The Iron Horse

by R. M. Ballantyne

It is almost overwhelming to consider what a vast change in the condition and habits of the people of this country is implied in these figures. Forty years ago none travelled but the comparatively rich, and that only to an extent equal to about two-thirds of the present population of London. Now-a-days the poorest artisan can, and does, afford to travel, and the number of journeys performed each year on all our British railways is equal to more than the entire population of Europe! which, in Stewart’s “Modern Geography,” is set down at 285 millions. From this of course it follows, that as many thousands of men, women, and children never travel at all, many others must have undertaken numerous journeys in that year.

The facilities afforded by railways are altogether innumerable. If so disposed you may sup one night in the south of England and the next night in the north of Scotland. Thousands of families dwell in the country, while the heads thereof go to their business in town by rail every morning and return home every evening. Huntsmen, booted and spurred, are whirled off, horses and all, to distant fields, whence, after “crossing country” all day, they return to the railway and are whirled back to town in time for dinner. Navvys and artisans are conveyed to their work at a penny a mile, and monster-trains carry thousands of excursionists to scenes of rural delight that our fathers never dreamed of in their wildest flights of fancy.

One of the most remarkable and interesting facts in connexion with all this is, that although mail-coaches have been beaten off the field, there are actually more horses employed in this country now than there were in 1837, while canals are doing more business than they ever did, and are making higher profits too. In 1865 the carriage of cattle by railway amounted to between fourteen or fifteen million head of all kinds. The consumption of coal, in the same year, by our railways amounted to four million tons, and the quantity of that and other minerals carried by rail continually is enormous.

The benefit derived by the post-office also from our railways is incalculable. We cannot afford space to enter into details, but it may be truly said that but for railways the Post-Office Savings Bank system could not have existed; and of course, also, our frequent deliveries of letters and rapid as well as cheap communication with all parts of the kingdom would have been impossible. The railway service of the Post-Office is over 60,000 miles a day, and the gross sum paid by the Post-Office to railways in one year was 570,500 pounds.

These are but a few of the amazing statistics connected with our railway system, which, if fully enlarged upon, would fill a bulky volume. If our readers desire more there are several most interesting and instructive works on the subject, which are well worthy of perusal. See note 2 at the end of the chapter.

Before closing this perhaps too statistical chapter, we shall say a few words as to the construction of a railway. No one who has not looked pretty closely into the subject can form any adequate conception of the difficulties that beset an engineer-in-chief in the formation of a line of railway. We will suppose that all the Parliamentary battles have been fought, opposition overcome, the heavy expenses connected therewith paid, and the work begun.

The engineer has walked again and again over the country through which the railway is to be carried and selected the best route, his assistants having meanwhile taken for him “flying levels” and “cross levels.” Too frequently prejudice, ignorance, and selfishness interpose to prevent the best route being taken, and immense sums that might have been saved are spent in constructing the line on the next best route. As soon as the course of a line is fixed, accurate surveys are made by the assistant engineers, copies of which are placed, according to Act of Parliament, with the various clerks of the peace of the counties, through which the line is to pass, with the Commissioners of Railways and others, besides which there has to be prepared for each parish its proportion, and for each landholder a section showing the greatest depth of cutting or embankment in any of his fields.

As soon as all this has been done, and the Act of Parliament authorising the line obtained, an accurate plan and section of the whole line is made, from which the engineer ascertains and lays down its gradients, in other words its ascents and descents, determines the number and size of the bridges and viaducts to be made, calculates the quantity of embankments required to fill up hollows, and the number of cuttings to level obstructions, in which latter calculations he estimates that the cutting down of elevations will be made subservient as far as may be, to the elevation of depressions. All this involves very nice and exact calculation as to quantity of material, masonry, etcetera, and the sinking of “trial shafts” to ascertain the nature of the various strata to be excavated or tunnelled. Then the cost of all the works has to be estimated in detail, apportioned into lengths and advertised for execution by contract. To each section of the line thus apportioned—forty or fifty miles—an experienced engineer is appointed, having under him “sub-assistants,” who superintend from ten to fifteen miles each, and these again are assisted by “inspectors” of masonry, mining, earth-work and permanent way, to each of whom a district is assigned.

These managing and guiding men having been appointed, the physical workers are then called into action, in the form of bands of navvies. As the steam and mechanism of the locomotive are useless except in regulated combination, so brain and muscle can achieve nothing without wise and harmonious union. If boys and men would reflect more deeply on this great truth, pride, boasting, and the false separation of classes would be less rife. We say false, because there is a separation of classes which is natural and unavoidable. No one ever complains of that. If ill-advised or angry navvies were to refuse to work, what could directors and engineers do? If, on the other hand, ill-advised or angry directors and engineers refused to pay, what could navvies do? Antagonism is an unhealthy condition of things. There is far too much of it between employers and employed in this world. “Agree with thine adversary quickly” is a command which applies to bodies of men quite as much as to individuals, and the word is “agree,” not coerce or force. If we cannot agree, let us agree to differ; or, if that won’t do in our peculiar circumstances, then let us agree to separate. Fighting, save in self-defence, is only fit for fools.

But to return. When bone and muscle have been for the time welded to brain, then the work of construction goes on “full swing.” Difficulties and obstructions are overcome in a way that appears to the unskilled eye nothing less than miraculous. But the work is often hindered and rendered greatly more expensive by the sudden appearance of evils against which no amount of human wisdom or foresight could have guarded.