The celebrated Cuvier, in an address delivered by him before the French Institute in the year 1816, thus referred to the nascent locomotive:—“A steam engine, mounted upon a carriage whose wheels indent themselves along a road specially prepared for it, is attached to a line of loaded vehicles. A fire is lit underneath the boiler, by which the engine is speedily set in motion, and in a short time the whole are brought to their journey’s end. The traveller who, from a distance, first sees this strange spectacle of a train of loaded carriages traversing the country by the simple force of steam, can with difficulty believe his eyes.”
The locomotive thus described by Cuvier was the first engine of the kind regularly employed in the working of railway traffic. It was impelled by means of a cogged wheel, which worked into a cogged rail, after the method adopted by Mr. Blenkinsop, upon the Middleton Coal Railway, near Leeds; and the speed of the train which it dragged behind it was only from three to four miles an hour.
Ten years later, the same power and speed of the locomotive were still matters of wonderment, for, in 1825, we find Mr. Mackenzie, in his “History of Northumberland” thus describing the performances on the Wylam Coal Railroad:—“A stranger,” said he, “is struck with surprise and astonishment on seeing a locomotive engine moving majestically along the road at the rate of four or five miles an hour, drawing along from ten to fourteen loaded wagons, weighing about twenty-one-and-a-half tons; and his surprise is increased on witnessing the extraordinary facility with which the engine is managed. This invention is indeed a noble triumph of science.”
In the same year, the first attempt was made to carry passengers by railway between Stockton and Darlington. A machine resembling the yellow caravan still seen at country fairs was built and fitted up with seats all round it, and set upon the rails, along which it was drawn by a horse. It was found exceedingly convenient to travel by, and the number of passengers between the two towns so much increased that several bodies of old stage coaches were bought up, mounted upon railway wheels, and added to the carrying stock of the Stockton and Darlington Company. At length the horse was finally discarded in favour of the locomotive, and not only coals and merchandise, but passengers of all classes, were drawn by steam.
—Railway News.
A RAILWAY PROJECTOR.
In the year 1819, Thomas Gray—a deep thinker with a mind of comprehensive grasp—was travelling in the North of England when he saw a train of coal-wagons drawn by steam along a colliery tramroad. “Why,” he questioned the engineer, “are not these tramroads laid down all over England, so as to supersede our common roads, and steam engines employed to convey goods and passengers along them, so as to supersede horse power?” The engineer replied, “Just propose you that to the nation, sir, and see what you will get by it! Why, sir, you will be worried to death for your pains.” Nothing daunted by this reply, Thomas Gray could scarcely think or talk upon any other subject. In vision he saw the country covered with a
network of tramroads. Before his time the famous Duke of Bridgewater might have some misgivings about his canals. It is related on a certain occasion some one said to him, “You must be making handsomely out of your canals.” “Oh, yes,” grumbled he in reply, “they will last my time, but I don’t like the look of these tramroads; there’s mischief in them.” Mr. Gray, with prophetic eye, saw the great changes which the iron railway would make in the means of transit throughout the civilized world. In 1820 he brought out his now famous work, entitled “Observations on a General Iron Railway, or Land Steam Conveyance, to supersede the necessity of horses in all public vehicles; showing its vast superiority in every respect over all the present pitiful methods of conveyance by Turnpike-roads, Canals, and Coasting Traders: containing every species of information relative to Railroads and Locomotive Engines.” The book is illustrated by a plate exhibiting different kinds of carriages drawn on the railway by locomotives. He evidently anticipated that the locomotive of the future would be capable of going at a considerable speed, for on the plate is engraved these lines:—
“No speed with this can fleetest horse compare;
No weight like this canal or vessel bear.
As this will commerce every way promote,
To this let sons of commerce grant their vote.”
Mr. Gray in his book exhibits a marvellous insight into the wants and requirements of the country. He remarks, “The plan might be commenced between the towns of Manchester and Liverpool, where a trial could soon be made, as the distance is not very great, and the commercial part of England would thereby be better able to appreciate its many excellent properties and prove its efficacy. All the great trading towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire would then eagerly embrace the opportunity to secure so commodious and easy a conveyance, and cause branch railways to be laid down in every possible direction. The convenience and economy in the carriage of the raw material to the numerous manufactories established in these counties, the expeditious and cheap delivery of piece goods bought by the merchants every week at the various markets, and the despatch in forwarding bales and packages to the outposts