The two engines completing the number to Newton are nearly ready for trial, and it is to be presumed that, after the experience of the past, the makers will be enabled to put them at once into an efficient state.
The delays and difficulties attending the bringing into operation the Atmospheric System upon this portion of the railway have been beyond all anticipation, and beyond what any previous experience would have justified anybody in anticipating. The difficulties have all been seriously aggravated by the necessity (consequent, certainly, upon the original delays) of working the line with locomotives during the construction and completion of the Atmospheric apparatus. Not only has the constant occupation of the line interfered with the progress of the work, but it has been necessary to devise all the arrangements so as to admit stations, sidings, and line being worked either by locomotive or by Atmospheric in succession, or even at the same time.
These difficulties, added to those always consequent upon the introduction of any new system, have been most wearying and incessant, and I am not surprised that the public and the proprietors should have been impatient. I trust the ultimate result will remove any grounds for disappointment.
The stress of personal anxiety and personal fatigue, experienced by Mr. Brunel and by all who were engaged in the work, was very severe, and continued so to the end. Not only was the progress in the completion of the work slow, but in spite of every exertion the results were incessantly marred by unfortunate contingencies which involved further delay, discouragement, and expenditure. Moreover, the reaction which followed the railway mania had set in; calls were ill responded to, and great difficulty was experienced in raising the money requisite for the completion of the line.
Under these circumstances it was resolved, on September 1, not to incur any new expenses in relation to the Atmospheric System beyond Totness, and to limit any expenditure already contracted for, until its working between Exeter and Totness had been fairly tried, except to provide assistant power up the two inclines.
On September 8 the Atmospheric trains began to take their share in the passenger duty of the line, four trains running each way daily; and, except when occasional mishaps caused delay, the new mode of traction was almost universally approved of. The motion of the train, relieved of the impulsive action of the locomotive, was singularly smooth and agreeable; and the passengers were freed from the annoyance of coke dust and the sulphureous smell from the engine chimney.
In other respects the record of progress is but a chequered one, and exhibits, in spite of great and able efforts and brightening intervals of occasional improvement, indications of growing difficulties deepening into ultimate defeat.
In examining the chronicle of events which correspondence and memoranda supply, it is inevitable that references to failure and disaster should be found relatively in far greater abundance than records of success; and this for the simple reason that there was at that time great use in taking note of the unfavourable incidents that occurred, almost none in mentioning successful work.
There is therefore some danger of falling into a mood of unjust depreciation, such as Mr. Brunel had in energetic terms urged the Directors to guard themselves against. He protested against their requiring (as they once intended to do)—
continuous and detailed reports—if true and honest, of course containing nothing but accounts of mishaps—of a system which (he says) we are struggling to render perfect. Why, a daily account of our locomotive mishaps would ruin the locomotive system, if it were new! I will undertake to say that the mishaps of yesterday or to-day on the Great Western Railway were as great as that of Tuesday on the South Devon.