The life of George Stephenson and of his son Robert Stephenson; comprising also a history of the invention and introduction of the railway locomotive

Front matter

_ Cornell University Library

The life of Georae Stephenson and of his

3 1924 021 408 178

Preface

The present is a revised edition of the Life of George Stephenson'and of his son Eobert Stephenson, to which is prefixed a history of the Eailway and the Locomotive in its earlier stages, uniform with the early histoiy of the Steam-engine given in vol. iv. of " Lives of the Engineers" containing the memoirs of Boulton and Watt. A memoir of Bichard Trevithick has also been included in this introductory portion of the book, which will probably be found more complete than any notice which has yet appeared of that distinguished mechanical engineer.

Since the appearance of this Life in its original form ten years ago, the construction of Railways has continued to make extraordinary progress. The length of lines then open in Europe was estimated at about 18,000 miles; it is now more than 50,000 miles. Although Great Britain, first in the field, had then, after about twenty-five years' work, expended nearly 300 millions sterling in the construction of 8300 miles of double railway, it has during the last ten years expended about 200 millions more in constructing 5600 additional miles.

But the construction of railways has proceeded with equal rapidity on the Continent. France has now 9624 miles at work; Germany (including Austria), 13,392 miles ; Spain, 3161 miles ; Sweden, 1100 miles; Belgium, 1073 miles; Switzerland, T95 miles; Holland, 617 miles; besides railways in other states. These have, for the most part, been constructed and opened during the last ten years, while a considerable length is still under constniction. Austria is actively engaged in carrying new lines

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across the plains of Hungary to the frontier of Turkey, which Turkey is preparing to meet by Hnes carried up the valley of the Lower Danube ; and Russia, with 2800 miles already at work, is occupied with exteuBive schemes for connecting Petersburg and Moscow with her ports in the Black Sea on the one hand, and with the frontier towns of her Asiatic empire on the other.

Italy also is employing her new-bom liberty in vigorously extending railways throughout her dominions. The length of Italian lines in operation in 1866 was 3752 miles, of which not less than 680 were opened in that year. Already has a direct hne of communication been opened between Germany and Italy through the Brenner Pass, by which it is now possible to make the entire journey by railway (excepting only the short sea-passage across the English Channel) from London to Brindisi on the southeastem extremity of the Itahan peninsula ; and, in the course of a few more years, a still shorter route will be opened through France, when that most formidable of all railway borings, the seven-mile tunnel under Mont Cenis, has been completed.

During the last ten years, nearly the whole of the existing Indian railways have been made. When Edmund Bm-ke in 1783 arraigned the British government for their neglect of India in his speech on Mr. Fox's Bill, he said, " England has built no bridges, made no high roads, cut no navigations, dug out no reservoirs Were we to be driven 'Out of India this day, nothing

would remain to tell that it had been possessed, during the inglorious period of our dominion, by any thing better than the orangoutang or the tiger." But that reproach no longer appHes. Some of the greatest bridges erected in modem times — such as those

o-^er the Sone near Patna, and over the Jamna at Allahabad

have been erected in connection with the Indian railways, of which there are already 3637 miles at work, and above 2000 more under construction. When these lines have been completed, at an expenditure of about £88,000,000 of British capital guaranteed by the British govemment, India will be provided with a

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magnificent system of internal communication, connecting the capitals of the three Presidencies — muting Bombay with Madras on the south, and with Calcutta on the northeast — while a great main line, 2200 miles in extent, passing through the northwestern provinces, and connecting Calcutta with Lucknow, Delhi, Lahore, Moultan, and KmTachee, will unite the mouths of the Hooghly ia the Bay of Bengal with those of the Indus in the Arabian Sea. When the first edition of this work appeared in the beginning of 1857, the Canadian system of railways was but in its infancy. The Grand Trunlc was only begun, and the Victoria Bridge — ^the greatest of all railway structiu-es — was not half erected. Now, that fine colony has more than 2200 miles in active operation along the great valley of the St. Lawrence, connecting Eivi^re du Loup at the mouth of that river, and the harbor of Portland in the State of Maine, via Montreal and Toronto, with Samia on Lake Huron, and vrith Wiadsor, opposite Detroit, in the State of Michigan. The Australian Colonies also have during the same time been actively engaged in providing themselves with railways, many of which are at work, and others are in course of formation. Even the Cape of Good Hope has several lines open, and others making. France also has constructed about 400 miles in Algeria, while the Pasha of Egypt is the proprietor of 360 miles in operation across the Egyptian desert.

But in no country has railway construction been prosecuted with greater vigor than in the United States. There the railway furnishes not only the means of intercommunication between already established settlements, as in the Old World, but it is regarded as the pioneer of colonization, and as instrumental in opening up new and fertile territories of vast extent in the west —the food-grounds of future nations. Hence railway construction in that cotintry was scarcely interrupted even by the great Civil War ; at the commencement of which Mr. Seward pubhcly expressed the ' opinion that " physical bonds, such as highways, railroads, rivers, and canals, are vastly more powerful for holdn PREFACE.

ing civil conuniinitiee together than any mere covenants, though written on parchment or engraved on iron."

The people of the United States were the first to follow the example of England, after the practicability of steam locomotion had been proved on the Stockton and Darlington and Liverpool and Manchester Eailways. The first sod of the Baltimore and Ohio Railway was cut on the 4th of July, 1828, and the hue was completed and opened for traffic in the following year, when it was worked partly by horse-power, and partly by a loconiotive built at Baltimore, which is still preserved in the Company's workshops. In 1830 the Hudson and Mohawk Railway was begun, while other lines were under construction in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and New Jersey ; and in the course of ten years, 1843 miles were finished and in operation. In ten more years, 8827 miles were at work ; at the end of 1864, not less than 35,000 miles, mostly single' tracks ; while about 15,000 miles more were under construction. One of the most extensive trunk-lines still unfinished is the Great Pacific Eailroad, connecting the lines in the valleys of the Mississippi and the Missouri with the city of San Francisco on the shores of the Pacific, by which, when completed, it wlU be possible to make the journey from England to Hong Kong, via New York, ia little more than a month.

The results of the working of railways have been in many respects different from those anticipated by their projectors. One of the most unexpected has been the growth of an immense passenger-traffic. The Stockton and DarHngton line was projected as a coal line only, and the Liverpool and Manchester as a merchandise hne. Passengers were not taken into account as a source of revenue ; for, at the time of their projection, it was not beUeved that people would trust themselves to be drawn upon a railway by an " explosive machine," as the locomotive was described to be. Indeed, a writer of eminence declared that he would as soon think of being fired off on a ricochet rocket as

PREFACE. vii travel on a railway at twice the speed of the old stage-coaches. So great was the alarm which existed as to the locomotiye, that the Liverpool and Manchester Conunittee pledged themselves in their second prospectus, issued in 1825, " not to require any clause empowering its use ;" and as late as 1829, the Newcastle and Carlisle Act was conceded on the express condition that it should not be worked by locomotives, but by horses only.

ISTevertheless, the Liverpool and Manchester Company obtained powers to make and work their railway without any such restriction; and when the line was made and opened, a locomotive passenger-train was ordered to be run upon it by way of experiment. Greatly to the surprise of the directors, more passengers presented themselves as travelers by the train than could conveniently be carried.

The first arrangements as to passenger-traffic were of a very primitive character, being mainly copied from the old stage-coach system. The passengers were "booked" at the railway office, and their names were entered in a way-bill which was given to the guard when the train started. Though the usual stage-coach bugleman could not conveniently accompany the passengers, the trains were at iirst played out of the terminal stations by a lively tune performed by a trumpeter at the end of the platform, and this continued to be done at the Manchester Station until a comparatively recent date.

But the number of passengers carried by the Liverpool and Manchester line was so unexpectedly great, that it was very soon found necessary to remodel the entire system. Tickets were introduced, by which a great saving of time was effected. More roomy and commodious carriages were provided, the original first-class compartments being seated for four passengers only. Every thing was found to have been in the first instance made too Hght and too slight. The prize " Kocket," which weighed only 4f tons when loaded with its coke and water, was found quite unsuited for drawing the increasingly heavy loads of pasviii PREFACE.

sengers. There was also this essential difference between the old stage-coach and the new railway train, that, whereas the former was " full" with six inside and ten outside, the latter must be able to accommodate whatever number of passengers came to be carried. Hence heavier and more powerful engines, and larger and more substantial carriages, were from time to time added to the carrying stock of the railway.

The speed of the trains was also increased. The first locomotives used in hauling coal-trains ran at from four to six miles an hour. On the Stockton and Darlington line the speed was increased to about ten miles an hour ; and on the Liverpool and Manchester line the first passenger-trains were run at the average speed of seventeen miles an hour, which at that time was considered very fast. But this was not enough. When the London and Birmingham line was opened, the mail-trains were run at twenty-three miles an hour; and gradually the.speed went up, until now the fast trains are run at from fifty to sixty miles an hour — ^the pistons in the cylinders, at sixty miles, traveling at the inconceivable rapidity of 800 feet per minute !

To bear the load of heavy engines run at high speeds, a much stronger and heavier road was found necessary ; and shortly after the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester hne, it was entirely relaid with stronger materials. Now that express passenger-engines are from thirty to thirty-five tons each, the weight of the rails has been increased from 35 lbs. to Y5 lbs. or 86 lbs. to the yard. Stone blocks have given place to wooden sleepers ; rails with loose ends resting on the chairs, to rails with their ends firmly " fished" together ; and in many places, where the traflBc is unusually heavy, iron rails have been replaced by those of steel.

And now see the enormous magnitude to which railway passenger-traffic has grown. In the year 1866, 274,293,668 passengers were carried by day tickets in Great Britain alone. But this was not all ; for in that year 110,227 periodical tickets were

PREFACE. ix issued by the different railways ; and assuming half of them to be annual, one fourth half-yearly, and the remainder quarterly tickets, and that their holders made only five journeys each way weekly, this would give an additional number of 39,405,600 journeys, or a total of 313,699,268 passengers carried in Great Britain in one year.

It is difficult to grasp the idea of the enormous number of persons represented by these figures. The mind is merely bewildered by them, and can form no adequate notion of their magnitude. To reckon them singly would occupy twenty years, counting at the rate of one a second for twelve hours every day. Or take another illustration. Supposing every man, woman, and child in Great Britain to make ten journeys by rail yearly, the number would fall short of the passengers carried in 1866.

Mr. Porter, in his " Progress of the Nation," estimated that thirty millions of passengers, or about eighty -two thousand a day, traveled by coaches in Great Britain in 1834, an average distance of twelve miles each, at an average cost of 5s. a passenger, or at the rate of id. a mile ; whereas above 313 millions are now carried by railway an average distance of 8f miles each, at an average cost of Is. l^d. per passenger, or about three halfpence per mile, in considerably less than half the time.

But, besides the above number of passengers, one hundred and twenty -four million tons of minerals and merchandise were carried by railway in the United Kingdon in 1866, and fifteen millions of cattle, besides mails, parcels, and other traffic. The distance run by passenger and goods trains in the year was 142,807,853 milfes, to accomplish which it is estimated that four miles of railway on an average must be covered by running trains during every second all the year round.

To perform this service, there were, in 1866, 8125 locomotives at work in the United Kingdom, consuming about three million tons of coal and coke, and fiashing into the air every minute some thirty tons of water in the form of steam in a high state

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of elasticity. There were also 19,228 passenger-carriages, 7276 vans and breaks attached to passenger-trains, and 242,947 trucks, wagons, and other vehicles appropriated to merchandise. Buckled together, buffer to buffer, the locomotives and tenders would extend for a length of about 54 miles, or more than the distance from London to Brighton; while the carrying vehicles, joined together, would form two trains occupying a double line of railway extending from London to beyond Livemess.

A notable feature in the growth of railway traffic of late years has been the increase in the number of third-class passengers, compared with first and second class. Sixteen years since, the third-class passengers constituted only about one third ; ten years later they were about one half ; whereas now they form nearly two thirds of the whole number carried. Thus George Stephenson's prediction " that the time would conie when it would be cheaper for a working man to make a journey by railway than to walk on foot" is already realized.

The degree of safety with which this great traffic has been conducted is not the least remarkable of its features. Of course, so long as railways are worked by men, they will be liable to the imperfections belonging to all things human. Though their machinery may be perfect, and their organization as complete as skill and forethought can make it, workmen vsdll at times be forgetful and hstless, and a moment's carelessness may lead to the most disastrous results. Yet, taking all circumstances into account, the wonder is that traveling by railway at high speeds should have been rendered comparatively so safe.

To be struck by lightning is one of the rarest of all causes of death, yet more persons were killed by lightning in Great Britain, in 1866, than were killed on railways from causes beyond their own control ; the number in the former case having been nineteen, and in the latter fifteen, or one in every twenty millions of passengers carried. Most persons would consider the probability of their dying by hanging to be extremely remote ; yet, accord-

PREFACE. xi ing to the Eegistrar General's returns for 1867, it is thirty times greater than that of betog killed by railway accident. Taldng the mimber of persons who traveled ia Great Britain in 1866 at 313,699,268, of whom fifteen were accidentally killed, it would appear that, even supposing a person to have a permanent existence, and to make a journey by railway daily, the probability of his being killed ia an accident would occur on an average once in above 50,000 years.

The remarkable safety with which railway traffic is on the whole conducted, is due to constant watchfulness and highly-applied skill. The men who work the railways are for the most part the picked men of the country, and every railway station may be regarded as a practical school of industry, attention, and punctuality. Where railways fail in these respects, it will usually be found that it is because the men are personally defective, or because better men are not to be had. It must also be added that the onerous and responsible duties which railway workmen are called upon to perform require a degree of consideration on the part of the jjublic which is not very often extended to them.

Few are aware of the complicated means and agencies that are in constant operation on railways day and night to insure the safety of the passengers to their journeys' end. The road is under a system of continuous inspection, under gangs of men — about twelve to every five miles, under a foreman or "ganger" — whose duty it is to see that the rails and chairs are sound, all their fastenings complete, and the line clear of obstructions.

Then, at all the junctions, sidings, and crossings, pointsmen are stationed, with definite instructions as to the duties to be performed by them. At these places signals are provided, worked from the station platforms, or from special signal-boxes, for the purpose of protecting the stopping or passing trains. When the first railways were opened the signals were of a very simple kind. The station-men gave them with their arms stretched out in different positions ; then flags of different colors were used ; next xii PREFACE.

lixed signals, with arms or discs, or of rectangular or triangular shape. These were followed by a complete system of semaphore signals, near and distant, protecting all junctions, sidings, and crossings.

When government inspectors were first appointed by the Board of Trade to examine and report upon the working of railways, they wei'e alanned by the number of trains following each other at some stations in what then seemed to be a very rapid succession. A passage from a Report written in 1840 by Sir Frederick Smith, as to the trafBc at " Taylor's Junction," on the York and North Midland Railway, contrasts curiously with the railway life and activity of the present day : " Here," wrote the alarmed inspector, " the passenger trains from York, as well as Leeds and Selby, meet four times a day. No less than 23 passenger-trains stop at or pass this station in the 24 hours — an amount of trafiic requiring not only the most perfect arrangements on the part of the management, but the utmost vigilance and energy in the servants of the Company employed at this place." Contrast this with the state of things now. On the Metropolitan Line, .667 trains pass a given point in one direction or the other during tlie eighteen hours of the worldng day, or an average of 36 trains an hour. At the Cannon-street Station of the Southeastern Railway, 527 trains pass in and out daily, many of them crossing each others' tracks under the protection of the station signals. Forty-five trains run in and out between 9 and 10 A.M., and an equal number between 4 and 5 P.M. Again, at the Clapham Junction, near London, about 700 trains pass or stop daily ; and though to the casual observer the succession of trains coming and going, running and stopping, coupling and shunting, appears a scene of inextricable confusion and danger, the whole is cleai-ly intelligible to the signal-men in their boxes, who work the trains in and out with extraordinary precision and regularity.

The inside of a signal-box reminds one of a piano-forte on a large scale, the lever-handles corresponding with the keys of the

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xui instmment; and, to an uninstmcted person, to work the one would be as difficult as to play a tune on the other. The signal-box outside Cannon-street Station contains 67 lever-handles, by means of which the signal-men are enabled at the same moment to communicate with the drivers of all the engines on the line within an area of 800 yards. They direct by signs, which are quite as intelligible as words, the drivers of the trains starting from inside the station, as well as those of the trains arriving from outside. By pulliiig a lever-handle, a distant signal, perhaps out of sight, is set some hundred yards off, which .the approaching driver — treading it quicHy as he comes along — at once interprets, and stops or advances, as the signal may direct.

The precision and accuracy of the signal-machinery employed at important stations and junctions have of late years been much unproved by an ingenious contrivance, by means of which the setting of the signal prepares the road for the coming train. When the signal is set at " Danger," the points are at the same time worked, and the road is "locked" against it; and when at " Safety," the road is open — the signal and the points exactly corresponding.

The 'Electric Telegraph has also been found a valuable auxiliary in insuring the safe working of large railway traffics. Though the locomotive may run at sixty nules an hour, electricity, when at its fastest, travels at the rate of 288,000 miles a second, and is therefore always able to herald the coming train. The electric telegraph may, indeed, be regarded as the nervous system of the railway. By its means the whole Mne is kept throbbing with intelligence. The method of working electric signals varies on different Mnes ; but the usual practice is to divide a line into so many lengths, each protected by its signal-stations, the fundamental law of telegraph working being that two engines are not to be allowed to run on the same line between two signal-stations at the same time. When a train passes one of such stations, it is immediately signaled on — usually by elecxiv PREFACE.

trie signal-bells — ^to the station in advance, and that interval of railway is " blocked" nntil the signal has been received from the station in advance that the train has passed it. Thus cm mterval of space is always secured between trains following each other, which are thereby alike protected before and behind. And thus, when a train starts on a journey of it may be hundreds of miles, it is signaled on from station to station, and "lives along the line," until at length it reaches its destination, and the last signal of " train in" is given. By this means an immense number of trains can be worked with regularity and safety. On the Southeastern Railway, where the system has been brought to a state of high efficiency, it is no unusual thing during Easter week to send 570,000 passengers through the London Bridge Station alone ; and on some days as many as 1200 trains a day.

While such are the expedients adopted to insure safety, others eijually ingenious are adopted to insure speed. In the case of express and mail trains, the frequent stopping of the engines to take in a fresh supply of water occasions a considerable loss of time on a long journey, each stoppage for this purpose occupying from ten to fifteen minutes. To avoid such stoj^pages larger tenders have been provided, capable of carrying as much as 2000 gallons of water each. But as a considerable time is occupied in filling these, a plan has been contrived by Mr. Eamsbottom, the locomotive engineer of the London and Northwestern Kailway, by which the engines are made to feed themselves while running at full speed ! The plan is as follows : An open trough, about 440 feet long, is laid longitudinally between the rails. Into this trough, which is filled with water, a dip-pipe, or scoop attached to the bottom of the tender of the ruiming train, is lowered, and, at a speed of 50 miles an hour, as much as 1070 gallons of water are scooped up in the course of a few minutes. The first of such troughs was laid down between Chester and Holyhead, to enable the Express Mail to run the distance of 84f miles in two hours and* five minutes without stopping; and similar troughs have

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since been laid down at Bushey, near London; at Castlethorpe, near Wolverton ; and at Parkside, near Liverpool. At these f our troughs about 130,000 gallons of water are scooped up daily.

Wherever railways have been made, new towns have sprung up, and old towns and cities been quickened into new hfe. When the first English lines were projected, great were the prophecies of disaster to the inhabitants of the districts through which they were proposed to be forced. Such fears have long since been dispelled in this country. The same prejudices existed in France. When the railway from Paris to Marseilles was projected to pass through Lyons, a local prophet predicted that if the line were made the city would be ruined — " ViUe traversee, villeperdmef^ while a local priest denounced the locomotive and the electric telegraph as heralding the reign of Antichrist. But such nonsense is no longer uttered. Now it is the city without the railway that is regarded as the "city lost;" for it is in a measure shut out from the rest of the world, and left outside the pale of civilization.

Perhaps the most striking of all the illustrations that could be offered of the extent to which railways facihtate the locomotion, the industry, and the subsistence of the population of large towns and cities, is afforded by the working of the railway system in connection with the capital of Great Britain.

The extension of railways to London has been of comparatively recent date, the whole of the lines connecting it with the provinces and terminating at its outskirts having been opened during the last thirty years, while the lines inside London have for the most part been opened within the last ten years.

The first London line was the Greenwich Eailway, part of which was opened for traffic to Deptford in February, 1836. The working of this railway was first exhibited as a show, and the usual attractions were employed to make it " draw." A band of musicians in the garb of the Beef -eaters was stationed at the xvi PREFACE.

London end, and another band at Deptford. For cheapness' sake, the Deptford band was shortly superseded by a large barrel-organ, which played in the passengers ; but when the traffic became established, the barrel-organ, as well as the Beef -eater band at the London end, were both discontinued./ The whole length of the line was lit up at night by a row of lamps on either side Hke a street, as if to enable the locomotives or the passengers to see their way in the dark ; but these lamps also were eventually discontinued as unnecessary.

As a show, the Greenwich Eailway proved tolerably successful. During the first eleven months it carried 456,750 passengers, or an average of about 1300 a day. But the railway having been found more convenient to the public than either the river boats or the omnibuses, the number of passengers rapidly increased. When the Croydon, Brighton, and Southeastern Railways began to pour their streams of traffic over the Greenwich Viaduct, its accommodation was found much too limited, and it was widened from time to time, until now nine lines of railway are laid side by side, over which more than twenty millions of passengers are carried yearly, or an average of about .60,000 a day aU the year round.

Since the partial opening of the Greenwich Eailway in 1836, a large extent of railways has been constructed in and about the metropolis, and convenient stations have been established almost in the heart of the city. Sixteen of these stations are within a circle of half a mile radius from the Mansion House, and above three hundred stations are in actual use or in course of construction within about five miles of Charing Cross. The most important lines recently opened for the accommodation of the London local traffic have been the London, Chatham and Dover Metropohtan Extensions (1861), the Metropolitan (1863), the North London Extension to Liverpool Street (1865), the Charing Cross and Cannon - street Extensions of the Southeastern Eailway (1864-6), and the South London Extension of the Brighton

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Eailway (1866). Of these railways, the London, Chatham and Dover carried 5,228,418 passengers in 1867 ; the Metropolitan, 23,405,282; the North London, 17,535,502; the Southeastern, 17,473,934; and the Brighton, 12,686,417. The total number carried into and out of London, as well as from station to station in London, in the same year, was 104 millions of passengers.