guardian of the chisel having in a few minutes cut the requisite
half dozen or so of holes, guided the plank on rollers towards a
pile, where it was laid, to be afterwards carried off to the
carriage-builders, who would fit it as one side of a carriage-frame to
its appropriate fellow-planks, which had all been prepared in the same
way.
Not far from this machine the visitors were shown another, in which
several circular saws of smaller dimensions than the first were at work
in concert, and laid at different angles to each other, so that when a
plank was given into their clutches it received cuts and slices in
certain parts during its passage through the machine, and came out much
modified and improved in form--all that the attendants had to do merely
being to fit the planks in their places and guide them safely through
the ordeal. Elsewhere Mrs Marrot and Bob beheld a frame--full of
gigantic saws cut a large log into half a dozen planks, all in one
sweep, in a few minutes--work which would have drawn the sweat from the
brows of two saw-pit men for several hours. One thing that attracted
the attention of Bob very strongly was the simple process of
hole-boring. Of course, in forming the massive frames of railway
carriages, it becomes necessary to bore numerous holes for large nails
or bolts. Often had Bob, at a neighbouring seaport, watched the heavy
work and the slow progress of ship-carpenters as they pierced the planks
of ships with augers; but here he beheld what he called, "augers and
drills gone mad!"--augers small and great whirling furiously, or, as Bob
put it, "like all possessed." Some acting singly, others acting
together in rows of five or six; and these excited things were
perpetually whirling, whether at work or not, ready for service at a
moment's notice. While Bob was gazing at one huge drill--probably an
inch and a half broad, if not more--a man came up to it with a plank, on
the surface of which were several dots at various distances. He put the
plank under the drill, brought it down on a dot, whizz went the drill,
and straightway there was a huge round hole right through almost before
Bob had time to wink,--and Bob was a practised hand at winking. Several
holes were bored in this way, and then the plank was carried to another
machine, where six lesser holes were drilled at one and the same time by
six furious little augers; and thus the planks passed on from one
machine to another until finished, undergoing, in the course of a few
minutes, treatment that would have cost them hours of torture had they
been manipulated by human hands, in addition to which the work was most
beautifully, and perfectly, and regularly done.
Many other operations did the visitors behold in this department--all
more or less interesting and, to them, surprising--so that Mrs Marrot
was induced at last to exclaim--
"W'y, Willum, it seems to me that if you go on improvin' things at this
rate there won't be no use in a short time for 'uman 'ands at all.
We'll just 'ave to sit still an' let machinery do our work for us, an'
all the trades-people will be throwd out of employment."
"How can you say that, Missis," said Will Garvie, "you bein' old enough
to remember the time w'en there wasn't five joiners' shops in Clatterby,
with p'rhaps fifty men and boys employed, and now there's hundreds of
joiners, and other shops of all kinds in the town, besides these here
railway works which, as you know, keeps about 3500 hands goin' all the
year round?"
"That's so, Willum," assented Mrs Marrot in a meditative tone.
Thus meditating, she was conducted into the smiths' department.
Here about 140 forges and 400 men were at work. Any one of these forges
would have been a respectable "smiddy" in a country village. They stood
as close to each other as the space would allow,--so close that their
showers of sparks intermingled, and kept the whole shed more or less in
the condition of a chronic eruption of fireworks. To Bob's young mind
it conveyed the idea of a perpetual keeping of the Queen's birthday. To
his mother it was suggestive of singed garments and sudden loss of
sight. The poor woman was much distressed in this department at first,
but when she found, after five minutes or so, that her garments were
unscathed, and her sight still unimpaired, she became reconciled to it.
In this place of busy vulcans--each of whom was the beau-ideal of "the
village blacksmith," all the _smaller_ work of the railway was done. As
a specimen of this smaller work, Will Garvie drew Mrs Marrot's
attention to the fact that two vulcans were engaged in twisting red-hot
iron bolts an inch and a half thick into the form of hooks with as much
apparent ease as if they had been hair-pins. These, he said, were hooks
for couplings, the hooks by which railway carriages were attached
together, and on the strength and unyielding rigidity of which the lives
of hundreds of travellers might depend.
The bending of them was accomplished by means of a powerful lever. It
would be an endless business to detail all that was done in this
workshop. Every piece of comparatively small iron-work used in the
construction of railway engines, carriages, vans, and trucks, from a
door-hinge to a coupling-chain, was forged in that smithy. Passing
onward, they came to a workshop where iron castings of all kinds were
being made; cylinders, fire-boxes, etcetera,--and a savage-looking place
it was, with numerous holes and pits of various shapes and depths in the
black earthy floor, which were the moulds ready, or in preparation, for
the reception of the molten metal. Still farther on they passed through
a workroom where every species of brass-work was being made. And here
Bob Marrot was amazed to find that the workmen turned brass on
turning-lathes with as much facility as if it had been wood. Some of
the pieces of brazen mechanism were very beautiful and delicate--
especially one piece, a stop-cock for letting water into a boiler, the
various and complex parts of which, when contrasted with the huge
workmanship of the other departments, resembled fine watch-work.
As they passed on, Bob observed a particularly small boy, in whom he
involuntarily took a great and sudden interest--he looked so small, so
thin, so intelligent, and, withal, so busy.
"Ah, you may well look at him," said Will Garvie, observing Bob's gaze.
"That boy is one of the best workers of his age in the shop."
"What is 'e doin'?" inquired Bob.
"He's preparin' nuts for screws," replied Will, "and gets one penny for
every hundred. Most boys can do from twelve to fourteen hundred a day,
so, you see, they can earn from six to seven shillin's a week; but that
little feller--they call him Tomtit Dorkin--earns a good deal more, I
believe, and he has much need to, for he has got an old granny to
support. That's the work that you are soon to be set to, lad."
"Is it?" said Bob, quite pleased at the notion of being engaged in the
same employment with Tomtit; "I'm glad to 'ear it. You see, mother,
when you gits to be old an' 'elpless, you'll not need to mind, 'cause
_I'll_ support you."
The next place they visited was the great point of attraction to Bob.
It was the forge where the heavy work was done, and where the celebrated
hammer and terrific pair of scissors performed their stupendous work.
At the time the visitors entered this department the various hammers
chanced to be at rest, nevertheless even Mrs Marrot's comparatively
ignorant mind was impressed by the colossal size and solidity of the
iron engines that surrounded her. The roof of the shed in which they
stood had been made unusually high in order to contain them.
"Well, I s'pose the big 'ammer that Bob says is as 'eavy as five carts
of coals must be 'ereabouts?" observed Mrs Marrot looking round.
"Yes, there it is," said Will, pointing in front of him.
"W'ere? I don't see no 'ammer."
"Why there, that big thing just before you," he said, pointing to a
machine of iron, shaped something like the letter V turned upside down,
with its two limbs on the earth, its stem lost in the obscurity of the
root and having a sort of tongue between the two limbs, which tongue was
a great square block of solid iron, apparently about five feet high and
about three feet broad and deep. This tongue, Will Garvie assured his
companion, was the hammer.
"No, no, Willum," said Mrs Marrot, with a smile, "you mustn't expect me
for to believe that. I _may_ believe that the moon is made of green
cheese, but I won't believe that that's a 'ammer."
"No: but _is_ it, Bill?" asked Bob, whose eyes gleamed with suppressed
excitement.
"Indeed it is; you shall see presently."
Several stalwart workmen, with bare brawny arms, who were lounging
before the closed mouth of a furnace, regarded the visitors with some
amusement. One of these came forward and said--
"You'd better stand a little way back, ma'am."
Mrs Marrot obediently retreated to a safe distance. Then the stalwart
men threw open the furnace door. Mrs Marrot exclaimed, almost
shrieked, with surprise at the intense light which gushed forth, casting
even the modified daylight of the place into the shade. The proceedings
of the stalwart men thereafter were in Mrs Marrot's eyes absolutely
appalling--almost overpowering,--but Mrs M was tough both in mind and
body. She stood her ground. Several of the men seized something inside
the furnace with huge pincers, tongs, forceps--whatever you choose to
call them--and drew partly out an immense rudely shaped bar or _log_ of
glowing irons thicker than a man's thigh. At the same time a great
chain was put underneath it, and a crane of huge proportions thereafter
sustained the weight of the glowing metal. By means of this crane it
was drawn out of the furnace and swung round until its glowing head or
end came close to the tongue before mentioned. Then some of the
stalwart men grasped several iron handles, which were affixed to the
cool end of the bar, and prepared themselves to act. A signal was given
to a man who had not hitherto been noticed, he was so small in
comparison with the machine on which he stood--perhaps it would be
better to say to which he stuck, because he was perched on a little
platform about seven or eight feet from the ground, which was reached by
an iron ladder, and looked down on the men who manipulated the iron bar
below.
On receiving the signal, this man moved a small lever. It cost him no
effort whatever, nevertheless it raised the iron tongue about six feet
in the air, revealing the fact that it had been resting on another
square block of iron embedded in the earth. This latter was the anvil.
On the anvil the end of the white-hot bar was immediately laid. Another
signal was given, and down came the "five-carts-of-coals weight" with a
thud that shook the very earth, caused the bar partially to flatten as
if it had been a bit of putty, and sent a brilliant shower of sparks
over the whole place. Mrs Marrot clapped both hands on her face, and
capped the event with a scream. As for Bob, he fairly shouted with
delight.
Blow after blow was given by this engine, and as each blow fell the
stalwart men heaved on the iron handles and turned the bar this way and
that way, until it was pounded nearly square. By this time Mrs Marrot
had recovered so far as to separate her fingers a little, and venture to
peep from behind that protecting screen. By degrees the unwieldy mass
of misshapen metal was pounded into a cylindrical form, and Will Garvie
informed his friends that this was the beginning of the driving-axle of
a locomotive. Pointing to several of those which had been already
forged, each having two enormous iron projections on it which were
afterwards to become the cranks, he said--
"You'll see how these are finished, in another department."
But Mrs Marrot and Bob paid no attention to him. They were fascinated
by the doings of the big hammer, and especially by the cool quiet way in
which the man with the lever caused it to obey his will. When he moved
the lever up or down a little, up or down went the hammer a little; when
he moved it a good deal the hammer moved a good deal; when he was
gentle, the hammer was gentle; when he gave a violent push, the hammer
came down with a crash that shook the whole place. He could cause it to
plunge like lightning to within a hair's-breadth of the anvil and check
it instantaneously so that it should not touch. He could make it pat
the red metal lovingly, or pound it with the violence of a fiend.
Indeed, so quick and sympathetic were all the movements of that
steam-hammer that it seemed as though it were gifted with intelligence,
and were nervously solicitous to act in prompt obedience to its master's
will. There were eleven steam-hammers of various sizes in this
building, with a staff of 175 men to attend to them, half of which staff
worked during the day, and half during the night--besides seven smaller
steam-hammers in the smiths' shops and other departments.
With difficulty Will Garvie tore his friends away from the big hammer;
but he could not again chain their attention to anything else, until he
came to the pair of scissors that cut iron. With this instrument Mrs
Marrot at first expressed herself disappointed. It was not like a pair
of scissors at all, she said, and in this she was correct, for the
square clumsy-looking blunt-like mass of iron, about five feet high and
broad, which composed a large portion of it, was indeed very unlike a
pair of scissors.
"Why, mother," exclaimed Bob, "you didn't surely expect to see two large
holes in it for a giant's thumb and fingers, did you?"
"Well, but," said Mrs Marrot, "it ain't got no blades that I can see."
"I'll let 'ee see 'em, Missis, in a minute," said a workman who came up
at that moment with a plate of iron more than a quarter of an inch
thick. "Turn it on, Johnny."
A small boy turned on the steam, the machine moved, and Will Garvie
pointed out to Mrs Marrot the fact that two sharp edges of steel in a
certain part of it crossed each other exactly in the manner of a pair of
scissors.
"Well," remarked Mrs M, after contemplating it for some time, "it don't
look very like scissors, but I'm free to confess that them two bits of
iron _do_ act much in the same way."
"And with the same result, Missus," observed the machine-man, putting
the plate between the clippers, which, closing quietly, snipped off
about a foot of iron as if it had been paper. There was, however, a
crunching sound which indicated great power, and drew from Mrs Marrot
an exclamation of surprise not altogether unmingled with alarm.
The man then seized a bit of iron about as thick as his own wrist--full
an inch and a half in diameter--which the scissors cut up into lengths
of eighteen inches or so as easily as if it had been a bar of lead or
wood.
"Didn't I say it could cut through the poker, mother?" cried Bob with a
look of triumph.
"The poker, boy! it could cut poker, tongs, shovel, and fender, all at
once!" replied Mrs Marrot--"well, I never! can it do anything else?"
In reply to this the man took up several pieces of hard steel, which it
snipped through as easily as it had cut the iron.
But if Mrs Marrot's surprise at the scissors was great, not less great
was it at the punching machine, which punched little buttons the size of
a sixpence out of cold iron full half-an-inch thick. This vicious
implement not only punched holes all round boiler-plates so as to permit
of their being riveted together, but it cut patterns out of thick iron
plates by punching rows of such holes so close to each other that they
formed one long cutting, straight or crooked, as might be required. In
short, the punching machine acted the part of a saw, and cut the iron
plates in any shape that was desired. Here also they saw the testing of
engine springs--those springs which to most people appear to have no
spring in them whatever--so very powerful are they. One of these was
laid on an iron table, with its two ends resting against an iron plate.
A man approached and measured it exactly. Then a hydraulic ram was
applied; and there was something quite impressive in the easy quiet way,
in which the ram shoved a spring, which the weight of a locomotive can
scarcely affect, _quite_ _flat_ against the iron plate, and held it
there a moment or two! Being released, the spring resumed its proper
form. It was then re-measured; found not to have expanded a
hair's-breadth, and, therefore,--as Will Garvie took care to explain,--
was passed as a sound well-tempered spring; whereat Bob remarked that it
would need to be a good-tempered spring, to suffer such treatment
without grumbling.
It seemed to Mrs Marrot now as if her capacity for surprise had reached
its limit; but she little knew the wealth of capacity for creating
surprise that lay in these amazing "works" of the Grand National Trunk
Railway.
The next place she was ushered into was a vast apartment where iron in
every shape, size, and form was being planed and turned and cut. The
ceiling of the building, or rather the place where a ceiling ought in
ordinary circumstances to have been, was alive with moving bands and
whirling wheels. The first thing she was called on to contemplate was
the turning of the tyre or rim of one of the driving-wheels of a
locomotive. Often had Mrs Marrot heard her husband talk of tyres and
driving-wheels, and many a time had she seen these wheels whirling,
half-concealed, in their appropriate places, but never till that day had
she seen the iron hoop, eight feet in diameter, elevated in bare
simplicity on a turning-lathe, where its size impressed her so much that
she declared, "she never _could_ 'ave imagined engine-wheels was so
big," and asked, "'ow did they ever manage to get 'em lifted up to w'ere
they was?"
To which an overseer kindly replied by pointing out a neat little crane
fitted on a tail, which, when required, ran along the apartment like a
strong obedient little domestic servant, lifting wheels, etcetera, that
a man could scarcely move, and placing them wherever they were wanted.
Mrs Marrot was then directed to observe the rim of the wheel, where she
saw a small chisel cutting iron curls off it just as easily, to all
appearance, as a turner cuts shavings off wood--and these iron curls
were not delicate; they were thick, solid, unpliant ringlets, that would
have formed a suitable decoration for the fair brow of a locomotive, or,
perhaps, a chignon--supposing that any locomotive could have been
prevailed on to adopt such a wild monstrosity!
This same species of chisel, applied in different ways, reduced masses
of iron in size, planed down flat surfaces, enlarged holes, made
cylinders "true" and smooth inside, besides doing a variety of other
things.
After seeing the large tyre turned, Mrs Marrot could not be induced to
pay much regard to the various carriage and truck wheels which were
being treated in a similar manner in that department, but she was
induced to open her ears, and her eyes too, when the overseer informed
her that the "works" turned out complete no fewer than one hundred and
thirty pairs of locomotive, carriage, and waggon wheels a week.
"How many did you say?" she asked.
"A hundred and thirty pair of wheels in the week," repeated the
overseer.
"Every week?" asked Mrs Marrot.
"Yes; every week. Sometimes more, sometimes less; but altogether,
pretty well on for 6000 pairs of wheels every year."
"W'y, what _do_ you make of 'em all?"
"Oh, we make good use of 'em," replied the overseer, laughing. "We wear
them out so fast that it keeps us working at that rate to meet our
necessities. But that," he continued, "is only a small part of what we
do. We turn out of the works 156 first-class carriages besides many
seconds and thirds, and about 1560 trucks every year; besides three
engines, new and complete, every fortnight."
"Three noo engines every fortnight!" echoed Mrs Marrot; "how many's
that in the year, Bob?"
"Seventy-eight," replied Bob, promptly. Bob was a swift mental
calculator, and rather proud of it.
"Where ever do they all go to?" murmured Mrs Marrot.
"Why," replied Will Garvie, "they go to all the stations on the line, of
course; some of 'em go to smash at once in cases of accidents, and all
of 'em goes to destruction, more or less, in about fifteen or twenty
years. We reckon that to be the life of a locomotive. See, there's a
drivin' axle, such as you saw forged by the big hammer, being turned
now, and cut to shape and size by the same sort of machine that you saw
cuttin' the tyres."
They passed on, after looking at the axle for a few minutes, until they
came to a part of the building where rails were being forged. This
also, although not done by hammer, was a striking process. The place
was so hot owing to the quantity of uncooled metal on the floor, that it
was not possible to remain long; they therefore took a rapid survey. In
one place several men were in the act of conveying to the steam-hammer a
mass of shapeless white-hot iron, which had just been plucked from a
furnace with a pair of grippers. They put it below the hammer for a few
minutes, which soon reduced it to a clumsy bar; then they carried it to
a pair of iron rollers driven by steam. The end of the bar being
presented to these, it was gripped, dragged in between them, and passed
out at the other side, flat and very much lengthened, as well as
thinned. Having been further reduced by this process, it was finally
passed through a pair of rollers, which gave it shape, and sent it out a
complete rail, ready to be laid down on the line.
Here Garvie took occasion to explain that steel rails, although very
expensive, were now being extensively used in preference to iron rails,
because they lasted much longer. "For instance," he said, "steel costs
about 12 pounds a ton and iron only costs about 7 pounds; but then, d'ye
see, steel rails will last two years and more, whereas iron rails get
wore out, and have to be renewed every six weeks in places where there's
much traffic."
"Now, I can't stand no more o' this," said Mrs Marrot, down whose face
the perspiration was streaming; "I'm a'most roasted alive, an' don't
understand your explanations one bit, Willum, so come along."
"Oh, mother, _do_ hold on a moment," pleaded Bob, whose mechanical soul
was in a species of paradise.
"You'd better come, Bob," interposed Garvie, "else we won't have time to
see the department where the engines are fitted."
This was sufficient for Bob, who willingly followed.
The fitting shed at that time contained several engines in various
stages of advancement. In one place men were engaged in fitting
together the iron framework or foundation of a locomotive, with screws,
and bolts, and nuts, and rivets. Others were employed near them, on an
engine more advanced, in putting on the wheels and placing the boilers
and fire-boxes, while another gang were busy covering the boiler of a
third engine with a coating of wood and felt, literally for the purpose
of keeping it warm, or preventing its heat from escaping. Farther on,
three beautiful new engines, that had just been made and stood ready for
action, were receiving a few finishing touches from the painters.
Fresh, spotless, and glittering, these were to make their _debut_ on the
morrow, and commence their comparatively brief career of furious
activity--gay things, doomed emphatically to a fast life! Beyond these
young creatures lay a number of aged and crippled engines, all more or
less disabled and sent there for repair; one to have a burst steam-pipe
removed and replaced, another to have a wheel, or a fire-box or a
cylinder changed; and one, that looked as if it had recently "run
a-muck" against all the other engines on the line, stood sulkily grim in
a corner, evidently awaiting its sentence of condemnation,--the usual
fate of such engines being to be torn, bored, battered, chiselled,
clipt, and otherwise cut to pieces, and cast into the furnaces.
While gazing round this apartment, Mrs Marrot's eyes suddenly became
transfixed.
"Wot's the matter _now_?" demanded Bob, in some alarm.
"I _do_ believe--w'y--there's a locomotive _in the air_!" said Mrs
Marrot in an undertone.
"So it is!" exclaimed Bob.
And, reader, so it was. In that shed they had a crane which rested on a
framework overhead, and ran on wheels over the entire shop. It was
capable of lifting above fifty tons' weight and as a large locomotive,
ponderous though it be, is not much over twenty tons, of course this
giant crane made short work of such. When the men have occasion to
remove a wheel from the iron horse, not being able to make it lift up
its leg, so to speak, to have it taken off, they bring it under the
crane, swing it up as a little boy might swing a toy-cart, and operate
on it at their leisure.
Mrs Marrot felt an unpleasant sensation on beholding this. As the wife
of an engine-driver, she had long felt the deepest respect, almost
amounting to reverence, for locomotives, in regard to the weight, speed,
and irresistible power of which she had always entertained the most
exalted ideas. To see one of the race--and that too, of the largest
size--treated in this humiliating fashion was too much for her, she
declared that she had seen enough of the "works," and wouldn't on any
account remain another minute!
"But you won't go without seein' the carriage and truck department,
surely?" said Bob.
"Well, I'll just take a look to please _you_," said the amiable woman.
Accordingly, to the truck and van department they went, and there Bob,
whose mind was sharp as a needle, saw a good many pieces of mechanism,
which formerly he had only seen in a transition state, now applied to
their ultimate uses. The chiselled, sawn, and drilled planks seen in
the first department, were here being fitted and bolted together in the
form of trucks, while the uses of many strange pieces of iron, which had
puzzled him in the blacksmiths' department, became obvious when fitted
to their appropriate woodwork. Here, also, he saw the internal
machinery of railway carriages laid bare, especially the position and
shape of the springs that give elasticity to the buffers, which, he
observed, were just the same in shape as ordinary carriage springs,
placed so that the ends of the buffer-rods pressed against them.
But all this afforded no gratification to Mrs Marrot, whose sensitive
mind dwelt uneasily on the humiliated locomotive, until she suddenly
came on a row of new first-class carriages, where a number of people
were employed stuffing cushions.
"Well, I declare," she exclaimed, "if here ain't cushion-stuffing going
on! I expect we shall come to coat-and-shift-making for porters and
guards, next!"
"No, we haven't got quite that length yet," laughed Will Garvie; "but if
you look along you'll see gilding, and glazing, and painting going on,
at that first-class carriage. Still farther along, in the direction
we're going, is the infirmary."
"The infirmary, Willum!"
"Ay, the place where old and damaged trucks and carriages are sent for
repair. They're all in a bad way, you see,--much in need o' the
doctor's sar'vices."
This was true. Looking at some of these unfortunates, with crushed-in
planks, twisted buffers and general dismemberment, it seemed a wonder
that they had been able to perform their last journey, or crawl to the
hospital. Some of the trucks especially might have been almost said to
look diseased, they were so dirty, while at the corners, where address
cards were wont to be affixed, they appeared to have broken out in a
sort of small-pox irruption of iron tackets.
At last Mrs Marrot left the "works," declaring that her brain was
"whirling worser than was the wheels and machinery they had just left,"
while Bob asseverated stoutly that his appetite for the stupendous had
only been whetted. In this frame of mind the former went home to nurse
her husband, and the latter was handed over to his future master, the
locomotive superintendent of the line.
Reader, it is worth your while to visit such works, to learn what can be
done by the men whom you are accustomed to see, only while trooping home
at meal hours, with dirty garments and begrimed hands and faces--to see
the grandeur as well as the delicacy of their operations, while thus
labouring amongst din and dust and fire, to provide _you_ with safe and
luxurious locomotion. We cannot indeed, introduce you to the particular
"works" we have described; but if you would see something similar, hie
thee to the works of our great arterial railways,--to those of the
London and North-Western, at Crewe; the Great Western, at Swindon; the
South-eastern, at Ashford; the Great Northern, at Doncaster; the North
British, at Cowlairs; the Caledonian, at Glasgow, or any of the many
others that exist throughout the kingdom, for in each and all you will
see, with more or less modification, exactly the same amazing sights
that were witnessed by worthy Mrs Marrot and her hopeful son Bob, on
that never-to-be-forgotten day, when they visited the pre-eminently
great Clatterby "works" of the Grand National Trunk Railway.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note. The foregoing description is founded on visits paid to the
locomotive works of the Great Western, at Swindon, and those of the
North British, near Glasgow--to the General Managers and Superintendents
of both which railways we are indebted for much valuable information.--
R.M. Ballantyne.