Life in a Railway Factory

by Alfred Williams

The workshop is modern in structure and has not stood for more than fifteen years. Before that time the work proceeded on a much smaller scale, and was carried on in a shed built almost entirely of wood and corrugated iron — a dark, wretched place, without light or ventilation, save for the broken windows and rents in the low, depressed roof. With the development of the industry and general expansion of trade this became altogether inadequate to cope with the requirements of the other sheds, and a move had to be made to larger and more commodious premises. Thereupon a site was chosen and a new shop erected about a quarter of a mile distant. The walls of this are of brick, built with “piers” and “panels,” thirty feet high, solid, massive, and substantial, with no pretence to show of any kind. The roof is constructed in bays running north and south, according to the disposition of the long walls, and presents a serrated appearance, like the teeth of a huge saw. Of these bays the slopes towards sunrise are filled in with stout panes of glass; the opposite sides are of strong boards covered with slates, the whole supported by massive sectional principals and a network of stout iron girders.

The roof is studded with hundreds of wooden ventilators intended to carry off the smoke and fumes from the forges. Above them tower numerous furnace stacks and chimneys from the boilers, with the exhaust pipes of the engines and steam-hammers. Towards summer, when the days lengthen and the sun pours down interminable volumes of light and heat from a cloudless sky, or when the air without is charged with electricity and the thunder bellows and rolls over the hills and downs to the south, and the forked lightning flashes reveal every corner of the dark smithy so that the heat becomes almost unbearable, a large quantity of the glass is removed to aid ventilation; the heat, assisted by the ground current, rises and escapes through the roof. But when the rain comes and the heavy showers, driven at an angle by the wind, beat furiously through upon the half-naked workmen beneath, even this is not an unmixed blessing. Or when the sun shoots his hot arrows down through the openings upon the toilers at the steam-hammers and forges, as he always does twice during the morning — once before breakfast, and again at about eleven o’clock — it is productive of increased discomfort; the sweat flows faster and the work flags. This does not last long, however. Southward goes the sun, and shade succeeds.

The eastern and western ends of the shed are almost half taken up with large sliding doors, that reach as high as to the roof. These rest on wheels which are superimposed upon iron rails, so that a child might push them backwards and forwards. Through several of the doors rails are laid to permit of engines and waggons entering with loads of material — iron and steel for the furnaces — and also for conveying away the manufactures. A narrow bogie line runs round the shed and is used for transferring materials from one part to another and to the various hydraulic presses and forges. Here and there are fixed small turn-tables to enable the bogies to negotiate the angles and move from track to track.

Southward the shed faces a yard of about ten acres in extent. This is bounded on every side by other workshops and premises, all built of the same dingy materials — brick, slate, and iron — blackened with smoke, dust, and steam, surmounted with tall chimneys, innumerable ventilators, and poles for the telephone wires, which effectually block out all perspective. To view it from the interior is like looking around the inner walls of a fortress. There is no escape for the eye; nothing but bricks and mortar, iron and steel, smoke and steam arising. It is ugly; and the sense of confinement within the prison-like walls of the factory renders it still more dismal to those who have any thought of the hills and fields beyond. Only in summer does it assume a brighter aspect. Then the sun scalds down on the network of rails and ashen ground with deadly intensity; the atmosphere quivers and trembles; the fine dust burns under your feet, and the steel tracks glitter under the blinding rays. The clouds of dazzling steam from the engines are no longer visible — the air being too hot to admit of condensation — and the black smoke from the furnaces and boilers hangs in the air, lifeless and motionless, like a pall, for hours and hours together.

But when the summer is over, when the majesty of July and August is past and gone and golden September gives place to rainy October, or, most of all, when dull, gloomy November covers the skies with its impenetrable veil of drab cloud and mist day after day and week after week, with scarcely an hour of sunshine, the utter dismalness and ugliness of the place are appalling. Then there is not a vestige of colour. The sky, roofs, walls, the engines moving to and fro, the rolling stock, the stacks of plates and ingots of iron and steel, the sleepers for the rails, the ground beneath — everything is dark, sombre, and repellant. Not a glint upon the steel lines! Not a refraction of light from the slates on the roof! Everything is dingy, dirty, and drab. And drab is the mind of the toiler all this time, drab as the skies above and the walls beneath. Doomed to the confinement from which there is no escape, he accepts the condition and is swallowed up in his environment.

There is one point, and only one, a few paces west of the shed, from which an inspiriting view may be had. There, on a fine day, from between two towering walls, in the little distance, blue almost as the sky and yet distinct and well-defined, may be seen a great part of Liddington Hill, crowned with the castellum, the scene of many a lively contest in prehistoric days, and the holy of holies of Richard Jefferies, who spent days and nights there trying to fathom the supreme mystery that has baffled so many great and ardent souls. When the sky is clear and the air free from mist and haze — especially as it appears sometimes in the summer months, under a southern wind, or before or after rain — so distinct does the sloping line of the hill show, with its broad front towards you, that you may even perceive the common features and details of it. Then you may plainly view the disposition of the stone walls running from top to base, with the white chalk-pits gleaming like snow in the distance, and tell the outer wall of the entrenchment. In short, you might imagine yourself to be standing within the mound and looking out over the magnificent valley — north, east, and west; towards Bristol, over Cirencester, and beyond Witney and Oxford. But in the winter even this is denied. Then the dark lowering clouds sweep along the downs and shut them out of view, or grey mist fills the intervening valley, or the rain, falling in torrents or driving in the furious south-west gale, hides it completely; or if it is at all visible under the cold sky, it seems so far removed and the distance so intensified as to lose all resemblance to a hill and to look like a dim blue cloud faintly seen on the horizon, and which is no more than a suggestion, a shape phantasmal.

Everywhere about the yard is evidence of industry and activity; there all is suggestive of toil, labour, and power. On the right, stretching for a quarter of a mile, are hundreds upon hundreds of wheels, tyres, and axles for carriages and waggons, in every phase and degree of fitness; some fresh from the rolling mills — from Sheffield and Scotland — some turned and fitted in the lathe, huge jointless tyres newly unladen waiting to take their turn in the operation of fitting them to the wheels, and others finished, wheels, tyres, and axle compact, dipped in tar — except the journals — to prevent them from rusting, and all ready to be placed underneath the waggons. There are wheels of solid steel, wheels with spokes, and wheels of oak, teak, and even of paper composition, of many sorts and sizes, for smooth-running carriages. One would think there were enough of them to stock the whole railway system, but a few weeks of steady consumption would thin them down, and the yard would soon be bare and empty if fresh consignments were not every day arriving.

In front of the wheels, in rows and lines, are the huge cast-iron blocks and dies used for punching and pressing by the hydraulic machines. They are of all shapes and dimensions, puzzling to the eye of the stranger, but easily identified by those who are accustomed to use them, and who have been acquainted with them perhaps from boyhood. There are sets for “joggling” and “up-setting,” and others for shaping and levelling. In the midst of them stands a stout, three-legged machine called a “sheer legs.” To this is attached strong pulley blocks for lifting the sets from the ground — many of them weigh considerably more than a ton; afterwards a stout bogie is run underneath and the blocks are lowered and so carried off to the field of operations.

Many an accident has happened in the conveyance of blocks and dies to and from their destination; many a bruised foot or broken limb has resulted from a lack of carefulness and attention on the part of the workmen. The slightest disregard may lead to injury. The bogie may slip, or the block slide, and woe be to the individual who chances to be in the way of the falling mass. Unassuming, and even valueless as this collection of dies may appear to the uninitiated, it is really worth a huge sum, for manufacturing tools are of a very expensive character.

Close on the left is a long line of waggons laden with coal fresh from the Welsh pits, and near by is a large bunk into which it is emptied to allow of the speedy return of the vehicles — an important item in railway administration. Here the dark and grimy coal heavers, with faces as black as the mineral they are handling, grunt and sweat, their eyes obtaining peculiar prominence from being inset in a ground of ebony, and their teeth glistening pearly white through the blackened lips, appearing the more remarkable if they should smile at you. For even they will brighten up sometimes. Hard and laborious as their toil is, they will now and then relax into pleasantry and relieve the tedium of work with a snatch of song and hilarity.