Close to this shop is one in which the models and patterns of the castings are constructed. From a spacious open yard covered with stacks of old scrap-iron, much of which was of the size of common buttons, a door opens into a large shop containing twelve forges solely used for the construction of engine-wheels, which are forced on as well as off their axles by an ingenious machine of extraordinary power. Adjoining the open yard we saw in operation Nasmyth’s great steam-hammer, on the summit of which there sat perched up a man who could regulate its blow from say twenty-five tons to a little tap sufficient only to drive a common-sized nail. As soon as the furnace-door on one side of this hammer was opened, a large lump of scrap-iron at a white heat was lifted and then conducted by a crane on to the anvil beneath. At the same moment from an opposite furnace a long iron bar, heated only at one extremity, was by a gentle blow of the hammer no sooner welded to the mass than the head smith, using it as a handle, turned and re-turned the lump on the anvil so as to enable the steam-hammer to weld its contents into proper form. Of course there has been selected for this extremely heavy work the strongest man that could be obtained. He is of about the height and bulk of the celebrated Italian singer Signor Lablache, with apparently the strength of Hercules, or rather of Vulcan himself—and certainly nothing could be a finer display of muscular power than the various attitudes which this heavy man assumed, as, regardless of the sparks which flew at him, or of the white heat of the lump of iron he was forging, he turned it on one side and then on the other, until at a given signal a small smith in attendance placed a sort of heavy chisel on the iron handle, which by a single blow of the steam-hammer was at once severed from it, in order that it might be piled away and another mass lifted from the fiery furnace to the anvil.
Close to this Cyclopean scene there is a shop solely for turning wheels and axles, which, brought here rough from the smiths’ forges we have described, never leave this place until they are ready to go under the engine for which they have been made.
After passing through a grinding-shop and a coppersmith’s shop, which we must leave without comment, we entered a most important and interesting workshop, 330 feet in length, by 60 feet in breadth, termed the “fitting-shop,” because the work brought here in various states is all finally finished and fitted for its object. Besides 11 planing-machines, 36 shaping and slotting machines, and 30 turning-lathes, all working by steam-power, we observed, running nearly the whole length of the building, five sets of tables, at which were busily employed in filing, rasping, hammering, &c., eight rows of “vice-men,” only so called because they work at vices. The whole of the artificers in this room are of the best description, and the importance of their duties cannot perhaps be more briefly illustrated than by the simple fact that, besides all the requisite repairs of 200 locomotive engines, they were employed in finishing the innumerable details of 30 new ones in progress. Some were solely engaged in converting bolts into screws; some in fitting nuts; some in constructing brass whistles; in short, in this division of labour almost every “vice man” was employed in finishing some limb, joint, or other component part of a locomotive engine destined to draw trains either of goods or passengers.
After visiting a large store-room, in which all things appertaining to engines, sorted and piled in innumerable compartments, are guarded by a storekeeper, who registers in a book each item that he receives and delivers, we will now introduce our readers to the climax of the establishment, commonly called “the Erecting-shop.” Hitherto we have been occupied in following in tedious detail from the foundry to the forge, and from the anvil to the vice, the various items, such as plates, rivets, bolts, nuts, rings, stays, tubes, ferrules, steam-pipes, exhausting-pipes, chimney-pipes, safety-valves, life-guards, axle-boxes, pistons, cylinders, connecting-rods, splashers, leading and trailing wheels, &c., amounting in number to 5416 pieces, of which a locomotive engine is composed. We have at last, however, reached that portion of the establishment in which all those joints, limbs, and boilers, which have been separately forged, shaped, and finished in different localities, are assembled together for the consummation of the especial object for which, with so much labour and at so great an expense, they have been prepared: indeed, nothing, we believe, can be more true than Mr. Robert Stevenson’s well-known maxim—“A locomotive engine must be put together as carefully as a watch!”
The Erecting-shop at Crewe is a room 300 feet long by 100 feet broad, containing five sets of rails, upon three of which are erected the new engines and tenders—the other two being usually occupied by those under heavy repair. The number of artificers we found employed was 220. In this magnificent building we saw in progress of erection 20 passenger-engines, also 10 luggage-engines; and as this shop has (as we have before stated) turned out a locomotive engine and tender complete on every Monday morning for very nearly a year, and is continuing to supply them at the same rate, we had before us in review locomotive engines in almost every stage of progress; and when we reflected on the innumerable benefits, and even blessings, which resulted to mankind from their power, it was most pleasing to be enabled at one view to see—as it were in rehearsal behind the scenes—performers who were so shortly to appear upon the stage of life.
At the further end of the line of rails close to the north wall there appeared a long low tortuous mass of black iron-work, without superstructure or wheels, in which the form of an engine-bed in embryo could but very faintly be traced; a little nearer was a similar mass, in which the outline appeared, from some cause or other, to be more distinctly marked; nearer still the same outline appeared upon wheels: to the next there had been added a boiler and fire-box, without dome, steam-escape, or funnel-pipe; nearer still the locomotive engine in its naked state appeared, in point of form, complete:—and workmen were here busily engaged in covering the boiler with a garment about half an inch thick of hair-felt, upon which others were affixing a covering of inch deal-plank, over which was to be tightly bound a tarpaulin, the whole to be secured by iron-hoops. In the next case the dome of the engine was undergoing a similar toilette, excepting that, instead of a wooden upper garment, it was receiving one of copper. Lastly—(it was on a Saturday that we chanced to visit the establishment)—there stood at the head of this list of recruits a splendid bran-new locomotive engine, completely finished, painted bright green—the varnish was scarcely dry—and in every respect perfectly ready to be delivered over on Monday morning to run its gigantic course. On other rails within the building were tenders in similar states of progress; and, as the eye rapidly glanced down these iron rails, the finished engine and tender immediately before it seemed gradually and almost imperceptibly to dissolve, in proportion to its distance, until nothing was left of each but an indistinct and almost unintelligible dreamy vision of black iron-work. On one of the furthest rails, among a number of engines that were undergoing serious operations, we observed “The Colonel,” which, by going off the rails at Newton Bridge, caused the death of General Baird.
Coach Department.
As our readers will no doubt feel some little selfish interest in the construction of the railway-carriages in which they travel, we shall conclude our rapid survey of the Company’s workshops at Crewe by a short inspection of the coach establishment. This department constructs and maintains for the traffic on 393 miles of rails all the requisite passenger-carriages, luggage-vans, travelling post-offices and tenders, parcel-vans and parcel-carts, milk-trucks (principally to supply Liverpool), and break-waggons.
At the Company’s “Waggon Department” at Manchester are constructed and maintained all the requisite goods-waggons, horse-boxes, coke-waggons, carriage-trucks for private carriages, cattle-waggons and timber-trucks.
The total number of carriages of all descriptions maintained at Crewe amounts to 670, of which about 100 at a time are usually in hospital. There are generally from 30 to 40 new carriages in progress: the number of workmen employed was 260. The establishment is divided into one set of workshops for the construction, and another for the repair of carriages.