The beginning, it is true, was very small. It was only an ordinary jaunting-car, drawn by a single horse, capable of accommodating six persons. The first car ran between Clonmel and Cahir, a distance of about twelve miles, on the 5th of July, 1815—a memorable day for Bianconi and Ireland. Up to that time the public accommodation for passengers was confined to a few mail and day coaches on the great lines of road, the fares by which were very high, and quite beyond the reach of the poorer or middle-class people.
People did not know what to make of Bianconi's car when it first started. There were, of course, the usual prophets of disaster, who decided that it "would never do." Many thought that no one would pay eighteen-pence for going to Cahir by car when they could walk there for nothing? There were others who thought that Bianconi should have stuck to his shop, as there was no connection whatever between picture-gilding and car-driving!
The truth is, the enterprise at first threatened to be a failure! Scarcely anybody would go by the car. People preferred trudging on foot, and saved their money, which was more valuable to them than their time. The car sometimes ran for weeks without a passenger. Another man would have given up the enterprise in despair. But this was not the way with Bianconi. He was a man of tenacity and perseverance. What should he do but start an opposition car? Nobody knew of it but himself; not even the driver of the opposition car. However, the rival car was started. The races between the car-drivers, the free lifts occasionally given to passengers, the cheapness of the fare, and the excitement of the contest, attracted the attention of the public. The people took sides, and before long both cars came in full. Fortunately the "great big yallah horse" of the opposition car broke down, and Bianconi had all the trade to himself.
The people became accustomed to travelling. They might still walk to Cahir; but going by car saved their legs, saved their brains, and saved their time. They might go to Cahir market, do their business there, and be comfortably back within the day. Bianconi then thought of extending the car to Tipperary and Limerick. In the course of the same year, 1815, he started another car between Clonmel, Cashel, and Thurles. Thus all the principal towns of Tipperary were, in the first year of the undertaking, connected together by car, besides being also connected with Limerick.
It was easy to understand the convenience of the car system to business men, farmers, and even peasants. Before their establishment, it took a man a whole day to walk from Thurles to Clonmel, the second day to do his business, and the third to walk back again; whereas he could, in one day, travel backwards and forwards between the two towns, and have five or six intermediate hours for the purpose of doing his business. Thus two clear days could be saved.
Still carrying out his scheme, Bianconi, in the following year (1816), put on a car from Clonmel to Waterford. Before that time there was no car accommodation between Clonmel and Carrick-on-Suir, about half-way to Waterford; but there was an accommodation by boat between Carrick and Waterford. The distance between the two latter places was, by road, twelve miles, and by the river Suir twenty-four miles. Tom Morrissey's boat plied two days a week; it carried from eight to ten passengers at 6 1/2d. of the then currency; it did the voyage in from four to five hours, and besides had to wait for the tide to float it up and down the river. When Bianconi's car was put on, it did the distance daily and regularly in two hours, at a fare of two shillings.
The people soon got accustomed to the convenience of the cars. They also learned from them the uses of punctuality and the value of time. They liked the open-air travelling and the sidelong motion. The new cars were also safe and well-appointed. They were drawn by good horses and driven by good coachmen. Jaunting-car travelling had before been rather unsafe. The country cars were of a ramshackle order, and the drivers were often reckless. "Will I pay the pike, or drive at it, plaise your honour?" said a driver to his passenger on approaching a turnpike-gate. Sam Lover used to tell a story of a car-driver, who, after driving his passenger up-hill and down-hill, along a very bad road, asked him for something extra at the end of his journey.
"Faith," said the driver, "its not putting me off with this ye'd be, if ye knew but all." The gentleman gave him another shilling. "And now what do you mean by saying, 'if ye knew but all?'" "That I druv yer honor the last three miles widout a linch-pin!"
Bianconi, to make sure of the soundness and safety of his cars, set up a workshop to build them for himself. He could thus depend upon their soundness, down even to the linch-pin itself. He kept on his carving and gilding shop until his car business had increased so much that it required the whole of his time and attention; and then he gave it up. In fact, when he was able to run a car from Clonmel to Waterford—a distance of thirty-two miles—at a fare of three-and-sixpence, his eventual triumph was secure.
He made Waterford one of the centres of his operations, as he had already made Clonmel. In 1818 he established a car between Waterford and Ross, in the following year a car between Waterford and Wexford, and another between Waterford and Enniscorthy. A few years later he established other cars between Waterford and Kilkenny, and Waterford and Dungarvan. From these furthest points, again, other cars were established in communication with them, carrying the line further north, east, and west. So much had the travelling between Clonmel and Waterford increased, that in a few years (instead of the eight or ten passengers conveyed by Tom Morrissey's boat on the Suir) there was horse and car power capable of conveying a hundred passengers daily between the two places.