Rambles on Railways

by Sir Cusack P. Roney

In the by-gone days of the early railway, the engine that could gain the heights of Tring without baiting on the way was a wonder. In 1844, when experiments were made preparatory to running express trains between London and Birmingham in three hours, the exultation was great when it was found that a tender could be constructed to hold water enough to convey a light train as far as Wolverton without stopping.

Finality is an unknown element on the railway: Progress is its only pass-word. The tender was no sooner found capable of carrying water to Wolverton, than it was determined to extend the distance to Blisworth. Not very long afterwards the run was increased to Rugby, twenty miles farther. Engines and trains have for some years run these eighty-two miles without stoppage; but of late the water-crane has been supplemented by the water-trough, of which we shall take occasion to speak presently.

From Tring to Leighton the ground is gone over in nearly as few minutes as there are miles—one only conspicuous object being visible in the intervening distance—the noble house built, not ten years ago, for the great Rothschild, by the still greater Paxton.

As the train flies through Leighton Station, the engineman’s watch tells that he has completed his forty miles in his appointed time, fifty-six minutes from that at which he left London. Well that he is quick of glance, for before the watch is replaced in its pocket, the engine and train enter in the Linsdale Tunnel. It is the worst on the line, for though short—only 284 yards in length—you are half-way through it before the first gleam of daylight is caught streaming in at its opposite entrance. “I have got the distant signal all right, Jack, put some coal on”—says the engineman to his fireman, and the furnace door has scarcely been opened for three shovels full, before the iron-clad is dashing through Bletchley Station—46½ miles from London,—twenty years ago, a small road-side station; now, a first-class and intricate junction, whence a branch juts off to the right to Bedford, and thence to Cambridge; another on the left to Oxford. It is thus that the two Universities are brought into railway connection, and the rival seats of learning and of boat racing are only three-and-a-half hours apart from each other. Might not Cam do well by an occasional training visit to the banks and stream of Isis?

Bletchley is also intricate, because it is here that the third line of railway, ordered by the London and North-Western Company in 1858, commences, and is continued except through the Watford Tunnel (at either end of which it is very ingeniously connected with the original up-line of railway) on to Camden Station. This third line is solely for up goods, cattle, and mineral traffic, and the relative speed of such trains and those for passengers can be seen and appreciated, as the latter pass alongside the former for a minute or two, and then leave them behind at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour—twenty versus forty-five.

Time was when Wolverton was looked upon as the most dangerous part of the whole line between London and Liverpool. It was, therefore, a halting place not only for all passenger trains, but goods trains came to a stand there also. At Wolverton likewise were the main locomotive repairing shops of the original London and Birmingham Company; and when the company was amalgamated with the Grand Junction and other companies, the locomotive establishment became that for the southern division of the London and North-Western Company, the two northern points of which are, Birmingham, looking westward, and Stafford, looking slightly to the eastward. In process of time the repairing shops have been doubled, trebled, nearly quadrupled. In 1840 Wolverton had a population of 2,000, all of whom were company’s servants or their families. In 1849 it was double that number, and now, in 1867, it is 6,000. But of this number about 1,700 are on the wing with their families. These are the men who have hitherto been employed in the locomotive works, which (as stated at page 199) have just been transferred to Crewe. These men and their families, however, will not leave a void in the population, as their places will be supplied from the carriage portion of the Crewe establishment, and from the carriage works of the company, until now located at Saltley, near Birmingham.

The chief owners of land at Wolverton are the trustees of the Radcliffe Library Estate at Oxford; and, although they have erected upon the property a church, to which is attached a churchyard (already beginning to show a great many mounds), they have always been unwilling to dispose of land for building purposes to the extent required by the company. The consequence has been that part of the town or village of Wolverton has had to be built nearly a mile away from it!—at a place called Stantonbury, to the great inconvenience and discomfort of all the men who have to take up their quarters in that locality.

Besides the Radcliffe Episcopalian Church, there is one built mainly by subscriptions from the shareholders of the company. Conjointly they are capable of seating about a thousand people, and the schools connected with them have nearly 600 children in daily attendance. Besides these two churches, there are other places of worship, equal to the accommodation of about 1,100 people.

Of the Infant School Sir Francis Head gives a description, which is as accurate for now as it was for eighteen years ago:—“At the western extremity of the building, on entering the infant-school, which is under the superintendence of an intelligent-looking young person of about nineteen years of age, we were struck by the regular segments in which the little creatures were standing in groups around a tiny monitor occupying the centre of each chord. We soon, however, detected that this regularity of their attitudes was caused by the insertion in the floor of various chords of hoop iron, the outer rims of which they all touched with their toes. A finer set of children we have seldom beheld; but what particularly attracted our attention was three rows of beautiful babies, sitting as solemn as judges on three steps one above another, the lowest being a step higher than the floor of the room. They were learning the first hard lesson of this world—namely, to sit still; and certainly the occupation seemed to he particularly well adapted to their outlines; indeed, their pinafores were so round, and their cheeks so red, that altogether they resembled three rows of white dumplings, with a rosy-faced apple on each. The picture was most interesting; and we studied their cheerful features until we almost fancied that we could analyse and distinguish which were little fire-flies, which small stokers, which tiny pokers, infant artificers, &c.”