This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler.
EDITED BY RICHARD PIKE.
THIRD EDITION.
“The only bona fide Railway AnecdoteBook published
on either side of the Atlantic.”—LiverpoolMercury.
London:Hamilton, Adams, and Co.
Nottingham: J.Derry.
1888.
p. 2nottingham:
j. derby, printer, wheeler gateand hounds gate.
Although railways are comparatively of recent date we are soaccustomed to them that it is difficult to realize the conditionof the country before their introduction. How different arethe present day ideas as to speed in travelling to thoseentertained in the good old times. The celebratedhistorian, Niebuhr, who was in England in 1798, thus describesthe rapid travelling of that period:—“Four horsesdrawing a coach with six persons inside, four on the roof, a sortof conductor besides the coachman, and overladen with luggage,have to get over seven English miles in the hour; and as thecoach goes on without ever stopping except at the principalstages, it is not surprising that you can traverse the wholeextent of the country in so few days. But for any length oftime this rapid motion is quite too unnatural. You can onlyget a very piece-meal view of the country from the windows, andwith the tremendous speed at which you go can keep no object longin sight; you are unable also to stop at any place.” Near the same time the late Lord Campbell, travelling for thefirst time by coach from Scotland to London, was seriouslyadvised to stay a day at York, as the rapidity of motion (eightmiles per hour) had caused several through-going passengers todie of apoplexy.
It is stated in the year 1825, there was in the whole world,only one railway carriage, built to convey passengers. Itwas on the first railway between Stockton and Darlington, andbore on its panels the motto—“Periculum privatum,p.4publica utilitas.” At the opening of thisline the people’s ideas of railway speed were scarcelyahead of the canal boat. For we are told, “Strange tosay, a man on horseback carrying a flag headed theprocession. It was not thought so dangerous a place afterall. The locomotive was only supposed to go at the rate offrom four to six miles an hour; an ordinary horse could easilykeep ahead of that. A great concourse of people stood alongthe line. Many of them tried to accompany the procession byrunning, and some gentlemen on horseback galloped across thefields to keep up with the engine. At a favourable part ofthe road Stephenson determined to try the speed of the engine,and he called upon the horseman with the flag to get out of hisway! The speed was at once raised to twelve miles an hour,and soon after to fifteen, causing much excitement among thepassengers.”
George Stephenson was greatly impressed with the vastpossibilities belonging to the future of railwaytravelling. When battling for the locomotive he seemed tosee with true prescience what it was destined toaccompli