When the Queen ascended the throne (1837), the locomotive (S584) was
threatening to supersede the stagecoach; but the progerss of steam as
a motor power on land had not been rapid, and England then had less
than 200 miles of railway open;[1] but before the end of her reign
there were nearly 22,000 miles in operation, and there are now
24,000. At first, the passenger accommodations were limited. Those
who could indulge in such luxuries sometimes preferred to travel in
their own private carriages placed on platform cars for
transportation. For those who took first-class tickets there were
excellent and roomy compartments at very high prices. The second
class fared tolerably well on uncushioned seats, but the unfortunate
third class were crowded like cattle into open trucks, without seats,
and with no roofs to keep the rain out. But time remedied this. Long
before the Queen celebrated her first Jubilee (S607) the workingman
could fly through the country at the rate of from thirty to fifty
miles an hour, for a penny a mile, and could have all the comforts
that a reasonable being should ask for.
[1] A part of what is now the London and Northwestern Railway.
Cheap postage (S590) came in (1840) with the extension of railways,
and in a few years the amount of mail carried increased enormously.
Every letter, for the first time, carried on it a stamp bearing a
portrait of the young Queen, and in this way the English people came
to know her better than they had ever known any preceding sovereign.
The London papers now reached the country by train.
The Telegraph began to come into use in January, 1845, between the
railway station at Paddington, a western district of London, and
Slough, near Windsor. The government eventually purchased all the
lines, and reduced the charge on a despatch of twelve words to
sixpence to any part of the United Kingdom. The Telephone followed
(1876), and then Wireless Telegraphy (1899).