The Life of George Stephenson and of his Son Robert Stephenson / Comprising Also a History of the Invention and Introduction of the Railway Locomotive

by Samuel Smiles

For some time after the public opening of the line, Mr. Stephenson's ingenuity continued to be employed in devising improved methods for securing the safety and comfort of the traveling public. Few are aware of the thousand minute details which have to be arranged—the forethought and contrivance that have to be exercised—to enable the traveler by railway to accomplish his journey in safety. After the difficulties of constructing a level road over bogs, across valleys, and through deep cuttings have been overcome, the maintenance of the way has to be provided for with continuous care. Every rail, with its fastenings, must be complete, to prevent risk of accident, and the road must be kept regularly ballasted up to the level to diminish the jolting of vehicles passing over it at high speeds. Then the stations must be protected by signals observable from such a distance as to enable the train to be stopped in event of an obstacle, such as a stopping or shunting train being in the way. For some years the signals employed on the Liverpool Railway were entirely given by men with flags of different colors stationed along the line; there were no fixed signals nor electric telegraphs; but the traffic was nevertheless worked quite as safely as under the more elaborate and complicated system of telegraphing which has since been established.

From an early period it became obvious that the iron road, as originally laid down, was quite insufficient for the heavy traffic which it had to carry. The line was in the first place laid with fish-bellied rails of only thirty-five pounds to the yard, calculated only for horse-traffic, or, at most, for engines like the "Rocket," of very light weight. But as the power and the weight of the locomotives were increased, it was found that such rails were quite insufficient for the safe conduct of the traffic, and it therefore became necessary to relay the road with heavier and stronger rails at considerable expense.

The details of the carrying stock had in like manner to be settled by experience. Every thing had, as it were, to be begun from the beginning. The coal-wagon, 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 contrivances 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 a curious illustration of the inventive ingenuity which he displayed in contriving the working of the Liverpool line, we may mention his invention 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 afterward discontinued; and it is a remarkable fact, that this identical plan, with the addition of a centrifugal apparatus, was recently revived by M. Guérin, a French engineer, and extensively employed on foreign railways.

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 in the working of the railway. In the "Planet" engine, delivered upon the line immediately subsequent to the public opening, all the improvements which had up to this 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 eighty tons in weight, and the engine performed the journey against a strong head wind in two hours and a half. 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 farther 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 wagons weighing a hundred and fifty tons at a speed of about twenty miles an hour, the consumption of coke being reduced to only about a third of a pound per ton per mile.

The rapid progress thus made will show that the inventive faculties of Mr. Stephenson and his son were kept fully on the stretch; but their labors were amply repaid by the result. They were, doubtless, to some extent stimulated by the number of competitors who about the same time appeared as improvers of the locomotive engine. But the superiority of Stephenson's locomotives over all others that had yet been tried induced the directors of the railway to require that the engines supplied to them by other builders should be constructed after the same model. Mr. Stephenson himself always had the greatest faith in the superiority of his own engines over all others, and did not hesitate strongly to declare it. When it was once proposed to introduce the engines of another maker on the Manchester and Leeds line, he said, "Very well; I have no objection; but put them to this fair test. Hang one of ——'s engines on to one of mine, back to back. Then let them go at it; and whichever walks away with the other, that's the engine."

The engineer had also to seek out the proper men to maintain and watch the road, and more especially to work the locomotive engines. Steadiness, sobriety, common sense, and practical experience were the qualities which he especially valued in those selected by him for that purpose. But where were the men of experience to be found? Very few railways were yet at work, and these were almost exclusively confined to the northern coal counties; hence a considerable proportion of the drivers and firemen employed on the Liverpool line were brought from the neighborhood of Newcastle. But he could not always find skilled workmen enough for the important and responsible duties to be performed. It was a saying of his that "he could engineer matter very well, and make it bend to his purpose, but his greatest difficulty was in engineering men." He often wished that he could contrive heads and hands on which he might rely, as easily as he could construct railways and manufacture locomotives. As it was, Stephenson's mechanics were in request all over England—the Newcastle workshops continuing for many years to perform the part of a training-school for engineers, and to supply locomotive superintendents and drivers, not only for England, but for nearly every country in Europe—preference being given to them by the directors of railways, in consequence of their previous training and experience, as well as because of their generally excellent qualities as steady and industrious workmen.

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 mail-coach, and to enjoy the excitement of actually traveling in the wake of an engine at that incredible velocity. The travelers 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.

In remote districts, however, the stories told about the benefits conferred by the Liverpool Railway were received with considerable incredulity, and the proposal to extend such roads in all directions throughout the country caused great alarm. In the districts through which stage-coaches ran, giving employment to large numbers of persons, it was apprehended that, if railways were established, the turnpike roads would become deserted and grown over with grass, country inns and their buxom landladies would be ruined, the race of coach-drivers and hostlers would become extinct, and the breed of horses be entirely destroyed. But there was hope for the coaching interest in the fact that the government were employing their engineers to improve the public high roads so as to render railways unnecessary. It was announced in the papers that a saving of thirty miles would be effected by the new road between London and Holyhead, and an equal saving between London and Edinburg. And to show what the speed of horses could accomplish, we find it set forth as an extraordinary fact that the "Patent Tally-ho Coach," in the year 1830 (when the Birmingham line had been projected), performed the entire journey of 109 miles between London and Birmingham—breakfast included—in seven hours and fifty minutes! Great speed was also recorded on the Brighton road, the "Red Rover" doing the distance between London and Brighton in four hours and a half. These speeds were not, however, secured without accidents, for there was scarcely a newspaper of the period that did not contain one or more paragraphs headed "Another dreadful coach accident."

The practicability of railway locomotion being now proved, and its great social and commercial advantages ascertained, the extension of the system was merely a question of time, money, and labor. A fine opportunity presented itself for the wise and judicious action of the government in the matter, the improvement of the internal communications of a country being really one of its most important functions. But the government of the day, though ready enough to spend money in improving the old turnpike roads, regarded the railroads with hostility, and met them with obstructions of all kinds. They seemed to think it their duty to protect the turnpike trusts, disregarding the paramount interest of the public. This may possibly account for the singular circumstance that, at the very time they were manifesting indifference or aversion to the locomotive on the railroad, they were giving every encouragement to the locomotive on turnpike roads. In 1831, we find a Committee of the House of Commons appointed to inquire into and report upon—not the railway system, but—the applicability of the steam-carriage to common roads; and, after investigation, the committee were so satisfied with the evidence taken, that they reported decidedly in favor of the road locomotive system. Though they ignored the railway, they recognized the steam-carriage.

But even a Report of the House of Commons, powerful though it be, can not alter the laws of gravity and friction; and the road locomotive remained, what it ever will be, an impracticable machine. Not that it is impossible to work a locomotive upon a common road, but to work it to any profit at all as compared with the locomotive upon a railway. Numerous trials of steam-carriages were made at the time by Sir Charles Dance, Mr. Hancock, Mr. Gurney, Sir James Anderson, and other distinguished gentlemen of influence. Journalists extolled their utility, compared with "the much-boasted application on railroads."[75] But, notwithstanding all this, and the House of Commons' Report in its favor, Stephenson's first verdict, pronounced on the road locomotive many years before, when he was only an engine-wright at Killingworth, was fully borne out by the result, and it became day by day clearer that the attempt to introduce the engine into general use upon turnpike roads could only prove a delusion and a snare.