Railway journey

“ One seldom gets the real sentiment and beauty of a place in approaching it by railway. I am speaking, of course, of the tourist who endeavors to crowd as much as he can into a comparatively short time. To the one who remains several days in a place, railroad traveling is less objectionable. My remarks concerning railroad travel in England are made merely from the point of comparison with a pleasure journey by motor, and having covered the greater part of the country in both ways, I am qualified to some extent to speak from experience. ”

“ Some of the grandest267 scenery to be seen on the European continent is unfolded to the train as it glides in and out among the mountain rifts, and consequently, from the tourist point of view, the route possesses illimitable attractions, inasmuch as it offers facilities to gain some of the most beautiful parts of the country, which hitherto have been unapproachable, except in the face of an arduous and tedious journey by primitive means of conveyance. ”

“ The railway grows wider and permits a longer and even more varied journey than was ours. Cars can be fitted up as we fitted ours or in a way as much better as you like. Year by year the facilities for wayside comforts and short branch-excursions are multiplied, with the increase of population and culture. ”

“ The hum of their travel seemed to be like that which we hear on a drowsy summer’s day at a country house in England, remote from the roll of street traffic and the thundering rush of express trains. A distant murmuring sound of railway waggons gliding over a pair of rails impresses the dull ear, amid the quiet and repose, that the world is spinning safely along without rack or tear. ”

“ The out-train having been despatched, we must now beg our readers to be so good as to walk, or rather to scramble, with us from the scene of its departure across five sets of rails, on which are lying, like vessels at anchor in a harbour, crowds of railway-carriages preparing to depart, to the opposite platform, in order to witness the arrival of an incoming train. ”

“ The new railroad, the first public line, was opened in September, 1825. As its construction progressed, its engineer had become increasingly sanguine of success. He said to his son Robert at this time: "I venture to tell you that I think you will live to see the day when railways will supersede almost all other methods of conveyance in this country—when mail coaches will go by railway, and railroads will become the great highway for the King and all his subjects. The time is coming when it will be cheaper for a workingman to travel upon a railway than to walk on foot. ”

“ A roadside enigma that doubtless puzzled our forefathers, and afforded food for discussion when journeying in these parts, the railway traveller misses them and much else besides as he is whirled through the land at a speed that only permits of a blurred impression of fields and woods, of rivers and hills, of church towers, towns, hamlets, and farmsteads—that is, when the train is not rushing through a cutting, or plunging into a darksome tunnel. In a scenic sense between the Great North Road and the Great Northern Railway is a vast gulf! ”

“ Her own quick wits, aided by those of a gallant fellow passenger, give the two officers an unlooked-for and exciting "run for their money." One hardly realizes till now the dramatic possibilities of a railway train, and what an opportunity for excitement may be afforded by a joint railway station for two or more roads. ”

“ At dawn I was obliged to leave the express and wait at a junction for the local train which should bring me to my journey's end. Against a misty sky, filled with clouds, in the uncertain glimmering light, the silhouettes of the mountains softly massed themselves, surrounding with a vast amphitheatre the hideous buildings of the station, the long lines of empty cars, the idle locomotives. Near by some factory chimneys, tall and unsymmetrical, sent their smoke into the morning twilight. ”

“ Five railway companies rolled their trains in and out of the thronging, far-spreading metropolis to the eastward—the great city whose hum and murmur were borne to them on the soft breeze sweeping inland from the cool blue bosom of the lake. ”

“ AT HOME I THE Don railway. A quiet, cheerless station, white and solitary in the steppe, with its walls baking in the sun, without a speck of shade, and, it seems, without a human being. The train goes on after leaving one here; the sound of it is scarcely audible and dies away at last. ”

“ The genius loci must look with wonder on the gigantic offspring of the little railway, which has swallowed up its own sire. Lean mules no longer crawl leisurely along the little rails with trucks of stone through Croydon, once perchance during the day, but the whistle and the rush of the locomotive are now heard all day long. ”

“ To see waggons with flat wheels drawn over cast-iron rails one yard long by a horse, cannot fail to interest those who watch the workings of railways, and it most clearly shows the great improvements made and the perseverance which has been required to develop the present gigantic railway system out of such small beginnings. ”

“ I will close this series of observations with a little list of benefits the railway gives you, many of which would not have occurred to you but for my ingenuity, some of which you may have thought of at some moment or other, and yet would never have retained but for my patient labour in this.
The railway gives you seclusion. If you are in an express alone you are in the only spot in Western Europe where you can be certain of two or three hours to yourself. At home in the dead of night you may be wakened by a policeman or a sleep-walker or a dog. The heaths are populous. ”

“ The length of the proposed line and the nature of the country through which it was to pass, made this the most stupendous railway undertaking the world had seen. It was necessary to procure a man fitted for a Herculean task. ”

“ Spread out before and beneath us is a large and fertile plain, fields and woodlands, as far as ever the eye can reach, all slumbering in the sweet summer sunshine. In the distance a train is speeding along, we can trace it by its trailing smoke. I had almost forgotten we lived in the days of railway trains. There is a redbrick village on the hilltop straight ahead of us. ”

“ The extension of the railway system is one of the wonders of our time. The few score miles of railroad planted in 1825 have put forth offshoots and branches, till now a mighty net-work of some ten thousand miles in all, is spread over the three kingdoms, with many fresh shoots in bud. ”

“ So the tendency of the railway was not only to advance trade, travel and transport, but to open men's minds, to broaden the intellectual outlook of the artisan and the labourer, to place them more on a level with their social superiors, and to make them better fitted for the exercise of greater political powers. ”

“ The railway has a central rail which is cogged, and into this endless cog fits a wheel underneath the engine. This is really the driving wheel by which it slowly moves up the steep gradient. We passed farms, orchards and plantations, up and up. It is a curious sensation to find yourself steadily moving up without any effort of your own, but still up we went until we landed on a lovely plateau, with a charming hotel. The view from this mountain height was beyond description. We left the train and wandered into the woods and viewed our surroundings. ”

“ The remarkable safety with which railway traffic is on the whole conducted, is due to constant watchfulness and highly-applied skill. The men who work the railways are for the most part the picked men of the country, and every railway station may be regarded as a practical school of industry, attention, and punctuality. ”

“ He knew that Europe and America were welcoming the railway, and that it was promising to link together the whole civilized world.
“Of the ‘profit’ of his labours to humanity I scarcely venture to speak, since it cannot possibly be told in a few words. The railway system has revolutionised society. It has powerfully affected every class, every interest and department of life. It has given an incredible impulse to commerce, quickened human thought, created a new language, new habits, tastes and pleasures. It has opened up fields of industry and enterprise inaccessible and unknown before. ”

“ Instantly a number of men surrounded the carriage. “There is not an instant to lose, another train is upon you, they may not be able to stop it,”—and we were all dragged out and up the steep bank of the railway cutting. ”

“ He gave the Preacher the name of a man who could be secured as a guide, helped him make out a list of eatables, brought over his caribou blanket, tent, dishes, etc., and bright and early the next morning the train going north carried a passenger bound for Blue Rock Pool.
Did you ever notice with what reluctance the average vehicle of transportation moves when it has a fisherman on board? If you use a horse, he’ll go to sleep; an auto is sure to throw a fit, and a railway train almost invariably stops and goes backward for a good share of the time. ”

“ For this class, wishing to get about quickly—going to and from their daily toil, paying visits to their sporting pals, attending dog shows, football matches, etc., taking their wives and children shopping, and on holidays going some distance afield—a local railway, even if close by, is of little use, with its rigid time-table, its fixed stopping-places, its high fares, and its general formality. ”

“ In all directions the deep slopes, where the railway spans some valley, are thickly starred with the pale primrose, and the maidenly cowslips nod to the passengers from the brows of the cutting through the gentle hills. ... The railways do no more than run their fine lines through the rural landscape, making sunny banks for the flowers and shrubs most loved by the English people. ”

“ They will resemble the termini of railways only in so far as they must have waiting-rooms, restaurants, bars and cab-ranks on one side, and traffic halls, machine shops, gas plants, and a lot of parallel railway tracks on the other. The railway tracks will be for the accommodation of small trucks and locomotives used in the manɶuvring of waiting air-ships—for an air-ship on the ground is as clumsy as an eagle ! ”

“ As a departing railway-train, like a vessel sailing out of harbour, proceeds on its course, its rate rapidly increases, until, in a very short time, it has attained its full speed, and men of business are then intently reading the “City news,” and men of pleasure the leading article of their respective newspapers, when this runaway street of passengers—men, women, and children—unexpectedly find themselves in sudden darkness, visible only by a feeble and hitherto unappreciated lamp, which, like the pale moon after a fiery sunset, modestly shines over their head. ”

“ Into the very heart and depth of this, and politely bending with the bends of it, your railway introduces its close-clinging attention. The rocks are not big enough to be tunnelled, they are cheerily blasted away; the brook is not wide enough to be bridged, it is comfortably covered in, and is thence-forward no physical obstacle to an enterprising Railway Company. ”

“ Whatever the difficulties which have attended the development of British railways, the lines themselves have been spread throughout the three kingdoms to such an extent that there are now very few districts not within easy reach of a railway ”

“ The main line of railway runs, like an iron vertebra, a kind of backbone, from north to south; the directors of the southern line of railway, realising the necessity of extension, and desirous of giving easy access to all parts of the country, have laid down branch lines in all directions, running out like the arms of an octopus, grasping at distant towns and villages, and halting at the most beautiful secluded spots in the inmost quarters of the land. ”

“ The vile railway does us no earthly good, we being above four miles from the nearest station, and you may imagine how much inconvenience the absence of stated communication with a market town causes to our small family, especially now that I can neither spare Sam nor the pony to go twelve miles. You must come to England and come often to see me, just to prove that there is any good whatever in railways,—a fact I am often inclined to doubt. ”

“ It may not be without interest to look back at the record of a generation ago, along the identical route by which the railway has since conveyed, in ease and comfort, hundreds of thousands, and will continue to convey millions of passengers, througfh one of the great mountain regions of the globe. ”

“ The coming of railways made a veritable transition in England, but in their coming they involved a mighty scramble for gain, a perfect fever of speculation in railway shares, and such a sprint of astute competition and jockeying for places as can only be imagined after reading much of the evidence. ”

“ How the railway is to drag itself up and round all those thousand and one spurs running into each other, with no distinct valley or flat between, is best known to the engineers and surveyors, who have declared it practicable. ”

“ About five in the evening we arrived at the railway station, without entering the town of Aix-la-Chapelle, which looked agreeably placed in a valley encircled by hills. The works for the railroad are in full progress, and the mounds are on a vast scale. They spoil rather the beauty of a landscape; yet a railroad gives such promise of change and novelty to the traveller—transporting us at once from the known to the unknown—that, in spite of all that can be said against them, I delight to see or hear of them. ”

“ In a national and in a social point of view, also, railways have produced important improvements. They tend to equalize the value of land throughout the kingdom, by bringing distant sources of supply nearer the points of consumption; they have given extraordinary stimulus to manufacturing industry; and by connecting all parts of the country more closely together, railway communication has concentrated the energies of the people, and has thus added materially to their wealth, their comforts, and to social intercourse. ”