Читать книгу Rides on Railways - Samuel Sidney - Страница 8

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But thus gossiping, we have reached Camden Station, and must take advantage of an unusual halt to look into the arrangements for building waggons and trucks, and conveying coals, merchandise, goods, and all live stock included between pigs and bullocks.

Not without difficulty did Mr. Robert Stephenson succeed in inducing the directors to purchase thirty acres of land here; it was only by urging, that, if unused, the surplus could be sold at a profit, that he carried out his views. Genius can foresee results which, to ordinary capacities, are dark and incomprehensible. Since 1845 it has been found necessary to take in an additional plot of three more acres, all now fully occupied.

In no respect were the calculations of parties engaged in the construction of railways more at fault than with regard to the station accommodation needed for goods traffic, which, on the principal lines, has added full twenty-five per cent. to the original estimates. George Stephenson calculated the cost of getting over Chat Moss at £40,000; his opponent proved that it would cost four hundred thousand: but it was executed at exactly the sum Stephenson set down, while the capital involved in providing Station Room for merchandise at Liverpool and at Manchester, has probably exceeded the original estimate for the whole line.

On this railway the increase of the goods traffic has been of very recent date. At a very early period after the opening of the line, the merchandise department became the monopoly of the great carriers, who found it answer their purpose to divide the profits afforded by the discount allowed to carriers by the railway company, without seeking to develop an increase of occupation. Under this system, while carriers grew rich, the goods traffic remained stationary. But when the amalgamation with the Grand Junction, which had always been its own carrier, took place, a great reduction in rates was made, as well as arrangements for encouraging the conveyance of every kind of saleable article. The company became a common carrier, but employing Messrs. Pickford, and Chaplin and Horne to collect goods.

The result was a marvellous increase, which has been progressing ever since.

A regular trade is now carried on between London and the most remote parts of the kingdom in every conceivable thing that will bear moving. Sheep have been sent from Perth to London, and Covent Garden has supplied tons of the finer description of vegetables to the citizens of Glasgow; every Saturday five tons of the best fish in season are despatched from Billingsgate to Birmingham, and milk is conveyed in padlocked tins, from and beyond Harrow, at the rate of about one penny per gallon. In articles which are imported into both Liverpool and London, there is a constant interchange, according to the state of the market; thus a penny per pound difference may bring a hundred chests of congou up, or send as many of hyson down the line. All graziers within a day of the rail are able to compete in the London market, the probability of any extraordinary demand increases the number of beasts arriving weekly at Camden Station from the average of 500 to 2000, and the sheep from 2000 to 6000; and these animals can be brought from the furthest grazing grounds in the kingdom without any loss of weight, and in much better condition than the fat oxen were formerly driven to Smithfield from the rich pastures round Aylesbury, or the Valley of the Thames.

Camden station, under the alterations effected in 1848–9, has a double line, for goods waggons only, 2,500 feet in length, entirely clear of the main line. The length of single lines, exclusive of the main line, exceeds twelve miles.

To describe it in detail would be a very unsatisfactory task; because, in the first place, it can ill be understood without a map, and in the next, changes are constantly taking place, and still greater changes will be forced on the company by the increase of goods traffic, which, great as it is, is only in its infancy. Even now freights are paid to the London and North Western for all the way to China. But, as an agricultural implement of commerce, the locomotive has been comparatively as little used as the stationary engine, although hundreds of trades of a semi-rural character are drawing toward the railway lines, and away from the country towns, which were formerly the centre of rural commerce, because standing on the highways or near canals. But such a revolution can only be effected slowly.

At Camden will be found a large yard for the reception of the Midland Counties’ coal, the introduction of which has had a considerable effect in bringing down the price of sea-borne coal.

The cattle pens have lately been altered and enlarged. Just before Christmas this place is almost as amusing and exciting as a Spanish bull-fight; although, as a general rule, the silence of a place where, during every quarter of an hour, of day and night, so enormous a business is being carried on, is very surprising.

Twenty-four steam waggon horses, or engines, for heavy loads are kept in a circular engine-house, or stable, 160 feet in diameter, with an iron roof. This form renders every engine accessible at a moment’s notice. The steam race-horses for the passenger work are kept in an oblong building opposite the carters. The demand being more regular, there is no need for the expensive circular arrangement of stables for this class of engines. In a large boiler-house, boiling water and red-hot coke are kept ready night and day, so that on the occasion of any sudden demand no time need be lost in getting up steam. There is besides a waggon-building department, a shop for executing such trifling repairs in the locomotives as need no reference to the great workshop at Wolverton. The passenger carriages are most of them built at Euston station, by Mr. Wright.

The carrying department is very conveniently situated close to the Regent’s Canal, so as to have easy communication with inland as well as sea navigation. A series of sheds occupy an area of 135,000 superficial feet, and the platforms to receive goods from railway trucks on one side and from waggons on the other, occupy 30,000 feet. These platforms and sheds are provided with 110 cranes, for loading and unloading, with a power varying from one ton and a half to twenty tons. By these appliances, work of the most miscellaneous character goes on all day, and part of the night.

The railway trucks and waggons are moved about by horses: it is amusing to see the activity with which the heavy brutes often bring a waggon up at a trot, jump out of the way just at the right moment, and allow the waggon to roll up to the right spot by its own momentum.

The horses are lodged in stables in the underground vaults, which we cannot commend, as they are dark, damp, full of draughts, and yet ill ventilated; but it was necessary to use these vaults, and difficult to find stabling for such a number of horses close at hand.

The carrying department at Camden is very miscellaneous, and moves everything, from the contents of a nursery ground to a full grown locomotive, but they do not impress a stranger so much as the arrangements at Manchester and Liverpool. The annual consumption of gas at Camden exceeds six million cubic feet.

Under the railway system the certainty and rapidity with which merchandise can be transmitted, changes and simplifies more and more every year the operations of trade. For instance, Southampton is the great port for that part of our Indian, South American, and Mediterranean trade which is conducted by steamers. When a junction has been effected between the London and North Western and the South Western, costly packages of silk, muslin, gold tissue, jewellery, may be sent under lock from the Glasgow manufacturers to the quay alongside at Southampton in a few hours, without sign of damage or pilferage, and at the last moment before the departure of the steamer. The communication between the docks on the Thames and Camden Town, will enable a grocer in Manchester to have a hogshead of sugar or tobacco sent in answer to a letter by return of post, at a saving in expense which may be imagined from the fact, that it costs more to cart a butt of sherry from the London Docks to Camden Town, than to send it by rail all the way to Manchester.

To provide for the enormous and annually increasing traffic in passengers and merchandise, there are:—