“At first the gray had the best of it, for his steam would be applied to the greatest advantage on the instant, while the engine had to wait until the rotation of the wheels set the blower to work. The horse was perhaps a quarter of a mile ahead when the safety valve of the engine lifted, and the thin blue vapor issuing from it showed an excess of steam. The blower whistled, the steam blew off in vapory clouds, the pace increased; the passengers shouted, the engine gained on the horse; soon it lapped him; the silk was plied; the race was ‘neck-and-neck, nose-and-nose;’ then the engine passed the horse, and a great hurrah hailed the victory. But it was not repeated, for just at this time, when the gray’s master was about giving up, the band which draws the pulley which moved the blower slipped from the drum, the safety-valve ceased to scream, and the engine, for want of breath, began to wheeze and pant. While Mr. Cooper, who was his own engineer and fireman, lacerated his hands in vain attempts to replace the band upon the wheel, the horse gained on the machine and passed it, and although the band was presently replaced and steam again did its best, the horse was too far ahead to be overtaken, and came in the winner of the race.”
The numerous excursions, trial trips of engines, and public demonstrations made in the interests of improvements, from 1830 to 1840, on roads chartered in 1825-26-27-28, did not inspire confidence as good investments. They were looked upon chiefly as curiosities, mixed with great discomfort and danger, and received huzzahs and new patrons at each juncture, those making the trip one day surrendering their places with admiration to others, much after the plan of those who took in the curiosity show of the horse “having his tail where his head ought to be.” A railroad excursion of governors, senators, judges, lawyers, divines, doctors, and other good people—special guests of several hundred—to ride on strap-iron rails, housed in old coach bodies or on open platform boxes, with the bumping and jerking of trucks attached to each other by abundance of slack chain, a beer-bottle engine and pine knots to make steam, enables the imagination to see the likeness of the unfortunate colored fireman with respect, though a slave, for the exhibition of a sense of comfort before, if not after, he “punched up the fire and closed down the lever to the safety-valve and sat upon it to keep the steam and smoke out of his eyes.”
While great enthusiasm existed in favor of railroads every-where during the thirties, the moneyed man and the man who desired to travel with comfort regardless of time did not take much stock in the enterprise. And the gentleman who wrote the following in his diary was one of a large class who viewed the present as complete, and that they could not endure pleasantly any discomfort that might repay to others in the future great pleasure:
“July 22, 1835.—This morning at nine o’clock I took passage in a railroad car (from Boston) for Providence. Five or six other cars were attached to the locomotive, and uglier boxes I do not wish to travel in. They were made to stow away some thirty human beings who sit, cheek by jowl, as best they can. The poor fellows who were not much in the habit of making their toilet squeezed me into a corner, while the hot sun drew from their garments a villainous compound of smells made up of salt fish, tar and molasses. By and by, just twelve—only twelve—bouncing factory girls were introduced, who were going on a party of pleasure to Newport. ‘Make room for the ladies!’ bawled out the superintendent. ‘Come, gentlemen, jump up on the top, plenty of room there.’ ‘I’m afraid the bridge knocking my brains out,’ said a passenger. Some made one excuse and some another. For my part, I flatly told him that since I belonged to the Corps of Silver Grays, I had lost my gallantry, and did not intend to move. The whole twelve were, however, introduced, and soon made themselves at home, sucking lemons and eating green apples. The rich and the poor, the educated and the ignorant, the polite and the vulgar, all herd together in this modern improvement in traveling. The consequence is a complete amalgamation. Master and servant sleep heads and points on the cabin floor of the steamer, feed at the same table, sit in each other’s laps as it were in the cars; and all this for the sake of doing very uncomfortably in two days what would be done delightfully in eight or ten. Shall we be much longer kept by this toilsome fashion of hurrying, hurrying, from starting (those who can afford it) on a journey with our own horses, and moving slowly, surely and profitably through the country, with the power of enjoying its beauty, and be the means of creating good inns? Undoubtedly a line of post-horses and post-chaises would long ago have been established along our great roads had not steam monopolized every thing.
“Talk of ladies on board a steamboat or in a railroad car—there are none. I never feel like a gentlemen there, and I can not perceive a semblance of gentility in any one who makes part of the traveling mob. When I see women whom, in their drawing-rooms or elsewhere, I have been accustomed to respect and treat with every suitable deference—when I see them, I say, elbowing their way through a crowd of dirty emigrants, or low-bred homespun fellows in petticoats or breeches in our country, in order to reach a table spread for a hundred or more, I lose sight of their pretentions to gentility, and view them as belonging to the plebeian herd. To restore herself to her caste, let a lady move in select company at five miles an hour, and take her meals in comfort at a good inn, where she may dine decently. After all the old-fashioned way of five or six miles, with liberty to dine decently in a decent inn, and be master of one’s movements, with the delight of seeing the country and getting along rationally, is the mode to which I cling, and which will be adopted again by the generations of after times.”[27]
Information in regard to railroading in its true sense, was circumscribed to experiment, which retarded the progress of improvement. The belief in lasting solidity, making the expense of building the road-bed more than necessary, so much so that it was estimated in the Eastern States, that about ten miles a year were all one company could properly construct.
Most engineers at first fell into the same error—making heavy stone walls for the road-bed. The blocks into which the wooden plugs were driven for the spikes to hold the rails were frequently resting upon solid masonry, four feet high and two and a half feet wide. After done, it was discovered a mistake; that an inelastic road-bed and speed were incompatible and disastrous to the machinery, and the intelligent State of Massachusetts, from the time the first locomotive was put upon the track (March, 1834) until 1841, had shown little advancement in the proper application of steam, as well as construction of road-beds and rails.
Robert Fulton expected his discovery would find its highest usefulness as a motive-power on railroads, as it has done; but his brother-in-law and partner did not deem the thing practicable as long as the insuperable objections named existed, and all attempts were passed to others, as the following letter shows, with day and date:
“Albany, March 1st, 1811,
“Dear Sir: I did not until yesterday receive yours of February 25th; where it has been loitering on the road I am at a loss to say. I had before read of your very ingenious proposition as to the railway communications. I fear, however, on mature reflection, that they will be liable to serious objection, and ultimately more expensive than a canal. They must be double, so as to prevent the danger of two such bodies meeting. The walls on which they are to be placed should at least be four feet below the surface and three feet above, and must be clamped with iron, and even then would hardly sustain so heavy a weight as you propose moving at the rate of four miles an hour on wheels. As to wood, it would not last a week. They must be covered with iron, and that, too, very thick and strong. The means of stopping these heavy carriages without great shock, and of preventing them from running on each other—for there would be many running on the road at once—would be very difficult. In cases of accidental stops to take wood and water, etc., many accidents would happen. The carriage of condensing water would be very troublesome. Upon the whole, I fear the expense would be much greater than that of canals, without being so convenient.
“R. R. Livingston.”
Ordinary business men, and even accomplished engineers, manifested as little knowledge in regard to the principles of science in railroading as they did in regard to the telegraph. Both were new fields for experiment, and both operators made many ridiculous mistakes.
When William D. Wesson announced he would demonstrate the practicability of sending and receiving messages over his wires stretched on poles from Chillicothe to Columbus, and vice versa, many persons had business into the city on that day, but ostensibly to witness the wonderful performance.