By permission of Thos. Cook and Son, Ludgate Circus
From Portrush it is easy to reach the Causeway, though once there, one often has to wait for favourable weather before proceeding to explore its cavernous wonders by water.
The present length of the railway is 8½ miles of single line, its gauge being 3 feet. It is worked partly by steam and partly by electricity on the overhead system, the current being derived from a generating station three-quarters of a mile away, where three hydraulic turbines, fed by an adjoining waterfall, operate the dynamo. Although the railway is out of the way and on a small scale, the attractions of the Causeway and the surrounding district result in a respectable passenger traffic of over a hundred thousand per annum.
THE BRIGHTON BEACH RAILWAY
Under the sanction of the Brighton Town Council, the Magnus Volk Co., Ltd., now work the Brighton Beach Electric Tram-railway, which at its opening was regarded as a great novelty and curiosity, constituting an additional attraction and amusement to “London by the sea,” and tens of thousands must have taken a ride in its little open cars since it came into existence twenty years ago. The gauge is but 2 feet 8½ inches, the “feeders” are underground, the propelling system is electric, with a third rail, and its speed is about 12 miles an hour. Starting from the west pier, opposite the Royal Aquarium, it sets out on its one mile and a half route of single line and dips beneath the level of the Marine Parade to a level a little above the beach, passing en route, though hidden from view, many landmarks of old Brighton, such as Park Place and Gardens, Royal Crescent, Marine Square, and Lewes Crescent, and terminating at a point near Black Rock.
This was the eastern end of Old Brighton, noted for many an original character in the “twenties” and “thirties,” not the least interesting of whom were old Martha Gunn, queen of the bathing-machines, and Sak Deen Mahomed, a native of the East, who introduced the art of shampooing into the town, and lived to become a centenarian, his fame being enshrined in verse by James Smith, one of the authors of Rejected Addresses, who humorously predicted his longevity as follows:—
“Sprung doubtless from Abdullah’s son,
Thy miracles thy sire’s outrun,
Thy cures his deaths outnumber;
His coffin soars ’twixt heav’n and earth,
But thou, within that narrow berth,
Immortal, ne’er shall slumber.”
Many have been the changes in Brighton since those days. Arundel Terrace, Kemp Town, Ultima Thule in the east; Adelaide Crescent with Palmyra Square, its western boundary. From the fields to the north of that square could be seen, a mile or so off, the village of Hove, the intervening space being dotted with farms. No one could have dreamt that a great railway-station would be built there, with minor ones at Kemp Town, West Brighton, and Hove. Old residents could not have pictured a Grand Aquarium, a Western and Eastern Pier, nor the destruction of their familiar Chain Pier. They would be amazed at the spread of Brighton in every direction, the springing up of palatial hotels like the “Métropole” and “Grand,” and the increase of the population to some hundred and fifty thousand; while the coaching world, headed by the popular Sir St. Vincent Cotton, prince of amateur whips, and all the confraternity of coachmen and hackney-coach drivers, would have thought anyone a lunatic who had dared to prophesy that one day a conveyance drawn without horses or steam power would carry passengers along the Brighton beach!
THE CITY AND SOUTH LONDON RAILWAY
For many years prior to 1890, in Gracechurch Street, at a point near its junction with Eastcheap, could be seen every day of the week numerous omnibuses arriving between nine and eleven a.m., and departing between five and eight p.m., for the suburbs over the water. These ’buses regularly plied between London and Kennington, Walworth, Camberwell, Stockwell, Clapham, and Brixton (a few journeying to Dulwich and Peckham), for the special accommodation of dwellers in those favourite localities engaged in business during the day. Wealthy “principals” of mercantile and brokers’ firms drove to and from their comfortable Surrey villas in well-equipped carriages, the junior members in smart traps or dogcarts; but the small merchants and smaller brokers, the head clerks and the rank and file who do all the hard work, had to make use of these omnibuses, and when exceptionally bad weather prevented the vehicles running, they had to get to and from their offices as best they could on foot. To the working man, living, say, at Brixton, and engaged upon a City job, the fares—4d. to 8d.—were prohibitive. The time wasted in these conveyances was great, and at the best it was an unpleasant way of travelling; overcrowding was common, and the “fight for the trams” in 1903 is as nothing compared to the frantic rush for those omnibus seats; while on wet days the sight was piteous.