Some novel experiments were made, and in order to identify the trains, the houses in which the observers took their places with recording instruments were connected by telephone with the signal-boxes at the adjoining stations. Quite satisfactory were the results, and it was found that, during some two hours, the passing of every train drawn by the heavy gearless locomotive was distinctly felt, but was not discernible when the new engines were attached. Therefore the Committee concluded that, so far as the Central was concerned, the adoption of motor-cars would so reduce the tremblement de terre as to cause all real annoyance to cease, though the sound of the trains, particularly at night, might still be detected. As to the oscillation of the cars—a rather marked feature in the Tube—it was attributed by the Committee’s experts to the unevenness of the surface of the rails. As these leave the rolling-mills they are usually slightly curved, and the process of straightening them in situ, however skilfully carried out, inevitably leaves a certain amount of waviness. When the speed is high, a condition of things soon arises whereby the irregular impulses produced by the uneven rail surfaces establishes a rocking movement of the rails and the road-bed, converting both into an elastic instead of a rigid support. This is increased and maintained by the pounding of the gearless locomotives in the narrow tubes, intensified by the hard unyielding material of which they are composed.
Another fact to which the Committee called attention was, that in consequence of the small diameter of the tunnels (12 feet), the fit was too close, and the pressure in front of the trains necessitated greater power to overcome it than if more space had been left between the roofs of the carriages and the tubes.
In the agitation respecting damage alleged to have been done by the construction of the Tubes, it was proved that provided the apertures are made of sufficient size, and suitable locomotives used, and the permanent way properly laid with stiffer and deeper rails, the chance of injury to houses by the moviéndo la tiérra, as the Spaniards call it, can be reduced to a minimum.
Modern science tells us that earth tremblings are with us at all times and in all places to an extent not realised. We are assured that, by Professor J. Milne’s instruments, quiverings, and slopings of the earth’s crust, insensible to the most delicate spirit-levels, can be detected. It is now known that earthquake movements can be felt right through the earth, and all round its surface. Latterly, Professor Milne has also discovered that his observatory in the Isle of Wight sinks slowly during a part of the year, and rises as slowly during another part—as if the breast of the earth were heaving. For five months in the year, the tall buildings in a city may be heeling over towards the west; then they come back with extreme slowness to the perpendicular, and finally cant a little to the east.
Surely, then, we need not complain about an occasional mild earth-shake produced by the passing of the useful Underground, or Tube trains, seeing that the good they do so far outweighs their defects.
CHAPTER VIII
TOURING IN THE TUBES
A SKETCH
“She doth stray about.”—Shakespeare.
MRS. ROSAMOND was a pleasant, chatty, little woman, and a universal favourite. Her abundant hair was brown, her eyes, shaded by long dark lashes, were deepest blue, and above them rose, not the “bar of Michael Angelo,” but a low, smooth, and pretty forehead, where, however, a phrenologist would have looked in vain for the faintest trace of the “bump of locality.” She was a shrewd judge of character in men and women, especially the former. She loved beautiful scenery and everything refined in art and literature. She had great sympathy with the suffering and distressed; but her ability to take mental notes of things and places, and to find her way about towns and cities, as some do by instinct, was utterly wanting in Lilian Rosamond; yet, with the strange perversity that impels people with bad eyesight to drive dog-carts or motor-cars, or to steer yachts, she persisted in going about strange localities unaccompanied, and when any expedition was planned, audaciously posed as an authority on quickest and best routes. But she was a native of the fair “North countree,” and, lying perdu beneath her sweet disposition, was a vein—a thin one—of self-will.
“Why,” she argued, “should she not find her way about like other people? Had she not from childhood lived at Lymm, Cheshire, and roamed about that district without difficulty? Had she not frequently travelled to the old county city? Had she not braved the terrors of the Great Central Station at Manchester en route for Halifax—changed carriages there, in fact? And had she not once actually journeyed all by herself to London on a visit, returning safely to her own town?” All of which was perfectly true, but she omitted to add that, in going up to town, her parents had, as it were, to see her “labelled and consigned” through the medium of a fatherly guard, while her friends in town had been strictly enjoined on no account to miss meeting her at Euston, and never to let her go anywhere in the metropolis unaccompanied. In fact, her family were in an agony of suspense until she was back again.
Mrs. Rosamond had married a gentleman-farmer of Welsh extraction, and her life had fallen on pleasant lines in a remote Radnorshire village bearing an unpronounceable name made up of consonants. The year 1902 arrived, and with it, in June, an invitation from her sister-in-law to spend Coronation week with her in Edith Road, West Kensington; and off she started, her easy-going husband, who had seldom tested his wife’s sense (or absence) of locality, and had no suspicion of how much it was lacking, merely remarking as he saw her into the train, “Now, my dear, mind you wait at Paddington a reasonable time to see if Annie is there to meet you. She is not always punctual, and if she does not turn up, take a cab. Don’t attempt to get to Edith Road by omnibus or Underground Railway. You don’t know London, and a four-wheeler will be cheaper in the long run. Now, don’t forget this, there’s a dear little woman, or I shall worry all day long about you.”