HUNTING UP HIS OWN WORK—AN ENTERPRISING
QUAKER—WHAT WAS THE RESULT?
It appears strange to us that so simple a thing as the laying of a rail
seems to be should have taken years of thought and experiment to do it.
Nothing looks easier to prepare than the straight, smooth track of a
railway, such as we now see in use; and yet it was only arrived at by
slow steps through two hundred years.
In pondering upon the powers of "Puffing Billy," George Stephenson saw
that the efficiency of locomotives must, in a great measure, depend on
what kind of roads they had to run upon. Many were sanguine that
steam-carriages would some day come into use on common roads. After a
long series of experiments, George Stephenson said, "No; the thing
wouldn't pay." For a rough surface seriously impairs the powers of a
locomotive; even sand scattered upon the rails is sufficient to slacken,
and even stop an engine. The least possible friction is desirable, and
this is found on the smooth rail.
Could they ever be laid uphill, or on "ascending gradients", as the
scientific term is? No; as nearly level as possible, Stephenson's
experiments showed, was the best economy of power. Then how to get rid
of the jolts and jars and breakages of the rails as they were then laid.
He studied and experimented upon both chairs and sleepers, and finally
embodied all his improvements in the colliery railway.
"Puffing Billy" was in every respect a most remarkable piece of
machinery, and its constructer one of the most sagacious and persistent
of men. But how was the public, ever slow in discovering true merit or
accepting real benefits, to discover and appreciate them? Neither
influence, education, nor patronage had Stephenson to command mind and
means, or to drive his engine through prejudice, indifference, and
opposition, to profit and success.
But what he could not do, other men could do, and did do. Find a hook,
and there is an eye to fit it somewhere. Yes; there were already men of
property and standing alive with the new idea. While he worked, they
talked—as yet unknown to one another, but each by himself clearing the
track for a grand junction.
One of these men was Edward Pease, a rich Quaker of Darlington, who, his
friends said, "could look a hundred miles ahead." He needed a quicker
and easier transit for his coals from the collieries north of Darlington
to Stockton, where they were shipped; and Mr. Pease began to agitate, in
his mind, a railroad. A company for this purpose was formed, chiefly of
his own friends, whom he fairly talked into it. Scarcely twenty shares
were taken by the merchants and shipowners of Stockton, whose eyes were
not open to the advantage it would by-and-by be to them. A survey of the
proposed road was made, when to the indifference of the many was added
the opposition of the few. A duke was afraid for his foxes! Shareholders
in the turnpikes declared it would ruin their stock. Timid men said it
was a new thing, and that it was best to let new things alone. The world
would never improve much under _such_ counsel. Edward Pease was hampered
on all sides. Nobody convinced him that his first plan was not the right
one by all odds; but what can a man do in any public enterprise without
supporters? So he reluctantly was obliged to give up his rail-road, and
ask Parliament for liberty to build a tram-road—horse-power instead of
steam-power: he could seem to do no better, and even this was gotten
only after long delay and at considerable cost.
Among the thousands who carelessly read in the newspapers the passage
through Parliament of the Stockton and Darlington Act, there was one
humble man whose eye kindled as he read it. In his bosom it awakened a
profound interest. He went to bed and got up brooding over it. He was
hungry to have a hand in it; until at last, yearning with an
irrepressible desire to do his own work in the world, he felt he must go
forth to seek it.
One night a couple of strangers knocked at the door of Edward Pease's
house in Darlington, and introduced themselves as two Killingworth
colliers. One of them handed the master of the mansion a letter of
introduction from a gentleman of Newcastle, recommending him as a man
who might prove useful in carrying out his contemplated road.
To support the application, a friend accompanied him.
The man was George Stephenson, and his friend was Nicholas Wood. It did
not take long for Edward Pease to see that Stephenson was precisely the
man he wanted.
[Illustration: THE TWO STRANGERS.]
"A railway, and not a tram-road," said Stephenson, when the subject was
fairly and fully opened.
"A horse railway?" asked Pease.
"A locomotive engine is worth fifty horses," exclaimed Stephenson; and
once on the track, he launched out boldly in its behalf.
"Come over to Killingworth and see my 'Puffing Billy,'" said George;
"seeing is believing." And Mr. Pease, as you may suppose, was quite
anxious to see a machine that would outride the fleetest horse. Yet he
did not need "Puffing Billy" to convince him that its constructer knew
what he was advocating, and could make good his pledges. The good
Quaker's courage rapidly rose. He took a new start, and the consequence
was that all other plans and men were thrown aside, and Stephenson was
engaged to put the road through much in his own way.
The first thing to be done was to make an accurate survey of the
proposed route. Taking Robert with him, who had just come from college,
and who entered as heartily into the enterprise as his father, with two
other tried men, they began work in good earnest. From daylight till
night the surveyors were on duty. One of the men going to Darlington to
sleep one night, four miles off, "Now, you must not start from
Darlington at daybreak," said Stephenson, "but be here, ready to begin
work, at daybreak." He and Robert used to make their home at the
farm-houses along the way, where his good-humour and friendliness made
him a great favourite. The children loved him dearly. The dogs wagged
their approving tails at his approach. The birds had a delighted
listener to their morning songs, and every dumb creature had a kind
glance from his friendly eye.
But George was not quite satisfied. He wished Mr. Pease to go to
Killingworth to see "Puffing Billy," and become convinced of its
economical habits by an examination of the colliery accounts. He
promised, therefore, to follow George thither, along with a large
stockholder; and over they went in the summer of 1822.
Inquiring for Stephenson, they were directed to the cottage with a
sun-dial over the door. George drove his locomotive up, hoisted in the
gentlemen, harnessed on a heavy load, and away they went. George no
doubt showed "Billy" off to the best advantage. "Billy" performed
admirably; and the two wondering stockholders went home enthusiastic
believers in locomotive power.
A good many things had to be settled by the Darlington project. One was
the width of the gauge; that is, the distance between the rails. How
wide apart should they be? Stephenson said the space between the cart
and waggon wheels of a common road was a good criterion. The tram-roads
had been laid down by this gauge—four feet and eight inches—and he
thought it about right for the railway; so this gauge was adopted.
One thing which hampered Stephenson not a little was the want of the
right sort of workmen—quick-minded, skilful mechanics, who could put his
ideas into the right shape. The labour of originating so much we can
never know. He had nothing to copy from, and nobody's experience to go
by. Happily he proved equal to his task. We can readily imagine his
anxiety as the work progressed. Hope and fear must have in turn raised
and depressed him. Not that he had any doubts in regard to the final
issue of the grand experiment of railroads. They _must_ go!
Dining one day at a small inn with Robert, and John Dixon, after walking
over the route, then nearly completed—"Lads," he said, "I think you will
live to see the day when railroads will be the great highway for the
king and all his subjects. The time is coming when it will be cheaper
for a working-man to travel on a railway than to walk on foot. There are
big difficulties in the way, I know; but it will surely come to pass. I
can hardly hope to live to see that day, much as I should like to do so;
for I know how slow all human progress is, and how hard it is to make
men believe in the locomotive, even after our ten years' success in
Killingworth."
While the father roughed it through, Robert's health failed. His close
application to business made sad inroads upon a frame naturally more
delicate than his father's; and an offer to go out and superintend some
mining operations in South America was thankfully accepted, in the hope
that a sea-voyage and less exciting labours might restore him.
[Illustration: A TALK ABOUT RAILWAYS.]
Robert shortly sailed; and his father pushed on alone, with that brave
spirit which carried him through many a darker hour.
On the 27th of September the Stockton and Darlington Railway was
finished and opened. A great many came to see the new mode of
travelling, which had proved a fruitful subject of talk, far and near,
for many months;—some to rejoice; some to see the bubble burst; some
with wonder, not knowing what to think; some with determined hostility.
The opposition was strong: old England against young England; the
counter currents of old and new ideas.
The road ran from Stockton to Darlington, a distance of twelve miles,
and thence to the Etherly collieries—in all, thirty-two miles.
Four steam-engines were employed, and two stationary engines to hoist
the train over two hills on the route. The locomotives were of six-horse
power, and went at the rate of five or six miles an hour. Slow as this
was, it was regarded with wonder. A "travelling engine" seemed almost a
miracle. One day a race came off between a locomotive and a coach
running on the common highway; and it was regarded as a great triumph
that the former reached Stockton first, leaving the coach one hundred
yards behind.
The road was built for a freight road, to convey lime, coal, and bricks
from the mines and kilns in the interior to the sea-board for shipment
abroad. Carrying passengers was not thought of. Enterprise, however, in
this direction took a new start. A company was soon formed to run two
coaches on the rails between Darlington and Stockton by horse-power.
Each coach accommodated six inside passengers, and from fifteen to
twenty outside; was drawn by one horse; and went at the rate of nine
miles an hour.
"We seated ourselves," said a traveller of those days, "on the top of
the 'Defence' coach, and started from Stockton highly interested with
the novelty of the scene and of this new and extraordinary conveyance.
Nothing could be more surprising than the rapidity and smoothness of the
motion." Yet the coach was without springs, and jerked and jolted over
the joints of the rails with a noise like the clinking of a mill-hopper.
"Such is the first great attempt to establish the use of railways,"
writes a delighted editor, "for the general purposes of travelling; and
such is its success, that the traffic is already great, and, considering
that there was formerly no coach at all on either of the roads along
which the railroad runs, quite wonderful. A trade and intercourse have
arisen out of nothing, and nobody knows how."
Such was their small and imperfect beginning, _we_ should say, now that
railroads, improved and perfected, have fulfilled Stephenson's
prediction uttered in the little inn, and have become the great highways
of the civilized world.