A ROYAL RAILWAY TRIP.
When the Queen of England makes a railway journey it is an event of no ordinary importance. With her it is not, as with the President of the United States for example, so simple a matter as climbing up the steps of a Pullman or getting into a Pennsylvania Florida special or Chicago limited, and proceeding without fuss. No, when Queen Victoria is about to travel preparations are made long beforehand and all the regular arrangements of the road are subservient to the accommodation of the royal train.
When Her Majesty journeyed by the Caledonian Railway from Carlisle to Aberdeen, en route to Gosport and Ballater, many days previous there was issued the table of instructions for working the trains over the line on that day. They were intended for the use of the company’s employees only, who were forbidden to make known their contents. A pilot engine was sent over the road twenty minutes before the royal train, in charge of the foreman of the locomotive department. This engine maintained throughout the journey the uniform interval of twenty minutes. No other train, engine or vehicle, except passenger trains, was permitted to travel on the other track between the passing of the pilot and the royal train, and even passenger trains had to slow down to ten miles per hour.
One of the orders issued was this: “Drivers of such trains as are standing on sidings or adjoining lines, waiting for the passing of the royal train, must prevent their engines from emitting smoke or making a noise by blowing off steam when the royal train is passing.”
Brakesmen were enjoined to see that nothing projected from their trains. Each foreman plate-layer, or “section-boss,” as we would say, after examining his length of line, stationed himself at the south end and an assistant at the north; after the pilot had passed they walked till they met, seeing that all was right. The stations were kept clear and the public admitted at one station only, the last. Even here, cheering or other demonstration was forbidden, “the object being that Her Majesty should be perfectly undisturbed during the journey.” These instructions, signed by James Thompson, general manager, and Irvine Kempt, general superintendent, were obeyed in their minutest detail.
It must not be supposed that the company has to pocket the loss when the Queen travels. The royal lady not only does not travel on “passes,” but she pays all expenses incurred. A copy of the instructions printed in gold are presented to the Queen and she cannot fail to be gratified by the care and thought exhibited by the company.
The entire mileage of the Caledonian Railway is one thousand miles; the main line from Carlisle to Aberdeen, over which the queen travelled, is about two hundred and forty miles. It traverses a beautiful country. From this great trunk run out branches and connections by steamer in all directions—reaching to all big towns of the country, most of the small ones, and all the districts famed in Scottish song or history, the highlands, the lochs, the seaboard, etc. The road is a model road and one of the best appointed in Great Britain. The tourist, the student and the sportsman are offered strong inducements to avail themselves of the tours arranged by the Caledonian company.