RAMBLES ON RAILWAYS.
With Maps, Diagrams, and Appendices
BY
SIR CUSACK P. RONEY,
B.A. TRIN. COLL. DUB., L.R.C.S.I.
[Illustration: LOGO]
LONDON: EFFINGHAM WILSON.
1868.
_All Rights Reserved._
PREFACE.
JUST as the Author was completing the last of the following pages, he
was seized with very serious illness. It has delayed their production
two months beyond the time originally advertised. Meanwhile, several
changes have taken place, which, though not of much importance, may be
briefly referred to. Thus, Mr. Anthony Trollope, mentioned at page 104
as amongst the literary men connected with the Post Office, has, since
that page was printed off, ceased to be an officer of the department.
Some trifling errors must also be mentioned; thus, at note of page 211,
the length of Australian railways is stated at 480 miles, whereas it
should have been 669, as set forth at page 307. Page 212; it is stated
that the Euston portico is not used by anybody, whereas empty cabs,
having set down their fares, go through it. Page 359; the name of the
Secretary of the Palestine Fund is “Grove” not “Groves.” Page 390, line
27; the St. John’s Wood Railway terminates at 1 mile and 1,320 yards
from Baker Street, and then the Hampstead Extension will commence with
a gradient of 1 in 27. Page 423, line 11; for “Lowe” read “Love.”
The most important correction to be made has reference to pages 149
and 150, relating to the railway capital raised, traffic receipts, and
net earnings for 1865. When the words in the text were written the
complete returns of the Board of Trade had not been published, and the
Author assumed that the debenture and preferential capital was greater
in amount than it really is. The reader is, therefore, requested
to take the subjoined analysis of the railway capital of the United
Kingdom, extracted from the City article of the _Times_, of October
29th, 1867, as containing an exact statement of the several portions
into which that capital was divided on the 31st of December, 1865, and
to substitute it for the statements in the text as given in the before
mentioned pages. If the traffic accounts, as published by the railway
companies, be really correct, and that capital has not been improperly
charged with items that should, in reality, be attributable to revenue,
the dividends on unguaranteed capital are better, as a whole, than the
Author assumed them to be.
“The complete railway returns of the Board of Trade for the year
ended the 31st of December, 1865, have just been printed. They are
full and elaborate, and would furnish excellent means for estimating
the prospects of the enormous property involved, were it not for the
drawback of their being issued so long after the period to which
they refer. The leading features of the tables now presented may be
summarised as follows:—At the end of 1865 the total _ordinary_ capital
of the railways of the United Kingdom was £219,598,196. Of this total
£183,450,460 was represented by companies paying dividends, and
£36,147,736, by companies (chiefly the Great Eastern and London and
Chatham) not paying dividends, the latter including £12,849,590 for
lines not yet opened. Setting aside the unopened lines, and reckoning
only the capital of those at work—namely, £206,748,606—the average
rate of distribution was £4. 11s. 5d. per cent., a satisfactory return
could an assumption be safely made that it had not been in any degree
paid out of capital. The result would have been still better but for
the extent to which the average rate is reduced by the circumstance of
the profits of the Scotch and Irish being below those of the English
lines. The English rate was £4. 14s. 10d. per cent., while the Scotch
was £4. 9s. 5d., and the Irish only £2. 16s. 8d. The lowest dividend
disbursed by any of the English dividend-paying companies (57 in
number) was by the Cromford and High Peak, which on an ordinary capital
of £127,700 distributed 8s. per cent. for the year, while the highest
was £11. 2s. 6d., by the Lancaster and Carlisle on an ordinary capital
of £2,420,300. The main cause of the respectable average of the English
dividends is found, however, in the payment of £6. 12s. 6d. per cent.
by the London and North-Western on an ordinary capital of £23,378,987;
of £6. 15s. per cent. by the Midland, on £10,862,067; and of £7. 2s.
6d. per cent. by the Great Northern, on £6,455,584. At the same time
there is an item which must now be regarded as fictitious, of £5. 15s.
per cent., by the Brighton line, on an ordinary capital of £5,342,933.
Of 19 dividend-paying lines in Scotland, the lowest was the Carlisle
and Silloth Bay, 10s. per cent., and the highest was the Kilmarnock
and Troon, £9. 5s. per cent., the ordinary capital of the latter being
only £40,000. In this list the Caledonian figures for £7. 2s. 6d. on
an ordinary capital of £4,141,254. Of 11 dividend-paying lines in
Ireland, the lowest was the Waterford and Limerick, 15s. per cent., and
the highest the Dublin and Kingstown, 9 per cent. The _preferential_
capital of the railways of the United Kingdom was £124,263,475, and
upon this the average rate paid (reckoning a sum of £8,455,279, on
which the companies were unable to distribute anything) was £4. 7s.
9d. per cent. The total of the _debenture stock_, or funded debt of
the railways in the United Kingdom, was only £13,795,375, and on this
the average rate paid was £4. 2s. per cent., while the _debenture
loans_, subject to renewal, and which in times of pressure must always
be a cause of danger, amounted to £97,821,097, at an average rate of
£4. 8s. 5d. per cent. The total paid-up capital of all kinds stood at
£455,478,143.”
The Author had thought, that in tracing tunnels to the time of the
erection of Babylon, he had gone as far backward as it was possible
to extend research on this subject. It appears, however, that he was
mistaken, for, during a visit that he paid to Paris just before his
illness, he lighted, in _Galignani_, upon the following extraordinary
paragraph, which is given in _extenso_, exactly as he found it.
“ANTIQUITY OF MAN.—A most singular and unexpected discovery has just
occurred at Chaguay, Department of the Soane et Loire, by some workmen.
Engrossed in digging the foundations of a railway shed, at the depth
of about ten yards, in a stratum of muddy clay and ferruginous oxides,
remains of _proboscians_ (elephants, rhinoceroses, &c.), were brought
to light, comprising several back teeth and a formidable tusk, in large
fragments, which, on being put together, constituted a length of seven
feet. The depth at which this was found was more than six yards, higher
than the level of the most considerable inundations of the Dheune,
and in an undisturbed stratum. So far, there is nothing absolutely
extraordinary, but who would have thought of finding, underneath the
bed containing these fossils of the tertiary period, an aqueduct of
the most primitive kind of human workmanship? Yet such is the case,
and it is the only case of the kind on record. It is explained by M.
Tremaux, who relates the circumstance, by the supposition—what seems
indeed to have been the fact—that the tertiary fragments above alluded
to had been pushed into the trench by a violent inundation, and thus
filled up the aqueduct. The discovery of this aqueduct does not by any
means authorise us to carry the antiquity of man as far back as the
tertiary period, for, although the aqueduct lies under a stratum of
tertiary formation, this stratum does not belong to the place, but was
transported thither at a later period.”
One step from that period, whatever it was, to _Anno Christi_ 1867.
During the visit above referred to, the Author was afforded the
opportunity, by M. Mouton, the eminent French contractor, of an
inspection of the plans of the proposed Paris Underground Railway,
which it is hoped will be commenced before the expiration of 1868.
The course of the line is from Long Champs Race-course, beside the
Seine, near Paris, underneath the Bois de Boulogne, thence to Arc
de l’Etóile, from there almost in a straight line along the Champs
Elysées, the Rue de Rivoli, the Rue St. Antoine, to the Chemins de
Fer de Vincennes, thence to the Mazas Station of the Paris, Lyons,
and Mediterranean Railway. Branches are given off from the main line
just described, right and left, so as to form a complete underground
connection between all the Railway Termini of Paris. There will be one
bridge over the Seine, and one tunnel under it. The total length of the
railway and branches will be 23 kilometres, of which about 18 will be
in tunnel or covered way.
It only remains for the Author to express the sense of deep obligation
which he feels to his numerous railway friends for the kindness and
promptitude with which they have afforded him information upon every
point upon which he sought it from them. It had been his wish to
enumerate specially the names of all these gentlemen, and it is a
source of much regret to him that the limited space allowed for the
Preface prevents his performing this act of grateful recognition. To
Mr. William Haywood, the Engineer of the Corporation of London; to
Mr. John Fowler, President of the Institution of Civil Engineers;
and to other members of the profession, he is also much indebted. He
ventures likewise to tender his respectful thanks to George Graham,
Esq., the Registrar-General, for the great kindness and courtesy with
which he replied to several questions relating to populations; and
the expression of the same feeling is due to Mr. Juland Danvers, the
Government Director of Indian Railways, from whom information was
sought on several occasions.
The Author has by him materials for another volume of “Rambles on
Railways,” (relating principally to the railway networks of Foreign
countries), which may probably be published in the course of the
present year.
LONDON,
_January 1868_.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
Travelling Two Hundred and One Hundred Years ago—The Liverpool
and Manchester Railway—The First Locomotive, “Rocket”—The
Grand Junction, London and Birmingham, and Birmingham and
Manchester Railways—The Midland Railway—Early Gradients,
Increase in their Steepness and in the Power of the Locomotive—
The Carriage Road-way Passes of the Alps—Mountains of the
World—The Sœmmering and Brenner Railways—The Route between
London and Paris 1
CHAPTER II.
Union Pacific Railroad—South Austrian and Alta Italia—Paris,
Lyons, and Mediterranean—Orleans—Mileage, Cost, and Receipts
of French Railways—London Traffic—London and North-Western
Railway 17
CHAPTER III.
Railways of the United Kingdom—Coal and Iron 40
CHAPTER IV.
Railways and the Post Office—Speed on Railways 73
CHAPTER V.
Railways and the Post Office—_continued_ 115
CHAPTER VI.
Railway Receipts, Working Expenses, and Profits in the United
Kingdom—Delays and Accidents 147
CHAPTER VII.
Horses and Engines—Crewe 186
CHAPTER VIII.
A Journey on the Locomotive 210
CHAPTER IX.
Indian Railways 245
CHAPTER X.
Canadian and Australian Railways—The Railways of other British
Colonies 301
CHAPTER XI.
Paris to St. Michel—“Above Sea-Level”—The Holborn Viaduct—The
Mont Cenis Railway 316
CHAPTER XII.
Tunnels, Ancient and Modern 358
CHAPTER XIII.
The Great Tunnel of the Alps—Tunnel Ventilation—Ventilation in
the Metropolitan Railway 401
CHAPTER XIV.
Italy—The Eastern Mails—Sicily 427
APPENDICES.
APPENDIX, No. 1.
PAGE
Report by Mr. Edward Page, Inspector-General of Mails, on some
points connected with the relations between the Post Office
Department and Railway Companies 439
APPENDIX, No. 2.
Reply of Robert Stephenson, Esq., M.P., President of the
Institution of Civil Engineers, to Observations in the Second
Report of the Postmaster-General. Delivered at the Meeting of
May 20th, 1856 454
APPENDIX, No. 3.
Copy of Letter Addressed to a Member of the Italian Parliament
upon the Importance of the Eastern Mails, now despatched _viâ_
Marseilles and _viâ_ Southampton, being transmitted _viâ_
Brindisi 482
INDEX 501
MAPS AND DIAGRAMS.
PAGE
ROUTES FROM LONDON TO BRINDISI BY THE MONT CENIS AND THE BRENNER 14
PLAN OF THE HARBOUR AND TOWN OF BRINDISI 15
MAP OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD 17
MAP OF INDIA AND OF INDIAN RAILWAYS 245
GRADIENTS OF HOLBORN HILL AND SNOW HILL, LONDON 322
A CENTRE-RAIL ENGINE AND TRAIN ASCENDING A STEEP GRADIENT AND
GOING ROUND A SHARP CURVE 334
PATENT CENTRE-RAIL ENGINE—FRONT ELEVATION 337
MAP OF THE UNDERGROUND METROPOLITAN RAILWAY, LONDON 387
SECTION OF THE METROPOLITAN LINE 388
SECTION OF MR. REMMINGTON’S PROPOSED TUNNEL BETWEEN FRANCE
AND ENGLAND 399
THE GREAT TUNNEL OF THE ALPS 401
SECTION OF THE MONT CENIS RAILWAY 401
RAMBLES ON RAILWAYS.
CHAPTER I.
TRAVELLING TWO HUNDRED AND ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO—THE LIVERPOOL AND
MANCHESTER RAILWAY—THE FIRST LOCOMOTIVE, “ROCKET”—THE GRAND JUNCTION,
LONDON AND BIRMINGHAM, AND BIRMINGHAM AND MANCHESTER RAILWAYS—THE
MIDLAND RAILWAY—EARLY GRADIENTS, INCREASE IN THEIR STEEPNESS AND
IN THE POWER OF THE LOCOMOTIVE—THE CARRIAGE ROAD-WAY PASSES OF THE
ALPS—MOUNTAINS OF THE WORLD—THE SŒMMERING AND BRENNER RAILWAYS—THE
ROUTE BETWEEN LONDON AND PARIS.
WHEN, in 1672, Madame de Sevigny wrote of a journey she had just made
from Paris to Marseilles, she was able to inform her correspondent that
she had completed it, with great satisfaction to herself, in a month.
She travelled over 530 miles of ground; she was therefore able to get
over some seventeen to eighteen miles a day. The courier that brought
Madame de Sevigny’s letter from Marseilles to Paris travelled twice
as fast as she had done. He was only a fortnight on the road. In that
year the course of post between London and Edinburgh—130 miles less
distance than between Paris and Marseilles—was two months: one month
going with a letter, and one month coming back with the answer. Ninety
years afterwards the one stage-coach between London and Edinburgh
started once a month from each city. But in nine-tenths of a century,
speed had been accelerated. It only took a fortnight on the road in
each direction. Seventy-five years afterwards—that is, in 1837—the year
before any portion of railway between the two capitals was opened for
traffic, the mail-coach completed its 400 miles in forty-two hours,
or one day eighteen hours. Now-a-days, our limited mail (one of the
few “limited” associations of very modern date that has not come to
grief) is 7½ hours less time over the road than eighteen hours; and by
the time the one day in addition has expired, a course of post from
Edinburgh to London, and back again from London to Edinburgh, will have
been nearly completed.
On the 14th of September, 1830, we opened our first passenger railway
in England worked by the locomotive. The line, thirty-one miles long,
was then called the Liverpool and Manchester, but it has long since
become part and parcel of the London and North-Western Company.
Although the railway between Birmingham and Liverpool was first
projected so far back as 1824, its construction was not sanctioned by
Parliament until 1833, and it was not completed for traffic until the
6th of July, 1837. The then London and Birmingham Company also got its
act of incorporation in 1833, but, owing to the difficult nature of
many of its works, and the time required for their construction, it was
only on the 20th of September, 1838, that Liverpool, Manchester and
Birmingham were completely connected with London by railway.
Several of the railways now constituting portions of the Midland
Railway Company obtained their acts of incorporation in 1836. These
lines, when amalgamated in 1844, comprised 181 miles. On the 1st of
September, 1867, the mileage of the Midland Company was 695; and since
the 1st of that month the important section between London and Bedford
(forty-two miles long) was opened for goods traffic, thus making its
present total working length, 737 miles.
By degrees, and notwithstanding the severe blow given to railway
enterprise by the over-speculation of 1844-5, the net-work of British
railways increased. On the 1st of January, 1843, there were 1,857 miles
open for traffic; at the same date of 1849 they had increased to 5,007
miles; on the 1st of January, 1855, they were 8,054 miles; eight years
afterwards, that is, on the 1st of January, 1863, they were 11,551;
that day twelve months they were 12,322; on the 1st of January, 1865,
they were 12,780; 1st January, 1866, 13,289; 1st of January, 1867,
13,882.[1]
We shall refer to the progress of the railway system on the continent
of Europe and elsewhere hereafter.
Part of the heavy cost of the earlier railways was no doubt due to the
apprehension of engineers on the subject of gradients. And in the then
state of our knowledge as regards the powers of the locomotive, this is
not to be wondered at. Our first constructed lines had most favourable
gradients. The rise from Camden Town to Tring, 1 in 200, or 26 feet in
the mile for 31 miles, was considered by the late Mr. Robert Stephenson
as the maximum gradient that ought to be ventured upon. Joseph Locke,
more daring and venturous, and perhaps more prescient, ventured upon
1 in 100, or 52 feet in the mile for 10 miles; this is on what is
known as the Whitmore incline, between Stafford and Crewe. Bucke, the
engineer of the line from Crewe to Manchester, originally known as the
Manchester and Birmingham, which obtained its act of incorporation in
the same year as the Grand Junction, although it was five years later
in its opening, determined upon a course the opposite of that which
Locke had taken. Bucke therefore made his thirty-one miles nearly
level, and no doubt (if we except the exceptional Great Western)
there is not a line in England that comprises works better laid out
as regards gradient, or more solidly finished than those we are now
referring to.
There is a capital run of railway between York and Darlington,
forty-four miles, almost level, and nearly straight. It was on this
line that, just twenty years ago, most of the experiments and trials
were made, instituted to vindicate the narrow gauge as the best for
carrying on the traffic of the country. These trials formed one of the
many phases of the great battle of the gauges, fought so vigorously by
its champions on each side; yet, in the short space of the fifth of a
century, how many of these then active and doughty men have passed away
from us for ever.
By degrees, as the railway system progressed, we made less flat
gradients, and we made larger and more powerful locomotives. The result
from the action of these two elements has been, that in present times
we have got here and there to gradients of 1 in 45, 112 feet in the
mile, more than four times as steep as Stephenson’s incline between
Tring and Camden. It was on the 6th of October, 1829, that George
Stephenson’s engine, “Rocket,” was first tried on a short length of the
Liverpool and Manchester Railway, in the presence of thousands, poured
in from the adjacent country. Since then the weight of the engine has
risen tenfold, from six tons to sixty; its speed not quite three-fold,
from twenty miles an hour to something under sixty. Additional weight
has been essentially used for overcoming stiff gradients. The stiffest,
as has just been said, 1 in 45, with a moderate load; a Titanic
locomotive, unfettered with any weights behind her, can go up 1 in 25,
or 211 feet in the mile; no steeper.[2]
But this rate of inclination, of 1 in 45, acquired on some few
elevated ridges, as will be seen presently, at an enormous cost, was
incapable of general application. Nevertheless, railways had hardly
been established on low lands before men’s minds ran upon constructing
them over mountains. It is now fully twenty years since the first idea
of placing an iron road upon the bed of one or more of the carriage
roadway passes of the Alps was promulgated. Of course it found favour,
and created interest. Nor can this be matter of wonder when we
remember that communication across them has, for centuries, been of
world-wide importance. Even if we study the traces that still exist of
man’s earliest history in mid and southern Europe, we find that the
passage of the great barrier which for more than 500 miles separates
north from south, had occupied men’s thoughts and actions from the
remotest period. Etruscan tools, coins, and sacred images, have, as we
learn from Dr. Ferdinand Keller’s recent work on the _Lake Dwellings
of Switzerland_, been found frequently and in abundance, not only on
the northern slopes of the actual Alps, but far northward beyond them.
We know too, that the ancient Helvites and Gauls were ever seeking
the traverse of the snow-capped mountains, that they might exchange
their own cold and sterile plains for those on the sunny side, which
gave them warmth and luxurious cultivation. By degrees, the early
few, savage, daring, and intrepid, increased in numbers; they became
masses,—they became colonies. They obtained possession of, and held
the districts which in modern times we knew as Venetia, Lombardy, and
Savoy; but now they form the northern boundaries of undivided Italy.
In the early Roman period, the northern limit of Roman territory
extended to the Po, and no farther. Beyond was Cisalpeà, and so it
continued until Augustus Cæsar Imperator finally subdued, some thirty
years before the birth of Christ, the whole of the warlike tribes, and
brought them under Roman subjection. History records but one solitary
instance of the vanquished erecting a monument to do honour to their
conqueror. This was at Susa, and the inscription on the PORTA CÆSARIS
AUGUSTI tells us why it was erected, and what deed it was intended to
perpetuate.
Hannibal’s was the first army that made a passage across the Alps,
but the exact part at which he effected it is still matter of historic
doubt. The balance of worthful opinion is however strongly in favour
of its being by what we now call the Pass of the Little St. Bernard.
The army would appear not to have been subjected to great difficulties
in reaching its summit, notwithstanding that the 19th of October is
believed to be the day on which the ascent was commenced, but the
horrors to which his hourly thinned ranks were exposed, all occurred
after they had attained the summit, and were within sight of the
plains in which the autumnal foliage still spread a rich and glowing
landscape before them. That some few of the army of ninety elephants
with which Hannibal started from Spain completed the Alpine traverse
is more than probable, but that one accomplished it is undoubted, for
we have it on record that the Carthaginian General crossed the marshes
of Clusium (which will be traversed by the railway train of the new
and comparatively shorter line between Florence and Rome, to be opened
for traffic a few months hence) upon the only elephant that was still
spared to him.
Brockedon, whose illustrated work on Alpine Passes was published in
1828, states that there were ten passes traversable as carriage roads.
The actual number has not been added to since then, but the trackway
along many of the other passes has been greatly improved, and many,
that at that period were only dangerous and very narrow mule paths,
have now become available for _chars_, and possess other facilities and
accommodation for traversing them that were quite unknown forty years
ago. A very brief recapitulation of them may not be inappropriate.
More full details of them can be obtained in _The Alps and the Eastern
Mails_, a little work which we published a few months ago.
Commencing at the extreme west, we find the Col di Tenda, an easy pass
for three-fourths of its ascent, when the mountain abruptly assumes a
cone-like shape, and in a space of some two miles and a-half, rises
on one side 1,200 feet. The descent on the other is of nearly equal
length, and is nearly equally precipitous. Next comes Mont Genevre,
the lowest of the Alpine passes that verge upon the Mediterranean. It
is but a short giant’s step from Mont Genevre to the Mont Cenis. Next
after, comes the Little St. Bernard, perhaps the easiest of all the
passes over the Alps that connect important places together, for the
construction of a carriage roadway. Napoleon, however, did not view it
in this light, his great roads, being the Mont Cenis and the Simplon.
Before we reach this last-named pass, we have that of the Great St.
Bernard, one of the loftiest in the whole range, being in immediate
proximity to the three highest mountains in Europe, Mont Blanc, 15,732
feet above the level of the sea, Mont Rosa, 15,130 feet, and Mont
Cezvin, 14,835 feet.[3] It was by the Great St. Bernard that Napoleon
crossed with an army from Switzerland into Italy, in the winter of
1800, and, by a fall from his mule, narrowly escaped being hurled from
the precipice of St. Pierre into the abyss beneath it.
Next after the Simplon comes the St. Gothard, and then the Lukmanier,
although this last can hardly be called a carriage roadway pass.
Further east is the Bernardino. The easternmost pass between
Switzerland and Italy, is the Splugen. There are as many as twenty
passes available for mules and pedestrians between the Splugen and the
next carriage road across the Alps, but they are only to be traversed
by the knapsack tourist, who combines within himself vigorous health,
activity, and endurance.
The Stelvio, the highest carriage road in Europe, 9,272 feet at its
summit above the level of the sea, is, at that point, nearly 400 feet
higher than the line of perpetual snow. It was constructed by the
Austrians to give them direct access from Austria proper to Lombardy.
The object in making it was political and military, not commercial;
and now that not only Lombardy, but Venetia have become Italian, it
is probable that a road, which in magnificence of conception and in
grandeur of construction, exceeds even the Simplon, and which could
only be maintained at great annual cost, will fall into decay.[4] For
all the practical purposes of commerce it is useless, as within a short
distance from it is the Brenner, the oldest, and at the same time the
lowest carriage road across any of the Alpine passes. It has, in fact,
been for centuries the trackway that has connected eastern and southern
Germany with Lombardy and Venetia. It likewise can lay claim to the
distinction of being the first pass that was made fit for the transport
of carriages and of other vehicles, for it was certainly available for
them, and was a good carriage road in the early part of the eighteenth
century. It was just one hundred years later, that is in 1809, that
those deeds of daring and devotion were achieved in the defiles of the
Brenner, which have rendered undying the name and fame of Andreas Hofer.
With all Austria’s _arrierreism_ in politics, she is in the foremost
rank of continental nations, as regards the world’s modern civiliser,
the Railway. She was next after Belgium in determining upon their
construction, and although Prussia anticipated her as regards actual
opening, railway works have been accomplished within the Austrian
dominions, the like of which cannot be seen within those of her great
rival, no matter whether these dominions belong to her _de jure
divino_, or by that of conquest.
To Austria, undoubtedly, belongs the honour of having constructed the
first, which until the 18th of August, 1867, was the only iron road
traversed by the locomotive through an Alpine pass. At a heavy expense
it is true, for the cost of the double line over the Sœmmering was at
the rate of £98,000 an English mile. The great line of railway which
connects Vienna with its sea port Trieste, now more important and
valuable to Austria than ever, is 362 miles long; and at Glognitz,
exactly forty-seven miles from Vienna, the pass commences. Although
the actual distance from one foot of the pass to the other is not more
than sixteen miles, the length of the railway, owing to the numerous
twists and zig-zags it was necessary to make to overcome the elevation
with gradients that the engine could climb up, is twenty-six miles.
Yet, in this short distance, there are no less than twelve tunnels
and eleven vaulted galleries, the aggregate length of which is 14,867
feet, or nearly three miles. The longest tunnel—4,695 feet—is at the
summit, which is 2,893 feet above the level of the sea. The gradients
vary from 1 in 40 for two miles and a-half to 1 in 54 for three miles
and a-half. The average gradient is 1 in 47 on the north side, and 1 in
50 on the south. The foot of the mountain is 1,562 feet above the sea.
The elevation to overcome was, therefore, only an average of 112 feet
to the mile; nevertheless the difficulties in working the traffic have
been very great. It was a considerable time before the present form of
engine was adopted by M. Engerth, the locomotive engineer of the line.
Its total heating surface is 1,660 square feet, its total weight, when
filled with water and loaded with fuel, is fifty-five tons and a-half.
This unfortunately is a weight most destructive both to rail and to
roadway. The cost per train mile run averages 6s. 2d. the English
mile _down_ the pass as well as up it, whilst the average cost on the
ordinary portions of the line is under 3s. per English mile. The time
allowed for passenger trains is one hour and fifty minutes, being an
average of fourteen miles an hour; for goods trains, two hours thirty
minutes, or at the average rate of about ten miles an hour.
There was until just recently, a race running between the engineers at
the Brenner and at the Mont Cenis, and it was, until the beginning of
August, 1867, uncertain which of them would have the honour of being
the second railway upon which the locomotive had crossed the Alps. But
the Brenner has won by a length of eight days. The two lines differ in
several respects, both as regard construction and working. The Brenner
does not take a portion of the existing road for its road-bed. This is
formed in the ordinary mode of construction; the company has made its
own bridges, culverts, and viaducts, its own embankments and cuttings,
its own tunnels and galleries, and in this way it has succeeded in
constructing a railway of much less elevation at its summit than the
adjacent carriage roadway. It has done so, however, at great cost, but
it is anticipated that the saving in working charges will more than
compensate for the additional outlay which this species, as it were,
of independent construction has rendered unavoidable. The line will be
worked on the ordinary system, that is, with engines and other rolling
stock similar to those on the plain, with the exception that the
engines must and will be of great additional weight, to give them the
power and adhesion required to overcome the very severe gradients they
will have to contend against. “The opening of the Brenner Railway,”
says the _Times_, “places not only Austria, but Bavaria and all
Southern Germany, almost in contact with Lombardy, Venetia, and all
Northern Italy. It recovers all the importance that the Brenner Pass
possessed from the remotest Roman and Germanic ages, as the most direct
and easy route across the main Alpine chain, as the natural highway
from the Valley of the Inn, to that of the Adige, and which constituted
it the key to the strong position of the March of Verona, which the
Germans, from its erection into an imperial fief, under Otho I, in the
10th century, denominated ‘the Gate of Italy.’”[5]
[Illustration: THE ROUTES FROM LONDON TO BRINDISI.
VIA THE
MONT CENIS AND THE BRENNER.]
[Illustration: Plan
OF THE
HARBOUR & TOWN
OF
BRINDISI
1867.]
Previous to describing the Mont Cenis Railway, we will ask the reader
to place himself mentally with us in the train belonging to one or
other of the two railway companies which, leaving the great British
metropolis at four different points, Charing Cross or Cannon Street
(South Eastern), Victoria or Ludgate Hill (London, Chatham and Dover),
arrives by either route at a point common to both—the Admiralty Pier,
Dover, in two hours and five minutes from the time of its departure.
The South Eastern Company carries the land mails, both ordinary and
extraordinary, as well as the bulk of the passengers; on the other
hand, its rival carrying fewer passengers, and the distance being ten
miles less, almost invariably arrives first at the Admiralty Pier, and
thus enables those whom _she_ (ships, trains, and locomotives are of
the feminine gender) conveys, to secure some of the sofas, reclined
upon which, the ceremony of seasickness can (as we know well, by great
and varied experience) be performed with far greater ease, grace,
precision, and satisfaction, than by him or her who is destined to
perform it sitting or standing. At the time that the traveller touches
_terra firma_ at Calais, he has completed 110 miles of journeying, if
he have travelled by the South Eastern Line, ten miles less, if he
have committed himself to the London, Chatham and Dover. The original
railway distance from Calais to Paris was 236 English miles, but
thanks to two shortenings, the first between Creil and Paris, the
second between Hazebrouch and Arras, by which latter the detour to
the neighbourhood of Lille was avoided, the length was diminished to
203 miles; and now, since the opening of the line between Calais and
Boulogne, in April of the present year, the mail trains take this
route to and from Paris, by which a further saving of seventeen miles
is obtained, making the present distance between Calais and Paris 186
miles.
Our mental traveller having arrived at Paris, will need a pause, and
whilst he is supposed to be refreshing himself, with a good dinner,
at one of the innumerable restaurants to be met with at every corner,
we will ask permission to occupy the time by giving, in the first
instance, an epitome of the story of four great giants of modern
times—the four longest and most important railways that science,
practical skill, and money have as yet created on the European side of
the Atlantic; and then we propose to show, by a general reference, how
wonderfully and rapidly the railway system has already extended, and
still continues to extend, in various parts of the globe. Eventually,
most railways will have to yield the palm—at all events, as regards
wonderful accomplishment—to the Great Pacific Railway, to which,
therefore, we beg leave to accord precedence in our descriptions.
[Illustration: MAP OF THE UNITED STATES SHEWING THE CENTRAL PACIFIC
RAILROAD. 1867]