Читать книгу The Story of the Pullman Car - Joseph Husband - Страница 4

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Since those distant days when man's migratory instinct first prompted him to find fresh hunting fields and seek new caves in other lands, human energy has been constantly employed in moving from place to place. The fear of starvation and other elementary causes prompted the earliest migrations. Conquest followed, and with increasing civilization came the establishment of constant intercourse between distant places for reasons that found existence in military necessity and commercial activity.

For centuries the sea offered the easiest highway, and the fleets of Greece and Rome carried the culture and commerce of the day to relatively great distances. Then followed the natural development of land communication, and at once arose the necessity not only for vehicles of transportation but for suitable roads over which they might pass with comfort, speed, and safety. Over the Roman roads the commerce of a great empire flowed in a tumultuous stream. Wheeled vehicles rumbled along the highways—heavy springless carts to carry the merchandise, lightly rolling carriages for the comfort of wealthy travelers.

The elementary principle still remains. The wheel and the paved way of Roman days correspond to the four-tracked route of level rails and the ponderous steel wheels of the mighty Mogul of today. In speed, scope, capacity, and comfort has the change been wrought.

The English stagecoach marked a sharp advance in the progress of passenger transportation. With frequent relays of fast horses a fair rate of speed was maintained, and comfort was to a degree effected by suspension springs of leather and by interior upholstery.

An interesting example of the height of luxury achieved by coach builders was the field carriage of the great Napoleon, which he used in the campaign of 1815. This carriage was captured by the English at Waterloo, and suffered the ignominious fate of being later exhibited in Madame Tussaud's wax-work show in London. The coach was a model of compactness, and contained a bedstead of solid steel so arranged that the occupant's feet rested in a box projecting beyond the front of the vehicle. Over the front windows was a roller blind, which, when pulled down admitted the air but excluded rain. The secrétaire was fitted up for Napoleon by Marie Louise, with nearly a hundred articles, including a magnificent breakfast service of gold, a writing desk, perfumes, and spirit lamp. In a recess at the bottom of the toilet box were two thousand gold napoleons, and on the top of the box were places for the imperial wardrobe, maps, telescopes, arms, liquor case, and a large silver chronometer by which the watches of the army were regulated. In such quarters did the great emperor jolt along over the execrable roads of Eastern Europe.

The stagecoach was established in England as a public conveyance early in the sixteenth century, and soon regular routes were developed throughout the country. Now for the first time a closed vehicle afforded travelers comparative comfort during their journey, and in the stagecoach with its definite schedule may be seen the early prototype of the modern passenger railroad. For three centuries the stagecoach slowly developed, and its popularity carried it to the continent and later to America. But by a radical invention transportation was suddenly transformed.

As early as the middle of the sixteenth century, and actually contemporaneous with the inception of the stagecoach, railways, or wagon-ways, had their origin. At first these primitive railways were built exclusively to serve the mining districts of England and consisted of wooden rails over which horse-drawn wagons might be moved with greater ease than over the rough and rutted roads.

The next step forward was brought about by the natural wear of the wheels on the wooden tracks, and consisted of a method of sheathing the rails with thin strips of iron. To avoid the buckling which soon proved a fault of this innovation, the first actual iron rails were cast in 1767 by the Colebrookdale Iron Works. These rails were about three feet in length and were flanged to keep the wagon wheels on the track.

For a number of years this simple type of railroad existed with little change. Over it freight alone was carried, and its natural limitations and high cost, compared with the transportation afforded by canals, seemed to hold but little promise for future expansion.

As early as 1804 Richard Trevithick had experimented with a steam locomotive, and in the ten years following other daring spirits endeavored to devise a practical application of the steam engine to the railway problem. But in 1814 George Stephenson's engine, the "Blucher," actually drew a train of eight loaded wagons, a total weight of thirty tons, at a speed of four miles an hour, and the age of the steam railroad had begun.

The first railroad to adopt steam as its motive power was the Stockton & Darlington, a "system" comprising three branches and a total of thirty-eight miles of track. On the advice of Stephenson, horse power was not adopted and several steam engines were built to afford the motive power. This road was opened on September 27, 1825, and preceded by a signalman on horseback a train of thirty-four vehicles weighing about ninety tons departed from the terminus with the applause of the amazed spectators.

The novelty of this new venture soon appealed so strongly to popular fancy that a month later a passenger coach was added, and a daily schedule between Stockton & Darlington was inaugurated.

This first railway carriage for the transportation of passengers was aptly named the "Experiment." Consisting of the body of a stagecoach it accommodated approximately twenty-five passengers, of which number six found accommodations within, while the others perched on the exterior and the roof of the vehicle. The fare for the trip was one shilling, and each passenger was permitted to carry fourteen pounds of baggage.

This early adaption of the stagecoach to the rapidly developed demand for passenger service necessitated the coinage of a new terminology, and it is not surprising that many words of stagecoach days remained. Among these "coach" is still preserved, and in England the engineer is still called the "driver"; the conductor, "guard"; locomotive attendants in the roundhouse, "hostlers," and the roundhouse tracks the "stalls."

In 1829 a prize of five hundred pounds ($2,500) for the best engine was offered by the directors of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway which was to be opened in the following year, and at the trial which was held in October three locomotives constructed on new and high-speed principles were entered. These were the "Rocket" by George and Robert Stephenson, the "Novelty" by John Braithwaite and John Erickson, and the "Sanspareil" by Timothy Hackworth. Due to the failure of the "Novelty" and the "Sanspareil" to complete the trial run and the successful performance of the "Rocket" in meeting the terms of the competition, the Stephensons were awarded the prize and received an order for seven additional locomotives. It is interesting to learn that on its initial trip the "Rocket" attained the unprecedented speed of twenty-five miles an hour.

In 1819 Benjamin Dearborn, of Boston, memorialized Congress in regard to "a mode of propelling wheel-carriages" for "conveying mail and passengers with such celerity as has never before been accomplished, and with complete security from robbery on the highway," by "carriages propelled by steam on level railroads, furnished with accommodations for passengers to take their meals and rest during the passage, as in packet; and that they be sufficiently high for persons to walk in without stooping." Congress, however, failed to call this memorial from the committee to which it was referred.

One of the earliest types of an American passenger car, drawn by Peter Cooper's experimental locomotive, "Tom Thumb." The tubular boilers of the locomotive were made from gun barrels.

The development of the locomotive in America approximates its development in England. As early as 1827 four miles of track were laid between Quincy and Boston for the transportation of granite for the Bunker Hill Monument. Horses furnished the power, and the cars were drawn over wooden rails fastened to stone sleepers.

"The Best Friend," the first locomotive built for actual service in America, hauling the first excursion train on the South Carolina Railroad, January 15, 1831.

But reports of the wonders of the new English railways soon crossed the water, and in 1828 Horatio Allen was commissioned by the Delaware & Hudson Canal Company to purchase four locomotives in England for use on its new line from Carbondale to Honesdale, Pennsylvania. Of these locomotives three were constructed by Foster, Rastrick, and Company, of Stourbridge, and one by George Stephenson. The first engine to arrive was the "Stourbridge Lion" and on the ninth of August, 1829, it was placed on the primitive wooden rails and, to the amazement of the spectators, Allen opened the throttle and in a cloud of smoke and hissing steam moved down the track at the prodigious speed of ten miles an hour.

One of the first railways in America was the old Mohawk & Hudson, which was chartered by an act of the New York legislature on April 17, 1826. The commissioners who were entrusted with the duty of organizing the company met for the purpose in the office of John Jacob Astor, in New York City, on July 29, 1826. One of their first official acts was to appoint Peter Heming chief engineer and send him to England to examine as to the feasibility of building a railroad. Mr. Heming's salary was fixed at $1,500 a year. In due course of time he returned from his European visit of observation and reported in favor of the project under consideration. Notwithstanding that he was absent six months, the expenses of his trip, charged by him to the company, were only $335.59. The road first used horse power and later on adopted steam for use in the day time, retaining horses, however, for night work. It was not deemed safe to use steam after dark. At first the trains consisted of one car each, in construction closely resembling the old-fashioned stagecoach.

The road connected the two towns of Albany and Schenectady, and was seventeen miles in length, but the portion operated by steam was only fourteen miles in length, horses being used on the inclined plane division from the top of one hill to the top of another.

Early passenger cars, designed after the then prevalent type of horse coach. These cars were part of the train that ran on the formal opening of the Mohawk & Hudson Railroad (the first link of the New York Central System) on July 5, 1831.

Three years later a prize of $4,000 was offered by the Baltimore & Ohio Company for an American engine, and the following year a locomotive constructed by Davis and Gastner won the award by drawing fifteen tons at the rate of fifteen miles an hour. In 1832, Matthias W. Baldwin, founder of the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia, designed his first locomotive, "Old Ironsides," for the Philadelphia, Germantown & Morristown Railroad; and soon after his second locomotive, the "E. L. Miller," was put in service on the South Carolina Railroad.

One of the first important improvements made by America in passenger cars was the introduction of the "bogie," or truck; the short curves of the American roads compelling the abandonment of the English type of four-wheeled car with rigid axles. The illustration shows a "bogie" car used on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in 1835.

The first passenger service to be put in regular operation in America must be credited to the Charleston & Hamburg Railroad in the late fall of 1830. The following year construction was begun on the Boston & Lowell Railroad, and in the same year a passenger train, previously mentioned, was put in service between Albany and Schenectady on the new Mohawk & Hudson Railroad.

The journal of Samuel Breck of Boston, affords an interesting glimpse of the conditions of contemporary railroad travel:

July 22, 1835. This morning at nine o'clock I took passage on a railroad car (from Boston) for Providence. Five or six other cars were attached to the locomotive, and uglier boxes I do not wish to travel in. They were made to stow away some thirty human beings, who sit cheek by jowl as best they can. Two poor fellows who were not much in the habit of making their toilet, squeezed me into a corner, while the hot sun drew from their garments a villainous compound of smells made up of salt fish, tar, and molasses. By and by just twelve—only twelve—bouncing factory girls were introduced, who were going on a party of pleasure to Newport. "Make room for the ladies!" bawled out the superintendent. "Come gentlemen, jump up on top; plenty of room there!" "I'm afraid of the bridge knocking my brains out," said a passenger. Some made one excuse, and some another. For my part, I flatly told him that since I had belonged to the corps of Silver Grays I had lost my gallantry and did not intend to move. The whole twelve were, however, introduced, and soon made themselves at home, sucking lemons, and eating green apples. … The rich and the poor, the educated and the ignorant, the polite and the vulgar, all herd together in this modern improvement in traveling … and all this for the sake of doing very uncomfortably in two days what would be done delightfully in eight or ten.

Cars and locomotive in use on the Camden & Amboy Railroad in 1845. The cars were heated by wood stoves, the glass sash was stationary, and ventilation was possible only from a wooden-panelled window which could be raised a few inches.

To follow further the rapid development of the railroad in America would require many volumes. As the canal building fever had seized the fancy of the American public in preceding years, so a similar enthusiasm was instantly kindled in the new railroad, and railroad travel became immediately the most popular diversion. In a relatively few years a web of track carried the smoking locomotive and its rumbling train of cars throughout the country. Crude, and lacking almost every convenience of the passenger coach of the present day, the early railway carriage served fully its new-born function. To the latter half of the century was reserved the development of those refinements which have rendered travel safe and comfortable, and the perfecting of those vast organizations that have placed in American hands the railroad supremacy of the world.