Читать книгу Railway Adventures and Anecdotes: Extending over More Than Fifty Years - Various - Страница 17

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In the year 1819, Thomas Gray—a deep thinker with a mind of comprehensive grasp—was travelling in the North of England when he saw a train of coal-wagons drawn by steam along a colliery tramroad. “Why,” he questioned the engineer, “are not these tramroads laid down all over England, so as to supersede our common roads, and steam engines employed to convey goods and passengers along them, so as to supersede horse power?” The engineer replied, “Just propose you that to the nation, sir, and see what you will get by it! Why, sir, you will be worried to death for your pains.” Nothing daunted by this reply, Thomas Gray could scarcely think or talk upon any other subject. In vision he saw the country covered with a network of tramroads. Before his time the famous Duke of Bridgewater might have some misgivings about his canals. It is related on a certain occasion some one said to him, “You must be making handsomely out of your canals.” “Oh, yes,” grumbled he in reply, “they will last my time, but I don’t like the look of these tramroads; there’s mischief in them.” Mr. Gray, with prophetic eye, saw the great changes which the iron railway would make in the means of transit throughout the civilized world. In 1820 he brought out his now famous work, entitled “Observations on a General Iron Railway, or Land Steam Conveyance, to supersede the necessity of horses in all public vehicles; showing its vast superiority in every respect over all the present pitiful methods of conveyance by Turnpike-roads, Canals, and Coasting Traders: containing every species of information relative to Railroads and Locomotive Engines.” The book is illustrated by a plate exhibiting different kinds of carriages drawn on the railway by locomotives. He evidently anticipated that the locomotive of the future would be capable of going at a considerable speed, for on the plate is engraved these lines:—

“No speed with this can fleetest horse compare;

No weight like this canal or vessel bear.

As this will commerce every way promote,

To this let sons of commerce grant their vote.”

Mr. Gray in his book exhibits a marvellous insight into the wants and requirements of the country. He remarks, “The plan might be commenced between the towns of Manchester and Liverpool, where a trial could soon be made, as the distance is not very great, and the commercial part of England would thereby be better able to appreciate its many excellent properties and prove its efficacy. All the great trading towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire would then eagerly embrace the opportunity to secure so commodious and easy a conveyance, and cause branch railways to be laid down in every possible direction. The convenience and economy in the carriage of the raw material to the numerous manufactories established in these counties, the expeditious and cheap delivery of piece goods bought by the merchants every week at the various markets, and the despatch in forwarding bales and packages to the outposts cannot fail to strike the merchant and manufacturer as points of the first importance. Nothing, for example, would be so likely to raise the ports of Hull, Liverpool, and Bristol to an unprecedented pitch of prosperity as the establishment of railways to those ports, thereby rendering the communication from the east to the west seas, and all intermediate places, rapid, cheap, and effectual. Anyone at all conversant with commerce must feel the vast importance of such an undertaking in forwarding the produce of America, Brazils, the East and West Indies, etc., from Liverpool and Bristol, via Hull, to the opposite shores of Germany and Holland, and, vice versa, the produce of the Baltic, via Hull, to Liverpool and Bristol. Again, by the establishment of morning and evening mail steam carriages, the commercial interest would derive considerable advantage; the inland mails might be forwarded with greater despatch and the letters delivered much earlier than by the extra post; the opportunity of correspondence between London and all mercantile places would be much improved, and the rate of postage might be generally diminished without injuring the receipts of the post office, because any deficiency occasioned by a reduction in the postage would be made good by the increased number of journeys which mail steam carriages might make. The London and Edinburgh mail steam carriages might take all the mails and parcels on the line of road between these two cities, which would exceedingly reduce the expense occasioned by mail coaches on the present footing. The ordinary stage coaches, caravans, or wagons, running any considerable distance along the main railway, might also be conducted on peculiarly favourable terms to the public; for instance, one steam engine of superior power would enable its proprietors to convey several coaches, caravans, or wagons, linked together until they arrive at their respective branches, when other engines might proceed on with them to their destination. By a due regulation of the departure and arrival of coaches, caravans, and wagons along these branches the whole communication throughout the country would be so simple and so complete as to enable every individual to partake of the various productions of particular situations, and to enjoy, at a moderate expense every improvement introduced into society. The great economy of such a measure must be obvious to everyone, seeing that, instead of each coach changing horses between London and Edinburgh, say twenty-five times, requiring a hundred horses, besides the supernumerary ones kept at every stage in case of accidents, the whole journey of several coaches would be performed with the simple expense of one steam engine. No animal strength will be able to give that uniform and regular acceleration to our commercial intercourse which may be accomplished by railways; however great animal speed, there cannot be a doubt that it would be considerably surpassed by mail steam carriages, and that the expense would be infinitely less. The exorbitant charge now made for small parcels prevents that natural intercourse of friendship between families resident in different parts of the kingdom, in the same manner as the heavy postage of letters prevents free communication, and consequently diminishes very considerably the consumption of paper which would take place under a less burdensome taxation.”

Mr. Gray’s book would no doubt excite ridicule and amazement when published sixty years ago. The farmers of that day might well be excused for incredulity when perusing a passage like the following:—“The present system of conveyance,” says Mr. Gray, “affords but tolerable accommodation to farmers, and the common way in which they attend markets must always confine them within very limited distances. It is, however, expected that the railway will present a suitable conveyance for attending market-towns thirty or forty miles off, as also for forwarding considerable supplies of grain, hay, straw, vegetables, and every description of live stock to the metropolis at a very easy expense, and with the greatest celerity, from all parts of the kingdom.”

A writer in Chambers’s Journal, 1847, remarks:—“It was not until after four or five years of agitation, and several editions of Mr. Gray’s work had been published and successively commented upon by many newspapers, that commercial men were roused to give the proposed scheme its first great trial on the road between Liverpool and Manchester. The success of that experiment, insured by the engineering skill of Stephenson, was the signal for all that has since been done both in this island and in other parts of the world. Unfortunately, the public has been too busy these many years in making railways to inquire to whom it owes its gratitude for having first expounded and advocated their claims; and probably there are few men now living who have served the public as effectually, with so little return in the way of thanks or applause, as Mr. Thomas Gray, the proposer in 1820 of a general system of transit by railways.”

Poor Gray! He was far ahead of his times. Public men called him a bore, and people in Nottingham, where he resided, said he was cracked. The Quarterly Review declared such persons are not worth our notice, and the Edinburgh Review said “Put him in a straight jacket.” Thus the world is often ignorant of its greatest benefactors. Gray died in poverty. His widow and daughters earned their living by teaching a small school at Exeter.