Stokers and pokers

by Sir Francis Bond Head

The Construction of the Line.

1. In considering the project of a railway, after fixing upon the two termini, it becomes necessary to select the towns through which it ought to pass.

2. When these have been determined, the chief engineer to whom the investigation of the proposed line has been confided, with the Ordnance map in his hand, walks and re-walks over the whole length (Mr. Robert Stephenson, in his investigation of the proposed line between London and Birmingham, walked upwards of twenty times over the country between each), until he feels that he carries in his mind the whole picture; and while he is thus imagining and making out various lines for consideration, his assistants are testing the eligibility of each by rapidly taking for him what are called “flying levels,” as also “cross levels,” along the principal ridges that at various angles intersect the proposed line, and yet, notwithstanding the accuracy of these mathematical precautions, it is almost invariably found that the eye of the chief engineer has intuitively selected the best line.

It is, however, as painful to reflect on, as it is humiliating to record, the prejudices, ignorance, passions, and artifice by which our principal engineers were opposed, or rather by which they were consecutively thwarted in the calm scientific investigations for the benefit of the public which we have just described.

Instead of a general desire on the part of the community to hail with gratitude, and to receive with open arms, an invention which was practically not only to enable them with double elbow-room, and at about half fares, to travel at four or five times the speed which by their utmost efforts they had previously been enabled to attain, but to afford similar facilities to millions of tons of manufactures and merchandize, much of which had either been impeded by delay, or altogether clogged by the heavy charges on their transit, our engineers, in tracing the lines for our great arterial railways, were but too often looked upon as magicians, evil genii, or unclean spirits, whose unearthly object was to fright the land from its propriety.

In many instances where it was proposed, by tapping the dull stagnant population of a country town, to give vigour and animation to its system, the inhabitants actually fancied that their interests and their happiness would, like their habits, expire under the operation.

For example, it is well known that one of the results of Mr. R. Stephenson’s deliberate investigations was, that the present London and North-Western Railway ought to pass through the healthy and handsome town of Northampton,—an arrangement which of course would instantaneously have given to it commercial importance of inestimable value. The inhabitants, however, urged and excited by men of influence and education, opposed the blessing with such barbarous force, that they succeeded, to their everlasting punishment, in distorting the line—viâ the Kilsby Tunnel, which, if the projected plan had been adopted, would not have been required—to a point five miles off! and if such ignorance could, in the nineteenth century, exist in a large and populous town, it cannot be a matter of surprise that our engineers should have had to encounter similar, or, if possible, still greater prejudices in rural districts.

It was there generally considered to be utterly incredible that a railway could ever possibly supersede our mail and stage coaches; at market meetings, and at market dinners, the invention was looked upon as, and declared to be, “a smoky substitute for canals;” and while men of property inveighed against its unsightly appearance, their tenants were equally opposed to the measure.

For instance, among the reasons for preventing the present London and North-Western Railway coming to Northampton, it was seriously urged by many very wealthy and respectable graziers in the neighbourhood, that the smoke of the passing engines would seriously discolour the wool of their sheep; that the continual progress through their verdant meadows of a sort of rumbling, hissing, fiery serpent, would, by continually alarming, fretting, and distracting the attention of their cattle, prevent them, “poor things!” from fattening; in short, such was the opposition to the new system, that one of the engineers employed by the London and North-Western Railway to trace out a branch line (which, at a considerable expense to the Company, was to confer inestimable advantages upon its locality) was attacked by the proprietors of the soil, and a conflict or battle royal ensued, which ended in very serious legal results.

3. As soon as the chief engineer has, instead of the best line of railway that could have been determined on, decided on that which, for the reasons stated, it is advisable he should recommend—alas! what a pity it is that, in the construction of our great arterial railways, such a discreditable difference should have been allowed to exist!!—he employs his assistant engineers and surveyors to make for him accurate surveys, and to take correct sections, copies of which are to be deposited, according to Act of Parliament, with the various clerks of the peace of the several counties through which the line is to pass, with the Commissioners of Railways, &c. &c. &c.; besides which there is to be prepared for each parish its proportion, as also for every landholder a section, showing the greatest depth of cutting or embankment in any of his fields.