Mr. Stephenson. I am sure you must.’
In other parts of the engineering evidence there are some statements which read strangely enough at the present day, as for example the following: ‘The noise of two trains passing in a tunnel would shake the nerves of this assembly. I do not know such a noise. No passenger would be induced to go twice.’
[43] At this time the Lords’ committees were open to all peers who chose to sit on them, and it was not considered indecorous for peers who had not attended any of the previous sittings to vote on the division.
[44] The Great Western Railway was constructed with but few deviations from the line sanctioned in 1835. The only alteration of any importance was at the London end, where, by an Act passed in 1836, the line was taken to Paddington, instead of joining the London and Birmingham Railway near Kensal Green. This change of plan was rendered necessary by reason of a difficulty having arisen between the two companies as to the terms of their agreement, and not, as has been often stated, in consequence of the adoption of the broad gauge on the Great Western line.
[45] Sir William Armstrong’s hydraulic machinery at Paddington is described by him in a communication printed in the Report of the British Association for 1854, p. 418: ‘I have also applied it [water pressure machinery] extensively to railway purposes chiefly under the direction of Mr. Brunel, who has found a multitude of cases involving lifting or traction power in which it may be made available. Most of these applications are well exemplified at the new station of the Great Western Railway Company in London, where the loading and unloading of trucks, the hoisting into warehouses, the lifting of loaded trucks from one level to another, the moving of turn-tables, and the hauling of trucks and traversing machines are all performed, or about to be so, by means of hydraulic pressure supplied by one central steam engine with connected accumulators.’
[47] No copy of this report can be found; but documents of subsequent date sufficiently indicate the nature of the arguments Mr. Brunel used in it.
Mr. Brunel had about this time given much attention to the principles of wheel carriages, as is manifested by an interesting article ‘On Draught’ written by him for the work on ‘The Horse,’ published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.
[48] With regard to this point, Mr. Brunel afterwards admitted that he had held a mistaken opinion. In speaking of his reasons for adopting the narrow gauge on the Taff Vale Railway in 1838, he said before the Gauge Commission:—‘One of the reasons, I remember, was one which would not influence me now; but at that time I certainly assumed that the effect of curves was such, that the radius of the curve might be measured in units of the gauge, in which I have since found myself to have been mistaken.’
[49] See Mr. Brunel’s report of August 1838, printed in Appendix I. p. 528.