Charles Knight thus describes this old line:—“The earliest railway for public traffic in England was one passing from Merstham to Wandsworth, through Croydon; a small, single line, on which a miserable team of donkeys, some thirty years ago, might be seen crawling at the rate
of four miles an hour, with several trucks of stone and lime behind them. It was commenced in 1801, opened in 1803; and the men of science of that day—we cannot say that the respectable name of Stephenson was not among them, (Stephenson was then a brakesman at Killingworth)—tested its capabilities and found that one horse could draw some thirty-five tons at six miles an hour, and then, with prophetic wisdom, declared that railways could never be worked profitably. The old Croydon railway is no longer used. The genius loci must look with wonder on the gigantic offspring of the little railway, which has swallowed up its own sire. Lean mules no longer crawl leisurely along the little rails with trucks of stone through Croydon, once perchance during the day, but the whistle and the rush of the locomotive are now heard all day long. Not a few loads of lime, but all London and its contents, by comparison—men, women, children, horses, dogs, oxen, sheep, pigs, carriages, merchandise, food,—would seem to be now-a-days passing through Croydon; for day after day, more than 100 journeys are made by the great railroads which pass the place.”
RAILWAY ANNOUNCEMENT.
The following announcement was published in a London periodical, dated August 1, 1802:—“The Surrey Iron Railway is now completed over the high road through Wandsworth town. On Wednesday, June 8, several carriages of all descriptions passed over the iron rails without meeting with the least obstacle. Among these, the Portsmouth wagon, drawn by eight horses and weighing from eight to ten tons, passed over the rails, and did not appear to make the slightest impression upon them.”
MERTHYR TYDVIL RAILWAY.
An Act of Parliament was granted for a railway to Merthyr Tydvil in 1803, and the following year the first locomotive which ran on a railway is described in a racy manner by the Western Mail, as follows:—“Quaint, rattling, puffing, asthmatic, and wheezy, the pioneer of ten thousand gilding creations of beauty and strength made its way between the white-washed houses of the old tramway at
Merthyr. It has a dwarf body placed on a high framework, constructed by the hedge carpenter of the place in the roughest possible fashion. The wheels were equally rough and large, and surmounting all was a huge stack, ugly enough when it was new, but in after times made uglier by whitewash and rust. Every movement was made with a hideous uproar, snorting and clanking, and this, aided by the noise of the escaping steam, formed a tableau from which, met in the byeway, every old woman would run with affright. The Merthyr locomotive was made jointly by Trevithick, a Cornishman, and Rees Jones, of Penydarran. The day fixed for the trial was the 12th of February, 1804, and the track a tramway, lately formed from Penydarran, at the back of Plymouth Works, by the side of the Troedyrhiw, and so down to the navigation. Great was the concourse assembled; villagers of all ages and sizes thronged the spot; and the rumour of the day’s doings even penetrated up the defiles of Taff Vawr and Taff Vach, bringing down old apple-faced farmers and their wives, who were told of a power and a speed that would alter everything, and do away with horses altogether. Prim, cosy, apple-faced people, innocent and primitive, little thought ye then of the changes which the clanking monster was to yield; how Grey Dobbin would see flying by a mass of wood and iron, thousands of tons of weight, bearing not only the commerce of the country, but hundreds of people as well; how rivers and mountains would afford no obstacle, as the mighty azure waves leap the one and dash through the other. On the first engine and trains that started on the memorable day in February, twenty persons clustered like bees, anxious, we learn in the ‘History of Merthyr,’ to win immortality by being thus distinguished above all their fellows; the trains were six in number, laden with iron, and amidst a concourse of villagers, including the constable, the ‘druggister,’ and the class generally dubbed ‘shopwors’ by the natives, were Richard Crawshay and Mr. Samuel Homfray. The driver was one William Richards, and on the engine were perched Trevithick and Rees Jones, their faces black, but their eyes bright with the anticipation of victory. Soon the signal was given, and amidst a mighty roar from the people, the wheels turned
and the mass moved forward, going steadily at the rate of five miles an hour until a bridge was reached a little below the town that did not admit of the stack going under, and as this was built of bricks, there was a great crash and instant stoppage. Trevithick and Jones were of the old-fashioned school of men who did not believe in impossibilities. The fickle crowd, too, who had hurrahed like mad, hung back and said ‘It won’t do’; but these heroes, the advance-guard of a race who had done more to make England famous than battles by land or sea, sprang to the ground and worked like Britons, never ceasing until they had repaired the mishap, and then they rattled on, and finally reached their journey’s end. The return journey was a failure, on account of gradients and curves, but the possibility of success was demonstrated; and from this run on the Merthyr tramway the railway age—marked with throes and suspense, delays, accidents, and misadventures—finally began.”
AN AFFRIGHTED TOLL-KEEPER.
There is a story told by Coleridge about the steam engine which Trevithick exhibited at work on a temporary railroad in London. Trevithick and his partner Captain Vivian, prior to this exhibition were riding on the carriage on the turnpike road near to Plymouth. It had committed sundry damage in its course, knocking down the rails of a gentleman’s garden, when Vivian saw the toll-bar in front of them closed he called to Trevithick to slacken speed which he did just in time to save the gate. The affrighted toll-keeper instantly opened it. “What have us got to pay?” asked Captain Vivian, careful as to honesty if reckless as to grammar.