[From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.]
THE RAILWAY WORKS AT CREWE.
"What place is this?" said the worthy old gentleman, my traveling companion on the London and North Western railway, as he woke up from a comfortable nap when the train slackened speed, and entered a spacious and expensively-decorated station.
"This is Crewe, sir, I believe."
And scarcely had I answered, when there was a general shout of "Crewe, Crewe!" from an army of porters who came rushing out, and pounced upon the train as if it were their lawful prey.
Presently a head peered in at the door, inquiring,
"All here for the Liverpool line?"
And on my elderly friend saying that he was for Manchester, he was politely but smartly informed that he must change carriages here. So I we both got out; and my friend, after some bother about his luggage, and the use of some hasty language, was at last made "all right" by being put into a carriage bearing an announcement that that was the "Manchester train." On another carriage in front was a similar board announcing the "Liverpool train," and behind was a third to announce that for Chester. Passengers were running up and down the platform: some looking after luggage, some for the right carriage, and others darting into the handsome refreshment-room. But nobody seemed to think of going away from the station; indeed the only mode of exit and entrance was through a close-shut iron gate, beside which sat a policeman looking with enviable coolness on all the bustle around him. There was a ring of a bell; a banging of doors; a puff of the engine; and off went the train to Liverpool. Another locomotive now appeared moving cautiously down the line, and was speedily attached to the Manchester train, which was soon out of sight. A third came; caught hold of the Chester train, and away it rushed. The passengers who had journeyed so amicably together from London were now thoroughly dispersed, and ere the sun set, some would be crossing the Scotch Border at Carlisle, some embarking at Holyhead for Dublin, and others attending to their business on the Mersey or the Dee, or amid the tall chimneys of Manchester. A luggage train came crawling out from its hiding-place, and finding the coast clear, went thundering past: the porters wiped their foreheads, and went to have a little rest; and I, the solitary passenger for Crewe, was left cooling my heels on the platform.
"Where is Crewe?" I said to the guardian of the iron gate.
"Cross the bridge, go straight on, and turn to the right," was the concise reply.
So I crossed the bridge, and found myself in a pleasant country road. The flat rich fields of Cheshire extended on the left and to the right; at the distance of about half a mile appeared the square massive tower of a church, surrounded by long ranges of low buildings like work-shops, and rows of houses evidently quite new. Some neat cottages lined the sides of the road, and there were two or three inns all bearing marks of youth; while some zealous people had caused a few bills, bearing the words "Prepare to meet thy God," printed in conspicuous type, to be affixed to the walls, giving a stranger not & very high idea of the character of the people in the habit of using that road. Turning to the right, I passed a Methodist chapel, bearing the date of its erection, 1848; a new flour-mill driven by water; a new inn with a brave new sign-board; and, crossing the boundary made by the Chester line, I arrived in Crewe.
Not many years ago, there were only two or three houses here, and the land on which the station and the town are built formed part of a good Cheshire farm. The worthy farmer plowed his fields and reaped his harvest, his dame made good Cheshire cheese; and both lived merrily on, quite unconscious of the change that their farm was about to undergo. The eyes of engineers were on it: it was placed, as an Irishman would say, "very convanient" for railway purposes and after a few years had rolled away, it became the great workshop of the Grand Junction Line, and the point where the main line to Birmingham received its tributaries from the north and west. Several thousands of people were brought here; the company laid out streets and built houses; shops were opened; churches and schools erected; a market-place provided; a Mechanics' Institution established; many hotels built, one of which was destined to lodge royalty for a night; and a town was erected with a rapidity unexampled even in America.
The general appearance of Crewe is very pleasing. The streets are wide, and well paved; the houses are very neat and commodious, usually of two stories, built of bricks, but the brick concealed by rough-cast plaster, with porches, lattice-windows, and a little piece of garden-ground before the door. The greater part of these houses belong to the company, and are let to the men at rents from 2s. 9d. per week upward. The accommodation is good, and it would be difficult to find such houses at such low rents even in the suburbs of a large town. Water is plentifully supplied by public pumps, and the town is well lighted with gas. The names of the streets are expressive: some are called after the towns to which their direction points—such as Liverpool, Chester, Sandbach, &c.; others from the works to which they lead—such as Forge-street; and others from well-known but very modern names—such as Prince Albert-street. The placards on the walls, however, seem somewhat out of place in a railway town, as nearly all have relation to sales of cattle, timber, &c., indicating clearly enough that Crewe is but a mechanical settlement in an agricultural district. The market-place is spacious, and roofed over; the church is a handsome edifice of stone; and the Mechanics' Institution a fine building with a large lecture-room (used also as a town-hall), a good library and news-room, and commodious class-rooms. These were all built by the company; and indeed the completeness of every thing connected with the town gives evidence of such an amplitude of means possessed by its founders, as seldom, if ever, fall to the lot of private individuals.
The most interesting objects, however, about Crewe are the railway works. These are placed on a large tongue of land near the station, and so adapted, that wagons, and carriages, and engines can easily be run into them from the main line. In these works every thing connected with "the rolling stock" of the company for the northern section of the line (Walnerton being used for the southern) is made and repaired. The number of hands employed at present is about eight hundred; but formerly, when railways were more prosperous than now, it exceeded a thousand. The workmen seem to belong, in tolerably equal proportions, to the four great divisions of the United Kingdom; and the slow, deliberate speech of the Scot, the rich brogue of the Irishman, and the sharp, quick utterance of the Welshman, have lost very little of their purity and richness amid the air of the county palatine of Chester. The greater portion of the work is carried on in long, largo sheds, for the most part of one story, and called the "fitting," "erecting," and other shops, according to the nature of the work done in them. The artisans may be divided into two great classes—the workers in metal, and those in wood; the former being employed in making locomotives' wheels, axles, springs, &c., and the latter in constructing the carriages. By far the greatest number of hands are employed in the former.
That our hasty inspection may begin at the beginning, let us peep at the foundry. Both brass and iron are east here, but to-day it is iron. The sandy floor is covered with moulds of all descriptions, and swarthy workmen are preparing them to receive the melted iron. Occasionally you are startled by the shout of "Mind your eye!" which must be taken in its literal signification, for it comes from a moulder blowing away with a bellows the superfluous grains of fine sand, which, if once in the eye, will give some trouble. The moulds are ready, the furnace is opened, and a stream of bright white metal rolls out into the pots prepared for its reception, and is speedily poured into the moulds. In an adjoining shed are blacksmiths plying forehammers; but their greatest efforts are entirely eclipsed by the mighty steam-hammer that is seen at work in another part of the shed. This hammer is the invention of Mr. Nasmyth, of the Bridgewater Foundry, near Manchester. It moves up and down in a strong frame, at a speed subject to such nice regulations, that, according to the will of its director, it can gently drive a nail, or crush to splinters a log of wood. When Lord John Russell lately visited Manchester, the delicate touch of this hammer was strikingly displayed before him: an egg was procured, and placed in a wine-glass, and such was the power possessed over this giant, that after a little adjustment, the mighty hammer was brought repeatedly down so as just to chip the egg as gently as by a spoon in the hands of a child, while the glass was not in the slightest degree injured or disturbed. The labor saved by this hammer is immense. One man sits perched up on the frame to direct it, and another stands below to guide the iron on the anvil. The great long bar, white with heat, is pulled out of the furnace, laid on the massive piece of iron under the frame, and, with a dull, heavy sound, down conies the hammer, swiftly or slowly, according to the wishes of the director. From the forge and the foundry the "rough-hewn" iron-work passes to be planed, and its surface to be made "true." The wheel of an engine or a carriage, for example, after being forged by the black-smith, requires to be most carefully cut round the rim, so that the space between the flange—that is, the projecting inner part of the wheel, and the outer part—may be perfectly conical, in order that the least amount of surface may be exposed to the rail, and consequently the least amount of friction produced. Again, when a cylinder comes from the foundry, the interior must be cut and polished to a perfect circle, otherwise it would be useless. In short, there is no part of a locomotive that does not require to be prepared with the most perfect accuracy to fit some other part; and if this accuracy is not gained, the engine will either not work at all, or work very imperfectly. It must be remembered that it is hard metal, like iron and brass, that has thus to be wrought on, not comparatively soft material, like wood and stone.
But the machinery employed at Crewe seems capable of cutting any thing, even though it were a rock of adamant. You pass into a shed full of little machines, standing separate from each other, with all manner of curious wheels and belts, driven by steam, of course, and each with a man stationed by its side, gazing attentively at the little machine, as if he were absorbed in thought; and, indeed, were it not for an occasional quick movement of his hands, and a rapid change of position, you might almost suppose that he was sleeping on his legs. But go close up, and you notice that the machine is slowly moving backward and forward, and still more slowly at the same time in a lateral direction. Some curious piece of mechanism is placed on it, and the movements of the machine cause a sharp steel-cutter to pass over the iron surface, which cuts it as easily and truly as a joiner planes a piece of fir. The side motion brings all the surface gradually under the instrument, but the machine, clever and powerful though it is, requires to be constantly watched and regulated, and hence the fixed attention of the man in charge. At a large machine, you will see those long, curious rods called "eccentrics" undergoing this operation; at another, a cylinder is being planed; and at a third, the rims of wheels are being cut. The filings thus made are preserved, and will be seen in large heaps in a yard, ready to be melted down, and "used up" again. In some cases both iron and brass filings are produced, which, of course, are mixed with each other; but in a quiet corner of one of the sheds you will find a boy with a heap of these filings before him, separating the brass from the iron by means of a magnet. Only imagine a boy of fourteen or fifteen doing nothing all day long except raking a magnet through a heap of black and yellow dust, and brushing into a separate heap the iron filings off his magnet! You will also see a series of three iron rollers working on each other, by means of which plate iron can be twisted into any given form; a mighty "punch" which will make a hole an inch in diameter through iron an inch in thickness as easily as though it were clay; and a sharp-cutting instrument that shears through sheets of iron as easily as a pair of scissors through a sheet of paper.
Go into another shed, and you will see all these various parts getting their last touches from the hand, and being fitted into each other; and here, also you find two or three men engraving, on circular segments of brass, the names the various engines are to be known by. In another shed the engines are being "erected." Here you see from twenty to thirty in all stages of progress. Perhaps the framework only has been laid; or the boiler, with its many rows of long, circular brass tubes, has just been fastened, and is now receiving its outer clothing of long slips of wood; or the whole is complete, merely wanting to be tried on the many lines of rail in and around the sheds. There are two classes of engines here, whose difference is observable at a glance: some have six wheels, two of which are very large, about six feet in diameter, and the other four much smaller. The two first only are driven by the machinery, the others being merely what are called "bearing wheels." With this description of engine more speed than power is obtained, and hence it is used for passenger trains, where a high velocity is required, and where there is usually little weight, comparatively speaking, to draw. The others have only four wheels, not so large as the two just described, but all driven by the machinery. Such engines I are more remarkable for power than speed, and accordingly they are used for luggage trains. In another shed, "The Hospital," will be found a number of engines laboring under various disorders, sent here to be repaired.
But carriages and wagons are also built here. You enter a shed (of two stories this time), and find wood shavings instead of iron filings, and the hissing of a circular saw instead of the quiet, steady scraping of a "cutter." Here all the woodwork of the carriages is executed, and when ready they are hoisted through a large trap-door in the roof to the second story, where they are painted and varnished, and, if first-class, "up-holstered." In a store-room above stairs, are piled heaps of cushions ready for the most expensive carriages; at a table is a boy stuffing with horse-hair the leathern belts that hang by the sides of the windows; and elsewhere an artist is painting the arms of the company on the panels of a door. Here and there are boards placed before a carriage, with the intimation "Wet!" indicating that you must not go too near; and some of the carriages give evidence of having seen service, but are now renewing their youth under the skillful hands of the painter and the upholsterer. When ready to "go on the line," they are let down through the trap-door, fixed on their wheels and axles, and sent to relieve others that require repair.
Six o'clock strikes, and work ceases. In walking back leisurely to the station, I saw many of the workmen digging in their little gardens, "bringing themselves," as Emerson phrases it, "into primitive relations with the soil and nature;" others were reading the papers of the day at the Mechanics' Institution; others strolling among the green fields round the town; and others walking to a class-room, to hear a teetotal lecture; while some were proceeding to recreations of a very different kind. I was admitted through the iron gate by the same policeman; the "down" express train arrived, and it conveyed me in an hour and a half to Liverpool, a distance of about forty-five miles, stopping only once at the well-known town of Warrington.