〈ESCAPES MEETING BRUNEL.〉
I then told him that but for the merest accident I should have met him on the same line at the rate of forty miles, and that I had attached to my engine my experimental carriage, and three waggons with thirty tons of iron. I then inquired what course he would have pursued if he had perceived another engine meeting him upon his own line.
Brunel said, in such a case he should have put on all the steam he could command, with a view of driving off the opposite engine by the superior velocity of his own. {325}
If the concussion had occurred, the probability is, that Brunel’s engine would have been knocked off the rail by the superior momentum of my train, and that my experimental carriage would have been buried under the iron contained in the waggons behind.
These rates of travelling were then unusual, but have now become common. The greatest speed which I have personally witnessed, occurred on the return of a train from Bristol, on the occasion of the floating of the “Great Britain.” I was in a compartment, in conversation with three eminent engineers, when one of them remarked the unusual speed of the train: my neighbour on my left took out his watch, and noted the time of passage of the distance posts, whence it appeared that we were then travelling at the rate of seventy-eight miles an hour. The train was evidently on an incline, and we did not long sustain that dangerous velocity.
One very cold day I found Dr. Lardner making experiments on the Great Western Railway. He was drawing a series of trucks with an engine travelling at known velocities. At certain intervals, a truck was detached from his train. The time occupied by this truck before it came to rest was the object to be noted. As Dr. Lardner was short of assistants, I and my son offered to get into one of his trucks and note for him the time of coming to rest.
〈SAILS ACROSS HANWELL VIADUCT.〉
Our truck having been detached, it came to rest, and I had noted the time. After waiting a few minutes, I thought I perceived a slight motion, which continued, though slowly. It then occurred to me that this must arise from the effect of the wind, which was blowing strongly. On my way to the station, feeling very cold, I had purchased three yards of coarse blue woollen cloth, which I wound round my person. This I now unwound; we held it up as a sail, and gradually acquiring {326} greater velocity, finally reached and sailed across the whole of the Hanwell viaduct at a very fair pace.
〈THE BATTLE OF THE GAUGES.〉
The question of the best gauge for a system of railways is yet undecided. The present gauge of 4·8½ was the result of the accident that certain tram-roads adjacent to mines were of that width. When the wide gauge of the Great Western was suggested and carried out, there arose violent party movements for and against it. At the meeting of the British Association at Newcastle, in 1838, there were two sources of anxiety to the Council—the discussion of the question of Steam Navigation to America, and what was called “The battles of the Gauges.” Both these questions bore very strongly upon pecuniary interests, and were expected to be fiercely contested.