The romance of modern locomotion : containing interesting descriptions (in non-technical language) of the rise and development of the railroad systems in all parts of the world ***NB. Some chapters dedicated to CanadaThe romance of modern locomotion : containing interesting descriptions (in non-technical language) of the rise and development of the railroad systems in all parts of the world ***NB. Some chapters dedicated to Canada

Front matter

LONG BEACH 2 CAHFORMA he eA) AMG FARE aNd

The Romance of

Modern Locomotion

Prefatory Note

THE Author begs to acknowledge the kind help given him in connection with the collecting of materials for the illustrations and letterpress of this book by :—Mr. F. Moore (the Locomotzve Magazine), ecw Eroprictors, of »the «izes, ‘the Wzde World Magazine, the Strand Magazine, Engineering, the Engineering Magazine, the Daily Express ; the Cunard Company (Messrs. Harland & Wolff); the Vacuum Brake Company ; the Pneumatic Signalling Company ; the Secretaries of the Canadian Pacific, and Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé Railways; Mr. James Holden (Chief Locomotive Superintendent of the Great Eastern Railway); Mr. D. Drummond (Chief Locomotive Superintendent of the London and South- Western Railway); Mr. C. E. Weightman, M.1.C.E. ; and Mr. A. Crosby Lockwood.

Hid

Contents

INTRODUCTION , : ; : : ;

. How THE MIDLAND RAILWAY CAME INTO

THE GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY; OR, THE STRUGGLE OF THE GAUGES f 2 :

Introduction

THE countryside shimmers peacefully in the summer sun. As we rest on the bridge we are aware of the murmur of insect life that fills the air, and the trim neatness of the hedges that top the cutting, and the soft background of woodland and meadow melting away in the heat-haze. But our thoughts turn chiefly to the bright metal bars that stretch beneath us and far into the distance, where a bend in the track just saves them from the appearance of converging into a single whole. The telegraph wires, gently thrumming in the light wind, whisper the secrets of the railway. The gleaming rails are silently eloquent of its life and bustle; for as the dusty road tells its story of many passing wheels, so do the polished ribbons below, fixed firmly to the well-packed sleepers, testify to the travels of the Iron Horse, that wonderful machine which, urged by the furnace flaming in its vitals, is the embodiment at once of human skill, and power, and resistless motion.

II

A pulley-wheel squeaks ; something has moved—the wooden arm in the distant signal. A mild excitement seizes us. We have seen the sight many a time before, but it never palls, this passing of the great express with its burden of precious human lives.

Far in the distance is a moving speck of white, which, as we gaze, expands into long tresses of snowy vapour, swept by the breeze across the emerald of the landscape. Every now and then the rattle of the train is wafted to our ears, dying down as some obstacle intervenes. She is round the curve, heading straight for us at sixty miles an hour, kept from a disastrous plunge into the banks and hedges by the inch-deep flanges of the wheels. Were but an axle to snap, or a rod to part—then what destruction ! But before the half-fear has clearly shaped itself the express is on us, enveloping the bridge in its hot breath ; and when the air is free again we see the red end of the guard’s van twinkling down the rails half a mile away. The show is over ; the semaphore arm rises, moved by an unseen power; and we are left to our thoughts.

This scene is being enacted in all quarters of the globe ; watched by the eyes of all the peoples of the earth. Let us give rein to our imaginations, and follow in spirit the express, no longer restricted by distance, but the World’s Express, pursuing its headlong course across the continents. It passes now through well populated regions where snug dwellings nestle among the trees, and speak of peace and a2

Introduction prosperity. Now it traverses the depths of dark forests, rising threateningly on either side as though eager to step across the narrow lane cleft through them. It climbs the steep pathway blasted in the mountain side ; slides into the darkness of the tunnel where men bored and hewed for many a long month ; thunders beside the impetuous stream ; and emerges into the vast expanses of the rolling prairie. Now it crosses the hot plains of India, or the snow-clad steppes of Siberia. Here the Celestial watches it with placid eye; there the antelope flies affrighted by its approach. It knowsno impediment. A river would bar the way—a huge bridge spans the river with a network of timber or steel ; an avalanche hurls itself upon the intruder—a snow-shed reduces the sliding mass to impotence ; a great bog spreads its quaking surfaces before it—-deep-driven piles pierce it to firmer ground. The express careers along, over the path that has been cunningly prepared by the engineer. Now and then Nature gets a blow fairly home, with fire or flood or earthquake ; but Man is soon on the spot, clearing and renewing: in a few days the track is open again, and the Express rolls on.

Behind it lumbers another train with a much more sedate motion, panting like an animal in sore distress. It is the World’s Goods-train. As it passes we review the riches of the earth. These huge steel cars are brimful of coal mined in the deep galleries of Pennsylvania. Tanks of Texas oil; trucks piled with the wheat of Manitoba, or the precious ores of

Ontario, or the fruit of California, or pig-iron, or timber, jostle one another. The lowing of oxen and the plaintive bleating of sheep tell of the great ranches of Argentine and Australia, that cast their millions of animals into the rapacious maw of the great cities. Now trundle past bales of cotton, wool, hides ; casks of wine ; boxes of tea, coffee, spices; cases of hardware in its thousand forms. Five hundred million people have despatched the train; as many await its arrival. For it and the steamship, its stout fellowworker, are the great means of Trade which quickens the pulses of civilisation.

Hark! as the last car swings out of sight we hear the tramp of a vast army, thousands upon thousands of men of all races and colours. At the head ride the generals, whose office it is to observe, measure, decide, direct—the Engineers. Behind come the rank and file, so many human machines, whose million arms are pitted against the wrinkled surface of Mother Earth, to fill the hollows, to hew down or cut through the hills, in the making straight of the path for the advance of the Iron Horse. Another army, aS numerous as they, has been left behind in offices and depots to guide and organise the traffic on the steel road; while smaller detachments, sprinkled along the track, are ever keeping in due repair the work of the platelayer.

A century ago the era of the railroad was dawning. A few years later men began to ridicule and oppose the idea that a metal pathway could ever

Introduction compete in speed or convenience with the road-borne coach. Only a select number of greater minds could peer into the future when the railway would have spread its giant tentacles across the face of a country. But even they would be astounded could they see what victories the railway engineer has won, and is still winning month by month in the face of tremendous difficulties. We, on the other hand, have become so accustomed to the use of the railroad as part of our daily life that we are blinded to the true romance surrounding both the past and present of a great system. The campaigns of a mighty conqueror appeal to our imagination by the shock of arms and the manner in which history is made during a few bloody hours. The Athenian victory at Marathon, or the disastrous retreat from Moscow, are pages in human annals which can be read again and again on account of their dramatic setting, and their effects on the destiny of nations. But what about the victories of the engineer? Are they less romantic or important ? Which has done more for civilisation—the battle of Waterloo, or the creation of the Union Pacific Railway? And whom should we admire most—the army of Marlborough hastening to Blenheim, or the host of platelayers daily covering the Canadian prairies with five miles of track? Let us consider the line that carries us so swiftly to our daily business in the city, or to school, or to the pleasures of the seaside and country. First, it had to be surveyed—a by no means easy task in days when every land-owner’s hand was against the surveyor. Then powers to construct it had to be wrung, at enormous cost, from Parliament. Then hundreds of men must be collected and organised, supplied with tools, housed and fed. In spite of the most careful calculations, difficulties arose in the construction which taxed to the utmost the ingenuity of the engineer ; and the spot that the train now flies over so smoothly and easily gave him many an anxious hour. The tunnels that plunge us suddenly into a few minutes’ darkness represent months, perhaps years, of unremitting toil, the sacrifice of human lives, and, in many cases, the ruin of the contractor who drove them. The embankment from which we view the country far and wide has swallowed, maybe, a king’s ransom before its treacherous sides could be made trustworthy and firm.

Nor must we forget ‘the men in whose keeping we are during our journey—the telegraph clerk at the terminus; the signalman in his lonely box ; the platelayer constantly packing the sleepers and tightening up the loose key or bolt ; and, before all, the driver, watching with unceasing vigilance for any signal of danger, and ready at a moment’s notice to pull the levers that will speedily bring his charge to a standstill.

We may go further still, and think of the great workshops, replete with the most wonderful machinery, that turned out the locomotive and the comfortable Carriages in which we ride; and of the men who organise the traffic, draw out the time-bills, and see 16

Introduction that there is a place for everything, and that everything is in its place. We should also spare a thought for the porter, and the employé who taps the wheels, or fills the axle-boxes with grease. All are parts of a huge machine, and any falling away from duty in any one of them might mean more or less serious dislocation of the whole.

In the following pages we shall peep into the history of typical companies in Great Britain, the United States, and elsewhere ; consider the various forms of traction, signals, and other mechanical appliances connected with the working of a railway ; notice the effects of railway communication on a country for its peaceful development, or its conquest in war; and make the tour of a typical locomotive factory. These and other matters have been treated as simply as may be, but with sufficient fulness to give the reader a fair idea of what the railway really is, how it has been made, and what the future may have in store for it.

Chapter I How The Midland Railway Came Into Being

A GLANCE at the map will show that the name of this railway has been justly chosen. Starting from St. Pancras Station, London, it runs almost due north through Bedford to Kettering, then swerves to the left to Leicester, and on again northwards to Leeds, Settle, and Carlisle. If you drew a straight line from one extremity to the other, it would fairly accurately bisect England. The Midland, octopus as it is, throws out great branches from its ‘“ nervecentre,” which may be located in the area including Leicester, Derby, and Nottingham. From Derby its metals stretch southwards through Burton, Birmingham, Cheltenham, and Gloucester to Bristol and Bath, where the Great Western to London supplies the third leg of a great triangle. Westwards it reaches to Buxton, Manchester, and Lancaster ; eastwards to Lincoln, Peterborough, and Hitchin, all also on the Great Northern system. Its mileage at the end of 1903 was 2284, which includes two long continuous runs of 320 and 308 miles to Carlisle from Bath and London respectively.

The history of this great system is most interesting, on account of its early struggles ; its association with 18

George Hudson, the “ Railway King,” and George Stephenson, the engineering genius; its gradual absorption of smaller undertakings ; its fierce battle with rival lines ; and the “ go-aheadness” which for the last fifty years has marked it as the pioneer among English railways.

Not only does the Midland Railway run through the Midlands, but it began in the Midlands. Its prime cause was the rivalry between the Leicestershire and Derbyshire coalfields. The former had been almost entirely deprived of suitable communi- | cation with the rest of England by the bursting, in 1799, of the Charnwood Forest Canal. In 1828 things had come to such a pass for the colliery owners, that one of them, Mr. William Stenson, took his levelling instruments and went over the country from Whitwick Colliery to Leicester, and approached Mr. John Ellis, afterwards the chairman of the Midland Company, with the assurance that a railway between the two points was quite practicable. Mr. Ellis, falling in with his ideas, went to see George Stephenson, then engaged on the Liverpool to Manchester line, who at first refused to undertake any further work, but who, after a dinner at a neighbouring inn, consented to go over the route proposed and give an opinion. His report was so favourable that a committee was formed for the construction of the line, and shares were subscribed, Stephenson. himself taking fifty, and offering to raise any money needed in Liverpool, At the same time he refused the post

a of engineer-in-chief to the new venture, and, at his suggestion, his son Robert took the berth.

The Leicester and Swannington Railway, as it was called, was begun in 1830 at Leicester. A mile from the town Glenfield Tunnel, 1796 yards long, pierced a hill. This tunnel ruined one contractor, and scared off others, so that the Company had to finish it themselves. Near Bagworth it ran for 946 yards up a severe gradient of 1 in 29, on which the rolling stock was hauled or lowered by a 5-inch cable passing round a 6-foot drum at the top of the slope. Loaded waggons descending on one set of rails raised empty waggons on the other track by gravity. At the Swannington end another incline was worked by a stationary engine and rope.

The opening of the first section of the line=— Leicester to Bagworth— on July 17, 1832, was marked by the ringing of bells, playing of bands, and firing of cannon, which for twenty years or more formed an inseparable part of such a ceremony. In the middle of Glenfield Tunnel the chimney of the “Comet” collided with the roof, and broke off, smothering the occupants of the (open) carriages with soot, which they removed as best they could during a stoppage for the purpose at Glenfield Brook. The day otherwise was a success, the pace being sometimes twenty miles an hour, the dinner excellent, and the journey free from accident, except a “woman being ridden over alongside the railway by a cavalier who was trying to keep up with the train”!

The Derbyshire coal and canal owners were “hit” by this curious little single line of metals. They accordingly set to work on a rival. enterprise, which should extend from Pinxton to Leicester, and so tap the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire fields. The financiers of the projects insisted, however, that if they paid the piper they should call the tune; and the tune they wanted was a main line running from Derby to Rugby, where it would enter the London and Birmingham Railway, a branch of course going to Pinxton. When the Bill for the construction of the line came before Parliament, it was so vehemently opposed by the North Midland Company, that the Pinxton branch had to be dropped, much to the disgust of the poor coal-owners. The Act received the Royal Assent on June 21, 1836, the project being called therein the “ Midland Counties Railway.”

The line was built in three portions—the first, from Derby to Nottingham, was opened in 1839; the second, from Leicester to Trent Junction, in 1840 ; the third, from Leicester to Rugby, in 1840. tieiicw latter year it~ therefore, ) was: possible sto travel direct from Derby to London in two ways— either wad Birmingham, by the Derby and Birmingham and London and Birmingham lines; or by the Midland Counties and London and Birmingham,

The natural result followed: a rate war between the two feeders of the London main line. But before dealing with the subject of competition, we may glance at a very interesting event in railway history—

Dik the first organised Excursion—from Nottingham to Leicester, on July 20, 1840. The occasion was a visit of the Nottingham folk to an exhibition at Leicester. Tickets were issued at half price, and so readily taken up that the Company resolved to run a number of cheap trains. The first “placarded” train ran from Leicester to Nottingham on August 10, Carrying 2000 passengers, a total not exceeded to-day. <A fortnight later an even more heavily-laden train left Nottingham for Leicester.

“The engines,” says the Lezcester Journal of Aug. 28, 1840, “were overloaded, and the progress was slow. There were about 2400 persons. A special engine, with all proper means and appliances in case of accidents, was sent off to reconnoitre, but did not return. At length, about 12.30, when the excitement had almost worn itself out of long endurance, a white flag, the signal of security, was seen from the station waving in the air. The enormous train of nearly seventy Carriages passed majestically in review before the astonished spectators. It was indeed a wonderful scene. Grand! magnificent! sublime! were the terms which gave vent to the feelings as in countless succession the animated mass rushed into view. It was in truth a moving city, with banners and music and accompaniments of all the material of high excitement to enhance its efficacy.”

Mr. Thomas Cook, afterwards of world-wide fame as a tourist agent, first hired a train and ran it as a private speculation from Leicester to Loughborough on July 5, 1841, for a fare of one shilling for the 25 miles.

Derby became, in 1840, the terminus of a third company, the North Midland Railway. The engineer of this line was George Stephenson, who distinguished himself by the construction of an elliptically-sectioned tunnel at Ambergate, to withstand the sliding action Ofea bank of shale that, it’ penetrated. The’ line extended from Derby to Leeds, from which town the way now lay open to London. For the convenience of the three converging systems the Midland Counties built a large joint station at Derby, and let portions of it to the other two lines.

In 1842 Mr. George Hudson became chairman of the North Midland. As part of a special chapter will be devoted to the notorious “ Railway King,” the mere mention of this fact will here suffice. But the appointment had far-reaching consequences.

We may now return to the fight between the two rival lines, the Midland Counties and Derby and Birmingham Junction, for the London traffic wa the (now) North-Western metals. Each accused the other of bad faith, and reduced its fares by 75 per cent. This was, of course, ruinous, and in 1842 a prominent shareholder of ‘“ Midland Counties” stock suggested an amalgamation ; but without effect, as the North Midland naturally used its influence to keep the breach open on account of the advantage lying in a choice of avenues for its southwards traffic to London. In the following year things were bad for all three companies, and rivals threatened them on the south and east, so that overtures were now made by the North Midland to the other two systems, which resulted in the amalgamation on May Io, 1844, of all three concerns under the chairmanship of Mr. G. Hudson, and the title of ‘““The Midland Railway Company.” This date, therefore, becomes one of the most important in English railway history.

The road was now clear for a policy of eXpansion and opposition to would-be antagonists. In 1845 an extension was opened to Lincoln from Nottingham, and in 1848 another to Peterborough from a point a few miles north of Leicester, both crossing the country threatened by the “London & York” (now G. N. R.), which had obtained an Act for construction in 1846. The building of the Peterborough line was a particularly stormy episode in railway construction. The route lay through the property of Lord Harborough, a typical sport-loving, conservative land-owner, and also the proprietor of a canal which he thought would be injured by the locomotive. The surveyors who tried to enter his grounds were confronted and driven away by gamekeepers. They collected a band of followers and returned to the attack, during which many doughty deeds were done and a good number of heads broken. Police appeared on the scene and forbade further violence. So both sides threw away their weapons and started pushing in the most determined scrimmage that ever took place. The contest was indecisive, and a truce

— formed for a time. Then came more conflicts, in which the railway party had the worse of the fight. At last the matter was arranged, the Company being allowed to drive a tunnel under the property. Unfortunately the tunnel fell in, and a cutting became necessary. This Lord Harborough forbade. The surveyors proposed a deviation; the owner forbade thistoo. And so the dispute went on, till terms were made between the two interests, and ‘Lord Harborough’s Curve” remained for many years as a testimony to the stirring times of the ’forties.

The Midland had now got on to the future track of the Great Northern, and could give some attention to the south-west counties. The Great Western was opened to Bristol in 1841. In the previous year a line had been completed from Birmingham to Gloucester, and four years later Bristol was connected with Gloucester by a track combining the narrow and broad gauge. The “ break of gauge” proved so inconvenient that a Royal Commission decided in favour of the narrow-gauge only being used. The Birmingham- Gloucester and Bristol-Gloucester companies now amalgamated, and were wooed by the Midland and G. W.R., the latter being desirous to extend its broad-gauge to Birmingham. The Midland, however, made the more generous offer. On August 3, 1846, the Midland system extended to Bristol, where its chocolate-red locomotives may to-day be seen running in and out of the Temple Meads Station.

Mieeto5 1.) it absorbed’ the line, from) jLeeds to

Bradford, and began to think seriously of an independent route toLondon. It had indeed a way thither vid Rugby and the London & North-Western, but the traffic arrangements were not satisfactory. So serious was the lack of a metropolitan terminus felt to be that the two companies would have amalgamated but for a disagreement as to the respective values of the shares and the distribution of dividend among the shareholders. The Midland maintained that every £60 of their capital should be set off against {100 of the North-Western, who on their side valued a Midland share at but £57, 10s. This disagreement, trifling in itself, had most important results, since it kept the companies apart for the future to work out their fortunes separately.

Towards the north the Midland extended its sway by leasing the “ Little” North-Western from Skipton to Lancaster for twenty-one years, commencing in 1852. On this line was Settle, from which they afterwards threw a track northwards to Carlisle. And towards the south the metals soon reached from Leicester to Hitchin, so opening, in 1857, a second route to London over the G. N. R.

We now come to a very interesting period of Midland enterprise, Manchester still lay outside their system, and so valuable a centre of trade must be gathered in. There already existed the short “ High Peak Railway” through the Derbyshire Hills—a railway of very heavy gradients—and also a line from Manchester to Crewe, which was as much in need of an outlet southwards as the Midland was of one westwards. The Manchester-Crewe line therefore absorbed the High Peak, and made an agreement with the Midland to connect up with it at Ambergate. But at the last moment the London & Birmingham, the Grand Junction (Birmingham to Manchester), and the Manchester to Crewe amalgamated (1846) into what is now known as the London & North-Western, leaving the Midland cut off from Manchester. The latter Company was not to be beaten, however. It decided to build a line of its own, and in 1862 introduced a Bill to connect their Matlock branch with the Manchester, Sheffield, & Lincolnshire Railway at New Mills. The Royal Assent being given, the Peak Forest district was attacked by the Company’s engineers. Their chief difficulty lay in piercing the Peak with a tunnel 1% miles long, as the rocks were traversed internally by subterranean streams, which had to be diverted before the boring could proceed. The engineers of course surmounted this obstacle and cut a very solid, satisfactory tunnel, but soon afterward were confronted with a serious mishap in the displacement of a large viaduct at Bagsworth by an extensive landslip. The brick structure had to be pulled down and one of wood erected in its place. The Manchester route from Rugby was then open throughout.

This pushing railway had now grasped territory in all directions. One great need still remained, viz. to win independence of the G. N. R. and North-

Western as regarded the London connection. The former line had, naturally perhaps, given its own goods traffic preference over that of the Midland, and even turned Midland trucks off its system when siding room was wanted. This proved too much for the Midland Directors, who, in spite of some opposition, gained Parliamentary sanction in 1863 to bridge the gap between Bedford and the Metropolis, a distance of about fifty miles. The route selected lay through Luton, St. Albans, and Hendon, to a terminus at St. Pancras, close to and between the already existing termini of the North-Western and Great Northern railways. The gathering in of the skeins of these three systems, the Great Central and the Great Western, into a terminal area of a few square miles is, indeed, a fine instance of the fact’ that “all roads lead to—London” !

The Midland Directors, with wise foresight, made a track broad enough for four sets of rails, as they calculated—and correctly—that in a very short time after the opening an ordinary double track would not be able to cope with the traffic.

No London terminus is constructionally more interesting than that at St. Pancras. Probably very few passengers are aware, as they roam about the platforms, that they are walking over huge cellars, which would dismay a teetotaller by their contents and their size; but they would have noticed that to enter the station it was needful to ascend an incline to a level considerably above that of the Euston 3 28

Road. The platforms, it must be understood, are supported by a great number of iron pillars, their elevation being caused by the necessity for the line to pass over the Regent’s Canal, a short distance north of the terminus. The Directors had the alter- ‘native of sending their lines under the Canal ; but as this would have entailed partly burying the station, they preferred the other course, especially as.it gave them accommodation for the enormous number of beer barrels brought daily from Burton-on-Trent. In order to make the most of the room, iron pillars were used in preference to brick, and to quote the engineer’s own words, ‘a beer barrel became the unit of measure upon which all the arrangements of this floor were based.”

The station roof is as interesting as the cellars. If the reader has seen it he will probably remember its notable feature, that it consists of a single great span. The reason for adopting this form was as follows :—

If two or more spans were used there would be walls or rows of arches or pillars along their lines of junction. These would be carried by the cellar roof, which in turn would need at the corresponding points such stout supports as to destroy the uniformity of the cellar designs. Moreover, if at any future time after the opening of the terminus, a rearrangement of platforms became necessary, the roofs would have to come down and the station be remodelled. On the other hand, by using a single span, and making the cellar roofing of uniform strength—sufficient to carry as many locomotives as could be stood upon its area—any alteration of the position of platforms would be simple. The engineer, Mr. Barlow, therefore decided in favour of a single span, 240 feet wide, with a height at the vertex of 100 feet above the rails. Although Mr. Barlow had no precedents of equal size to follow, he “ made a good job of it,’ as a mechanic would say, a fact proved by the way in which it has stood the test of thirty-six years. This roof, by-the-bye, is 690 feet long, covers nearly four acres of platforms, &c., and cost £69,365. It is mostly screened from the view of people in the Euston Road by the magnificent hotel built after the designs of the late Sir Gilbert Scott.

Behold, then, the Midland Railway in 1868 striding from London to Lancaster, and stretching its Briareus arms to Bristol, Manchester, Rugby, Lincoln, Peterborough! Yet, like Alexander the Great, it sighed for fresh conquests ; and there was still a district open to it—Westmorland and Cumberland, which lay on the road to Scotland. As already related, the Midland had secured a twenty-one years’ lease of the road from Lancaster to Skipton. At Ingleton it met the Lancaster and Carlisle system, of which the L. & N.W.had a nine hundred and ninety-nine years’ lease. The Midland found itself hampered as regards its Scotch traffic over these metals, in just the same way as it had suffered