The engine of the down trains from London, having rested at Stafford its appointed time, is again coaled and watered, and if she have brought the Scotch Mail, she takes her place at the head of the up-train, at 1·18 a.m., or an hour and twenty minutes after she had finished her downward journey. In precisely eight hours from the time she has left Euston she has completed her day’s work, and in doing so she has gone over 267 miles of ground, and has conveyed some 120 tons dead weight of matter, besides her own weight, at a running speed of nearly forty-five miles an hour. She will perform the same double journey on the morrow, and then she will rest for a “shed-day;” out again for duty on the following day. She will work that and the succeeding day, then a rest as before, then work again for two days, and so on, taking shed-days, and times required for slight repairs, and occasionally for heavy ones and renewals. An engine is considered to do good service that is actually running on 250 days in a year. Quite enough, when it is remembered that she consists of 5,416 pieces, which must be put together like watch-work.
The watch, however, is not exposed to rough usage, fly-away speed, and exposure to weather the intensity of which may vary from 40 degrees below freezing point to 120 degrees of heat in the sun. We have seen the same engine at work in Canada at these identical temperatures within an interval of four months only. No wonder then that when her day’s work is done she requires repose, quite as much as it is necessary for the horse of every day life. Her joints have become relaxed with labour, her bolts have become loosened, her rubbing surfaces, notwithstanding the oil the engine driver poured upon them, have become heated and are often unequally expanded, strained, and twisted; her grate bars and fire-box have become choked with clinkers, and her tubes charged with coke. Hey presto! the engine cleaners—the groom and hostlers of the iron horse—take her in hand, they clean out her fire-box, they scrape its grate bars; and, under the superintendence of superior workmen, they tighten all bolts and rivets, grease all moving parts, thoroughly cleanse her outside as well as in,—and the engine, thus washed, cooled down, refreshed, and purified, is, after an interval of five or six hours, again ready (if required) for whatever giant duty it maybe necessary to employ her upon. But, let it always be remembered and borne in mind, she must not be over worked; she is infinitely more delicate and sensitive in this respect than the horse is.
CHAPTER IX.
INDIAN RAILWAYS.
England is naturally in advance of all other countries as regards railways in her possessions and colonies. There is not one of them in which the system has not made some advance, but in two of them it has become of magnificent proportions. First as regards India.
Although the question of Indian Railways was first agitated as far back as 1840, it was not until 1846 that the British Parliament began seriously to occupy itself about them. In February and March 1847, the House of Commons ordered a vast amount of information, both official and unofficial, that had been collected from various sources, to be printed, and it may be said that the reports and documents then circulated, have formed the basis upon which the legislation for Indian railways has been framed. By the Act of the 12th and 13th Victoria, cap. 93. (1849), the construction of a line from “Calcutta towards the Northern Provinces,” by the East Indian Railway Company, was authorised. The first divisions of the line, that is, from Howrah, opposite Calcutta, to Pundoah, 37½ miles, was not opened for traffic until September 1854; and by the 3rd of February, 1855, a further length of 92 miles to Raneegunge was completed. At the present time, the total length of the East Indian Railway is 1,354 miles. In mileage therefore it exceeds the London and North-Western Company of England by twenty-six miles, eight miles having been added to the latter company’s lines since page 23 of this book was printed. The following is a brief sketch of the Great Railway as it now exists. At Burdwan (about ninety-two miles from Calcutta), the separation between what is called the “Chord Line” (to be finished throughout in 1869) and the main line takes place. The latter runs due north to Rajinabad, thus connecting Calcutta with the Ganges, and enabling traders to avoid the navigation of 250 miles of one of the most dangerous parts of the river. At Rajinabad, the railway turns westward, and proceeds up the right bank of the Ganges, past Monghyr, where it is carried through the only tunnel in its course, 300 yards long, to Patna, Benares, and Allahabad. Shortly beyond Patna, it is carried across the River Soane, by a magnificent bridge, said to be the second longest in the world; it is therefore next in length to the Victoria Bridge at Montreal, to which reference is made hereafter. At Allahabad the line crosses the Jumna, by a bridge nearly as great as that over the Soane. In the crossings of these rivers, and of two others, the railway is carried at the top, with a roadway underneath for the ordinary traffic, in a somewhat similar way to the High-Level Bridge at Newcastle. These four bridges are constructed upon the wrought-iron lattice principle. That over the Soane consists of twenty-eight openings, with spans of 150 feet; that over the Jumna of fifteen openings, of which each span is 205 feet. The bridge over the Adjai consists of thirty-two openings, with spans of 50 feet; that over the Keeul, of nine openings, with spans of 150 feet; a smaller bridge over the Touse consists of seven openings, each with a span of 150 feet.