A JOURNEY ON THE LOCOMOTIVE.

Reader! have you ever travelled on a locomotive? We believe not; at least there have been very few of you of the male sex, none of you of the gentler—for there is a law on railways like that of masonry, railway engines are “tiled” against crinoline.[71] If one of you should, peradventure, ever succeed in bounding the barrier, you will, like Miss Aldworth[72] a hundred years ago, be sworn to keep the secret for life,—and we are sure you will keep it.

We, however, have been permitted to travel on the engine from London to Stafford and back again, and not having been sworn to secrecy, we venture to give a brief account of the journey.

It is not to be supposed that going through the air at the rate of between forty and fifty miles an hour is disagreeable. It is not so, unless the weather be severe and trying; but in fine, and especially warm weather, the rapid movement creates a feeling of much pleasure and enjoyment. It is only when amateurs do not travel on railway engines that the real hardships of locomotive driving can be appreciated; of late years, however, the little wooden fencing, with oval glass window on each side, the whole technically called a “cab,” gives an amount of protection which materially lessens hardship in inclement weather.

It may be considered, as a general rule, that there are on an average, twelve men employed on each mile of railway in the United Kingdom. Taking the present length of railways as 14,300 miles,[73] this would make the number about 172,000. Of course on many of the railways, especially on those opened in recent years, which are single lines, and run through districts where the population is sparse and the trains infrequent, there is nothing like that average number employed. But, on the other hand, the unceasing increase of business, especially in goods and mineral traffic, on all the leading railways that connect important places together, necessitates continued increase of staff; hence it is that the number of men directly employed is very nearly the same per mile as it was seven or eight-and-twenty years ago.

The engine drivers and firemen constitute about a twelfth of the total staff of railway companies.

One of the oldest railways guide books published, gives exact directions how to arrive at Euston Station from other parts of the town, and we are told to take special notice of the “Grand Facade at Euston Grove.” The centre of it is the Doric portico built by Hardwich, used by nobody, which, however, cost shareholders no less than £40,000. No wonder, seeing that it contains not less than 75,000 cubic feet of Yorkshire freestone, several of the blocks of which, weighed upwards of thirteen tons each.

Passing by, but not through this massive portal, we arrive at the actual station, and thence at the platform, whence, in the magnificent language of penny-a-lining,[74] we are so shortly to be “hurled along through the atmosphere at singularly rapid—it might almost be said marvellously terrific speed of forty-five miles an hour.” Not being historiographers for Mr. Frith, R.A., we do not intend to give any account of the persons whom he truly, but not with such intense artistic effect as in the “Derby Day,” depicts, as those who fill a railway platform just before a train is starting. We must therefore not say anything of the unconscious or indifferent old gentleman, who so placidly reads his newspaper, within six inches of the two broad-brimmed detectives, one of whom dangles the “bracelets” into the view of the foiled and agonised culprit, compelled to convert an intended migration into forced residence in Newgate. We must also leave unrecorded about heaving porters, rushing guards, precipitous newsboys, friends parting—some with lurking tears, some with tears more open—some with scarce suppressed pleasure and fervent hope, as they affectionately squeeze each other’s hands, that they may never meet again, at all events on this side of Jordan; all these must we pass by, that we may show to the engine driver and his “mate” the order, which gives us the privilege of placing ourselves, with them, on the footplate of the engine.

There she is—manacled with harness that Vulcan presided at the forging of—smoke-vomiting, steam-emitting, snorting, bubbling inside, grunting, growling—hissing too, with an intensity equal to the combined and concentrated hissing of ten thousand offended and irritated cats, additioned with the hissing of at least the like number of angry birds, the hissing of one of which was enough to save from capture Roman Capitol, ancient Rome’s strongest fortress, 365 years after Roman City had been created.

Every passenger is seated, the door of every carriage has received its last bang[75] at closing, even the inevitable last man has rushed in, panting and breathless, and has been shoved with main force, by at least a dozen sturdy porters, into a compartment. This last man is as inevitable as the dog at Epsom Races on the Derby Day, or any other incident of life, the absence of which is so impossible, that life could not go on without it. There always is—there always must be—a last man; inexorable fate has so decided. Then it is that the gentleman in the braided green coat, with—as a further mark of distinction from other officials—a hat on, gracefully and graciously, with becoming dignity, yet withal not pompously, in short, exactly as befits a railway official of authority, weight, and consequence, waves a white flag which he has just received from an official of humbler grade standing beside him, once up, once down, and once more up again. He waves no more; the before-mentioned humbler official receiving the flag staff from his dignified chief, carefully folds it up, that it may be in readiness for precisely the same ceremony at the departure of each subsequent train; the chief (still dignified) gives a vade-valeque motion of his right hand, the guard sounds his whistle, and all the bustle, life, excitement, and animation of ten minutes by-gone have as completely vanished, as if they had never existed.

The engine has no sooner, by the slight movement of the “regulator” which the driver gently handles, received a first injection of steam into her cylinders than she starts into motion as a thing of life, with a weight behind her of not less than from 100 to 150 tons. The slow pace at starting is gradually increased, but she has scarcely passed the limit of the station when she is taught the lesson of life, which even the most favoured learn—that it is with her as with man, it is uphill work, at all events in its early stages, for in the first mile and a quarter she has to ascend the stiffest hill in her whole journey, “1 in 80,” Camden being just a hundred feet higher than Euston. Bury’s “four-wheelers,” the dii maximi of railway engine power in 1810, were so weak that they could not bring a train, the weight of which was not a quarter of one of a modern date, up the “Euston incline” without the friendly aid of ropes worked by two fixed engines of high power, and two very high chimneys, at Camden. But the chimneys have long since disappeared, and the engines are doing good service in some other place belonging to the Company’s gigantic establishments. The engine and train emerge from the Primrose tunnel to hide themselves in a minute or two afterwards in that of Kilburn, and as they pass the station of that name, the reader may be reminded it was there that Dick Turpin began his ride to York, on Black Bess, 130 years ago[76]. Had it been mail horses of the olden time their run to Wimbledon (seven miles from Euston) would have completed their present journey, and they would have rested until they were harnessed to the “up mail,” and having brought it to London, their work of twenty-four hours would have been completed. But at seven miles from its starting point the iron horse would not have been more than four or five minutes at full running pace; three minutes in time and two miles in distance bring time-honoured Harrow in sight, “on the hill,” for its church is noticable from every point of the compass, and it was of it that Charles II. said, during a theological discussion in his presence, “the true visible church, as it could be seen everywhere.” Of its school,[77] founded in 1571 by John of Lyon, but one momentary view is obtained, and that is only as a day train darts along the valley that leads to Watford. The three most distinguished men of modern times who have received their education there have been Peel, Palmerston, and Byron.[78]

The northern extremity of the long Watford tunnel, twenty miles from London, is reached just thirty-three minutes from the time of starting; yet it has been climbing work all the while, and the climbing work continues still farther to Tring, eleven miles more distant from London; but the hill is not so steep as it was at starting. Long it is; but Tring is, nevertheless, only some 750 feet higher than Euston, and some 350 feet higher than the top of the cross of the noblest Protestant Church in the world—St. Paul’s. Has the engine felt it? Not she. She has only shown that she knows the difference between a gradient of 1 in 80 and 1 in 300, by the bound she made into higher speed, as, escaping from the stiffer incline, she dashed on to more level ground through the Points of Camden.

In the by-gone days of the early railway, the engine that could gain the heights of Tring without baiting on the way was a wonder. In 1844, when experiments were made preparatory to running express trains between London and Birmingham in three hours, the exultation was great when it was found that a tender could be constructed to hold water enough to convey a light train as far as Wolverton without stopping.

Finality is an unknown element on the railway: Progress is its only pass-word. The tender was no sooner found capable of carrying water to Wolverton, than it was determined to extend the distance to Blisworth. Not very long afterwards the run was increased to Rugby, twenty miles farther. Engines and trains have for some years run these eighty-two miles without stoppage; but of late the water-crane has been supplemented by the water-trough, of which we shall take occasion to speak presently.

From Tring to Leighton the ground is gone over in nearly as few minutes as there are miles—one only conspicuous object being visible in the intervening distance—the noble house built, not ten years ago, for the great Rothschild, by the still greater Paxton.

As the train flies through Leighton Station, the engineman’s watch tells that he has completed his forty miles in his appointed time, fifty-six minutes from that at which he left London. Well that he is quick of glance, for before the watch is replaced in its pocket, the engine and train enter in the Linsdale Tunnel. It is the worst on the line, for though short—only 284 yards in length—you are half-way through it before the first gleam of daylight is caught streaming in at its opposite entrance. “I have got the distant signal all right, Jack, put some coal on”—says the engineman to his fireman, and the furnace door has scarcely been opened for three shovels full, before the iron-clad is dashing through Bletchley Station—46½ miles from London,—twenty years ago, a small road-side station; now, a first-class and intricate junction, whence a branch juts off to the right to Bedford, and thence to Cambridge; another on the left to Oxford. It is thus that the two Universities are brought into railway connection, and the rival seats of learning and of boat racing are only three-and-a-half hours apart from each other. Might not Cam do well by an occasional training visit to the banks and stream of Isis?

Bletchley is also intricate, because it is here that the third line of railway, ordered by the London and North-Western Company in 1858, commences, and is continued except through the Watford Tunnel (at either end of which it is very ingeniously connected with the original up-line of railway) on to Camden Station. This third line is solely for up goods, cattle, and mineral traffic, and the relative speed of such trains and those for passengers can be seen and appreciated, as the latter pass alongside the former for a minute or two, and then leave them behind at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour—twenty versus forty-five.

Time was when Wolverton was looked upon as the most dangerous part of the whole line between London and Liverpool. It was, therefore, a halting place not only for all passenger trains, but goods trains came to a stand there also. At Wolverton likewise were the main locomotive repairing shops of the original London and Birmingham Company; and when the company was amalgamated with the Grand Junction and other companies, the locomotive establishment became that for the southern division of the London and North-Western Company, the two northern points of which are, Birmingham, looking westward, and Stafford, looking slightly to the eastward. In process of time the repairing shops have been doubled, trebled, nearly quadrupled. In 1840 Wolverton had a population of 2,000, all of whom were company’s servants or their families. In 1849 it was double that number, and now, in 1867, it is 6,000. But of this number about 1,700 are on the wing with their families. These are the men who have hitherto been employed in the locomotive works, which (as stated at page 199) have just been transferred to Crewe. These men and their families, however, will not leave a void in the population, as their places will be supplied from the carriage portion of the Crewe establishment, and from the carriage works of the company, until now located at Saltley, near Birmingham.

The chief owners of land at Wolverton are the trustees of the Radcliffe Library Estate at Oxford; and, although they have erected upon the property a church, to which is attached a churchyard (already beginning to show a great many mounds), they have always been unwilling to dispose of land for building purposes to the extent required by the company. The consequence has been that part of the town or village of Wolverton has had to be built nearly a mile away from it!—at a place called Stantonbury, to the great inconvenience and discomfort of all the men who have to take up their quarters in that locality.

Besides the Radcliffe Episcopalian Church, there is one built mainly by subscriptions from the shareholders of the company. Conjointly they are capable of seating about a thousand people, and the schools connected with them have nearly 600 children in daily attendance. Besides these two churches, there are other places of worship, equal to the accommodation of about 1,100 people.

Of the Infant School Sir Francis Head gives a description, which is as accurate for now as it was for eighteen years ago:—“At the western extremity of the building, on entering the infant-school, which is under the superintendence of an intelligent-looking young person of about nineteen years of age, we were struck by the regular segments in which the little creatures were standing in groups around a tiny monitor occupying the centre of each chord. We soon, however, detected that this regularity of their attitudes was caused by the insertion in the floor of various chords of hoop iron, the outer rims of which they all touched with their toes. A finer set of children we have seldom beheld; but what particularly attracted our attention was three rows of beautiful babies, sitting as solemn as judges on three steps one above another, the lowest being a step higher than the floor of the room. They were learning the first hard lesson of this world—namely, to sit still; and certainly the occupation seemed to he particularly well adapted to their outlines; indeed, their pinafores were so round, and their cheeks so red, that altogether they resembled three rows of white dumplings, with a rosy-faced apple on each. The picture was most interesting; and we studied their cheerful features until we almost fancied that we could analyse and distinguish which were little fire-flies, which small stokers, which tiny pokers, infant artificers, &c.”

In the early days of Wolverton, a reading-room, and a library, containing some 700 volumes, supplied the mental occupation and recreation then afforded to its residents. Now there is a Science and Art Institute, an off-shoot from South Kensington, which contributed £500 towards the erection of the building. Its library possesses nearly 3,000 volumes, almost all of which are contributions. The chief person in this work of kindness and goodness is Miss Burdett Coutts, that pre-eminently good lady whose name has but to be mentioned to ensure for it universal respect and admiration.

The institute has an enrolment of 350 members, a large number of whom attend the evening class, and it is a pleasurable fact to state that the pupils have been successful, more than on the average, in the science examinations which are annually held there. As at Crewe, the Government makes it free grants of patent specifications; many of these are closely studied, and all are highly appreciated by the students.

The directors and principal officers of the company, always mindful of the best interests of its staff, and ever keeping a paternal, but not obtrusive eye upon it, have recently erected a model lodging-house, solely for the convenience of single young men. Fifty of them are now accommodated in it; each has a separate bed-room, and the whole establishment is superintended by a very carefully selected manager, who is responsible, not only for the good conduct of the lodgers whilst under its roof, but also for their comfort. The system works well, and it will be extended.

In 1840, and for some few years afterwards, passengers ran a risk at Wolverton to which, happily, or, as we venture to think, very unhappily, they are no longer exposed—that is passengers who travelled chiefly in first-class carriages, and in the express trains of that period were accustomed to alight for ten railway minutes (anglice five) at the celebrated refreshment rooms, the fame of which was world-wide. It was not only that the soup was hot, and the coffee “super-heated,” but it was admitted by those who, by the process of blowing the former, and pouring the latter into saucers, were able to get a mouthful or two, it was admitted we say, that each of these beverages was excellent. But there was an attraction at these refreshment rooms that rose superior to all the hot soup, the hot coffee, the hot tea, the buns, the Banbury cakes, the pork pies, the brandy, whiskey, gin, and “rich compounds,” the ample statistics of which will be found in our foot-note.[79] Need we say that we refer to the charming young ladies, in whom were concentrated all the beauty and grace that should be corporated in modern Hebes. Our excellent friends, Messrs. Spiers & Pond, of well-earned and well-deserved “Buffet” celebrity, have worthily followed in the footsteps of the great inventress of the railway refreshment room, as it should be; and happy we are to record the fact, that go where we may, we are sure to see, under the magic words announcing that they are the caterers, sweet faces, worthy types of English beauty, all the more worthy because with them is combined the modest demeanour, emblem of purity, without which all is absent that adorns woman and renders her enchanting. Messrs. Spiers & Pond have—as the late Mrs. Hibbert had—but one rule for “tainted angels”—their expulsion.

At moments, however—they were only moments—female grace was at fault at the Wolverton refreshment rooms. The late Douglas Jerrold (father of one of the workman’s most real and truest friends—Blanchard by Christian name) had in his play of the “Housekeeper” one of the characters, a drunken wine-porter, who appears on the scene for only a few minutes, and all the language he gives utterance to is advice to his daughter and her companion, never to go anywhere without a cork-screw. No doubt this is good paternal advice, such as any good father of a family might give, but it is the use only of the instrument with which we are concerned. Wolverton had many stringent rules, and one of them was that “draught bitter” should not be “drunk on the premises”; pale ale, therefore, could only be furnished by means of the cork-screw. Now, we appeal to any father, husband, brother, cousin, or lover (the two latter often synonymous,—see all the dictionaries, classical and vulgate); Did you ever see a young lady draw, with grace, a cork out of a bottle in the old-fashioned way, that is, by placing it within the ample folds of her dress (all the more ample if crinoline were concealed behind it), and then tugging until the cork is extracted; if the cork be an easy, obedient, willing cork, the operation is not difficult, and woman’s want of grace is but for the moment, but it became momentous, to say nothing of bursting of tapes and wrenching of hooks and eyes, red face and perhaps disappointment, if main force must be resorted to. At all events, the late Mrs. Hibbert (known at Wolverton and elsewhere as Generalissima) appreciated the difficulty, and with woman’s tact transferred, by a wave of her sovereign sceptre, the beer bottle drawing department of the establishment to the hands of the young gentlemen with all the buttons, and thus released the young ladies from the duty. She never, however, could, to the day of her death, make up her mind that the young ladies ought to be relieved from ginger beer and soda water.

But before we quit for ever (scriptorially) the subject of bitter beer—of Bass, Ind, and Allsopp; of immortal Burton, that squeezes quart bottles into pints, pints into thimblefuls, of which three-fourths are froth; and of tap-tub measurement that, by a talisman, converts an imperial pint of the amber fluid into four half-pint glasses, let us ask permission to philosophise for a moment—for a moment only. Woman! You are never more charming, more feminine, more enchanting than when you are domestic. A magic circle of fascination then surrounds you. You are in your real mission, and being real, you are angelic. But, woman, be true to yourself; be domestic to the fullest extent that brightest imagination can picture or truth realise. But, sex most dear, most loveable of all things human that can be loved, hear the advice of one who believes you were sent on earth for the holy purpose of refining man, and of purifying him—never, oh, never be seen using a cork-screw!

Sir Francis Head, in a passage which we purposely omit because we want to have our own say, in our own way, on the subject, informs us that by 1849 four of the young ladies had managed to make excellent marriages. Sir Francis has greatly understated the number. It is quite true that the daily occupations of the young ladies, even without drawing the corks of beer bottles, were arduous and unceasing. Nevertheless, as with all busily occupied people, a time can be found for everything. Not four, but four times four of them found sixteen eligible husbands, and at the present time we know two of them, one not fat, but “fair and forty,” the other with slight disadvantage in point of age—forty-four (she confesses to forty[80])—but in every other respect at least as eligible, who have had each to exhibit the sable signs of sorrow, void, and bereavement, within the last eighteen months. Let us just pause for a moment, to shed a “pensive tear” to the memory of the two dear departed, just as in the days of our boyhood our sympathies were requested in memory of the celebrated bonnie lassie of “Kelvin Grove,” by the father of a lady of present times, who is worshipped by millions, and has been possessed of only by four. (May he of the strong shield endure for ever!) Our tear is shed; and now, like the military bands that accompany the remains of a departed comrade to the grave with the Dead March in Saul, and return to barracks with joyous and festive music, do we proclaim, by sound of wedding trumpet and cornet-À-piston, the probability that, ere long, each of the charming widows will make a second matrimonial venture. We can, in fact, go one step farther. One of the ladies has already purchased the grey silk dress, absolutely necessary on such occasion; the second has not gone so far as actual purchase, but she knows where to put her hand upon one at a moment’s notice. The dress-maker has already been consulted about the trimmings.[81]

It may probably be observed by any person who has been so venturous as to read the first hundred or so of our pages, that we are given to statistics. This is so, and it has also been alleged of us that we readily detect errors in them when prepared by others. Without taking to ourselves more than a decorous quantity of flattering unction, we believe we shall be able to show, in a work preparing for early publication, that, as regards Post Office statistics, at all events, none have been issued by the department for the last fifteen years that are not abounding in most egregious blunders, and that the logical dogmas of “contrariety, sub-contrariety, and contradiction” were never carried to greater extent than in these documents. Our statistics and contradictions are, at the present moment, however, of a different character. They refer to what, in the palmy days of Wolverton as a seat of learning and refreshment, formed an important part of the population of the colony; at least they are described as so being, both in an article of the Quarterly Review upon the London and North-Western Railway of 1849, and in Sir Francis Head’s “Stokers and Pokers,” published in the identical same year, and almost in the identical same month. Nevertheless the former names seventy-five pigs and piglings as members of the refreshment establishment; but Sir Francis disputes the figures, raises it ten higher, and not only insists that they were eighty-five in number, but that each was converted, in his or her turn every year, into pork pies and sausage roly-polies. But whichever amount be the correct one, let the pork pies and sausage roly-polies rest in peace. The indigestions of which they were, in their day, the teterimÆ causÆ, have long since passed away. Let no rude attempt be made to re-produce them.

Thanks to increased lines of railway at Wolverton, both “main” and “siding,” thanks also to signalling so improved in principle, and so minute in action—signalling which embraces the visible “arm” by day, the visible tri-coloured lamp at night, the audible “fog,” and never-failing, ever truthful Electricity—express and other trains can, and do dart past the fifty-two mile post placed at the eastern extremity of the station with celerity and certainty, the same as at any other part of the system.

Still the engine speeds onwards, untired, at undiminished pace. She and her train are near to Blisworth, 62½ miles from London, and it is four miles south of this station that she is allowed her first draught of water. Of solid food she has still enough, for of the four to five tons of coal with which she started on her journey, she has not consumed more than a ton and a-half. Not far from Roade Station, on each side of the railway, is a reservoir of pure water, and at this part of the line the gradient is as nearly as possible level. Within the rails, both “down” and “up” sides, are placed two narrow troughs, each about a quarter of a mile long. By means of syphons the water is conveyed from the reservoirs to the troughs, and just as the engine approaches, a small inclined plane with wooden sides, such as the inclines by which luggage is dashed from packet-piers to steamers, is lowered from the front of the engine. The inclined plane brought in contact with the water compels it, contrary to all hydraulic principles, to ascend along it, until the water is deposited in the tank of the tender. As the engine approaches the end of the trough, the inclined plane is, by the simplest possible means, drawn up, and the engine has a fresh supply of water that would enable her to go fully as long again as the distance she has already completed.

These reservoirs are now found so useful that there is a pair of them on the London side of Watford, another between Warrington and Newton Junction, and a third on the London side of Conway, as near as can be half-way between Holyhead and Chester.

Four miles from Blisworth, on the right, stands Northampton, famed for its production of shoes, unequalled, as regards numbers, in any other part of the kingdom, and for its obstinate persistence (in the blind and unenlightened period of railway history) in refusing to allow the London and Birmingham Line to come within a less distance than 25,000 yards between it and its shoddy-shoebility. Independently of the injury which this obstinacy has ever since inflicted upon the town, it cost the railway company a loss in money of more than a million sterling, a lengthened and inferior section of railway, a tunnel 2,423 yards long (only 217 less than a mile and a-half), which, during its construction, ruined four contractors and caused the deaths of upwards of a hundred working men. Finally, the obstinacy of Northampton delayed the opening through of the railway from London to Birmingham for fully two years. No wonder, then, that its present generation of men is ashamed of the deed. Some go so far as to deny it altogether; others are more scrupulous, and only palliate it with excuses of which quibbling and petty ingenuity are the joint parents. “There is nothing like leather;” the only question is—its application.

In the centre of circulate movement there is one mathematical point which, although not absolutely still, approaches a state more akin to quiescence than to motion. Such is Weedon, not absolutely dead, but next door to it—“deadly lively”—sixty-nine miles from London. It is considered the centre spot of England, and it was, apparently for this reason, seriously suggested in the time of the great war, “when George III. was king,” that His Majesty should take up his residence at this tranquil spot, to be out of harm’s way, in case of invasion. The intention, however, was not carried out, and Weedon has ever since been lost to a fame and importance which even the passage of the London and North-Western line has failed to give it. It is almost the only town in the civilised world which the presence of the railway has failed to render even lively. No need then, for our engine and train to stop there, so they proceed on with undiminished speed through the rich pastures and glowing corn-fields of Northamptonshire and Warwickshire.

Arrived at Crick, seventy-five miles from London, they are within a mile of the great Kilsby Tunnel just referred to; and its northern extremity has not been left behind more than a mile and a-half, when the elaborate system of signals necessary for the protection of the next station comes in sight. The first of them is passed at speed; but gradually, as the engine and train approach the second, the driver slightly lowers his regulator, and the guards, both at the fore and hinder parts of the train, take their breaks in hand; so does the fireman, at his powerful break on the engine. The second signal is passed; white takes the place of green at the third, if all be right; but if not, and there be any sudden obstruction at or near the station, vivid red lamps by night, bright red arms by day, appear from half a dozen places almost with the electric flash and speed of lightning. Two sharp, shrill, and sudden whistles from the engine tell the guards that danger is a-head—that is, should they not themselves have seen it; an unlikely circumstance, for they are as keenly alert in their break-vans as driver and fireman are on their engine. In a moment three powerful men are applying, with utmost energy, the immense break-power at their command—so powerful that the passengers often feel a concussion that awakes the dormant, and almost hurls them against their opposite neighbours, and the train is pulled up within a space varying from 200 to 400 yards.

But if “red upon green” be not the order, steam is gradually shut off before the third signal is passed, the breaks are applied gradually and steadily, the train comes to walking pace, and, as the engine glides into the station, the driver looks at his watch, and sees by it that it is exactly two hours, less one minute, since he quitted London. He is correct to time to the moment; but if he were not so, he would, even if he were blameless, hear of it from two sources certainly—his own foreman and the railway guard; and if it were a postal train, through the inspector of that department. To the first-named official, at all events, he would have to give ample explanations.

At Rugby, driver and fireman are allowed four minutes to “water the engine,” which means, giving her a fresh supply of that most precious aliment, going carefully round and under her to see and to feel that no part is unusually heated, and to supply with oil, from cans with the stork-like necks we see in the hands of all drivers and firemen, those parts of the engine and machinery which cannot be supplied during transit. In the course of these four minutes, if the train carry the mails, a postal operation is manifested which suddenly converts the platform, previously comparatively tranquil, into a scene of intense animation. Piles of mail-bags are hurled out from the vans and travelling post offices with indescribable celerity. The guards and porters of the department perform this part of the business, but from the moment the bags are on the platform post office drudgery in respect of them ceases, and it then becomes the duty of the railway porters to attend to their further manipulation. This duty, however, is deferred until the bags awaiting on the platform the arrival of the train are lodged, by post office mandate, in van or sorting office; a sharp “All right” is heard to issue from the inside of the latter, the railway passengers who have left their carriages have returned to them, the porters have ceased crying, “Take your seats for north,” and have replaced it by, “Any more passengers for the Scotch express?” all doors are closed—banged,—“Are you all right behind?” The wave of a white flag by day, a white lamp by night, is railway language for “Yes,”—a sharp decisive whistle from the foremost guard,—whether the sound be heard above the hissing of the escaping steam or the motion only be perceived it matters not, the engine driver understands it,—up goes his regulator, on goes his steam, the fireman (who has freed his break as soon as the engine is ready for starting) looks to the rear of the train as it begins to move from the station. If the engine don’t “slip,” the regulator, further raised, admits more steam to the cylinder; should it slip, steam is altogether shut off for a moment, and then let on again. The engine has got over the slippery point on the rails,—slippery either from the ordinary foulness of the atmosphere, or more probably, from some of the oil which has fallen from the engine to the rails. She is now getting to her speed; the guards, who have not jumped from the platform until after the train is in motion, shut themselves within their vans, they see that their breaks are all right and begin arranging their parcels; the sisyphi of the sorting post fall to again at their always-beginning and never-ending labours; such passengers as can sleep, sleep, such as can’t don’t. And so the engine and her train, leaving the railway to Coventry, Birmingham, and the “Black Country” to the left, and that to Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, and all the east coast cities of northern England, to the right, pass onwards towards and through Nuneaton, a junction station which sends a branch to the left towards Coventry, and thence to Leamington, and one to the right to Leicester, where it connects with the system of the Midland Railway Company; a halt at Tamworth (necessary because it is a great postal centre, although of comparative insignificance as regards the railway) takes place thirty-three minutes after departure from Rugby, the intervening distance being twenty-four miles,—thence to Stafford, 133½ miles from London, accomplished in three hours fifteen minutes, entitles not only the engine, but those who are placed to control her, to rest and repose for a certain period.

A sister engine, which has been all ready-coaled and watered fully half an hour before the time appointed for the train’s arrival, is attached thereto, and she proceeds onwards, reaching (if it be the Limited Mail) Crewe, 25 miles distant, in 30 minutes; Carlisle, 299 miles from London, in 9 hours; Edinburgh, 401 miles, in 10½ hours; Perth, 449 miles, in 12 hours 20 minutes. Here begins the beautiful and picturesque Highland railway[82], the most northern of all our railways at the present time. Of it a few words. Its main line, extending from Perth through Inverness to Bonar Bridge, is of the total length of 204 miles. Thus London and the northern extremity of the Highland Railway are 653 miles apart, and the whole distance is accomplished by the Limited Mail in 22 hours and 20 minutes. Including branches, the Highland Railway is 250 miles in extent. Between Inverness and Perth it passes over several summits of considerable height, the highest, 1,500 feet above the level of the sea, being on the borders of Inverness and Perthshire. The next highest is at Dana, where the level is 1,000 above that of the sea, and about 40 miles to the south of this, and again at Dunkeld, the elevations are 400 feet each. The summits are gained by the line winding in and out amongst the hills, and by gradients of 1 in 70 (75 feet to the mile) and 1 in 80 (66 feet in the mile). At Speyside, near Keith, there is a rise for three miles of 1 in 60 (88 feet in the mile). The cuttings and embankments are, of course, on a large scale, and owing to the great elevation and exposed position of the line, the strong winds in the winter time sweep the snow from the hills and deposit it in the cuttings, thus making very heavy drifts. The snow ploughs invented by Mr. William Strandley, the Locomotive Superintendent of the company, are said to be very successful in removing these drifts from off the railway.

But, although the Highland Railway is now the most northern[83] in the United Kingdom, it will probably cease to be entitled to be so called before the end of the present year, for it is expected that by that time the “Sutherland Railway” will be opened for traffic. This line is to extend from Bonar Bridge to Golspie, a distance of twenty-seven miles; not all northwards, for, for the first three miles, it goes westward, and enters the county of Sutherland by crossing the river Oykel, which is spanned by an elegant iron-girder viaduct. It then turns northward to Lairg, where it inclines to the east, and continues in that direction until it reaches Golspie. The whole of the land occupied by the line from the river Oykel to Golspie is owned by His Grace the Duke of Sutherland, whose magnificent Highland residence, Dunrobin Castle, stands on the sea-shore, within a short distance of the latter place. The gradients are somewhat severe. From the Oykel there is an ascent of 1 in 72 to 75 for about eight miles to the summit, which is upwards of 500 feet above the sea-level. There are several heavy rock-cuttings. The scenery at some parts of the line is almost equal to the finest of the many picturesque views on the Highland Railway, by which company its traffic is to be worked. When completed, a passenger landing at Dover can go a distance of 768 miles to Golspie without even leaving the railway; or if he come upon English land, close to its end in Cornwall, he can go by rail from Penzance to within fifty of John of Groat’s land. If he will insist upon coming through London, his distance will be 1,007 miles; but if he leave the line towards the Metropolis, at Bristol, and go from there through Birmingham, he will shorten the journey by 130 miles. He will save some money, but not much time, by changing.

M. Vandal, the Directeur GÉnÉral des Postes FranÇaises, says, in his Annuaire for the current year, that there is not a railway run from Dover to any part of the United Kingdom equal to the railway run from Calais to Nice, 863 miles. That is true at the present time to the extent of 122 miles. In a couple of months—that is when the Sutherland line is opened—it will be true to the extent of ninety-five miles; and, even if, as is expected, a railway be constructed which is to extend both to Wick and to sleepy[84] Thurso[85], the tables will not be turned. The route from Calais to Nice will still be sixty-five miles longer than from Dover to John o’ Groat’s Land.

The engine of the down trains from London, having rested at Stafford its appointed time, is again coaled and watered, and if she have brought the Scotch Mail, she takes her place at the head of the up-train, at 1·18 a.m., or an hour and twenty minutes after she had finished her downward journey. In precisely eight hours from the time she has left Euston she has completed her day’s work, and in doing so she has gone over 267 miles of ground, and has conveyed some 120 tons dead weight of matter, besides her own weight, at a running speed of nearly forty-five miles an hour. She will perform the same double journey on the morrow, and then she will rest for a “shed-day;” out again for duty on the following day. She will work that and the succeeding day, then a rest as before, then work again for two days, and so on, taking shed-days, and times required for slight repairs, and occasionally for heavy ones and renewals. An engine is considered to do good service that is actually running on 250 days in a year. Quite enough, when it is remembered that she consists of 5,416 pieces, which must be put together like watch-work.

The watch, however, is not exposed to rough usage, fly-away speed, and exposure to weather the intensity of which may vary from 40 degrees below freezing point to 120 degrees of heat in the sun. We have seen the same engine at work in Canada at these identical temperatures within an interval of four months only. No wonder then that when her day’s work is done she requires repose, quite as much as it is necessary for the horse of every day life. Her joints have become relaxed with labour, her bolts have become loosened, her rubbing surfaces, notwithstanding the oil the engine driver poured upon them, have become heated and are often unequally expanded, strained, and twisted; her grate bars and fire-box have become choked with clinkers, and her tubes charged with coke. Hey presto! the engine cleaners—the groom and hostlers of the iron horse—take her in hand, they clean out her fire-box, they scrape its grate bars; and, under the superintendence of superior workmen, they tighten all bolts and rivets, grease all moving parts, thoroughly cleanse her outside as well as in,—and the engine, thus washed, cooled down, refreshed, and purified, is, after an interval of five or six hours, again ready (if required) for whatever giant duty it maybe necessary to employ her upon. But, let it always be remembered and borne in mind, she must not be over worked; she is infinitely more delicate and sensitive in this respect than the horse is.

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