To one gentleman he said: "We want from the coal-mining, the iron-producing and manufacturing districts, a great railway for the carriage of these valuable products. We want, if I may so say, a stream of steam running directly through the country from the North to London. Speed is not so much an object as utility and cheapness. It will not do to mix up the heavy merchandise and coal-trains with the passenger-trains. Coal and most kinds of goods can wait, but passengers will not. A less perfect road and less expensive works will do well enough for coal-trains, if run at a low speed; and if the line be flat, it is not of much consequence whether it be direct or not. Whenever you put passenger-trains on a line, all the other trains must be run at high speeds to keep out of their way. But coal-trains run at high speeds pull the road to pieces, besides causing large expenditure in locomotive power; and I doubt very much whether they will pay, after all; but a succession of long coal-trains, if run at from ten to fourteen miles an hour, would pay very well. Thus the Stockton and Darlington Company made a larger profit when running coal at low speeds at a halfpenny a ton per mile, than they have been able to do since they put on their fast passenger-trains, when every thing must needs be run faster, and a much larger proportion of the gross receipts is consequently absorbed by working expenses."
In advocating these views, George Stephenson was considerably ahead of his time; and although he did not live to see his anticipations fully realized as to the supply of the London coal-market, he was nevertheless the first to point it out, and to some extent to prove, the practicability of establishing a profitable coal-trade by railway between the northern counties and the metropolis. So long, however, as the traffic was conducted on main passenger-lines at comparatively high speeds, it was found that the expenditure on tear and wear of road and locomotive power—not to mention the increased risk of carrying on the first-class passenger traffic with which it was mixed up—necessarily left a very small margin of profit, and hence our engineer was in the habit of urging the propriety of constructing a railway which should be exclusively devoted to goods and mineral traffic run at low speeds as the only condition on which a large railway traffic of that sort could be profitably conducted.
LIME-WORKS AT AMBERGATE. [By Percival Skelton.]
Having induced some of his Liverpool friends to join him in a coal-mining adventure at Chesterfield, a lease was taken of the Claycross estate, then for sale, and operations were shortly after begun. At a subsequent period Stephenson extended his coal-mining operations in the same neighborhood, and in 1841 he himself entered into a contract with owners of land in the townships of Tapton, Brimington, and Newbold for the working of the coal thereunder, and pits were opened on the Tapton estate on an extensive scale. About the same time he erected great lime-works, close to the Ambergate station of the Midland Railway, from which, when in full operation, he was able to turn out upward of two hundred tons a day. The limestone was brought on a tram-way from the village of Crich, about two or three miles distant from the kilns, the coal being supplied from his adjoining Claycross Colliery. The works were on a scale such as had not before been attempted by any private individual engaged in a similar trade, and we believe they proved very successful.
Tapton House was included in the lease of one of the collieries, and as it was conveniently situated—being, as it were, a central point on the Midland Railway, from which the engineer could readily proceed north or south on his journeys of inspection of the various lines then under construction in the midland and northern counties—he took up his residence there, and it continued his home until the close of his life.
Tapton House is a large, roomy brick mansion, beautifully situated amid woods, upon a commanding eminence, about a mile to the northeast of the town of Chesterfield. Green fields dotted with fine trees slope away from the house in all directions. The surrounding country is undulating and highly picturesque. North and south the eye ranges over a vast extent of lovely scenery; and on the west, looking over the town of Chesterfield, with its church and crooked spire, the extensive range of the Derbyshire hills bounds the distance. The Midland Railway skirts the western edge of the park in a deep rock cutting, and the locomotive's shrill whistle sounds near at hand as the trains speed past. The gardens and pleasure-grounds adjoining the house were in a very neglected state when Mr. Stephenson first went to Tapton, and he promised himself, when he had secured rest and leisure from business, that he would put a new face upon both. The first improvement he made was in cutting a woodland footpath up the hill-side, by which he at the same time added a beautiful feature to the park, and secured a shorter road to the Chesterfield station; but it was some years before he found time to carry into effect his contemplated improvements in the adjoining gardens and pleasure-grounds. He had so long been accustomed to laborious pursuits, and felt himself still so full of work, that he could not at once settle down into the habit of quietly enjoying the fruits of his industry.
FORTH-STREET WORKS, NEWCASTLE.