“Monday, Sept. 12, 1831.—Left Manchester by coach at ten o’clock, and arrived in Liverpool at half-past two. . . The railroad is not supposed to answer vastly well, but they are making a branch to Warrington, which will hurt the Sankey Navigation, and throw 1,500 men out of employment; these people are said to be loud in their execrations of it, and to threaten revenge. It is certain the proprietors do not all feel easy about it, as one living at Warrington has determined never to go by it, and was coming to Liverpool by our coach if there had been room. He would gladly sell his shares. A dividend of 4 per cent. had been paid for six months, but money had been borrowed. . . . Charge for tonnage of goods, 10s. for thirty-two miles, which appears very dear to me.”
CRABB ROBINSON’S FIRST RAILWAY JOURNEY.
“June 9th, 1833.—(Liverpool). At twelve o’clock I got upon an omnibus, and was driven up a steep hill to the place where the steam carriages start. We travelled in the second class of carriages. There were five carriages linked together, in each of which were placed open seats for the travellers, four or five facing each other; but not all were full; and, besides, there was a close carriage, and also a machine for luggage. The fare was four shillings for the thirty-one miles. Everything went on so rapidly that I had scarcely the power of observation. The road begins at an excavation through a rock, and is to a certain extent insulated from the adjacent country. It is occasionally placed on bridges, and frequently intersected by ordinary roads. Not quite a perfect level is preserved. On setting off there is a slight jolt, arising from the chain catching each carriage, but, once in motion, we proceeded as smoothly as possible. For a minute or two the pace is gentle, and is constantly varying. The machine produces little smoke or steam. First in order is the tall chimney; then the boiler, a barrel-like vessel; then an oblong reservoir of water; then a vehicle for coals; and then comes, of a length infinitely extendible, the train of carriages. If all the seats had been filled, our train would have carried about 150 passengers; but a gentleman assured me at Chester that he went with a thousand persons to Newton fair. There must have
been two engines then. I have heard since that two thousand persons or more went to and from the fair that day. But two thousand only, at three shillings each way, would have produced £600! But, after all, the expense is so great that it is considered uncertain whether the establishment will ultimately remunerate the proprietors. Yet I have heard that it already yields the shareholders a dividend of nine per cent. And Bills have passed for making railroads between London and Birmingham, and Birmingham and Liverpool. What a change it will produce in the intercourse! One conveyance will take between 100 and 200 passengers, and the journey will be made in a forenoon! Of the rapidity of the journey I had better experience on my return; but I may say now that, stoppages included, it may certainly be made at the rate of twenty miles an hour.
“I should have observed before that the most remarkable movements of the journey are those in which trains pass one another. The rapidity is such that there is no recognizing the features of a traveller. On several occasions, the noise of the passing engine was like the whizzing of a rocket. Guards are stationed in the road, holding flags, to give notice to the drivers when to stop. Near Newton I noticed an inscription recording the memorable death of Huskisson.”
—Crabb Robinson’s Diary.
EARLY AMERICAN RAILWAY ENTERPRISE.
Mr. C. F. Adams, in his work on Railroads: Their Origin and Problems, remarks:—“There is, indeed, some reason for believing that the South Carolina Railroad was the first ever constructed in any country with a definite plan of operating it exclusively by locomotive steam power. But in America there was not—indeed, from the very circumstances of the case, there could not have been—any such dramatic occasions and surprises as those witnessed at Liverpool in 1829 and 1830. Nevertheless, the people of Charleston were pressing close on the heels of those at Liverpool, for on the 15th of January, 1831—exactly four months after the formal opening of the Manchester and Liverpool road—the first anniversary of the South Carolina
Railroad was celebrated with due honor. A queer-looking machine, the outline of which was sufficient in itself to prove that the inventor owed nothing to Stephenson, had been constructed at the West Point Foundry Works in New York during the summer of 1830—a first attempt to supply that locomotive power which the Board had, with sublime confidence in possibilities, unanimously voted on the 14th of the preceding January should alone be used on the road. The name of Best Friend was given to this very simple product of native genius. The idea of the multitubular boiler had not yet suggested itself in America. The Best Friend, therefore, was supplied with a common vertical boiler, ‘in form of an old-fashioned porter-bottle, the furnace at the bottom surrounded with water, and all filled inside of what we call teats running out from the sides and tops.’ By means of the projections or ‘teats’ a portion at least of the necessary heating surface was provided. The cylinder was at the front of the platform, the rear end of which was occupied by the boiler, and it was fed by means of a connecting pipe. Thanks to the indefatigable researches of an enthusiast on railroad construction, we have an account of the performances of this and all the other pioneers among American locomotives, and the pictures with which Mr. W. H. Brown has enriched his book would alone render it both curious and valuable. Prior to the stockholders’ anniversary of January 15th, 1831, it seems that the Best Friend had made several trips ‘running at the rate of sixteen to twenty-one miles an hour, with forty or fifty passengers in some four or five cars, and without the cars, thirty to thirty-five miles an hour.’ The stockholders’ day was, however, a special occasion, and the papers of the following Monday, for it happened on a Saturday, gave the following account of it:—
“Notice having been previously given, inviting the stockholders, about one hundred and fifty assembled in the course of the morning at the company’s buildings in Line Street, together with a number of invited guests. The weather the day and night previous had been stormy, and the morning was cold and cloudy. Anticipating a postponement of the ceremonies, the locomotive engine had been taken to pieces for cleaning, but upon the assembling of