And yet his large experience of railways and locomotives, as described by himself to the Committee, entitled this “untaught, inarticulate genius,” as he has so well been styled, to speak with confidence on such a subject. Beginning with his experience as a brakesman at Killingworth in 1803, he went on to state that he was appointed to take the entire charge of the steam-engines in 1813, and had superintended the railroads connected with the numerous collieries of the Grand Allies from that time downwards. He had laid down or superintended the railways at Burradon, Mount Moor, Springwell, Bedlington, Hetton, and Darlington, besides improving those at Killingworth, South Moor, and Derwent Crook. He had constructed fifty-five steam-engines, of which sixteen were locomotives. Some of these had been sent to France. The engines constructed by him for the working of the Killingworth Railroad, eleven years before, had continued steadily at work ever since,
and fulfilled his most sanguine expectations. He was prepared to prove the safety of working high-pressure locomotives on a railroad, and the superiority of this mode of transporting goods over all others. As to speed, he said he had recommended 8 miles an hour with 20 tons, and 4 miles an hour with 40 tons; but he was quite confident that much more might be done. Indeed, he had no doubt they might go at the rate of 12 miles. As to the charge that locomotives on a railroad would so terrify the horses in the neighbourhood, that to travel on horseback or to plough the adjoining fields would be rendered highly dangerous, the witness said that horses learnt to take no notice of them, though there were horses that would shy at a wheelbarrow. A mail-coach was likely to be more shied at by horses than a locomotive. In the neighbourhood of Killingworth, the cattle in the fields went on grazing while the engines passed them, and the farmers made no complaints.
Mr. Alderson, who had carefully studied the subject, and was well skilled in practical science, subjected the witness to a protracted and severe cross-examination as to the speed and power of the locomotive, the stroke of the piston, the slipping of the wheels upon the rails, and various other points of detail. Mr. Stephenson insisted that no slipping took place, as attempted to be extorted from him by the counsel. He said, “It is impossible for slipping to take place so long as the adhesive weight of the wheel upon the rail is greater than the weight to be dragged after it.” As to accidents, Stephenson said he knew of none that had occurred with his engines. There had been one, he was told, at the Middleton Colliery, near Leeds, with a Blenkinsop engine. The driver had been in liquor, and put a considerable load on the safety-valve, so that upon going forward the engine blew up and the man was killed. But he added, if proper precautions had been used with that boiler, the accident could not have happened. The following cross-examination occurred in reference to the question of speed:—
“Of course,” he was asked, “when a body is moving upon a road, the greater the velocity the greater the momentum that is generated?” “Certainly.”—“What would be the momentum of 40 tons moving at the rate of 12 miles an hour?” “It would be very great.”—“Have you seen a railroad that would stand that?” “Yes.”—“Where?” “Any railroad that would bear going 4 miles an hour: I mean to say, that if it would bear the weight at 4 miles an hour, it would bear it at 12.”—“Taking it at 4 miles an hour, do you mean to say that it would not require a stronger railway to carry the same weight 12 miles an hour?” “I will give an answer to that. I dare say every person has been over ice when skating, or seen persons go over, and they know that it would bear them better at a greater velocity than it would if they went slower; when they go quick, the weight in a measure ceases.”—“Is not that upon the hypothesis that the railroad is perfect?” “It is; and I mean to make it perfect.”
It is not necessary to state that to have passed the ordeal of so severe a cross-examination scatheless, needed no small amount of courage, intelligence, and ready shrewdness on the part of the witness. Nicholas Wood, who was present on the occasion, has since stated that the point on which Stephenson was hardest pressed was that of speed. “I believe,” he says, “that it would have lost the Company their bill if he had gone beyond 8 or 9 miles an hour. If he had stated his intention of going 12 or 15 miles an hour, not a single person would have believed it to be practicable.”
The Committee also seem to have entertained considerable alarm as to the high rate of speed which had been spoken of, and proceeded to examine the witness further on the subject. They supposed the case of the engine being upset when going at 9 miles an hour, and asked what, in such a case, would become of the cargo astern. To which the witness replied that it would not be upset. One of the members of the Committee pressed the witness a little
further. He put the following case:—“Suppose, now, one of these engines to be going along a railroad at the rate of 9 or 10 miles an hour, and that a cow were to stray upon the line and get in the way of the engine; would not that, think you, be a very awkward circumstance?” “Yes,” replied the witness, with a twinkle in his eye, “very awkward—for the coo!” The honourable member did not proceed further with his cross-examination; to use a railway phrase, he was “shunted.” Another asked if animals would not be very much frightened by the engine passing them, especially by the glare of the red-hot chimney? “But how would they know that it wasn’t painted?” said the witness.
On the following day, the engineer was subjected to a very severe examination. On that part of the scheme with which he was most practically conversant, his evidence was clear and conclusive. Now, he had to give evidence on the plans made by his surveyors, and the estimates which had been founded on such plans. So long as he was confined to locomotive engines and iron railroads, with the minutest details of which he was more familiar than any man living, he felt at home, and in his element. But when the designs of bridges and the cost of constructing them had to be gone into, the subject being in a great measure new to him, his evidence was much less satisfactory.
Mr. Alderson cross-examined him at great length on the plans of the bridges, the tunnels, the crossings of the roads and streets, and the details of the survey, which, it soon clearly appeared, were in some respects seriously at fault. It seems that, after the plans had been deposited, Stephenson found that a much more favourable line might be made; and he made his estimates accordingly, supposing that Parliament would not confine the Company to the precise plan which had been deposited. This was felt to be a serious blot in the parliamentary case, and one very difficult to be got over.
For three entire days was our engineer subjected to