CHAPTER V.
A MILE A MINUTE.
“Theexpress is to be quickened, my lord. Mr. Thompson, the general manager, has given instructions to that effect.”
So spoke the station master at Carlisle, on the 17th of March, 1894, to Lord Rosebery.
His lordship had very recently been appointed Prime Minister, and was on his way to Edinburgh to deliver a great public speech. The train, presumably, was late, or he, through stress of business probably, had left too little margin of time. However, by the instructions of Mr. Thompson, the general manager of the Caledonian Railway, the express was accelerated, and it rushed over 101 miles in 105 minutes, one of the quickest locomotive runs, we imagine, that have ever been recorded. The train arrived fifteen minutes before it was due, and Lord Rosebery was enabled to keep his engagement.
This run was approximately at the rate of a mile a minute, and maintained for an hour and three-quarters. Only some two years or so previously a somewhat similar run was made. An officer of the Guards found that he had lost the south-going mail train at Stirling. He had been on leave in Scotland, and was bound to report himself in London next morning.
What was he to do? Did he sit down and moan, or fly to the telegraph office and endeavour to excuse himself? Not he. He promptly engaged a specialtrain, which flying over the metals, actually caught the mail at Carlisle, having covered 118 miles in 126 minutes; that is, again, approximately a mile a minute, and maintained for slightly over two hours.
Now, in order to attain high average speed, some parts of the journey, say very easy inclines or levels, must be covered at a much higher rate. Thus, to obtain an average of fifty-two miles an hour—which is probably the regular average of our best English expresses—the pace will most likely be sometimes at the rate of seventy, or it may be seventy-six, miles per hour.
The United States have claimed to run the fastest regular train. This is the “Empire State Express” of the New York Central, which bursts away from New York to Buffalo, a trip of 140 miles, at the average rate of 52-12/100 miles per hour, but running eighty miles at the rate of 56¾ miles an hour. It is also said that, in August, 1891, a train on the New York portion of the Reading road ran a mile in less than forty seconds, and covered a dozen miles at an average of barely 43½ seconds per mile.
English expresses could certainly accomplish these average speeds, but the fact is very high speeds do not pay. They wear everything to pieces. Then there is the coal consumption. American railway engineers—according to theEngineernewspaper—“seem to be unable to get on with less than 100 lbs. per square foot (of fire grate area) as a minimum;” while, from the same paper, we learn that the average rate of burning of Mr. Webb’s remarkable North-Western engine, the “Greater Britain,” was but “a little over seventy-three lbs. per square foot per hour,” or, altogether, 1500 lbs. per hour.
The rails also are greatly worn by continuous high speeds. Engineers have been equal to this difficulty, and rails are now made of steel, and even steel sleepers are constructed on which the rails repose. But still the wear and tear, especially to engines, of continuoushigh speeds, is very great. The reason why the famous “Race to Edinburgh” was stopped was doubtless because of the needless wear and tear. Surely an average of fifty to fifty-two miles an hour is fast enough for all ordinary purposes. If greater speed can be obtained without too great a cost, well and good; but if not, the public must be content.
Nevertheless, during that famous “Race” in the summer of 1888, some magnificent engine work was accomplished. Thus, for instance, the North-Western and their partners actually ran from Euston to Edinburgh, 400 miles, in 427 minutes. Then the Great Northern and their partners, the East Coast route, next day covered 393 miles in 423 minutes, this journey including 124½ miles from Newcastle to Edinburgh covered in 123 minutes. This speed is, of course, more than a mile a minute, and kept up for slightly over two hours.
The third-class passenger was at the root of the matter. Companies are finding out they must consult his convenience; and the beginning of the “Race” was probably the announcement that the “Flying Scotchman”—the 10 o’clock morning train from King’s Cross—would carry third-class passengers. Hitherto it had beaten its rival, the West Coast route (run by the North-Western and its partner, the Caledonian), as to speed, but had conveyed only first and second-class passengers.
Thereupon the West Coast announced that they would reach Edinburgh in nine hours. As this route is harder for engines—for it climbs the Cumbrian Hills, and is, moreover, seven miles longer—this would mean faster running and harder work than its rivals. The Great Northern, which according to its well-deserved reputation probably tops the world for speed, could not brook this, so the East Coast route reduced its time from nine hours to eight hours and a-half.
So the contest stood for about a month, when the West Coast calmly announced the same time for itsjourney. Thenceforward the blows fell thick and fast. It was a battle of giants, but fought with good temper and gentlemanly honour on both sides.
The West Coast were arriving at Edinburgh at half-past six. “The Flying Scotchman,” by the East Coast route, thereupon drew up in the Scotch capital at six o’clock. Then the West Coast ran to Edinburgh in eight hours, stretching away from Euston to Crewe, 158½ miles in 178 minutes, without a stop—probably the longest run without a break ever made. The Caledonian Company, the North-Western’s partner, then ran from Carlisle to Edinburgh, 100¾ miles, in 104 minutes. The North-Western thereupon actually ran from Preston to Carlisle, over the Cumberland Hills, ninety miles in ninety minutes—a magnificent performance hard indeed to beat, if, in fact, it ever has been really beaten; while, later on, the same Company ran from Euston to Crewe in 167 minutes instead of their remarkable 178 minutes a few days previously. This, with the other accelerations, gave the West Coast their record run of 400 miles in 427 minutes of running time, which took place on the 13th of August. But the East Coast had also accelerated, the North-Eastern covering 205 miles in 235 minutes, and the Great Northern rendering an equally good, if not better, performance, the whole 393 miles being covered in 423 minutes. Some of the miles on the East Coast route sped by at the rate of seventy-six an hour.
To accomplish these runs the weight of trains was cut down, and the times of stoppages reduced or abolished altogether. But the expense was too great. It did not really “pay” in convenience or in money, and to these judgments companies must bow. But considering that the Great Northern reaches Grantham, 105¼ miles, in 115 minutes as a daily occurrence, an approximate running of near a mile a minute, and that the North-Western can run at an average of fifty-five miles an hour, the locomotive has amply justified George Stephenson’s prophecy when he made“Blucher,” that there was no limit to the speed of the locomotive, provided the work could be made to stand.
Mr. C. R. Deacon also prophesied a few years since in an American magazine that a hundred miles an hour would be the express speed of the future, provided that passengers would give up luxurious cars and dining and sleeping carriages. At present it seems questionable if they will do so.
THE “FLYING DUTCHMAN.”
THE “FLYING DUTCHMAN.”
But speed is by no means the monopoly of the North. Other companies beside the owners of the East and West Coast routes to Scotland can run expresses equally or almost as fast. There is the “Flying Dutchman,” for instance, of the Great Western. It daily covers the 77¼ miles from London to Swindon in 87 minutes. And the tale is told by Mr. W. M. Acworth, on the authority of an inspector who was in charge of the train, that a famous Great Western engine, the “Lord of the Isles,” which was in the Exhibition of 1851, actually whirled a train from Swindon to London, 77¼ miles in 72 minutes.
Some of those older engines could run bravely. Mr. Acworth reports that “a Bristol and Exeter tank-engine with 9 feet driving wheels, a long extinct species,” pelted down a steep incline at the speed of 80 miles an hour, many years since, and it has never been surpassed. The fastest speed during the Race to Edinburgh days seems to have been 76 miles, but perhaps the weight of the trains may have accounted for this. Mr. Acworth himself is believed to have accomplished the fastest bit of advertised journeying in the world. He went down on the “Dutchman,” and leaving Paddington at 11.46, he caught the return train at Swindon and was back at 2.45, having covered 154½ miles, with five minutes for refreshments, in 177 minutes. The line is easier on the up journey to London, and mile after mile sped by at a rate of over 60 miles an hour. From 56½ to 58 seconds was the chronograph’s record again and again, while on the down journey to Swindon he records a burst of 34½ miles in 34 minutes.
The gradients of the railway form of course a most important factor in the question of speed. The Midland has one of the hardest roads in England for steep slopes, yet its magnificent engines bring its heavy trains from Leicester, 99¾ miles in 122 minutes. Considering the high levels the locomotives have to climb, only to sink again to low flats, as about the Ouse at Bedford, this performance is really as fine as some of the superb running of the Great Northern.
The Southern lines out of London have no long distances to cover as the Northern, unless it may be the South-Western to Plymouth. The South-Western to Bournemouth and Exeter, and the mail trains on the South-Eastern, Chatham and Dover, and the Brighton trains can also show some excellent work as regards speed.
The government of a large railway now has grown to something like the rule of a small state. Sir George Findlay, the general manager of the North-WesternCompany, in his evidence before the Labour Commission in 1892, deposed that the capital raised for British railways amounted to the vast sum of 897 millions of pounds; that the receipts were 80 millions yearly, that much more than half of this immense amount, namely 43 millions, yearly was paid in wages, and that half-a-million of men directly or indirectly were given employment.
To such enormous dimensions has the railway developed. And the locomotive engine is the centre and soul of it all. Stephenson got it, so to speak, on its right lines of working, and it has run along them ever since, until in its great capacity for speed, its power for drawing heavy loads, and its strength and beauty of construction it may fairly be called one of the wonders of the world.
an engine on tracks