The details of the carrying stock had in like manner to be settled by experience. Everything had, as it were, to be begun from the beginning. The coal-waggon, it is true, served in some degree as a model for the railway-truck; but the railway passenger-carriage was an entirely novel structure. It had to be mounted upon strong framing, of a peculiar kind, supported on springs to prevent jolting. Then there was the necessity for contriving some method of preventing hard bumping of the carriage-ends when the train was pulled up; and hence the contrivance of buffer-springs and spring frames. For the purpose of stopping the train, brakes on an improved plan were also contrived, with new modes of lubricating the carriage-axles, on which the wheels revolved at an unusually high velocity. In all these arrangements, Mr. Stephenson’s inventiveness was kept constantly on the stretch; and though many improvements in detail have been effected since his time, the foundations were then laid by him of the present system of conducting railway traffic. As an illustration of the inventive
ingenuity which he displayed in providing for the working of the Liverpool line, we may mention his contrivance of the Self-acting Brake. He early entertained the idea that the momentum of the running train might itself be made available for the purpose of checking its speed. He proposed to fit each carriage with a brake which should be called into action immediately on the locomotive at the head of the train being pulled up. The impetus of the carriages carrying them forward, the buffer-springs would be driven home and, at the same time, by a simple arrangement of the mechanism, the brakes would be called into simultaneous action; thus the wheels would be brought into a state of sledge, and the train speedily stopped. This plan was adopted by Mr. Stephenson before he left the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, though it was afterwards discontinued; but it is a remarkable fact, that this identical plan, with the addition of a centrifugal apparatus, has quite recently been revived by M. Guérin, a French engineer, and extensively employed on foreign railways, as the best method of stopping railway trains in the most efficient manner and in the shortest time.
Finally, Mr. Stephenson had to attend to the improvement of the power and speed of the locomotive—always the grand object of his study,—with a view to economy as well as regularity of working. In the “Planet” engine, delivered upon the line immediately subsequent to the public opening, all the improvements which had up to that time been contrived by him and his son were introduced in combination—the blast-pipe, the tubular boiler, horizontal cylinders inside the smoke-box, the cranked axle, and the fire-box firmly fixed to the boiler. The first load of goods conveyed from Liverpool to Manchester by the “Planet” was 80 tons in weight, and the engine performed the journey against a strong head wind in 2½ hours. On another occasion, the same engine brought up a cargo of voters from Manchester to Liverpool, during a contested election, within a space of sixty minutes! The “Samson,” delivered in the following
year, exhibited still further improvements, the most important of which was that of coupling the fore and hind wheels of the engine. By this means, the adhesion of the wheels on the rails was more effectually secured, and thus the full hauling power of the locomotive was made available. The “Samson,” shortly after it was placed upon the line, dragged after it a train of waggons weighing 150 tons at a speed of about 20 miles an hour; the consumption of coke being reduced to only about a third of a pound per ton per mile.
The success of the Liverpool and Manchester experiment naturally excited great interest. People flocked to Lancashire from all quarters to see the steam-coach running upon a railway at three times the speed of a mailcoach, and to enjoy the excitement of actually travelling in the wake of an engine at that incredible velocity. The travellers returned to their respective districts full of the wonders of the locomotive, considering it to be the greatest marvel of the age. Railways are familiar enough objects now, and our children who grow up in their midst may think little of them; but thirty years since it was an event in one’s life to see a locomotive, and to travel for the first time upon a public railroad.
The practicability of railway locomotion being now proved, and its great social and commercial advantages ascertained, the general extension of the system was merely a question of time, money, and labour. Although the legislature took no initiative step in the direction of railway extension, the public spirit and enterprise of the country did not fail it at this juncture. The English people, though they may be defective in their capacity for organization, are strong in individualism; and not improbably their admirable qualities in the latter respect detract from their efficiency in the former. Thus, in all times, their greatest enterprises have not been planned by officialism and carried out upon any regular system, but have sprung, like their constitution, their laws, and their entire industrial arrangements, from
the force of circumstances and the individual energies of the people.
The mode of action in the case of railway extension, was characteristic and national. The execution of the new lines was undertaken entirely by joint-stock associations of proprietors, after the manner of the Stockton and Darlington, and Liverpool and Manchester companies. These associations are conformable to our national habits, and fit well into our system of laws. They combine the power of vast resources with individual watchfulness and motives of self-interest; and by their means gigantic undertakings, which otherwise would be impossible to any but kings and emperors with great national resources at command, were carried out by the co-operation of private persons. And the results of this combination of means and of enterprise have been truly marvellous. Within the life of the present generation, the private citizens of England engaged in railway extension have, in the face of Government obstructions, and without taking a penny from the public purse, executed a system of communications involving works of the most gigantic kind, which, in their total mass, their cost, and their public utility, far exceed the most famous national undertakings of any age or country.
Mr. Stephenson was of course, actively engaged in the construction of the numerous railways now projected by the joint-stock companies. The desire for railway extension principally pervaded the manufacturing districts, especially after the successful opening of the Liverpool and Manchester line. The commercial classes of the larger towns soon became eager for a participation in the good which they had so recently derided. Railway projects were set on foot in great numbers, and Manchester became a centre from which main lines and branches were started in all directions. The interest, however, which attaches to these later schemes is of a much less absorbing kind than that which belongs to the earlier history of the railway and the steps by which it was mainly established. We naturally sympathise more
keenly with the early struggles of a great principle, its trials and its difficulties, than with its after stages of success; and, however gratified and astonished we may be at its consequences, the interest is in a great measure gone when its triumph has become a matter of certainty.