London and North Western Railway

“ They are all mounted on carriage springs, and have grease boxes, spring buffers, and every other device in use on the London and North-Western Railway—from which they have been copied, like everything else on this Liliputian line. The greatest railway in the world took a friendly interest in the smallest, and supplied it with the drawings and models from which it and its rolling stock have been imitated. ”

“ Western. The terminus of the Great Western railway is Paddington (Praed Street) ; and that of the London & South-Western, Waterloo, south of the Thames in Lambeth. (3) Southern. The London, Brighton & South Coast railway has its western terminus at Victoria, and its central terminus at London Bridge, on the south side of the Thames. The South-Eastern & Chatham railway has four terminal stations, all on or close to the north bank of the river—Victoria, Charing Cross, [2] Holborn Viaduct and Cannon Street (City) . ”

“ From Wargrave to Henley the current is almost due north, and likewise from Surbiton to Brentford. A more apparent curve, because much smaller in radius, is that at Abingdon; here the course by the stream is about nine miles, in contrast to the two overland. The Great Western Railway is the chief river railway, but as it runs a comparatively straight course between London and Didcot, some places on the great curves are considerably off the main line, and are served by branches. ”

“ On the London & North-Western there are more than sixty through down trains, taking no account of local trains, each day passing over the same line of tracks, among which are express trains which stop nowhere, way trains which stop everywhere, express-freight, way-freight, mineral trains and parcel trains. On the Midland road there are nearly twice as many similar trains on each track. On the Metropolitan railway the average interval is three and one-third minutes between trains. ”

“ Now this enormous population in very large numbers patronises London Bridge for many reasons—the principle argument with them in its favour undoubtedly is, that it is the shortest way from their homes to their places of business, or vice versâ. Last year, for instance, the North London Railway carried nearly six millions of passengers; the London and South Western more than four millions ”

“ But, in its original form, the undertaking was apparently to be no friendly competitor with the existing Oswestry and Newtown and associated lines, whose ambition it had, for some time, been to extend its northern terminus, resting on the Great Western branch at Oswestry, through Ellesmere to Whitchurch, there to form a more serviceable junction with the London and North Western from Shrewsbury to Crewe, and the busy hives of Lancashire. But more formidable opposition was already afoot elsewhere. ”

“ Great Western railway 40 runs, the longest from Paddington to Plymouth (North Road) , 2253⁄4 m.; London & South-Western railway 4 runs, three of which were operated between Waterloo and Bournemouth (Central) , 108 m.; London & North-Western railway 74 runs, the longest being between Euston and Rhyl, 2091⁄4 m.; Midland railway 25 runs, the longest from St. Pancras to Shipley (a stop to change engines only, not advertised) 206 m.; North-Eastern railway 14 runs, all between Newcastle and Edinburgh, working through over N.B.R. north of Berwick, 1241⁄2 m. ”

“ The Midland Railway has a magnificent terminus in the Euston Road, and a junction with the Metropolitan line. It has already more than 800 miles open.
Great Northern Railway has its terminus at King’s Cross—a building more remarkable for novelty than for beauty. This company, a severe competitor to some of older date, has few stations near London; but the directness of the line of railway renders it important as an outlet to the north. A good hotel is contiguous to the terminus. The goods’ depôt has become famous for the vast quantity of coal brought to the metropolis. ”

“ The railway termini on the north side of London have been kept as remote as Eastry had kept the railway-station from Wimblehurst, they stop on the very outskirts of the estates, but from the south, the South Eastern railway had butted its great stupid rusty iron head of Charing Cross station, that great head that came smashing down in 1905—clean across the river, between Somerset House and Whitehall. The south side had no protecting estate. ”

“ Almost as the northeastern corner of England is the undisputed principality of a single system so does a single railway, the Great Western, stretch alone directly west from London and almost completely dominates its territory. To bring it into regional grouping with any of the other important British railway systems has been well-nigh impossible. After a number of futile attempts the professional and amateur railroaders who have been attempting the solution of the regional plan for Great Britain have given up the idea. ”

“ That the City and South London Railway is most useful and popular is shown by the number of passengers it has carried—some ninety millions since its opening—the returns for last year showing about eighteen millions, over a total route of about seven miles. For the convenience of travellers, it eventually will have subways, connecting its Lombard Street Station with the Bank Station of the Central London Railway, and it already has them from its new London Bridge Station to the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway. ”

“ There are abundant service expresses running in an even four hours between that city and both Manchester, 184 miles, and Liverpool, 193 miles. Competition is supposed to have forced this service. Competition is forever supposed to be forcing service. Yet on the non-competitive Great Western railway I rode, but a few months ago, from London to Bath, 104 miles, in an even two hours, while across the Channel, I had ridden, but a few weeks before that, over the war-struck Eastern railway of France ninety miles from Paris to Rheims in just sixty seconds less than an even two hours. ”

“ The railways themselves, radiating from the great centres of population, and especially from London, are only in a few instances much affected by configuration. The Pennine Chain has always separated the traffic from south to north into an east coast route through the Vale of York, and a west coast route by the Lancashire plain. The Midland railway, running through the high and rugged country between the two, was the last to be constructed. ”

“ Metropolitan Railway, from Finsbury to Paddington, is a very remarkable one, nearly all tunnel, and requiring the carriages to be constantly lighted with gas. It runs from Westminster Bridge, viâ Pimlico, Brompton, Kensington, Notting Hill, and Bayswater, to Paddington, where it joins the Great Western. It then goes under Praed Street and the New Road to King’s Cross. There it joins the Great Northern, and thence goes on to Holborn Bridge, Smithfield Dead Meat Market, and Moorgate Street. ”

“ He endeavoured to make railways commercially successful, and at the same time to combine elegance with strength and economy of design. His bridges on the Lancaster and Carlisle and the Caledonian railways, and those across the Thames at Richmond, Kew, and Kingston, show his success. Latterly he was appointed engineer to the London and South-Western Railway Company, and his plan for the line from Yeovil to Exeter was accepted in 1856. ”

“ But when, in July, 1900, the Central London Railway, inaugurated by the Prince of Wales, was opened for traffic, and it was realised that the line was laid literally in the centre of London, beneath one of the greatest street routes in existence, viz. Cheapside, Newgate Street, Holborn, Oxford Street, Bayswater and Uxbridge roads, and was capable of dealing with a gigantic stream of passengers at a uniform fare for any distance, it arrested universal attention, and for a time nothing was talked about but the deep-level system for metropolitan railways ”

“ But then the South-Western has, for some reason or another, always been allowed to cut up and practically destroy the open spaces along its route, so that there is scarce a common in the south-western suburbs but that line has a cutting through or an embankment across it, with level crossings innumerable, at which those who use the roads must needs wait the pleasure of the railway, until the crowded traffic of passenger and goods trains has passed by! ”

“ So far from exercising any monopoly, the railways here are subjected, even among themselves, to a fierce competition. Parliament has sanctioned a second railway to Dover; there are already two lines to Hastings; two are completed to Portsmouth, and a third is making; the Government has insisted upon the South-Western making a second line to Exeter; there are already three lines to Birmingham; there are three lines to Derby, three to Peterborough, three to York, two to Cambridge, two to Oxford, two to Norwich, two to Lincoln, two to Liverpool ”

“ The business of the Railway Clearing-House is transacted by one manager and 110 clerks. The system comprehends 47 railway companies: in short, it extends to all railways north of the Thames—from Bristol, London, and Harwich, to Aberdeen; and it contains no less than 648 clearing-house stations, by the correspondence of which with the London clearing-office the accounts of the “through” traffic of all the companies is adjudged and settled. ”

“ Can steam power, then, be used to produce this rapid motion? One hundred thousand persons that have passed from Liverpool to Manchester in less than two hours since September last, can answer this question in the affirmative.
Another great advantage of the railway over the common road is the much greater safety that it offers. The above number of passengers have been conveyed with scarcely an accident. Is there a line of turnpike-road in the kingdom that can make the same boast, where an equal number of passengers have travelled? ”

“ And thus, when a train starts on a journey of it may be hundreds of miles, it is signaled on from station to station, and "lives along the line," until at length it reaches its destination, and the last signal of "train in" is given. By this means an immense number of trains can be worked with regularity and safety. On the Southeastern Railway, where the system has been brought to a state of high efficiency, it is no unusual thing during Easter week to send 570,000 passengers through the London Bridge Station alone; and on some days as many as 1200 trains a day. ”

“ How would London be supplied if it had to fall back upon turnpike roads and horse traffic? In short, England as it is could not exist without railways and locomotives; and it is only our familiarity with them that blunts our sense of their prodigious importance. As to the future effects of railways, it is easy to see that they are destined to diffuse industrial populations over those vast unoccupied areas of the globe that abound in natural resources, and only wait for facilities of access and transport to become available for the wants of man. ”

“ But the North London line is especially striking in regard to receipts, inasmuch as the receipts from the third-class passengers amounted to about eight hundred per cent. more than from the first and second combined! Within the same period, the Metropolitan and District Railways, and the North London Railway, carried over fifty million passengers; to which enormous return must be added, as showing the prodigious traffic within the area of the metropolis, that of the Great Eastern ”

“ The advantages of the rapid transportation of perishable freight by rail, especially in regard to food supplies for cities, were early recognized, and by 1854 the trains brought car-loads of country milk into London every day. Previous to this, the supply was obtained from cows kept in stables, which was an unsanitary and expensive plan. Another immediate result of railway service was that people began to live farther out of the towns, and then began the growth of the suburban residence districts, which are such a feature of modern cities and city life. ”

“ The atmospheric system of working railways found favour for a time, and was tried on the West London Railway, on the South Devon system, and in other parts of Great Britain, also in France, but nowhere was it permanently successful. ”

“ In proportion to the rapid extension of railways the demand for locomotives became very great. As our machine tools were peculiarly adapted for turning out a large amount of first-class work, we directed our attention to this class of business. In the course of about ten years after the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, we executed considerable orders for locomotives for the London and Southampton, the Manchester and Leeds, and the Gloucester railway companies. ”