“It is not easy now to conceive the excitement and dismay which this catastrophe caused throughout France. The new invention was at once associated in the minds of an excitable people with novel forms of imminent death. France had at best been laggard enough in its adoption of the new appliance, and now it seemed for a time as if the Versailles disaster was to operate as a barrier in the way of all further railroad development. Persons availed themselves of the steam roads already constructed as rarely as possible, and then in fear and trembling, while steps were taken to substitute horse for steam power on other roads then in process of construction.”
AN AMATEUR SIGNALMAN.
Mr. Williams in his book, Our Iron Roads, gives an account of a foolish act of signalling to stop a train; he says:—“An Irishman, who appears to have been in some measure acquainted with the science of signalling, was on one occasion walking along the Great Western line without permission, when he thought he might reduce his information
to practical use. Accordingly, on seeing an express train approach, he ran a short distance up the side of the cutting, and began to wave a handkerchief very energetically, which he had secured to a stick, as a signal to stop. The warning was not to be disregarded, and never was command obeyed with greater alacrity. The works of the engine were reversed—the tender and van breaks were applied—and soon, to the alarm of the passengers, the train came to a ‘dead halt.’ A hundred heads were thrust out of the carriage windows, and the guard had scarcely time to exclaim, ‘What’s the matter?’ when Paddy, with a knowing touch of his ‘brinks,’ asked his ‘honour if he would give him a bit of a ride?’ So polite and ingenuous a request was not to be denied, and, though biting his lips with annoyance, the officer replied ‘Oh, certainly; jump in here,’ and the pilgrim was ensconced in the luggage van. But instead of having his ride ‘for his thanks,’ the functionary duly handed him over to the magisterial authorities, that he might be taught the important lesson, that railway companies did not keep express trains for Irish beggars, and that such costly machinery was not to be imperilled with impunity, either by their freaks or their ignorance.”
STEAM WHISTLE.
In the early days of railways, the signal of alarm was given by the blowing of a horn. In the year, 1833, an accident occurred on the Leicester and Swannington railway near Thornton, at a level crossing, through an engine running against a horse and cart. Mr. Bagster, the manager, after narrating the circumstance to George Stephenson, asked “Is it not possible to have a whistle fitted on the engine, which the steam can blow?” “A very good thought,” replied Stephenson. “You go to Mr. So-and-So, a musical instrument maker, and get a model made, and we will have a steam whistle, and put it on the next engine that comes on the line.” When the model was made it was sent to the Newcastle factory and future engines had the whistle fitted on them.
EXEMPTION FROM ACCIDENTS.
Mr. C. F. Adams, remarks:—“Indeed, from the time of Mr. Huskisson’s death, during the period of over eleven years, railroads enjoyed a remarkable and most fortunate exemption from accidents. During all that time there did not occur a single disaster resulting in any considerable loss of life. This happy exemption was probably due to a variety of causes. Those early roads were in the first place, remarkably well and thoroughly built, and were very cautiously operated under a light volume of traffic. The precautions then taken and the appliances in use would, it is true, strike the modern railroad superintendent as both primitive and comical; for instance, they involve the running of independent pilot locomotives in advance of all night passenger trains, and it was, by the way, on a pioneer locomotive of this description, on the return trip of the excursion party from Manchester after the accident to Mr. Huskisson, that the first recorded attempt was made in the direction of our present elaborate system of night signals. On that occasion obstacles were signalled to those in charge of the succeeding trains by a man on the pioneer locomotive, who used for that purpose a bit of lighted tarred rope. Through all the years between 1830 and 1841, nevertheless, not a single serious railroad disaster had to be recorded. Indeed, the luck—for it was nothing else—of these earlier times was truly amazing. Thus on this same Liverpool and Manchester road, as a first-class train on the morning of April 17, 1836, was moving at a speed of some thirty miles an hour, an axle broke under the first passenger carriage, causing the whole train to leave the rails and throwing it down the embankment, which at that point was twenty feet high. The carriages were rolled over, and the passengers in them turned topsy-turvy; nor, as they were securely locked in, could they even extricate themselves when at last the wreck of the train reached firm bearings. And yet no one was killed.”
RIVAL CONTRACTORS AND THE BLOTTING PAD.
In rails, the same system has prevailed. Ironmasters have been pitted against each other, as to which should produce an apparent rail at the lowest price. At the outset