PROCESSION AT THE OPENING OF THE STOCKTON AND DARLINGTON RAILWAY.
[Fac-simile of a local lithograph.]
At Darlington the procession was rearranged. The six loaded coal-wagons were left behind, and other wagons were taken on with a hundred and fifty more passengers, together with a band of music. The train then started for Stockton—a distance of only twelve miles—which was reached in about three hours. The day was kept throughout the district as a holiday; and horses, gigs, carts, and other vehicles, filled with people, stood along the railway, as well as crowds of persons on foot, waiting to see the train pass. The whole population of Stockton turned out to receive the procession, and, after a walk through the streets, the inevitable dinner in the Town Hall wound up the day's proceedings.
All this, however, was but gala work. The serious business of the company began on the following day. Upon the result of the experiment now fairly initiated by the Stockton and Darlington Company the future of railways in a great measure depended. If it failed, like the Wandsworth, Croydon, and Merstham undertaking, then a great check would unquestionably be given to speculation in railways. If it succeeded, the Stockton and Darlington enterprise would mark the beginning of a new era, and issue in neither more nor less than a complete revolution of the means of communication in all civilized countries.
The circumstances were on the whole favorable, and boded success rather than failure. Prudent, careful, thoughtful men were at the head of the concern, interested in seeing it managed economically and efficiently; and they had the advantage of the assistance of an engineer possessed of large resources of mother wit, mechanical genius, and strong common sense. There was an almost unlimited quantity of coal to be carried, the principal difficulty being in accommodating it satisfactorily. Yet it was only after the line had been at work for some time that the extensive character of the coal traffic began to be appreciated. At first it was supposed that the chief trade would be in coal for land sale. But the clause inserted in the original act, at the instance of Mr. Lambton, by which the company were limited to 1/2d. per ton per mile for coal led to Stockton for shipment, led to the most unexpected consequences. It was estimated that only about 10,000 tons a year would be shipped, and that principally by way of ballast. Instead of which, in the course of a very few years, the coal carried on the line for export constituted the main bulk of the traffic, while that carried for land sale was merely subsidiary.[56] The anticipations of the company as to passenger-traffic were in like manner more than realized. At first passengers were not thought of, and it was only while the works were in progress that the starting of a passenger-coach was seriously contemplated. Some eighty years since there was only one post-chaise in Darlington, which ran on three wheels. There are people still living who remember when a coach ran from Stockton three days in the week, passing through Darlington and Barnard Castle; but it was starved off the road for want of support. There was then very little intercourse between the towns, though they were so near to each other, and comparatively so populous; and it was not known whether people would trust themselves to the iron road. Nevertheless, it was determined to make trial of a railway coach, and George Stephenson was authorized to have one built at Newcastle at the cost of the company. This was done accordingly, and the first railway passenger-carriage was built after our engineer's design. It was, however, a very modest, and, indeed, a somewhat uncouth machine, more resembling a showman's caravan than a passenger-coach of any extant form. A row of seats ran along each side of the interior, and a long deal table was fixed in the centre, the access being by means of a door at the back end, in the manner of an omnibus. This coach arrived from Newcastle on the day before the opening, and formed part of the procession above described. Stephenson was consulted as to the name of the coach, and he at once suggested the "Experiment;" and by this name it was called. Such was the sole passenger-carrying stock of the Stockton and Darlington Company in the year 1825. But "The Experiment" proved the forerunner of a mighty traffic; and long time did not elapse before it was displaced, not only by improved coaches (still drawn by horses), but afterward by long trains of passenger-carriages drawn by locomotive engines.
The "Experiment" was fairly started as a passenger-coach on the 10th of October, 1825, a fortnight after the opening of the line. It was drawn by one horse, and performed a journey daily each way between the two towns, accomplishing the distance of twelve miles in about two hours. The fare charged was a shilling, without distinction of class; and each passenger was allowed fourteen pounds of luggage free. The "Experiment" was not, however, worked by the company, but was let to contractors, who worked it under an arrangement whereby toll was paid for the use of the line, rent of booking-cabins, etc.[57]
THE FIRST RAILWAY COACH.
The speculation answered so well that several private coaching companies were shortly after got up by innkeepers at Darlington and Stockton for the purpose of running other coaches upon the railroad, and an active competition for passenger-traffic sprang up. The "Experiment," being found too heavy for one horse to draw, besides being found an uncomfortable machine, was banished to the coal district. Its place was then supplied by other and better vehicles, though they were no other than old stage-coach bodies purchased by the company, each mounted on an under-frame with flange wheels. These were let on hire to the coaching companies, who horsed and managed them under an arrangement as to tolls, in like manner as the "Experiment" had been worked. Now began the distinction of inside and outside passengers, equivalent to first and second class, paying different fares. The competition with each other upon the railway, and with the ordinary stage-coaches upon the road, soon brought up the speed, which was increased to ten miles an hour—the mail-coach rate of traveling in those days, and considered very fast.
Mr. Clephan, a native of the district, has communicated to the author the following account of the competition between the rival coach companies:
"There were two separate coach companies in Stockton, and amusing collisions sometimes occurred between the drivers, who found on the rail a novel element for contention. Coaches can not pass each other on the rail as on the road, and, as the line was single, with four sidings in the mile, when two coaches met, or two trains, or coach and train, the question arose which of the drivers must go back. This was not always settled in silence. As to trains, it came to be a sort of understanding that empty should give way to loaded wagons; and as to trains and coaches, that passengers should have preference over coals; while coaches, when they met, must quarrel it out. At length, midway between sidings, a post was erected, and the rule was laid down that he who had passed the pillar must go on, and the 'coming man' go back. At the Goose Pool and Early Nook it was common for the coaches to stop, and there, as Jonathan would say, passengers and coachmen 'liquored.' One coach, introduced by an innkeeper, was a compound of two mourning-coaches—an approximation to the real railway-coach, which still adheres, with multiplying exceptions, to the stage-coach type. One Dixon, who drove the 'Experiment' between Darlington and Shildon, is the inventor of carriage-lighting on the rail. On a dark winter night, having compassion on his passengers, he would buy a penny candle, and place it lighted among them on the table of the 'Experiment'—the first railway-coach (which, by the way, ended its days at Shildon as a railway cabin), being also the first coach on the rail (first, second, and third class jammed all into one) that indulged its customers with light in darkness."