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.
From the day that the Americans became masters of California, they had
always had it in their heads to join it by the best possible roadway
to the old states of the Union; and it was a grand conception, for the
distance between the railways of the valleys of the Mississippi and
the Missouri, that here had stretched their arms outwards towards the
West, were still separated from the Pacific by fully 2,000 miles—as
near as can be the distance which intervenes between St. Petersburg
and Lisbon. Fremont—then captain, now general—a few years back nearly
President of the Republic—son-in-law of Benton, one of America’s most
worthy sons—traversed, with a few companions, in 1847, the desert
that led to the Rocky Mountains, found out the passes through them,
as well as those of the Sierra Nevada (the Snowy Mountain), and
arrived in California just as his countrymen were taking possession of
its territory. It was at the same time that the first golden nugget
was discovered. The news spread, and a party of emigrants followed
Fremont’s footmarks. Those who arrived in California left the bones of
many of their comrades to whiten and then to moulder in the desert,
and it was nearly six months before the survivors reached the _El
dorado_. Similar casualties beset the parties that followed the first
gold-seeking pioneers, for the same spirit which makes every American
believe that he _may_ be President of the United States (therefore no
American ever commits suicide), made each survivor of each party, as
its ranks were thinned by famine, fever, and the attacks of the Red
Indians, believe that he, at all events, would be spared and arrive at
last at his destination.
But some _did_ arrive, and by degrees the perils of the route
diminished, although they have never, even at this day, altogether
ceased. In less than ten years from the date that Fremont first set
out on his expedition, a regular Overland Mail had been established,
which completed its journey between San Francisco and St. Joseph, both
for passengers and despatches, in three weeks. A grand total distance
of fully 2,000 miles, on the average 100 miles in each twenty-four
hours, of course some days more some days less, for independent of
nature’s road on the desert, no less than two mountain passes had to be
surmounted, and on these there was not, in the first instance, even a
bridle-way. This pace, however, was considered too slow, at all events
as regards correspondence. The “Pony Express” was thereupon inaugurated
in 1860, by which time the system of eastern railways had extended 400
miles more towards the west than what they were in 1858, consequently
diminishing roadway distance to 1,600 miles. This ground was got over
in the marvellously brief time of six days, or at the go-a-head, we
might almost add “helter skelter,” rate of 265 miles a-day! The rider
performed no greater journey each day than his horse. The latter set
off on a gallop and never ceased his fifteen to twenty miles, except
when, as occasionally, although not frequently, happened, Red Skin
stopped the way, sent the rider to his long account, and then quietly
rode off on the dead man’s horse, which he claimed as his trophy.
On the 12th of November, 1860, the courier rode into San Francisco
with news from Europe of no longer date than the previous 21st of
October. Even this speed did not satisfy; the telegraph was therefore
laid the whole way across the American continent; and now, thanks to
the Atlantic Cable, and to difference of longitude, the merchant of
London can tell his correspondent at San Francisco, events that have
happened twelve hours before the same hour has arrived in California.
Unfortunately, however, for California, notwithstanding that the normal
speed of electro-telegraphy is 280,000 miles a _second_, she is unable
to let us know her news here in less than some twenty-four hours after
its occurrence.
In 1862 President Lincoln signed the Act of Congress for “The Union
Pacific Railroad Company.” Forthwith its works were commenced. Where?
At two points:—The eastern, at Omaha, near the confluence of the
Missouri River, with that of the Platte, or Nebraska, in the state of
Nebraska, latitude 41° north, longitude 19° west, of Washington. The
line follows the course of the river to the Rocky Mountains, which it
climbs up until not far from the summit of the Bridger Pass, due west
of Omaha. A tunnel not more than 500 yards in length carries the line
into Utah. In this territory it passes by Salt Lake and Salt Lake City,
head-quarters of Brigham Young and his Mormons; thence to the state
of Nevada, as rich in silver-yielding mines as those in California
are in supplying gold. No wonder, then, that its capital—Carson
City—should now have a population of 15,000, although, seven years
ago, there was not even one inhabitant to boast of. At the passage of
the Sierra Nevada there will also be a tunnel 500 yards long. Thence
to Sacramento, and from there, it will wend its way close to the river
of the same name, and find itself at San Francisco. This is not only
its extreme western, but it is also its extreme southern point, for,
in coming west from the Bridger Pass, the latitude changes from 41° to
38° 20″; and it is from San Francisco that the western works commence
and proceed easterly to meet, at some point as yet uncertain, those
advancing in the opposite direction. They are already at the eastern
foot of the Rocky Mountains, 500 miles from Omaha; and on the Pacific
side, they have reached the western slopes of the Sierra. Therefore,
already more than a third of the whole line is accomplished. On the
plain, progress is made at a rate that would astonish the European
engineer, for the Americans are satisfied with the road bed such as
nature has made it; and thus it is no uncommon thing to lay 2½ miles of
the railway in a single day! As the road advances, so do the locomotive
and the train, but not always with the most perfect safety, for the
Indians have now learned to do wholesale what they only did isolately
upon the riders of the Pony Expresses,—witness the following paragraph
from the _Times_ of no later date than August 31 of the present year:—
“A correspondent of the _New York Tribune_ says that the Indians are
out in strong force, and have begun the war in earnest. A strong force
of savages laid ties on the track of the Union Pacific Railroad, six
miles west of Plum Creek, and a valuable freight train was ambushed
and upset. The engineer, fireman, two breakman, and three telegraph
repairers were killed. The Indians burned eight cars, and completely
destroyed a great deal of valuable merchandise, valued at 30,000
dollars. The savages burned the train, killed and scalped seven
persons, and threw the slaughtered bodies into the flames of the
burning cars. The conductor of the train narrowly escaped, and rushing
back along the track, met another freight train, which he signalled.
The train was stopped, and he was taken on board, after which the
train returned to Plum Creek. The affair has created great excitement,
and there is a general alarm along the line of the railroad, now that
the Indians have discovered the means of arresting its traffic.”
No doubt the alarm is general along the line, but it will die out, for
as a writer in the _Revue des deux Mondes_, to whom we are indebted for
many of the facts we have just stated, says:—“En beaucoup d’endroits,
le terrain a êté si bien nivelé par la nature, qu’ ou ne voit de quel
coté il penche, et que les rails se posent sans aucune fouille sur
le sol. Pas de grandes riviers a franchir, pas de torrens impetueux
a dompter. Le seul enemi de la voie, est que sur quelques points,
heureusement isolés, du desert, ou manquent l’eau et le bois, domine le
peau-rouge, vagabond, et chasseur, adversaire-né du colon stable: mais
le bois et l’eau, on les apporte, et quant a l’enfant des Prairies, il
disparaitra et s’eteindra, bientot, devant l’homme civilisé. C’est la,
une des lois fatales du progres; elle se verifie partout ou se presente
l’Europeen.” Too true.
And who are making the railway? On the East they are all Irishmen. As
each half-mile of it, or so, is made, they march along with it towards
the West, with their wives, their children, their wooden houses rolled
along on wheels, and their domestic animals—cats, dogs, goats—the
more ambitious, have occasionally a cow, the richest of all can sport
a little pony. When the day comes for the meeting of the two railway
ends, the Irishmen will find that the fellow-labourers who have come to
greet them are to a man “John Chinaman,” for none others work on the
Pacific side of the railway.
Its total cost is to be £30,000,000 sterling—£16,000 a mile. Of the
gross sum, one-third is guaranteed by the United States Government
in money, in addition to the concession of immense tracts of land on
each side of the railway. The state of Utah, or rather the individual
Mormons, are good for £4,000,000, and private speculation furnishes
the remainder. Of the mighty company which carries out these works,
General John A. Dix (now United States Minister in Paris) is president;
and in Colonel Heine (an _attaché_ of the Embassy) the Company has a
warm, zealous, and active friend. We have said already that a third
of the railway is already accomplished. By 1870, probably—by 1871,
certainly—it will be finished in its entire length. New York will then
certainly associate itself with Jeddo and Canton by this route; but not
so London, Paris, and other parts of Europe. The writer in the _Revue
des Deux Mondes_ says, that, on the completion of the railway, Europe
will only be one month from Canton. Let us see:—London to New York,
ten days; New York to San Francisco, 3,000 miles, at 20 miles an hour
(all stops and delays included), 150 hours—six days and a quarter; San
Francisco is from Canton, even by great circle sailing, exactly 6,900
nautical miles. No paddle-wheel steamer could take coals for such a
voyage; a screw vessel of very large size, but depending mainly upon
her sails for her speed, might make twelve, but very probably would
not average more than ten, knots an hour, yet, at the former rate, her
passage would be twenty-five days—total, forty-one days and a quarter;
at ten knots an hour, the passage would be nearly twenty-nine days, or
a total of forty-five days. The Mail now goes from London to Canton in
fifty-two days; in 1871 the journey will be six or seven days shorter.
The route to Jeddo _viâ_ San Francisco will be quicker than that
_viâ_ Suez by seven or eight days, even under circumstances the most
favourable for the latter route. By great circle sailing, San Francisco
is distant from Jeddo 5,600 knots, and it is also eleven degrees
farther to the north than Canton. These eleven degrees of north add 600
miles more in favour of San Francisco.
The longest of all European railways is nearly half Italian, and a
little more than half “South Austrian.” It is called in France “_Sud,
Autrichienne et Haute Italie_.” In Italy the two last words are
converted into “_Alta Italia_.” The total length is now 2,565 English
miles, of which the South Austrian portion measures 1,349, and the
Italian 1,216. The two next longest railways of Europe are French.
The Paris, Lyons, and Mediterranean Company has a length of railway,
_in France_, of 2,234 miles, and in 1864, it adopted a translitoral
little son, which is known by the name of the “Algerian Railways.” At
present the gentle youth is of modest proportions, only thirty-one
miles open for traffic, eighty-one to be opened in the present year;
and of the remaining 264 which are to constitute its full grown mileage
(376 miles), little more work than “_etudes preliminaries_” has been
bestowed upon them. At the period of the greatest growth of the
Algerian railway, it will never be more than a pigmy as compared with
its adopting parent.
The railway that in mileage comes next in succession, is the Orleans
Company. Its length is 2,052 miles. The last of the four railway
giants, is our own English giant, the London and North-Western. Now,
although the length of our countryman is the least of all—only 1,320
miles—it will nevertheless be seen hereafter, that in its other
dimensions it is in most respects superior, in none inferior, to its
continental brethren, just as the late Mr. Thomas Sayers was less in
height and length of arm than Heenan, nevertheless, in the long run, he
managed to beat him.
The two extreme western points of the mighty system of the South
Austrian and Alta Italia are at Susa, at the foot of the Mont Cenis
Pass of the Alps, and Cuneo at the foot of that of the Col di Tenda.
Its two eastern are Vienna, and still farther (by means of its
Hungarian net-work to the southward of Vienna), Pesth. Its northern
is Kutzen, about a hundred miles to the south-east of Munich. Its
southern, Pistoja, is twenty-two miles to the north-east of Florence.
It possesses railways across two of the passes of the Alps, the
Sœmmering and the Brenner. Its stations are at Genoa, Turin, Milan,
Innspruch, capital of the Tyrol, Verona and Venice, Trieste, Vienna,
and Pesth. It is equally fitted (as it has proved itself to be) for a
great military railway, and for one to be devoted only to commercial
and industrial development, but it has its skeleton in its closet,—it
is _not_ at Florence, capital of United Italy, nor is there prospect of
its being there, except by a combination which shall unite with it the
whole of the _Strade Ferrate Romane_, of which some particulars will be
given hereafter.
The course and direction of the Paris, Lyons, and Mediterranean, of
the Orleans, and of the London and North-Western Companies, are, as
there can be no doubt, sufficiently known to our readers to render
description of them unnecessary. The great port of the Paris, Lyons,
and Mediterranean is Marseilles, the Liverpool of the Mediterranean,
537 miles from Paris, and 833 from London. The chief port of the
Orleans Company is Bordeaux, 366 miles from Paris, 662 from London.
Before proceeding farther, let us refer, very briefly, to the early
history of railways in France.
Neither the French Government nor the French people seemed to feel much
interest about their construction until long subsequent to the opening
of several hundred miles of them, both in Belgium and in Germany. The
nation, was not, however, altogether ignorant of their existence,
for tramways had been used in the Mineral Districts of St. Etienne,
and near to the Banks of the Loire, for many years previously. They
were, for the most part, worked by horses, but in some few cases by
locomotives of the rudest construction, just as happened in our own
coal districts in the North of England, previous to the epoch of the
Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Dr. Lardner, in his Railway Economy,
says that “to M. Emile Pereire is due the honour of having first
impressed upon his countrymen the advantages which must arise from the
adoption of this mode of transport.” With much difficulty he succeeded
in forming a Company for making the short line between Paris and St.
Germain. The Act for its construction was obtained in July 1835, and
it was opened for traffic in December 1837. It was originally, in
part, worked as a locomotive line, and partly on what was known as the
atmospheric system, but for the last five or six years the traffic is
carried exclusively by means of the locomotive. Its length is thirteen
miles, and it now forms one of the “_Lignes de Banlieue_,” of the
Western of France Railway Company. (_Chemin de Fer de l’Ouest._)
But it was not until 1837 that the importance of France having a
net-work throughout the Kingdom was appreciated. In that year a Royal
Commission Avas appointed, which made its report in 1838, but owing to
internal jealousies and other causes, the recommendations of the report
were not adopted, and the Government of the day had to submit to defeat
upon them.
In 1838, what is now the Great Orleans Company obtained its first
concession, which was for a Railway to extend from Paris to Orleans.
Powerful and elongated as the Company now is, it had, in its early
career, to undergo much financial difficulty and embarrassment, and it
was only owing to the Government coming to its aid, by guaranteeing
four per cent. on its capital, that the Company was able to complete
and to open the railway for traffic.
A concession was given to the Paris and Rouen Company in 1841. The line
was opened for traffic on the 9th of May, 1843.
The Fundamental Law for the construction of French Railways, and for
the subsequent administrative surveillance of them by the Government,
was passed on the 11th of June, 1842.
By this law France was to possess seven main arterial lines of railway,
all of which were to start from Paris as the concentric point. The
first was to take the direction towards Belgium, so as to meet the
railways then opened in that kingdom, approaching the French frontier.
The second, part of which was to be in common with the first, was
to proceed towards Calais or Dunkirk; Calais was selected as the
most convenient for traffic with England, and the line to Dunkirk,
twenty-five miles long, which branches off at Hazebrouck, was not
constructed for several years after the main line had been completed.
We remember Hazebrouck, a mere road-side stopping place, but it has
of late become a first-class junction station, for in addition to the
Dunkirk line diverging here, it is also the junction (_bifurcation_)
at which the line leading to Lille, and to Brussels separates from
those that run to Amiens, one _viâ_ Douai (the old road), and the
other, _viâ_ Bethune, constructed to shorten the distance between Paris
and Calais by twenty miles, and also to give railway access to the
recently-opened collieries in the vicinity of Bethune, Nœux, Chocques,
&c.
The third arterial line was to run towards the ports on the Bay of
Biscay, from the Loire to the Gironde. The fourth was to extend to
Bayonne and thence, eventually, to the Spanish frontier. The fifth
was to be common to the fourth, and then to follow a course tending
towards the Mediterranean, passing through Toulouse and finally
arriving at Perpignan, close to the Spanish frontier, and at the foot
of the Pyrenees, not much farther removed from the Mediterranean than
Bayonne is from the Bay of Biscay. It is but within the last few months
that this line has been completed in its entire extent; the line to
Perpignan having only been opened for traffic in September last.
The sixth was the great and important arterial line from Paris through
Dijon, Chalons, Macon, Lyons, and Avignon, to Marseilles. The seventh,
or last, was the important strategic and commercial line that was to
connect Paris with Strasburg and the Rhine.
Of course, since the first conception of these seven arterial lines,
modifications in the exact direction of several of them have taken
place, but in the main they follow the courses originally proposed
and afterwards decided upon. It will be unnecessary to record the
various difficulties, financial and administrative, which attended
the construction of the first net-work of French railways. Suffice
it, therefore, to say, that by the end of 1847, 1,750 miles had been
completed, and that by 1853, the essential parts of the whole system
were finished. These have been followed by the “new” net-work, and the
total mileage of French railways at present is 14,382 kilometres, or,
8,989 English miles.
This digression finished, we proceed to state the cost at which
each of the four European leviathans of the railway world have been
constructed. The capital expenditure of the South Austrian and Alta
Italia, up to the 31st December, 1866, was £41,763,301, or at the
rate of £18,200 a mile. Capital expenditure on the Paris, Lyons, and
Mediterranean Company is nearly double that of the South Austrian
and Alta Italia, being £80,922,000, which brings the cost per mile to
£36,218. This expenditure is exclusive of £1,740,202, upon the Algerian
lines, making the company’s total capital expenditure to the 31st
December, 1866, £82,662,202.
As the total length of French railways was, on the 31st December, 1866,
14,382 kilometres, or 8,989 miles, and the total capital expenditure
upon them to that date was £306,089,000, it follows that the Paris,
Lyons, and Mediterranean Company is one-fourth in length, all but
twenty-eight miles, of the total railway mileage of France, but its
gross cost has exceeded one-fourth of the total cost of French railways
by £4,399,500, and its cost per mile, being £36,218, it has exceeded
their average cost per mile (£34,051) by £2,167.
The capital expenditure of the Orleans Company has been £42,944,862, or
at the rate of £20,928 a mile, which is £13,123 per mile _below_ the
average cost per mile of French railways. In addition, the company is
proprietor of the coal and iron mines, and the Iron Works of Aubin, at
a cost of £671,216. 194,694 tons of coal were raised there in 1866, of
which 43,200 were used by the company’s locomotives, 16,000 were sold
to the public, and the balance was consumed in the iron works, which
manufactured 22,021 of rails during the year.
The total expenditure on capital account of all the railways of the
United Kingdom up to the 1st January, 1866, was £455,478,143.
On the London and North-Western the expenditure on capital account has
been £45,576,361, but a subdivision of this capital by the mileage
worked by the company would not represent the cost per mile of the
railway as the company is subscriber to the capital of other companies
(some of which are worked by it and some are not) for £3,556,969, but
this amount hardly represents a tenth of the capital expended by those
companies. There is no doubt however that the cost per mile of those
lines for which the capital was exclusively provided by the London and
North-Western Company exceeds £50,000 a mile.
The gross receipts from traffic for the year were, South Austrian,
£2,957,713, Alta Italia, £1,738,202, total of the Company, £4,695,915;
average weekly receipts, £90,306; per mile per annum £1,932. Paris,
Lyons, and Mediterranean, total traffic £8,105,776; average weekly
receipts, £155,691; per mile per annum, £3,640. As the total traffic
receipts of French railways was, approximately (but the figures are
very nearly exact) £24,140,000, it follows that the receipts of this
company exceeded one-third of the total railway receipts of the empire
by £101,110, and that its average weekly receipts per mile exceed the
average weekly receipts per mile of all France (£2,865) by £955.
The traffic receipts of the Orleans Company, for 1866, were £4,401,894;
average weekly receipts, £94,267; per mile per annum, £2,189, or £496
per mile per week _below_ the receipts per mile per week of the total
French railway system. London and North-Western, £6,312,056; average
weekly receipts, £120,400; per mile per annum, £4,782.
Owing to the war in Italy in 1866, the tables connected with the
passenger traffic of the Alta Italia are defective, but of the
7,858,893 passengers carried on the South Austrian in 1866, 1 per cent.
only were first class, but they yielded 5 per cent. of the passenger
receipts; 12 per cent. in number were of the second class, they yielded
19 per cent. of the receipts; the third class were 87 per cent. in
number and 76 per cent. in receipts.
The number of passengers carried on the Paris, Lyons, and
Mediterranean was 18,443,597, of which about 6 per cent. in number were
first class, 13½ second, and 80½ third.
This total number represents between a fourth and a fifth of the gross
number carried in France during 1866—about eighty-four millions—and
is in no way in accordance with its proportion, either as regards
its gross receipts or its gross mileage, the former being, as just
stated, more than a third, and the latter one-fourth of the total
railway receipts and mileage of the empire; thus showing that the
principal traffic of the Paris, Lyons and Mediterranean Company
is _long_ traffic; in this respect very strikingly resembling the
traffic of the London and North-Western Railway Company. According
to the testimony of M. Charles La Vollée, furnished in his very
interesting work, “_Les Chemins de Fer en France_,” _Paris_, 1866,
the average distance travelled by each passenger on French railways
in 1865, was 40 kilometres (25 miles); average distance of a ton of
merchandise, 140 kilometres (87½ miles); but as the average price of
passenger travelling of all classes in France is only 5½ centimes
per kilometre, equal to 9½ centimes per mile: of goods per ton, 6½
centimes per kilometre, equal to 10½ centimes per mile, it follows that
each passenger and each ton of goods travels on the Paris, Lyons and
Mediterranean Railway nearly double the average distance on all French
railways. According to the investigations of M. La Vollée, the average
cost of all three classes of passengers in England is 14½ centimes,
or 1⅜d. per mile; goods precisely the same per ton. This gentleman
makes the following calculation with regard to the saving effected
in consequence of the substitution of railways for diligences in
travelling. The latter, he says, sped their way at the rate of 6¼ miles
an hour. Railways go at the rate of 25. For each of the 80,000,000
who were carried on French railways in 1865, there is a saving of 10
sous an hour, equal to 112,500,000 francs, or £4,500,000, and upon the
transport of goods there would he a saving of ten millions sterling,
supposing that all goods now carried by railway were to be carried by
road.
The construction of railways cheaply in France is now occupying
attention. A railway on this system was opened on the 25th of August
last—the line from Fougères to Vitré, on the Chemin de Fer de l’Ouest.
Its length is 23 miles, and it has been constructed for £100,000, or at
the rate of £4,348 a mile, notwithstanding the fact that it is carried
through a difficult country, necessitating numerous heavy works, the
greatest of which is a viaduct constructed of granite 120 yards long,
and 22 yards high. The rails are Vignoles pattern, 60 lbs. to the yard.
The above price includes rolling stock, shops, and their equipment,
&c. But everybody received “_argent sonnant_” as the works progressed,
and the line was not opened until everything had been settled up and
paid for. This is one of the secrets appertaining to the economic
construction of railways.
On the Orleans Railway, 9,630,460 passengers were conveyed in 1866: of
which 7½ per cent. in number were first class, 14½ per cent. second,
and 78 third.
Before quitting the subject of French traffic receipts, a word must
be said about a little railway which appertains to the most stately
city in France—Lyons—until a few years ago, when Marseilles superseded
it,[6] the second in commercial importance, the second also, not
long back, in revolutionary susceptibility, yielding only in this
respect to the once great head quarters of rebellion, barricades, and
insurrection, Paris. As it is some years since our last visit to Lyons,
an accident alone put us upon the track of this railway. We looked
for some account of it in that great compendium of hotel-keepers’
advertisements, _Bradshaw’s Continental Guide_, (_lucus, &c._), but,
of course, not a word is said about it, and we are bound to record the
same omission in the (with this exception) admirable “_Indicateur des
Chemins de Fer, et de la Navigation_”, published weekly by Messrs.
Chaix & Co., of Paris. Thanks, however, to “my Murray,” we discover
the “Lyons-Croix Rousse” runs from the heart of the city to the Croix
Rousse, the former hotbed of insurrection, and “inhabited principally
by silk-weavers who live in densely crowded narrow streets, where
twelve to twenty families are piled, one above the other, in the
lofty houses.” But these revolutionary silk-weavers must be a grand
moving population, for although the line is stated in the _Moniteur
des Interets Materiels_, a weekly journal which treats, according to
the words of its title, upon “_tout ce qui a rapport au bien-être
general, hormis la politique_,” to be only 587 yards long, it had a
daily traffic in 1866 of 666 francs, equal to 243,093 francs, or £9,723
per annum! The company has paid off all its debenture debt, and its
modest share capital receives the benefit of all profits. What they
are, however, is a mystery, for the directors have, in their wisdom and
discretion, never thought fit to publish them.
Our Gallic neighbours lodge their Sovereign, his Empress, and his
suite, in palaces replete with magnificence and luxury, and when he
travels, they are equally mindful of his dignity and of his comfort.
Witness the following description of the imperial train in which the
Emperor and the Empress went from Paris to Salzburg to visit the
Emperor and Empress of Austria, in August last. It may well he said
that it exceeds in comfort and elegance any previous equipment of a
similar nature. It consists of nine carriages, communicating with each
other by tastefully decorated bridges. In the middle is a handsome
sitting-room, furnished with chairs, ottomans, pictures, clocks, and
chandeliers. On one side of this room is the dining-room, and on the
other the Emperor’s study. In the middle of the dining-room there is a
table capable of being extended or contracted at pleasure, with easy
chairs placed parallel to the sides of the carriage. The Emperor’s
study contains an elegant writing-table, a clock in the style of the
_renaissance_, a thermometer, a barometer, and a telegraphic apparatus,
by means of which telegraphic communication is established with the
several apartments of the various court officials travelling with His
Majesty. Next to the study is the bed-room of the Emperor and Empress,
with two beds placed transversely against the sides of the carriage.
Two dressing-rooms are attached to the bed-room. The remaining
carriages consist of a kitchen, wine cellar, and the apartments of the
imperial suite. There is also a conservatory for the choicest flowers.
Our own gracious Sovereign travels in her journeys to and from Scotland
with great comfort, but without the extent of magnificence above
depicted.
Proportioned to the passenger traffic of other English railways, the
London and North-Western Company is deficient as regards numbers, for
although it has on its system Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Manchester,
Liverpool, Leeds, and almost all the leading manufacturing bee-hives
in the north of England, it is the sole railway having its terminus
in London, that does not encourage short local and _Sunday_ traffic.
Nevertheless the number of passengers carried on the London and
North-Western in 1866 was 20,811,173, which however is less than a
tenth (excluding the holders of 97,147 periodical tickets) of the
total number (251,862,715) conveyed on all the railways of the United
Kingdom in 1865. The returns before us do not enable us to state the
relative proportions of classes of passengers carried by the London and
North-Western, but, at all events, we know that they exceed two-thirds
of the population of Great Britain and Ireland, which, according to
the estimate of the Registrar-General, published a few days ago, was
30,157,239 in June, 1867. The estimated population of London and of its
suburbs, comprised within a circle of twelve miles from the General
Post Office, St. Martin’s-le-Grand, is, at present, 3,521,267, which is
more than the population of half-a-dozen German Principalities;[7] more
than half that of Ireland,[8] and equal to that of all Scotland. Those
desirous of knowing the component parts of the metropolitan population,
and how it is distributed over its area of 687 square miles, are
referred to the recently published vigorous and able statistical
vindication of the City of London,[9] by its distinguished and learned
Chamberlain, Mr. Benjamin Scott.
Here let us indicate a few facts illustrating the motive habits of
the immense London population. In the twelve months ending the 30th
of June, 1867, the number of passengers conveyed on the Metropolitan
Railway—4½ miles in length—were 22,458,067, or 1,646,894 more than
on the whole system of the London and North-Western Railway in 1866.
In the same twelve months, the London General Omnibus Company, which
owns about seven-eighths of those vehicles that ply in the metropolis,
carried 42,995,910. These, independent of steam-boat passengers, the
number of which we are not able to state, our application to the
secretary of one of the companies for information not having been
replied to; independent also of the persons who travelled in the 6,000
cabs that are licensed for London, and independent, finally, of the
persons conveyed in the innumerable vehicles which are unceasingly
circulating during about sixteen hours every day through every portion
of the great metropolis.[10]
Mr. Watkin, M.P., the chairman of the South-Eastern Railway, gave,
at the recent meeting of the shareholders of that company, a very
striking illustration of the motive habits of the metropolitan
population. During the half-year ending the 30th June, 1867, the
total number of passengers conveyed on the South-Eastern Railway was
9,700,000, but of these 7,200,000 came into or went out of its three
London stations (Charing Cross, Cannon Street, and London Bridge—the
traffic of the last immensely diminished since the opening of the two
first), yet the total length of the South-Eastern is 330 miles, and in
the usual proportion of stations to mileage on English railways (one
for each 3¼ miles) the number of stations is 101. Although we have
not the exact figures before us, we believe the same proportions, as
regards passenger traffic, holds good on the London, Brighton and South
Coast, the South-Western and the Great Western Railways, and nearly so
on the Great Eastern and the Great Northern.
The rolling stock of the South Austrian and Alta Italia consists of 963
locomotives, 2,663 passenger carriages, in which are included 11 for
the exclusive use of royal personages, 19,182 waggons, in which are
included 57 for the service of the Post. Its total mileage of train
engines 10,451,870. The amount of rolling stock of the Paris, Lyons,
and of the Orleans Companies is not stated in their reports, but the
total engine mileage of the former company in 1866 was 17,271,502
miles, of which 9,656,690 were for passenger trains, and 7,614,812 were
for goods, cattle, and coal trains; of the Orleans Company 10,715,458,
of which 5,878,010 miles were for passenger trains, and 4,837,448 for
goods, cattle, and coal trains.
We are not able to state the total mileage of the trains of French
railways, but it will be seen by reference to the _Annuaire des
Postes de l’Empire Francais_, published on the 1st of January, 1867,
a work analagous in its character to the Annual Reports of the
Postmaster-General of England, that the postal service of France upon
railways was, in 1865, 27,730,000 kilometres, equal to 17,331,250
miles. The British Post Office does not avail itself of all the
railways of the United Kingdom for the transmission of mails. Thus the
total mileage of British railways on the 1st of January, 1866, was
13,289 miles, but the Post Office only sent mail bags over about 12,000
of them. The Post Office Railway Service is 60,000 miles a day, equal
(deducting for Sundays) to 18,780,000 per annum, or about 1,450,000 per
annum more than the postal mileage on French railways.
Before proceeding to describe the present position of the London and
North-Western Company as regards locomotive and rolling stock, a short
epitome of what it was twenty years ago, may not prove uninteresting.
On the 30th June, 1847, the total length of railway worked by the
company was 670 miles. The number of its locomotive engines was 504,
or an engine for about each three-quarters of a mile of railway. The
engine mileage was—
For passenger trains 4,649,556
For goods trains 2,882,674
—————————
Total 7,532,230
On the 30th of June, 1847, there were 1,018 passenger carriages, and
so little encouragement was given by the company at that time to
travellers of the humbler classes, that out of the 1,018 only 75 were
third class. The Company had also 8 travelling post offices, and 13
post office tenders, 210 horse boxes, 183 guards’ break and parcels
vans, 4,874 goods waggons, 612 cattle and sheep trucks, 653 coal and
coke waggons. The total number of passengers conveyed in the year 1848,
was 6,001,576. Tons of goods conveyed (estimated) 1,811,000. At that
period the conveyance of coal by railway was in its infancy.
On the 31st December, 1866, the London and North-Western Company
possessed 1,347 locomotive engines, which is rather more than an engine
a mile, the average for the whole kingdom being just over one-half of
one per mile. It had 2,237 passenger carriages, 46 travelling post
offices and post office tenders, 408 horse boxes, 418 guards’ break and
parcel vans, 22,483 goods waggons, 1,703 cattle and sheep trucks, 2,069
coal and coke waggons, and for shunting carriages and waggons, and
other work at stations, no less than 619 horses, all of good breeds,
well-fed, intelligent, and _well-tutored_.
Its engines ran, in 1866, 21,637,163 miles, of which 10,613,324 were
for passenger trains, and 11,023,839 for goods and minerals: average
mileage of each engine for the year, 16,063; per day, of 365 to the
year, 44, but, as the average number of working days of an engine in
a year is about 250, the average mileage of the year, so divided,
is 64. This seems an extremely low average. Besides the passengers
already referred to, the company conveyed 15,425,119 tons of goods
and minerals. These exceed the amount carried on the Paris, Lyons and
Mediterranean by 1,803,405 tons, and they are very nearly three times
as much as those conveyed by the Orleans Company (5,216,879 tons).
Although the length of the London and North-Western system is not at
present more than a tenth of the total mileage length of the United
Kingdom, its receipts are a little more than a sixth of those earned
by all British and Irish railways. Its income, in fact, is just three
times what Lord Macaulay tells us, in the fourth volume of his History
of England, was the total national revenue at the time that William
III. ascended the English throne.