CHAPTER III.
WHO BEGAN RAILROADS?—"PUFFING BILLY."
Familiar as it has become to us, who does not stop to look with interest at the puffing, snorting, screaming steam-horse? And who does not rejoice in the iron-rail, which binds together, with its slender threads, the north and the south, and makes neighbours of the east and the west?
"Who began railroads?" ask the boys again and again.
The first idea of the modern railroad had its birth at a colliery nearly two hundred years ago. In order to lighten the labour of the horses, the colliers laid straight pieces of wood into the road leading from the pit to the river, where the coal was discharged; and the waggons were found to run so much easier, that one horse could draw four or five chaldrons. As wood quickly wore out, and moreover was liable to rot, the next step was nailing plates of iron on the wooden rails; which gave them for a time the name of "plate-way roads." A Mr. Outram making still further improvements, they were called "Outram roads," or, for shortness' sake, "tram-roads;" and tram-roads came into general use at the English collieries.
"There's mischief in those tram-roads," said a large canal owner, foreseeing they would one day drive canal stock quite out of the market.
Improvements thus far had centred on the roads. To convoy heavy loads easier and faster was the point aimed at. Nobody had yet thought of self-going trains. Watt, the father of steam-engines, said steam-carriages might be built. He, however, never tried one, but rather left the idea to sprout in the brain of an old pupil of his, William Murdock, who did construct a very small one, running on thin wheels, and heated by a lamp. It was a curious success in its way, and set other minds thinking.
One of these was a tin-miner of Cornwall, Captain Trovethick, a friend of Murdock, who joined a cousin of his in getting a patent for building a steam-carriage. It was built, and an odd piece of machinery it was. It ran on four wheels over a common road, looked like a stage-coach, and delighted both the inventor and his friends.
They determined to exhibit it at London. While on its journey, driving it one day at the top of its speed, they saw a toll-gate in the distance. Not being able to check it in time, bump it went against the gate, which flew open in a trice, leaving the affrighted toll-man, in answer to their inquiry, "How much to pay?" only able to gasp out, "No—nothing to pay! Drive off as fast as you can! Nothing to pay!"
It reached London in safety, and was some time on exhibition. Multitudes flocked to see it, and some called it a fiery dragon.