SOME FAMOUS RAILWAY TRAINS AND THEIR STORY.
By Henry Frith.
II.—THE "WILD IRISHMAN."
The "Wild Irishman" is the train which carries the Irish mails, the American letter-bags, from Holyhead to London, and vice versâ. There are four "Irishmen," two in the daytime and two at night. The morning Irish mail from London leaves Euston Square at a quarter-past seven, and it is by this train which we have elected to travel, as we shall see the country better.
Here we are at Euston. The engine is already attached to the train—a fine, rather elegant-looking locomotive, with its name on a neat brass plate on the great "driving" wheel. Perhaps we shall find it called the "Lady of the Lake," or "Rokeby." At any rate, it looks very neat and clean, though not such a giant as our friend the "Dutchman."
If your eyes are sharp and you are fond of engines, and like to "pat" them, as I do, you will notice that the cranks and piston-rods work outside the wheels, not between them, and underneath the boiler, as in the Great Western engines. You will have just time to look at the wheels and the name when the man on the platform will wave his flag, and the "Irishman" will start very gently. As we are quite invisible, we just step up beside the driver as the engine moves, and he knows nothing about us. Ha! ha! Mr. Driver; but we intend to know something about your "Wild Irishman!"
Our driver and fireman ("stoker," perhaps you call the latter) are very great men. They have a great deal done for them. Do you think they light the fire and polish the engine? Do you think they go and take in coal and water at Crewe, or elsewhere, while they wait for a "return" train? Oh dear no! Another pair of men are ready, and our "mail-men" go and sit in the drivers' "cabin" and have their tea, and chat till the train is ready to start again.
It is not at all a bad position, though a very responsible one, to be an engine-driver on the London and North-Western Railway, particularly when you have worked yourself up to the "top of the tree." I could tell you many anecdotes of this railway, on which I lived for many years; but we must not forget the "Wild Irishman" has run through Camden Town, and is even now in the Primrose Hill tunnel.