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Title: Tube, Train, Tram, and Car - or Up-to-date locomotion
Author: Beavan, Arthur H.
Language: English
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TUBE, TRAIN, TRAM, AND CAR
UP-TO-DATE LOCOMOTION
[Illustration]
TUBE, TRAIN,
TRAM, AND CAR
UP-TO-DATE LOCOMOTION
BY
ARTHUR H. BEAVAN
AUTHOR OF “MARLBOROUGH HOUSE AND ITS OCCUPANTS,” “IMPERIAL LONDON,”
“CROWNING THE KING,” ETC.
WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS
And an Introduction
BY
LLEWELLYN PREECE, M.I.E.E.
[Illustration: colophon]
LONDON
GEO. ROUTLEDGE & SONS, LTD.
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.
1903
[_All rights reserved._]
“THE CHARIOTS RUN LIKE THE LIGHTNING”
PREFACE
The object of this work is to present the subject of Electrical
Locomotion to the public for the first time, the author believes, in a
popular form, giving interesting information about Tube, Train, Tram,
and Motor-car, but avoiding, as much as possible, technical and
scientific detail.
Electrical traction is of national importance, destined perhaps
materially to abate the evil of overcrowding, by providing cheap and
rapid means of access from centres of industry to country districts and
_vice versa_.
It was predicted by George Stephenson in 1825 that his system would
supersede all other methods of conveyance in this country. Similarly can
it now be prophesied that throughout the world electrical traction will
ultimately supplant all other forms. An age of electricity is dawning,
when “power” may be obtained direct from fuel or from the vast store of
energy existing in the heated interior of the earth, or even from the
atmosphere that surrounds us; when every mountain stream and gleaming
waterfall throughout Great Britain, and each tide as it rises and falls,
will help to generate the subtle fluid, which, produced on a vast scale
abroad, where giant cataracts and mighty rapids abound, may be imported
to supplement our home supply, and be utilised in every manufacturing
district; when all our main lines will be electric, and “light railways”
ubiquitous; when coal-less ships and aerial machines, with perfected
accumulators, may possibly traverse sea and ocean, and invade the domain
of condor and eagle; when farms will be cultivated by electrical
contrivances, and their produce expeditiously conveyed to market, and
the sanitation of our streets be ensured by the universal use of
horseless vehicles. An age that may witness “current” laid on for
domestic purposes to every house in the land as a matter of course; and
also as machine-power to village settlements, where artisans engaged in
certain kinds of trade may work amidst the pleasant surroundings of
home. And thus the abstract principle, “Back to the land,” may become an
accomplished fact.
To bring the body of this work precisely up to the date of its
publication being obviously impossible, I take the opportunity of making
passing reference to the railway disaster on the Métropolitain of Paris,
when eighty-four passengers were killed, and which has caused the public
mind to be much disturbed by the possibility of danger in the London
Tubes.
As regards trams, the London United Tramways Company established a
record of traffic during the August Bank Holiday period, the total for
the four days being 878,000, that on Monday alone being 330,000
travellers. A serious electric tram accident occurred at Ramsgate in
August, when nineteen persons were injured by the colliding of one car
with another at a point where the lines converged.
Then, as to motor-cars. The great Gordon-Bennett race in Ireland this
summer was won by a German. A tentative Act of Parliament for regulating
the traffic, to come into force January 1st next, and to continue for
three years, has received the Royal Assent, the speed limit being fixed
at twenty miles per hour.
A service of motor hansom cabs is shortly to be established in London.
The Fischer “combination” omnibus has successfully passed through
repeated private trials, and will probably be adopted by one or both of
the metropolitan chief companies.
Motor bath-chairs, to hold two people, and propelled by electricity,
will be accomplished facts at the World’s Fair, St. Louis, next year.
I have now to acknowledge, with thanks, the assistance of Sir William H.
Preece, who kindly read through the proof-sheets of this volume just
before he fell seriously ill in August, and of his son, Mr. Llewellyn
Preece, who has written the Introduction, and I now leave “Tube, Train,
Tram, and Car” to receive the verdict of those who travel.
ARTHUR H. BEAVAN
_September, 1903._
INTRODUCTION
BY LLEWELLYN PREECE, M.I.E.E.
The object of this book is to give the public a general idea as to the
progress now being made in the application of electricity for transport
purposes, and it was intended that Sir William Preece should write the
introduction and correct the author so far as any technical
misstatements were concerned. Unhappily, Sir William Preece has fallen
victim to a very severe illness, which entirely incapacitates him from
any work, and will prevent him from doing anything for some months to
come. Just before his illness, however, he had gone through the proofs
and made certain corrections, all of which, the author tells me, have
been accepted, but owing to the great delay in the publication of this
book which has already been incurred, and to the impossibility of
discussing these matters with my father, I have not been able to check
the proofs since the alterations were made.
The advances which, within the last few years, have been made in the
application of electricity for the purpose of transportation are shown
very clearly in this book, and if the author has made one or two flights
on the wings of fancy regarding the future which may be somewhat
startling to the reader, it must be remembered that if many things which
are of everyday occurrence had been suggested to any of us fifty years
ago, and if we had been told that it would be possible to travel at the
rate of a hundred miles an hour, we should have been somewhat inclined
to laugh. As the reader will learn, such travelling is to be very
shortly a fact.
At the same time I do not believe that it will be so much with the
high-speed work as with the tramway and light railway work that
electricity will be of the greatest service to the public in the future.
I look forward to the time when there will be a network of light
railways surrounding every town in the kingdom, enabling the population
to spread itself out once again in the country.
Central power stations distributing electric current over a radius of
fifteen or twenty miles will enable these railways to work at very low
cost, and therefore carry passengers considerable distances at low
fares.
The tendency at the present time being to reduce the hours of labour,
whether mental or manual, the time at the disposal of a workman for
travelling will increase, so that with an eight hours working day and
cheap electric light railways, there will be no reason why the poorest
labourer should not live in the country, and at least sleep in a pure
atmosphere.
The adaptability of electricity to motor-car work has hardly yet been
sufficiently realised. People see the luxurious electric brougham,
described in this book, running on the streets of London and other large
cities, but few have any idea that not only the wealthy aristocrat, but
everyone will, before long, be able to ride in such carriages, possibly
not so luxuriousy fitted up, but equally comfortable and speedy.
The usual cry at present is that electric cars are very nice, but the
owners have great difficulties with the batteries. Undoubtedly batteries
have given trouble in the past, and still do so to some extent. But if a
man buys a horse and gives it in charge of the gardener’s boy, he is
likely to have trouble with his horse. In the same way, if a man buys an
electric carriage and expects his coachman to look after it, he only
naturally does have considerable trouble. There are several companies
prepared to look after and maintain in continuous use, not only the
batteries, but the complete carriages, and this is greatly improving the
reliability of the electric car, and allaying the fears of those anxious
to have such carriages.
Besides this, the battery itself is making great strides forward: its
capacity per cwt. has largely increased, its life is much longer, and
its reliability under great variations of discharge has considerably
improved. In fact, it may be safely said that even now the electric car
is more reliable than either the petrol or the steam car. At present it
will not do the same distance on one charge, nor will it do the great
speed other cars will, but this is the great reason why it should appeal
to the British public. The craze for high speeds does not affect the
majority of people. I believe that it is only a question of a few years
for the petrol and steam cars to be placed in museums and shown as
monstrosities of the past, like the mammoth elephant, and that every
cab, omnibus, and private carriage throughout the country will use
electricity as the motive power.
In fact I do not think it unwarrantable to assert that, so far as this
country is concerned, many of us will see the day when the only form of
energy used for transportation will be that known as electricity.
LLEWELLYN PREECE
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
THE OLD AND THE NEW ORDER OF RAILWAY LOCOMOTION 1
CHAPTER II
SOME PIONEER ELECTRIC RAILWAYS 11
CHAPTER III
SOME PIONEER ELECTRIC RAILWAYS (_continued_) 19
CHAPTER IV
REMARKABLE ELECTRIC RAILWAYS 31
CHAPTER V
REJUVENATING THE METROPOLITAN INNER CIRCLE 47
CHAPTER VI
THE CENTRAL LONDON ELECTRIC RAILWAY 63
CHAPTER VII
THE TUBULAR SYSTEM 74
CHAPTER VIII
TOURING IN THE TUBES 90
CHAPTER IX
LONDON’S TANGLED TUBES 107
CHAPTER X
LONDON’S LATEST AND LONGEST TUBE 117
CHAPTER XI
ELECTRIC TRAMWAYS GENERALLY 128
CHAPTER XII
LONDON’S TRAMWAYS 141
CHAPTER XIII
PROVINCIAL TRAMWAYS 162
CHAPTER XIV
THE SHALLOW UNDERGROUND SYSTEM 186
CHAPTER XV
HORSELESS VEHICLES--ELECTRICAL AND OTHERWISE 200
CHAPTER XVI
HORSELESS VEHICLES--ELECTRICAL AND OTHERWISE (_continued_) 214
CHAPTER XVII
HORSELESS VEHICLES--ELECTRICAL AND OTHERWISE (_continued_) 224
CHAPTER XVIII
ELECTRICITY APPLIED TO NAVIGATION (A FORECAST) 230
CHAPTER XIX
SOME ELECTRIC LOCOMOTION DRAWBACKS 250
CHAPTER XX
SOME ELECTRIC LOCOMOTION DRAWBACKS (_continued_) 258
CHAPTER XXI
ELECTRIC LOCOMOTION AND OUR NATIONAL LIFE 269
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FIG. PAGE
ELECTRICITY. BY H. L. SHINDLER _Frontispiece_
1. QUEEN VICTORIA’S TRAIN ON THE GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY 3
2. NINE WILLANS-SIEMENS DYNAMO SETS FOR ELECTRIC TRACTION,
700 H.P. EACH 7
3. THE GIANT’S CAUSEWAY 12
4. WATERLOO AND CITY RAILWAY’S NEW PATTERN CAR 25
5. THE LIVERPOOL OVERHEAD ELECTRIC RAILWAY 29
6. PLAN OF A BEHR MONO-RAILWAY CAR 35
7. INTERIOR OF A BEHR MONO-RAILWAY CAR 44
8. ELECTRICAL POWER HOUSE (THE LARGEST IN THE OLD WORLD),
LOT’S ROAD, CHELSEA, TO SUPPLY THE METROPOLITAN DISTRICT
AND OTHER RAILWAYS WITH CURRENT 53
9. A 2,000 H.P. WESTINGHOUSE STEAM TURBINE, RESEMBLING THE
TURBO-GENERATORS (EACH OF 7,500 H.P.) IN THE CHELSEA
POWER HOUSE 55
10. A NEW METROPOLITAN DISTRICT RAILWAY CAR 56
11. A TYPICAL ELECTRIC POWER GENERATOR--TWO DYNAMOS, EACH OF
ABOUT 1,600 H.P. 69
12. A 3,000 H.P. TRIPLE EXPANSION CENTRAL VALVE ELECTRICAL ENGINE 76
13. SHIELD AT WORK IN A TUBE RUNNING TUNNEL 79
14. THE WESTERN APPROACH TO PICCADILLY 123
15. TRAM-CAR IN PARIS EQUIPPED FOR COMBINED OVERHEAD TROLLEY
AND SURFACE CONTACT SYSTEM 133
16. CROSS LANE JUNCTION, SALFORD. THE LARGEST AND MOST COMPLICATED
OVERHEAD TROLLEY CROSSING IN THE KINGDOM 135
17. BOILER ROOM, LONDON UNITED TRAMWAYS CO.’S POWER HOUSE AT
CHISWICK, FITTED WITH VICARS’ AUTOMATIC STOKERS 157
18. A LONDON UNITED TRAMWAYS COMPANY TRAM-CAR 159
19. FAÇADE OF QUEEN’S ROAD CAR-SHED, MANCHESTER CORPORATION
TRAMWAYS 170
20. VIEW NEAR DUDLEY STATION, SOUTH STAFFORDSHIRE, SHOWING A
STEAM TRAM-CAR 175
21. VIEW AT CASTLE HILL, DUDLEY, SOUTH STAFFORDSHIRE, SHOWING
AN ELECTRIC TRAM-CAR 181
22. CAMPS BAY, CAPE TOWN, AND SEAPOINT TRAMWAYS 183
23. BOSTON SUBWAY, SHOWING ENTRANCE AT THE PUBLIC GARDENS 193
24. NEW YORK SUBWAY IN COURSE OF CONSTRUCTION. CAR TRAFFIC
MAINTAINED 195
25. NEW YORK SUBWAY, SHOWING HOW IT WAS BUILT 197
26. ELECTRIC CARRIAGE ENTIRELY OF BRITISH CONSTRUCTION 201
27. A “CROWDUS” ELECTRIC CARRIAGE 205
28. AN ELECTRIC VICTORIA WITH BRITISH STORAGE BATTERIES 207
29. A “FISCHER” COMBINATION OMNIBUS 211
30. THE “HERCULES” TRACTION ENGINE, AS USED DURING THE
CRIMEAN WAR 217
31. A TEN-TON ELECTRIC TROLLEY 219
32. AN ELECTRIC TRADESMAN’S-VAN 220
33. ANOTHER TYPE OF THE “FISCHER” COMBINATION OMNIBUS 222
34. ELECTRIC STORAGE BATTERIES 237
35. ELECTRIC LAUNCH ON THE THAMES 248
36. WHERE THE POOR LIVE 280
TUBE, TRAIN, TRAM, AND CAR
CHAPTER I
_THE OLD AND THE NEW ORDER OF RAILWAY LOCOMOTION_
“The thinking minds of all nations call for change.”--CARLYLE.
STEAM--THE OLD ORDER
An immutable law of nature has decreed that whatever attains to
perfection is doomed to perish, for
“The world exists by change, and but for that
All matter would to chaos back,
To form a pillow for a sleeping god.”
Thus it came to pass that in the period 1825 to 1835, when the main
roads of Great Britain were at their best, when the then mode of
travelling, though on a limited scale, had, as regards speed,
punctuality, and organisation, reached the highest possible pitch of
perfection, a little cloud like a man’s hand, presaging the new order of
locomotion, arose at the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway,
and overshadowed the old method. So effective was the competition of the
“iron horse,” that in lieu of the fifty-four splendidly equipped
vehicles which in 1835 carried His Majesty’s mails throughout England,
not a single coach left the General Post Office, St. Martin’s-le-Grand,
in the year 1844; while the kings highways had become almost deserted.
Though this was barely sixty years ago, railways have evolved themselves
out of their embryonic state into a condition approaching the fateful
one of perfect development.
In early days, first-class passengers were boxed up in replicas of old
stage-coaches, the second-class in open carriages exposed to the
weather, and the third-class huddled together in seatless cattle-trucks.
Contrast this with our luxurious Pullmans, and our corridor and
vestibule trains for all classes, warmed throughout, lighted by
electricity, and provided with lavatories, dining-saloons, buffets, and
sleeping-cars. “With what further improvements can we allure the
public?” ask anxious directors. One answer only is possible. “By
bringing the mode of locomotion up to date.”
This means, in the case of old-established railway companies, a complete
and costly transformation, or an independent mono-rail track for long
distances; under any circumstances entailing much hardship upon the
shareholders. For at the moment when railway-engineers--improving so
vastly upon George Stephenson’s venerable engine,[1] built in 1822, and
still at work for the Hutton Colliery, its weight only fifteen tons, its
speed ten miles an hour--have constructed such magnificent locomotives
as the “Greater Britain” for the London and North
[Illustration: FIG. 1. QUEEN VICTORIA’S TRAIN ON THE GREAT WESTERN
RAILWAY]
Western Railway, or the ten-wheeled giant[2] for the Great Northern
Railway, fifty-seven feet over all, weighing 100 tons, and capable of
reeling off its 65 miles an hour with ease, electricity steps into the
field, displaces the stately engine--resplendent in red, blue, green, or
chocolate paint, glossy as the coat of some highly trained racehorse,
and gleaming with polished brass and steel, finished in all its parts
with exquisite accuracy, the very embodiment of energy under perfect
control--and from some unpretentious-looking building afar off, drives
our trains with unseen but resistless force, at the rate, if desired, of
a hundred miles an hour!
The construction of an ordinary steam locomotive is an intricate
operation, necessitating machine-shops, erecting-shops, foundries,
forges, etc., covering acres of ground, as at Crewe, Doncaster, Derby,
or Swindon. Not a hundred engines are exactly alike in pattern, and each
one is supposed to be composed of over five thousand different parts,
all of which have to be stowed away in a necessarily limited space.
“How is steam utilised by the locomotive?” is a question asked again and
again (and not by children only) ever since Stephenson’s engine started
on its triumphant progress from Stockton to Darlington and back, and
which, I venture to affirm, only a small percentage of travellers, even
in 1903, can answer “right away,” as our American cousins would express
it.
Briefly, then, as follows: Raised up on high is the mighty boiler.
Remove its plates, and running through its entire length will be seen a
cluster of some two or three hundred brass tubes, in diameter that of a
penny-piece. At the rear of the boiler, on a lower level, is the fuel
fire-box, with its grate and ash-pan, while in front is the smoke-box,
surmounted by the familiar chimney or funnel, called in the United
States the “smoke-stack,” in British engines reduced to a minimum of
height. Water from the tender surrounds the brass tubes, and when the
fire is burning, flames, smoke, and heated gases rush through them,
escaping _viâ_ the chimney, but in their passage converting the boiling
water into expanding steam, which, when the regulator is opened, is
directed by valves into the hollow cylinders--sometimes placed below the
boiler, but generally visible outside--forcing by its pressure the
pistons backwards and forwards alternately, and, by means of
intermediate machinery, transferring its energy to the driving-wheels.
The exhausted steam, after accomplishing its work, joins the smoke in
the smoke-box, escaping up the funnel by jerks, which creates a forced
draught through the brass boiler-tubes, and hastens the generation of
steam.
ELECTRICITY--THE NEW ORDER
Contrast this with electricity, the definition of whose exact nature is
a task I must of necessity leave to others, but its adaptation to the
purposes of traction can be thus broadly explained:--
Dynamos or generators are situated at some fixed station, more or less
distant, generating electrical energy, whence the current is transmitted
along a central steel rail, or, in the case of some tramways, _viâ_
overhead wires, returning to its place of birth by another rail or
cable, and completing its circuit. It is “picked up” by a small
locomotive fitted with motors that work the driving-mechanism, and thus
propels the coaches or cars behind it at varying speeds.
The rotation of the dynamos is effected either by a torrent, waterfall,
or swift-flowing river, absorbed by turbines, or by steam supplied from
ordinary boilers.
In other words, we convert our water and coal into steam, and,
indirectly, the heat in the steam into electrical energy; and the heavy
locomotive that used to carry its own fuel, and manufacture its steam as
it tore along with the train behind it, now leaves tender and boiler at
home, and has its driving power, in the form of electric current,
forwarded to it per centre rail, to be drawn upon when wanted.
The system is beautifully simple, and the machinery compact and
uncomplicated. Smoke defilement is unknown, and the trains are
comparatively noiseless. In short, electric traction is the refinement
of mechanically applied power.
Now let us visit an electrical power station--a small one--and I have in
my mind that of the Waterloo and City Electric Railway.
Hidden away behind a bewildering labyrinth of railway arches, in a
_cul-de-sac_, approached from a back street, not a hundred miles from a
great railway station, is a plain, very plain brick building, wherein,
for aught one knows to the contrary, such prosaic articles as pots and
pans, or cardboard boxes, may be in course of manufacture. Pass through
a door, always on the swing, and an unpretending office is reached,
furnished in the usual manner, and occupied by clerks engaged upon the
ordinary duties of their vocation.
Access to the engineer-in-chief being granted, he courteously conducts
us to the power room, whence issues the energy that drives the trains.
Imagination had pictured a great hall, filled with ponderous machinery
whose component parts are cranks, steel rods, shafts, and toothed
wheels, a wilderness of metal, moving with bewildering rapidity and
thunderous power, in an atmosphere redolent of lubricating oil, a vision
of whirling wheels, an Ezekiel vision of wheels in the midst of wheels,
instinct with life, such as the prophet saw 600 years B.C., by the River
Chebar, in the land of the Chaldean.
[Illustration: FIG. 2. NINE WILLANS-SIEMENS DYNAMO SETS FOR ELECTRIC
TRACTION, 700 H.P. EACH.
_By permission of_ _Willans and Robinson, Ltd., Rugby_]
Nothing of the kind! One portion of a moderate-sized apartment is
devoted to the “fitting” of the motor locomotives, and at the other end,
enclosed within a low railing, resting upon a bed of great solidity,
and occupying but little space, is the machinery in duplicate, as a
safeguard against breakdowns.
It consists of a vertical compound engine, supplied with steam from an
adjoining boiler-house, whose cylinder is coupled direct to the
fly-wheels of the revolving dynamos that are partly sunk into the
flooring. These, with their electro-magnets, are so shut in, and so
little can be seen of the working, that it all looks very mysterious and
incomprehensible to the uninitiated.
In large power-producing machinery an iron staircase leads up to a
platform above the dynamos, giving access to the loftier parts of the
apparatus, which then, in its general appearance and compactness,
somewhat resembles a modern marine engine. On the walls are endless
dials, recording the amount of current generated, localising the exact
position of the trains on the line at any given moment, and checking the
quantity of current picked up by each engine. There is absolutely no
smell, no outward indication of resistless power, while almost Arcadian
quiet reigns in the neighbourhood of the machines.
That these small dynamos are capable of driving heavy cars filled with
passengers at the rate of many miles an hour seems incredible; but
faith, “the evidence of things not seen,” must come into play.
The craving for mere size, however, will be amply gratified when the
great power house at Chelsea, built to supply the Metropolitan,
District, and other railways, is completed (_vide_ Chapter V.).
But what on earth is a kilowatt, or a volt, an ohm, or an
ampère?--expressions that are rapidly becoming as familiar as the word
horse-power.
Well, “horse-power” was a term invented long ago by engineers, who
blandly asked one to imagine that an ordinary horse was capable of
lifting a weight of 33,000 lbs. (or some 14½ tons) one foot high per
minute. Now, electricity is a very exact science. There is no mere
theory about it; and a unit is a definite quantity of power, known in
that science as a “kilowatt hour.” Thus, a kilowatt, or 1,000 watts, is
the equivalent in measured work of 1⅓ horse-power, equal to the lifting
of 44,000 lbs. per minute, or the doing of so many units of work, either
electric lighting, heating, machinery driving, or traction.
VARIOUS FORMS OF ELECTRIC LOCOMOTION
Electricity as a locomotive force is being presented to the public in
various forms. There is the ordinary railway, like the Underground,
that, cleansing itself, amending its ways, and becoming converted to the
new order of traction, has been granted a new lease of life. Then there
are new lines laid down, intended from the first to be electrical, with
specially designed cars, diving beneath the Thames, and connecting the
north and south of London. These are our metropolitan pioneer electric
railways. There is also the system of railways specifically and
popularly known as Tubes, most important factors in the travelling world
of modern Babylon. Another division is the system known as Overhead
Electric Railways; that is to say, rails laid upon iron girders
supported by columns above the roadway, a notable example of which is
the Liverpool Overhead Electric Railway.
Electric tramways are with us in Greater London for good and all, with
their network of lines in every direction. Some are locally worked by
the various Borough Councils; others on a comprehensive scale by the
London County Council, who now strongly advocate also another system,
the Shallow-Underground, by which the cars run in a kind of open trench
just below the surface in the middle of the street.
Next we have endless provincial and urban council electric tramways,
including some very extensive systems for feeding the enormous traffic
of cities and large towns in the Midlands and North of England.
Electric Light Railways, originally intended to be worked on rails laid
down upon the ordinary highway, form a special class by themselves to
serve short-distance traffic in country districts; but to all intents
and purposes they are rural electric trams.
Lastly, we have motor-cars, carriages, omnibuses, cabs, vans, and
cycles, that with electricity as their means of propulsion, will
possibly ere long supersede every other form of traffic in our streets
and along our roads and lanes.
To individualise these various outcomes of electrical traction spread
over the length and breadth of Great Britain is impossible. Their names
and their statistics are enrolled in _Garcke’s Manual of Electrical
Undertakings_, a work that, like _Kelly’s London Directory_, grows
bigger and bigger every year.
I propose, therefore, only to notice some of the principal ones; and,
naturally, the pioneer railway lines should have the place of honour.
CHAPTER II
_SOME PIONEER ELECTRIC RAILWAYS_
“A worthy pioneer.”--SHAKESPEARE.
THE GIANT’S CAUSEWAY RAILWAY
In the month of March, 1883, by the opening of the Giant’s Causeway,
Portrush, and Bush Valley Railway, the sister island achieved the honour
and glory of showing the way to the “predominant partner” in the matter
of electrical traction enterprise; winning, however, only by a head, for
in August of the same year the Brighton Beach Electric Railway was
inaugurated.
Who amongst us can say they know Ireland well? To the average tourist it
still remains an unexplored country. The travelling American, however,
as a rule, does it from end to end. Commencing with Dublin, “doing”
Killarney, and working round the magnificent west coast, he returns
_viâ_ the North Channel, always taking _en route_ on the coast of Antrim
the Giant’s Causeway, thundered upon by storms from the wild Atlantic.
There, almost within hail of Britain, are those strange groups of
basaltic columns so familiar to geological students, intensely
interesting, invested with many an old and mystic Celtic legend, yet
until recently difficult of access, as other striking regions in
Ireland--an island abounding not only in awe-inspiring scenery, but in
sequestered spots of sylvan beauty; a fair land of mountains and hills,
lakes and waterfalls, crystal streams, and splendid harbours; truly
called the Emerald Isle; where the grass is greenest, and rare coniferæ
flourish; where the myrtle needs no shelter, and the arbutus blooms and
fruits to perfection, and flowers are everywhere, for every little
enclosure in due season glows with the brightest of flax and potato
blossom; and lanes and open country are gay with star-like marigolds,
shamrock, violets, honeysuckle, meadowsweet, catsear, scabious, large
purple bugle, and such-like lowly but welcome plants.
[Illustration: FIG. 3. THE GIANT’S CAUSEWAY.
_By permission of_ _Thos. Cook and Son, Ludgate Circus_]
From Portrush it is easy to reach the Causeway, though once there, one
often has to wait for favourable weather before proceeding to explore
its cavernous wonders by water.
The present length of the railway is 8½ miles of single line, its gauge
being 3 feet. It is worked partly by steam and partly by electricity on
the overhead system, the current being derived from a generating station
three-quarters of a mile away, where three hydraulic turbines, fed by an
adjoining waterfall, operate the dynamo. Although the railway is out of
the way and on a small scale, the attractions of the Causeway and the
surrounding district result in a respectable passenger traffic of over a
hundred thousand per annum.
THE BRIGHTON BEACH RAILWAY
Under the sanction of the Brighton Town Council, the Magnus Volk Co.,
Ltd., now work the Brighton Beach Electric Tram-railway, which at its
opening was regarded as a great novelty and curiosity, constituting an
additional attraction and amusement to “London by the sea,” and tens of
thousands must have taken a ride in its little open cars since it came
into existence twenty years ago. The gauge is but 2 feet 8½ inches, the
“feeders” are underground, the propelling system is electric, with a
third rail, and its speed is about 12 miles an hour. Starting from the
west pier, opposite the Royal Aquarium, it sets out on its one mile and
a half route of single line and dips beneath the level of the Marine
Parade to a level a little above the beach, passing _en route_, though
hidden from view, many landmarks of old Brighton, such as Park Place and
Gardens, Royal Crescent, Marine Square, and Lewes Crescent, and
terminating at a point near Black Rock.
This was the eastern end of Old Brighton, noted for many an original
character in the “twenties” and “thirties,” not the least interesting of
whom were old Martha Gunn, queen of the bathing-machines, and Sak Deen
Mahomed, a native of the East, who introduced the art of shampooing into
the town, and lived to become a centenarian, his fame being enshrined in
verse by James Smith, one of the authors of _Rejected Addresses_, who
humorously predicted his longevity as follows:--
“Sprung doubtless from Abdullah’s son,
Thy miracles thy sire’s outrun,
Thy cures his deaths outnumber;
His coffin soars ’twixt heav’n and earth,
But thou, within that narrow berth,
Immortal, ne’er shall slumber.”
Many have been the changes in Brighton since those days. Arundel
Terrace, Kemp Town, Ultima Thule in the east; Adelaide Crescent with
Palmyra Square, its western boundary. From the fields to the north of
that square could be seen, a mile or so off, the village of Hove, the
intervening space being dotted with farms. No one could have dreamt that
a great railway-station would be built there, with minor ones at Kemp
Town, West Brighton, and Hove. Old residents could not have pictured a
Grand Aquarium, a Western and Eastern Pier, nor the destruction of their
familiar Chain Pier. They would be amazed at the spread of Brighton in
every direction, the springing up of palatial hotels like the
“Métropole” and “Grand,” and the increase of the population to some
hundred and fifty thousand; while the coaching world, headed by the
popular Sir St. Vincent Cotton, prince of amateur whips, and all the
confraternity of coachmen and hackney-coach drivers, would have thought
anyone a lunatic who had dared to prophesy that one day a conveyance
drawn without horses or steam power would carry passengers along the
Brighton beach!
THE CITY AND SOUTH LONDON RAILWAY
For many years prior to 1890, in Gracechurch Street, at a point near its
junction with Eastcheap, could be seen every day of the week numerous
omnibuses arriving between nine and eleven a.m., and departing between
five and eight p.m., for the suburbs over the water. These ’buses
regularly plied between London and Kennington, Walworth, Camberwell,
Stockwell, Clapham, and Brixton (a few journeying to Dulwich and
Peckham), for the special accommodation of dwellers in those favourite
localities engaged in business during the day. Wealthy “principals” of
mercantile and brokers’ firms drove to and from their comfortable Surrey
villas in well-equipped carriages, the junior members in smart traps or
dog-carts; but the small merchants and smaller brokers, the head clerks
and the rank and file who do all the hard work, had to make use of these
omnibuses, and when exceptionally bad weather prevented the vehicles
running, they had to get to and from their offices as best they could on
foot. To the working man, living, say, at Brixton, and engaged upon a
City job, the fares--4_d._ to 8_d._--were prohibitive. The time wasted
in these conveyances was great, and at the best it was an unpleasant way
of travelling; overcrowding was common, and the “fight for the trams” in
1903 is as nothing compared to the frantic rush for those omnibus seats;
while on wet days the sight was piteous.
It is true that City men could use the London, Chatham, and Dover
Railway, to reach these suburbs, but this involved a walk to Blackfriars
Station, and the facing of the crush on its dangerous platforms. There
were also the alternatives of crossing Blackfriars Bridge and using the
London Tramway Company’s horse-cars, or of forcing one’s way over
London Bridge, tramping or “bussing” it along the Borough High Street,
and, emerging at the “Elephant and Castle,” there tapping the trams.
As a matter of fact, these ingenious alternative routes were seldom made
use of. At the close of business, men of all ranks want to get home as
fast as they can, and from some station not far from their
counting-houses. Therefore, in the days I am describing, how could any
of those gentlemen clad in irreproachable frock-coats and new glossy
hats, who each day of the week issued from snug offices in Austin
Friars, Drapers’ Gardens, or Copthall Court, whose business was
transacted over the way at the “House”; how could the brokers of Mark
Lane and Mincing Lane, the underwriters at Lloyd’s, the ship-brokers and
ship-owners round about Fenchurch Street and Leadenhall Street, the
flourishing bill-brokers of Broad Street, and the smaller mercantile
fry; how could any of these, if resident on the Surrey side, be expected
to go to and from business by way of Blackfriars?
However, this unsatisfactory means of communication was hardly likely to
escape the notice of such astute experts as Mr. J. C. Mott, doyen
director of the Great Western Railway, and his far-seeing friends. They
took counsel together, and, after the usual hard task of _persuading_
people, plans were matured, and in 1884 an enterprise was organised and
incorporated as the City of London and Southwark Subway Company, to
construct a line of railway from King William Street to the “Elephant
and Castle,” with an intermediate station at Marshalsea Road.
This was the initial stage of the present well-known railway.
At the outset, three points had to be considered. How was the subway to
be constructed? What motive power should be employed? And how was the
deep level to be reached by the passengers? A subway under the Thames
was no novelty. The directors of the new line were not the “first that
ever burst into that silent sea” of mud and gravel at the bottom of the
swift-flowing river. Brunel had been long before them with his costly
Thames Tunnel, and Barlow had years ago laid upon its oozy bed the Tower
Subway of iron.
It was decided that a tube, or, rather, two independent tunnels of
cast-iron rings, should be driven side by side beneath the bottom of the
stream, a little to the west of London Bridge, and continued on the
Surrey side.
On this system the work was begun by the contractors, Siemens Brothers
and Mather and Platt, and proceeded with quite out of public sight. It
was accompanied with many disheartening delays and seemingly
insurmountable difficulties; but they were all successfully overcome,
and the tubes were brought to a temporary end at the “Swan,” Stockwell,
to which charming retreat, by an Act of Parliament, 1887, an extension
of the line had been sanctioned, making its length a little over three
miles.
The motive power eventually selected was electricity, steam being
impracticable, and the funicular or cable system considered unreliable.
Access to and from the trains was to be obtained at the stations by
means of capacious twin-lifts capable of holding many people at a time.
Then the problem of how best to utilise the ample “power,” generated at
the Stockwell Station, for hauling the cars, had to be seriously
tackled. It was not a question of a toy line like that on the Brighton
beach, but of the driving at fair speed, say 15 miles an hour, of
comparatively heavy coaches laden with passengers, and at frequent
intervals. Altogether it was a new departure in electric traction.
How the motor locomotives were effectually to pick up the current was
the puzzle which had to be solved, or the enterprise might at the last
moment collapse and the subscribed capital be lost.
After an infinite amount of anxious experimenting on the part of Mr.
Mott and his scientific advisers--the narrative of which, as told me by
that veteran, sounded like a romance--by a happy inspiration _the_ way
was hit upon; and all other technical difficulties overcome, the line
was pronounced to be in working order (1890), after a series of trial
trips, at one of which the writer had the privilege of being present.
CHAPTER III
_SOME PIONEER ELECTRIC RAILWAYS_ (_continued_)
A TRIAL TRIP IN THE CITY AND SOUTH LONDON RAILWAY
One o’clock saw a large party of us, chiefly City men, amongst whom were
numerous civil engineers, waiting at King William Street booking-office
to descend into the bowels of the earth by one of the semicircular
lifts, a novelty in point of size. Our turn having come, we duly filed
into the elevator. The telescopic doors clashed upon us, and we stood
for a second or two silently expectant, feeling like a batch of
condemned criminals on a gigantic scaffold waiting for the hangman to
draw back the fatal lever that would launch them into the other world.
Noiselessly the lift descended to an apparently fathomless depth, but in
reality, I believe, some 90 or 100 feet. When released by the janitor,
we found ourselves in a small, well-lighted, cool, and spotlessly clean,
white-tiled station, whence was discernible a couple of small tunnels
side by side, leading to unknown regions, seemingly all too narrow to
accommodate even the miniature cars waiting for us at one of the narrow
platforms.
Inspecting the tunnels, the classical man of our party, a wag in his
way, who had hitherto made no remark, was heard to mutter something in
Latin, which, on being coerced, he admitted was out of Virgil, and was
translated thus: “This is the spot where the way divides in two
branches.” In vain we pointed out that the quotation was inappropriate,
as the ways were _parallel_. He was obdurate, so we left him to his own
reflections.
To most of us accustomed to roomy Pullmans and commodious railway
carriages, the cars, though comfortable, seemed cramped, especially in
height. The signal given, off we started, when we noticed that the cars
fitted the tube with such nicety and economy of space that, could the
windows have been let down, we could easily have touched the iron plates
of the tunnel. We realised, too, that although there was no smoke or
smell, the railway was by no means noiseless; neither, in the opinion of
several of the experts present, was the running as steady as on the
“Underground.”
A hint had been given us that at some point where the line dipped and
rose again the cars might come to a temporary standstill. As we rather
uneasily recalled this, the speed gradually slackened, and finally the
train stopped altogether, and simultaneously the incandescent lights
began to pale, and at last subsided into filaments of sickly red. The
situation was not a pleasant one. There we were; many of us with
important engagements awaiting us later in the day; most of us with
wives and children who would expect us home as usual when evening
arrived, and grow anxious at our absence. There we were sealed up in a
tube, for all we knew, at a point beneath the Thames. Not a sound
reached us from the locomotive, or, indeed, from anywhere. Were we thus
to remain indefinitely? For walk out we could not, there being no room
outside the carriages. Would some memorial tablet let into the side of
London Bridge, months hence, recall the fact that near it a goodly
company of highly respectable citizens had perished in a living tomb?
I don’t think we talked much. It was luncheon-time; we were hungry, and
we felt like the occupants of the snowed-up cars in one of Mark Twain’s
stories, who gloomily eyed one another as starvation threatened,
calculating upon whom, by an ingenious and complicated system of voting
previously agreed to, would next fall the lot of being sacrificed for
the benefit of the rest, and I believe I found myself unconsciously
speculating on the plumpness of a youthful stockbroker standing by my
side. But after a very few moments of suspense the train rattled on
again, the lights reappeared, and presently we drew up at the Borough,
the first station on the Surrey side.
Railway booking-offices are not usually things of beauty, least of all
those on the Metropolitan, District, and suburban lines. Here, however,
was a surprise, for we found quite a picturesque stone-and-brick
building on the ground-floor, a cupola surmounting the prettily designed
entrance, and a small dome with lantern by way of roof. And this was a
sample of all the stations along the line.
The Borough recalled the Marshalsea that once stood close by; and there
opposite was St. George’s, Southwark, where Little Dorrit, accidentally
locked out of the prison, was allowed by “the sexton, or the beadle, or
the verger, or whatever he was,” to take refuge in the vestry, where,
years afterwards, she signed the marriage register when wedded to Arthur
Clennam.
The next stoppage was at the Elephant and Castle--not the tavern of that
name, where in the past on Derby Day the superabundant holiday traffic
usually became hopelessly congested, but the City and South London’s new
station, close to Spurgeon’s Tabernacle, Rabbits’ great boot warehouse,
and Tarn’s vast emporium, that seems to occupy most of Newington
Causeway. Onwards to Kennington Common, once the place of public
executions for Surrey, now a well-kept miniature park. Beyond it,
Kennington Oval, associated with cricket all the world over; and finally
we arrived at Stockwell, the then terminus of the line, since extended
to Clapham, where Tom Hood used to go to school at a house “with ugly
windows ten in a row, its chimney in the rear,” a style of architecture
of which many specimens still exist round and about the Common.
At Stockwell we visited the generating station, recently much extended,
and provided with entirely new plant, and, wondering at and admiring all
we saw, learned from the chief engineer that the contretemps _en route_
was due to a slight defect in the new and untried power-machinery; and
thus at the point where the dip in the line was greatest, the cars
stopped.
An excellent luncheon restored us all to eloquence and equanimity,
extinguishing the cannibalistic feeling of half an hour ago, and,
returning without any incident worth recording, we emerged once more in
the City, to be greeted by the noise of the traffic that ever surges
around King William the Fourth’s statue.
Those were the “green salad” days of London’s Pioneer Electric Railway
Line. Now it runs without a hitch, and has been extended north as far as
the historic “Angel,” thus giving a direct route between Clapham and
Islington. It has powers to exchange traffic with the Great Northern and
the City Railway _viâ_ Old Street, and also to connect itself with the
Baker Street and Waterloo Electric Railway at the Elephant and Castle
Station; and in a new building at Finsbury Pavement it now has
commodious head offices.
At the last half-yearly general meeting the chairman, Mr. C. G. Mott, in
the course of his speech, stated that the Board aspired to have a
thoroughly first-class terminus in the City of London, and had deposited
plans with this view. They proposed to construct this station between
the present Bank Station and the King William Street statue.
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. Finally, it can boast of possessing a
station below a church--a unique position, I believe. St. Mary
Woolnoth’s foundations were completely removed, the vaults cleared out,
and the whole replaced by huge iron girders, whereon the sacred edifice
now rests, with the booking-office below.
THE WATERLOO AND CITY RAILWAY
The month of August, 1898, was unusually warm, and the heat was felt as
much in the City as anywhere. Straw hats were universal; the shady side
of the street, if there happened to be one, was thronged; secluded
alleys and courts were resorted to by the knowing ones who could afford
the time to linger there; and even highly respectable merchants were to
be found sitting in shirt-sleeves at their writing-tables and wishing,
with Sydney Smith, that they could “sit in their bones.”
At the junction of the Poultry with Victoria Street, shadowed by the
Mansion House, from each side of the road a mysterious hoarding had just
been removed, revealing an iron railing enclosing a small area with a
mysterious staircase bearing the announcement that it led to the subway
to the new electric railway, connecting the City with Waterloo Station.
Descending a few steps, and emerging into a tunnelled incline, the
perspiring pedestrian quickly found that here, if anywhere, was a refuge
from the heat, the coolest place in London, and that it was well worth
while, on the pretence of urgent business across the water, to pay
twopence each way, merely to drink in the refreshing air wafted
backwards and forwards along subway, platform, and tube.
This was the Waterloo and City Railway, a short deep-level line on the
tube principle, nearly 1¾ miles long, burrowing under the Thames’ bed.
At the terminus, by rather prolonged inclines and staircases, passengers
could walk to the main or suburban platforms of Waterloo Station and
catch the trains for Wimbledon, Hampton Court, Surbiton, etc.
Like the City and South London, this railway meets a great want. Before
its opening, City men living down the London and South Western line had
no alternative but to catch a South Eastern train from Cannon Street or
Charing Cross; to take an omnibus _viâ_ the Strand across to Waterloo
Bridge; or to cab it by devious routes _viâ_ Blackfriars Bridge. Now
they can reach Waterloo with ease, comfort, and economy.
Under agreement, the line is worked by the London and South Western
Railway Company. The electrical equipment is by the famous firm of
Siemens Brothers, the generating station being up a blind alley
adjoining
[Illustration: FIG. 4. WATERLOO AND CITY RAILWAY’S NEW PATTERN CAR
_By permission of the_ _“Tramway and Railway World” Publishing Co.,
London_]
the dismal arched entrance to Waterloo from York Road. Each train seats
208 passengers; the average speed is 18 miles an hour, and its
usefulness is proved by the fact that over two and a half million
ordinary passengers were carried by it in one half-year, _i.e._ to
December 31st, 1902 (not counting season-ticket holders), while the
receipts for that period were £17,400.
During the busy hours of morning and evening the large trains are used
and always fill up rapidly, but in the slack times of midday single
motor-cars, each carrying 50 passengers, are sufficient to cope with the
traffic. The cars are rather stuffy, and, like the train cars, are
narrow and low. At each end is a small partitioned-off “cab,” where sits
a motor-man. No tickets are issued from the booking-office; but, as in
an omnibus, the conductor comes round and collects the fares, giving a
punched voucher in return, which is retained by the traveller.
THE LIVERPOOL OVERHEAD ELECTRIC RAILWAY
There are few overhead, or, rather, elevated, railways in the world.
Somehow they do not seem to be popular, and the tendency, in England at
least, is rather towards burrowing like the mole, than soaring above the
street level.
In Germany there is a wonderful instance of electrically driven overhead
line between Elberfeld and Barmen, on the mono-rail principle, the
trains hanging from tracks suspended high above rivers and public roads.
At the great Beckton gas works there has been in use since 1894 an
iron-built miniature railway elevated on pillars, and it is a curious
sight to witness busy little engines incessantly hauling coal trucks
from the pier to the retort houses. An ingenious example of the
elevated principle is to be seen at the Victoria Station, Manchester,
where a railway on a very reduced scale conveys passengers’ luggage from
one platform to another, and idlers are never tired of watching it. The
track, a double one, is suspended from the roof and runs between
platforms five and six. The motive power is electricity, and the motor
is placed between the wheels and the track, and it lifts and lowers a
basket which holds about 15 cwt. of luggage.
A wonderful instance of a _very_ elevated railway existed at Beachy Head
while the new lighthouse was being built 600 feet distant from the base
of the cliff, at that point 400 feet high. It conveyed material to the
site, the descending load drawing up the ascending empty “skip” on the
overhead suspension principle.
Our New York cousins have, in their elevated steam railway, long been
familiarised with the system, but for Londoners it possesses the fatal
objection that the occupants of the cars as they pass along can look
into the front windows of the houses and spy upon the occupants. Running
along docks, however, elevated railways are not objectionable; and the
earliest example, in this or any other country, of electricity applied
to overhead traction is at Liverpool.
Extending along the Mersey--that noble river whose tidal movement is
said to be four times the outfall of the Mississippi--for a distance of
6½ miles are the Liverpool Docks, in importance undoubtedly the first in
the world, but, until the Overhead Railway was opened, exasperatingly
inaccessible to business men whose time was valuable, and bewildering to
strangers by reason of their immensity.
Along the line of dock, it is true, ran broad-wheeled omnibuses built to
run on the low-level dock railway, but so slow, in consequence of the
pressure of traffic and the necessity for frequent shuntings for the
passage of goods trains, that to reach the farthest dock usually
occupied over an hour. To improve upon this it was proposed, as far back
as 1852, to construct a high-level railway; but nothing practical came
of it until 1888, when the Liverpool Overhead Railway Company took over
the parliamentary powers obtained by the Dock Board, and setting
steadily to work, created their line for passengers only, and, from the
first, achieved a great success, the number of travellers amounting to
many millions annually.
On the 4th of February, 1893, the railway was appropriately opened by
the ex-Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, whose devotion to the science of
electricity is well known. Pressing a button at the base of a silver
inkstand (subsequently presented to the Marquis as a memento), the
engines that generated the electric current were set in motion, and by
special train his lordship was conveyed over the seven miles of line,
and afterwards entertained at a banquet by the Mayor, when, in an
excellent speech, he dilated upon the prospect of electricity becoming
the motive power of the age.
In the following month the railway was opened for public traffic, and,
with its thirteen stations, its five minutes’ service, and its cheap
fares, practically extinguished the omnibuses, light or heavy.
From the Overhead Railway a splendid view is obtained of the busiest
locality perhaps in the empire. Below are the railway trucks packed
close with imported merchandise of all kinds: cotton from America and
the East; grain from the ends of the earth; beef, bacon, cheese, butter,
flour, and fruit from the New World; wool and tallow from Australia and
Argentina. Waggons
[Illustration: FIG. 5. THE LIVERPOOL OVERHEAD ELECTRIC RAILWAY
_By permission of the_ _Liverpool Overhead Electric Railway Co._]
and carts filled with Manchester goods, hardware, machinery, chemicals,
and every imaginable kind of manufactured goods are alongside the big
liners that come into port, discharge their cargoes, load up, and are
out in the Mersey and off to sea again in a few days. Truly Liverpool is
a wonderful place, and although her greatness as a seaport has been
threatened by the opening of the Ship Canal to Manchester, it will be a
long day before she surrenders her claim to be the chief marine approach
to Great Britain.
CHAPTER IV
_REMARKABLE ELECTRIC RAILWAYS_
“Behold they shall come with speed swiftly.”--ISAIAH v. 26.
MONO-RAILWAYS
A one-rail railway! What kind of novelty can that be, emanating no doubt
from the prolific brain of some enthusiastic engineer possessed with an
idea, a fad, a craze--call it what you will! We are accustomed to highly
respectable trains running in an orthodox manner on double rails. A
projected, many-railed track we have also heard of to carry ships bodily
across the Isthmus of Panama. But the idea of a single-rail “Flying
Dutchman” or “Wild Irishman” seems chimerical.
It is not so, however, and the system has been solemnly and deliberately
sanctioned by Act of Parliament.
Nowadays one need not be astonished at anything. Take cycling, for
instance. Long ago, when velocipedes--three or four-wheeled, uncanny
machines--were mere toys wherewith youths loved to dislocate their
joints on the lower terraces of the Crystal Palace, no one dreamt that
bicycles, outraging all the laws of gravitation and practically
mono-wheeled, would ere long be used on road and field and moor, on
mountain-side, on steppe and desert, over barren Asiatic tundras and
snow-clad Yukon plains--in short, wherever adventurous mankind has
penetrated.
The mono-rail train, like a bicycle, runs on one linear track, but,
unlike that hopelessly collapsible machine, requires no balancing, and
cannot capsize, and under proper conditions is the safest known method
of travelling at very great speed.
“_Faire prose sans le savoir_” is a familiar aphorism of Molière, but
perhaps it would astonish most of us to be calmly told by modern
engineers that all our lives we have, _without knowing it_, been
travelling on mono-railways! They assert that although it is true that
the ordinary engine with its coaches rests on a _pair_ of rails, the
fact that the space between the rails is cut away is immaterial, as it
is rendered a single track by the rigidity of the carriage axles, and if
these were loose, of course the train would overturn.
Nature has no example of mono-railwayism (to coin an expression), unless
it be the gossamer or shooting spider, that upon a single invisible
thread spun from its body ascends to aerial heights on a kind of
self-manufactured mono-rail, Dame Nature being too lavish and too wise,
in the perfect freedom she accords to birds, beasts, fishes, and
insects, to restrict their movements to one undeviating path.
In the moral world there have always been mono-railists, men of one
fixed idea, from which they could not, or would not, budge--apostles of
an ambition, a creed, a theory, a political conviction. The world has
had its Alexander the Great, its Napoleon, Buddha, St. Paul, Mahomet,
Martin Luther, Ignatius Loyola, Wycliffe, its Palissy, George
Stephenson, Mungo Park, John Bright, and Cobden.
It has been left to the inventive mechanical genius of the nineteenth
century to develop the mono-rail system. Doubtless those inscrutable
people, the Chinese, knew of it, and applied it in some way long ago;
and perhaps the yet more mysterious dwellers in ancient Egypt--whence
all wisdom seems to have descended--utilised it after some unknown
fashion.
Blondin, in his marvellous feat of trundling a wheel-barrow containing
a man along the high-level rope, used a hempen mono-rail; and the wire
cables stretching across the Thames at the reconstructed bridges at Kew
and Vauxhall, acting as travelling ways to convey the excavated soil
from the coffer-dams in large iron “skips” or buckets, were another
species of mono-rail; while at home in brickfields, and in mines, and on
plantations in distant lands, miniature railways have been used for
years to carry clay, ore, and produce, over plain and hill and dale.
In India a peculiar kind of tramway truck has been in use for some time,
with two or three flanged wheels which run on a single rail, and a large
balance-wheel on one side of the truck to prevent it toppling over.
Produce of all kinds can easily be drawn upon it by a couple of coolies,
and its efficiency on country roads has been highly spoken of.
Germany presents us with a recent and curious example of the application
of the principle to locomotion. In the Wupper Valley near Dusseldorf and
Cologne there are two towns, Barmen and Elberfeld, about eight miles
apart, mutually engaged in chemical and textile industries, and this
separation of the sister-towns was an obvious disadvantage to both. But
now they are joined by a wonderful railway, constructed on an elevated
line running six miles of its course above the River Wupper, a tributary
of the Rhine, some sixty to a hundred feet wide. The carriages are
suspended, and work upon a single rail, a development of the travelling
cable-way system. This rail is rigidly fastened to an iron framework of
girders, and supports the cars hanging therefrom by means of two steel
“bogies” with two wheels. Thus they can pass round sharp curves without
slackening speed and with the greatest safety, its motive power,
electricity, being applied by two motors on each carriage which drive
both wheels with equal force at a speed fixed at thirty-one miles an
hour, and attainable fifteen seconds after starting.
As elevated railways of this type are somewhat costly, and a simpler and
cheaper form would be a desideratum, a short line across country was
built as an experiment at Cologne-Deutz. The stays, measuring from 9·6
feet to 28·5 feet, were made either of wood, or of iron tubes, and met
at the top in a cap, from which was jointed the sheet-iron supports that
carried the mono-rail. By means of this jointed connection, the strain
was always of a central character, and, therefore, more easily borne. At
intervals of about 660 feet a couple of stays were firmly braced
together, in order to give stability to the overhead structure and to
take up the longitudinal thrust. In consequence, even with light
locomotives, the traction power was very high, and on the line at Deutz
it was found that a locomotive drawing two carriages full of passengers
could ascend a gradient of 1 in 6 with perfect safety.
But a means of adapting a mono-rail to every condition had some time
before been thought out. In 1883-4 Charles Lartigue, the eminent French
engineer, developing the principle conceived by the great Telford,
constructed some small lines in Tunis and Algeria for carrying esparto
grass. The cars were drawn by animals in a special form of mono-rail,
the model upon which Mr. F. B. Behr, ASS. INST. C.E.--who modestly
disclaims all originality in the matter--has worked for years, greatly
improving in practical details the original design, and constructing for
the first time mono-rail trains that have been successful in the
carriage of both goods and passengers by steam and electricity.
[Illustration: FIG. 6. PLAN OF A BEHR MONO-RAILWAY CAR
_By permission of Mr. F. B. Behr, Ass. Inst. C.E._]
The Lartigue single-rail system, as perfected by Mr. Behr, is as
follows, but of necessity my description is a mere outline.
Dismissing all preconceived ideas of rails laid down upon the ground, we
must imagine a heavy double-headed steel rail firmly bolted on to the
summit of a girder supported by trestles, the whole rigidly framed upon
massive sleepers. We thus have a permanent way somewhat resembling a
continuous A-shaped metal viaduct, raised about five feet from the
surface, or a succession of iron barriers--such as road-menders make
use of to divert the traffic--set ends on, secured to each other and to
the ground. Now take an ordinary railway car with seats arranged as in
an omnibus, but with two additional rows back to back in the centre.
Remove the axles and wheels, extending the sides and ends of the car
almost down to the ground level, thus providing beneath the flooring an
enclosure with ample room for the locomotive machinery. All along the
bottom of this enclosure is an opening or space, about five feet
high--extending between the middle rows of seats--that fits the A-shaped
viaduct, so that the car is suspended, or, as it were, sits upon the
mono-rail, whereon roll six vertical grooved wheels that, when set in
motion by the electric current, propel the cars. Thus we have a train
apparently without wheels, these together with the apparatus being
completely hidden away between and beneath the passengers’ seats. On
each side of the A-shaped trestle are fixed two guide-rails fitting
close into horizontal grooved wheels effectually checking all
oscillation. In front is the bogie locomotive motor with a pointed bow,
the stern of the car also being pointed, so that the entire arrangement
resembles when seen from above a great stickless rocket with a sharp and
flexible snout.
As the sister isle was the first to adopt electricity to a railway
(_vide_ Chapter II.), so was she the pioneer of mono-railism. In County
Kerry, Munster, near the Shannon’s mouth, stands the little town of
Listowel, and 9½ miles distant is Ballybunion. To connect these a
mono-railway for passenger and goods traffic was opened on March 1st,
1888, and has worked ever since without any difficulty. The trains are
drawn by a steam locomotive divided in two, one on each side of the
mono-rail--a kind of twin-screw arrangement--and with their smoke-stacks
and giant lantern between them, present a strange and rather comical
appearance, while the track meandering at its own sweet will across
country without fencing of any kind, adds to the novelty of the little
line.
Its great safety has been amply demonstrated by the only mishap that has
occurred to it. Some miscreant had deliberately removed the fastenings
from over thirty yards of the line at a critical point where a reverse
curve began, and close to a bridge. At full speed, a train carrying 200
passengers came up to the loosened rail, which gave way, breaking the
coupling chains and, luckily, bringing into action the automatic
Westinghouse brake. The permanent way was ruined by the shock, but the
fall absorbed the force of the reaction, and deposited the carriages
quietly on the ground without injury to anyone, and without even
breaking a window. On an ordinary line the train would have been thrown
off the metals into the river with terrible consequences. Shortly after
the line was opened, the Lartigue system was adopted in France, from
Tours to Pannissieres in the Loire Department.
The Ballybunion and Listowel Railway is the indirect father of a
modified form of mono-rail which is expected to appear this year at the
Crystal Palace. It is called the Electric Mid-Railway, the invention of
Mr. W. R. Smith, and as the line is to connect the existing railway
station with various points in the grounds, it should be well patronised
at the modest penny fare which is to be charged. Being an entire
novelty, it has a specially good chance of success in this particular
situation. The single rail is placed below the carriage, the weight of
which is balanced upon it after the fashion of a bicycle. On each side
of this single track runs a trestle carrying a rail on a level with the
centre of gravity of each carriage. This rail serves the necessary
purpose of supporting the carriage and of also preventing derailing.
A similar device had been suggested--and possibly has been carried into
effect on the New York and Washington D. C. Line--when it was proposed
to elevate a track above the earth on a single line of upright beams,
the trains to be kept steady by an auxiliary rail on either side, but
which would only come into play on rounding curves.
HIGH-SPEED ELECTRIC RAILWAYS
In Belgium, Mr. Behr, who throughout his labours there received the
personal encouragement and patronage of King Leopold II., successfully
built an experimental high-speed mono-rail line at Tervueren in the
neighbourhood of Brussels, as an annexe to the Exhibition of 1897. To
find suitable ground was the great difficulty. The line had to cross ten
public roads, and in the absence of compulsory powers, leases for the
land had to be arranged with grasping occupiers and owners. The soil was
bad, big cuttings and embankment were unavoidable, and finally the line
consisted of nothing but steep, up-and-down gradients. In fact, all the
conditions were most unfavourable, notwithstanding which, the result of
the experiment was conclusive in showing that with the mono-rail and
perfected electrical traction, very high speed, double that of existing
passenger express trains, could be attained with absolute safety, a
principle which Mr. Behr had for a long time past been particularly
impressed with, but which he maintains is not possible on the ordinary
two-rail track, even with electricity as a motive power.
In November, 1901, Mr. Behr went to Berlin, and investigated the
experiments carried out during forty days by a number of engineering
experts on a military track laid down between the German capital and
Zossen. It was hoped that a speed of 160 miles an hour would be attained
and maintained, and, as a matter of fact, starting from a low speed, the
train gradually reached that of 87 miles; then, for a moment only, 95
miles; and for an instant of time, 100 miles per hour; but it was at
once discernible that the ordinary two-rail permanent way, though
straight, could not bear the terrific strain imposed upon it; the rails
bent at many places, while the hundred-miles-an-hour rate had so
destructive an effect as to render impracticable any attempt to create a
higher record. The air resistance was found to be considerable. With a
square-fronted instead of a pointed coach, it was appreciable, and the
suction behind the train resembled the pressure of the water at the
stern of a mail steamer, and was calculated to equal two-thirds of the
“bow” resistance. These experiments went to prove that for excessive
velocity an ordinary railway was absolutely unsafe.
A year before this, a steam locomotive train had been tried in America
by the Baltimore and Ohio Railway Company, on the Adams principle of
reducing the atmospheric resistance to a minimum. It consisted of six
cars, a tender, and an engine of fifty-seven tons. The entire train was
sheathed down to within eight inches of the track. There were no
projections, and all the windows were flush; the cars were coupled close
together, and the rear one was run off to a point, the train resembling
one long sinuous and flexible carriage.
With this comparatively light engine it is said that the forty miles
between Baltimore and Washington were covered in thirty-seven and a half
minutes. But it was claimed that with a more powerful locomotive the
train could have been easily run at the rate of one mile in thirty-five
seconds, or nearly two miles a minute.
These speeds appear tremendous, but custom would soon reconcile us to
them. Our forefathers thought fifteen miles an hour terrific; and one of
the objections to Stephenson’s ideas was, that at such a speed, not to
mention a twenty-or twenty-five-mile rate, no human being could draw
breath.
Since then we have quietly acquiesced in and equally welcomed a style of
travelling varying from 35 to an average of 58 miles an hour, and even
consider it no great feat to run a special viceregal train from Euston
to Holyhead--263½ miles--in five hours without stopping, and are not
astonished to read of last year’s record run of the mail express from
Boulogne to Paris--168 miles--at an average speed of 68 miles an hour!
Still, 120 miles every sixty minutes without stopping is a large order,
and in practice would give some remarkable results. For instance, a
resident at Putney could be whisked from the station nearest to him, and
thence to a point adjoining his office--say in Seething Lane, some seven
miles off--in less than five minutes. Brighton could be reached from
town in twenty-five minutes; Dover, in forty; Edinburgh, in three hours
twenty minutes. Inverness--663 miles away--could be arrived at from
Euston in six hours twenty minutes, instead of the fifteen hours
thirty-five minutes of the ordinary express; and Paris--allowing one
hour thirty minutes for the Channel passage--in three hours forty-two
minutes.
THE MANCHESTER AND LIVERPOOL ELECTRIC EXPRESS RAILWAY
Now, the contention of the advocates of the monorail principle is,
that only by that system can very high speed be safely attained; and
when one comes to closely examine the cars in which this
hundred-and-ten-miles-per-hour travelling is achieved, confidence is at
once inspired, because of their low centre of gravity and consequent
unlikeliness of derailment.
There remains only one question--_Cui bono?_ What useful purpose can be
served by being able to get from Liverpool to Manchester in twenty
minutes instead of over an hour? On an emergency, such as a sudden
necessity for the services of a medical specialist, a matter of life or
death perhaps, or on the occasion of any crisis in domestic or
mercantile life when the instant presence of some one distant individual
is imperative, it might be of immense service. But in the usual course
of business, do not existing railways bring merchant and broker,
importer and manufacturer, face to face quickly enough, and are not
telephones and telegraphs and the post sufficient to carry through big
transactions between the centre of the cotton trade and the great city
on the banks of the Mersey? Public opinion, which demands increasing
speed in every phase of life, especially in travelling, declares they
are not sufficient; for we live in an impatient age when every hour of
detention on a transatlantic passage is begrudged.
Therefore it is not to be wondered at that in 1900-1, after the most
exhaustive inquiries and criticisms, the royal assent was given August
17th, 1901, to the Manchester and Liverpool Electric Express Railway,
which was duly authorised by Act of Parliament. It must be premised that
the line, like our London Tube, does not provide for goods traffic; that
the time occupied by the journey being so short, neither luggage-van,
lavatory, or refreshment buffet is required, and that all trains consist
of a single car, couplings being a source of danger at so great a rate
of speed. But as the trains run every ten minutes, and carry about forty
persons each time, a large passenger traffic is provided for.
Well--a broker has been telephoned for by his client, a wealthy
cotton-spinner in Manchester, anxious to consult with him personally; so
he at once leaves the flags of the Exchange, and after an eight minutes’
walk arrives at the Express Railway Station, near the entrance gate of
the Blue Coat Hospital in School Lane. He considers that in getting into
and out of the lift he has lost two minutes, but he just catches his car
and starts for a run of 34½ miles to Manchester, and since it is his
first experience of lightning travelling, he notices everything
connected with the new line. There are many curves, he finds, all
necessary in order to avoid conflict with the vested interests of other
railway companies; the gradients, he observes, at points about
three-quarters of a mile from the Liverpool and Manchester stations, are
steep--1 in 25, and 1 in 30--but of service in accelerating and breaking
the trains.
Unlike the Listowel mono-rail line, the Manchester and Liverpool express
is fenced from end to end with an unclimbable barrier, and as there are
no level-crossings and no means of access, there is no possibility of
trespassing. Also, for the security of the workmen employed in
maintaining the track as on an ordinary railway--the system of “packing”
the sleepers and inspecting the various parts being common to all
railways--a clear space of three feet is left between the passing
trains, and strong posts, ten feet apart, are fixed along the centre of
the space for the labourers to hold on by when an express rushes by.
Collisions, our broker quickly perceives, are impossible, there being no
switches, and notwithstanding the multitude of passengers (some twenty
thousand per day) there are never more than two cars on the line at a
time, and there are no stoppages between the two termini.
For signalling purposes, the line is divided into four sections of about
five miles each, and as the train passes by, its electric motor
automatically operates the signal and immediately “blocks” the section
behind it, so that the train following cannot advance until its leader
has cleared the five-mile division.
The driver and conductor are both together in the front part of the
train, so that the conductor has ample time to look out for the signals,
to apply the brakes, and assist his mate. The brakes are of the
Westinghouse pattern, and the two combined can stop the cars in about
800 yards, even at the speed of 110 miles an hour. These can be aided by
Mr. Behr’s ingenious device, which Sir William H. Preece considers quite
practicable, viz. louvres or shutters, which, when opened, materially
increase the air resistance.
Past Toxteth Park, Garston, Halewood, Widnes (whose only rival in sheer
ugliness is perhaps London’s Stratford-by-Bow), and exactly half-way,
Warrington, conspicuous for the inkiness of its river Mersey, and noted
for its glass, wire, and chemical industries; famed for its network of
waterways, especially for the great but evil-smelling ship-canal; noted
in history--when but a hamlet, with a clear trout-yielding stream--as
the camping-ground of the young Pretender when on his march to Derby in
1745; and associated with Mrs. Gaskell (whose “Cranford” is identified
with Knutsford, a neighbouring village), the two Bishops Claughton,
Viscount Cross, Luke Fildes, R.A., and “Warrington” Wood, the sculptor.
Close by, in the parish of Great Sankey, is the power-generating
station of the railway, the current obtained being 15,000 volts on the
triphase alternating system, converted in five sub-stations placed along
the line, into a continuous 650 volt current. Every car has four
traction motors arranged in pairs, each with a full-speed capacity of
160 h.p., equal to 110 miles an hour. The cars are comfortably
upholstered; the seats are separated and placed back to back in the
middle, those along the sides facing inwards, as in the Twopenny Tube.
The lighting is, of course, excellent, and the ventilation perfect,
though to prevent accident the windows are fixed, and the doors, while
the train is in motion, are automatically locked.
[Illustration: FIG. 7. INTERIOR OF A BEHR MONO-RAILWAY CAR
_By permission of_ _Mr. F. B. Behr, Ass. Inst. C. E._]
As regards the cost of this novel undertaking, our Liverpool friend had
beforehand ascertained that the capital had been fixed at £2,800,000,
and that an average of eight persons per train would more than cover the
expense of the enterprise.
Swiftly leaving Warrington in the distance, the express shoots
onwards--past Eccles, Pendleton, and Salford--and reaches the terminus
at the west side of Deansgate, in the busiest part of Cottonopolis,
where, again using the lift, our honest broker speeds to the Exchange in
another eight minutes, and in forty-five minutes after leaving Liverpool
is in deep business conference with his principal at Manchester.
Contrast this with the existing facilities of the old system for rapid
transit between the two places; and those who know their Manchester and
Liverpool well, will at once be able to decide whether or not the
electric express better meets the requirements of those to whom every
minute is of consequence.
The London and North Western Railway (which has a perfectly straight bit
of track to Manchester, unequalled, except on the Great Eastern between
Littleford and Lynn--21 miles--and on the South Eastern between Nutfield
and Ashford--32 miles) runs expresses without stopping from Lime Street
and Edge Hill to the Exchange Station, Manchester, doing the journey in
forty minutes.
The Great Central Railway, by an indirect route, _viâ_ Garston and
Widnes, runs expresses from their Liverpool station (St. James’s) direct
to the Manchester Central, in from forty to forty-five minutes; but on
neither line is there such a thing as a ten minutes’ service, the
intervals between the direct expresses ranging from forty-five minutes
to so much as four hours.
Plans, it is said, have been submitted to the Board of Trade for a
mono-railway between Edinburgh and Glasgow. The proposed construction is
similar to that of the Behr mono-railway between Liverpool and
Manchester. It is quite unlike the canny Scot to rush into sensational
experiments for a speed of 117 miles per hour, especially as a few
years’ waiting for the completion of the Liverpool line would prove or
disprove the possibility of the scheme.
CHAPTER V
_REJUVENATING THE METROPOLITAN INNER CIRCLE_
“So that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”--Ps. ciii. 5.
CONSTRUCTION OF THE METROPOLITAN AND METROPOLITAN DISTRICT RAILWAYS
Can anything be satisfactorily rejuvenated? Is there any truth in the
Medean story that old age can revert to the vigour of young manhood?
In 1903 the usual reply is “No.” If a theatre becomes dilapidated, it is
pulled down. If a railway-station gets much out of repair, the company
proceeds to reconstruct, and not to patch up. If a macadamised
thoroughfare gives signs of too much wear and tear, it is broken up and
relaid with wood blocks.
In fact, rejuvenation on a large scale is so seldom attempted that the
scheme for renovating and electrifying the Inner Circle Railway may be
regarded as something remarkable.
For convenience we will call it the Inner Circle, but, as we all know,
it is a dual concern controlled by the Metropolitan and the Metropolitan
District, both of them old enough to have a respectable history.
Fifty years ago railways within the boundaries of Inner London were
non-existent, the nearest points approached by the country lines being
at Battersea, Euston, St. Pancras, Shoreditch, Paddington, London
Bridge, and Waterloo--miles away from the central districts.
It was an ideal time for omnibus companies, who charged pretty well what
they liked: and for cabmen, whose fare was nominally restricted to
eightpence a mile, but who were masters of the situation when passengers
with luggage had to be conveyed from the termini. Yet, although many
suggestions were made, including that of a great central station where
all the lines might converge, the travelling world was considerably
startled in 1854 by a proposition laid before Parliament to construct an
underground line from Farringdon Street to Bishop’s Road, Paddington;
and so astonished were capitalists that although the bill passed, the
money was so slow in coming in that work could not be begun until six
years later!
In planning the route a golden opportunity was lost of anticipating the
Twopenny Tube; but the opposition of Oxford Street was so fierce that
the line had to be poked away beneath the Marylebone Road in the
north-west of London, convenient for residents in Paddington and
Bayswater, but useless to other districts, and, what was more important,
it did not go to the Bank, the centre of the business world.
However, we, then as now, were but a slow people, therefore really
comprehensive schemes found little favour in the “fifties” and
“sixties.” For three years the Marylebone and Euston roads were closed
to traffic, and presented the appearance of a besieged city’s outskirts
where deep trenches and fortifications were being made. The roadway was
removed to a great depth; pipes and sewers were taken away and replaced;
foundations were underpinned, and a series of solid brick tunnels were
slowly and laboriously constructed and covered up. The plank pathways,
the noise, and the smells, drove householders along the route to
desperation; and, on nearing the City, the problem of dealing with the
old Fleet Ditch was at one period thought insoluble. No wonder that,
what with compensation to owners of damaged property, the acquisition of
necessary land, and engineering difficulties, the cost of the line at
some points mounted up to a million sterling per mile!
At last the first section was completed; and in September, 1862, a trial
trip was made. A contemporary picture represents the train passing
Portland Road Station, its open trucks in the rear full of enthusiastic
guests waving flags and tall hats--after luncheon probably--evidently
delighted with the success of the undertaking. But at the formal
opening, January 9th, 1863, a grand banquet was given in the Farringdon
Street Station, three long tables occupying the rail and platform space,
with a [ shaped table on a daïs for the principal guests.
The following day thirty thousand passengers journeyed over the line,
and everybody in London talked about the Underground as somewhat of a
marvel. But people exhibited strange ignorance on the subject, nervous
people preparing for wonderful possibilities, imagining that the cellars
would collapse as the trains thundered by, or that the houses would
tumble through on to the line, flinging their occupants before some
passing engine!
Yet, after all, the Underground was only an ordinary tunnel (such as
pierce a score of hills), placed in an exceptional position in the midst
of London.
Bit by bit, as years went by, the Metropolitan Railway extended itself
eastward and westward to High Street, Kensington, whence the District
Railway that had sprung into existence went ahead and got as far as
Westminster, its line being partly open and partly tunnelled. There the
District stuck for three years, and then found its way into the City (a
great boon as an alternative route). At the Mansion House Station it
seemed determined to rest for a long period; the Metropolitan showing
the same propensity at the Moorgate Street sheds, until City men began
to give up all hope of the two ends ever meeting.
It came about at last, however, and the year 1884 witnessed the
completion of the irregular Inner Circle--a total length of about 12½
miles--by way of Bishopsgate, Aldgate, Mark Lane, the Monument, and
Cannon Street, without any serious disturbance of the traffic, but with
much wonderful underpinning of warehouses and offices (a notable
instance of this operation being beneath King William the Fourth’s
statue, which weighs over 250 tons!).
At first there were no smoking-carriages, but the numerous complaints on
the subject induced the directors to alter their rules, and they went to
the other extreme, so that now non-smokers think there seem to be more
smoking-carriages than any others.
In its young days the Metropolitan was clean and its atmosphere
tolerable. In fact, it had been proposed to use smokeless engines, but
for some reason the idea was abandoned, and, as the main railway lines
began to send out feelers towards the inner districts of London, they
sought for, and obtained, running powers over the Underground, junctions
being made with the Great Northern Railway and Great Western, the London
and North Western, and the Midland. Consequently, the number of trains
immensely increased, and the smoke nuisance was intensified. Ventilating
shafts were adopted, and afforded some relief, but the imprisoned fog of
winter precipitated the “blacks,” and summer weather only made the
atmosphere still more stifling; while Baker Street, Gower Street, and
King’s Cross stations and tunnels were positive infernos, and for how
many deaths from asthma and bronchitis they were responsible no one
knows!
The rolling-stock of the Metropolitan became dirtier and dirtier, grime
and disfigurement settled down upon it, and everybody’s experience of it
resembled that of Mrs. Lilian Rosamond, described in Chapter VIII.
THE NEW DISTRICT RAILWAY
Just opposite St. Mark’s College, Chelsea, is a narrow thoroughfare
called Lot’s Road, leading to a creek that separates the Borough from
Fulham. Tradition says that the locality was formerly known as “The
Lots” (about four acres in extent), and was granted to a Sir Arthur
Gorges by the lord of the manor, in lieu of certain rights over land
which he gave up for the formation of the Kensington Canal; but
incredulous old folk dismissed this tradition with contempt, and
maintained that there was a Chelsea personage named Lot, very distantly
related to the patriarch’s nephew, who pitched his tent in the fertile
Jordan Valley, and that the dismal Chelsea wastes so much resembled the
desolateness of the fatal plains, that diligent search therein might
even result in the discovery of the Pillar of Salt, brought over to this
country at some remote period by a pious descendant! But whoever, or
whatever, the name Lot may represent, it is now associated with one of
the greatest electrical undertakings of the age--the huge generating
station of the Underground Electric Railway Company of London, Limited,
who, as at present arranged, will supply the District and other railways
with power.
At the bottom of Lot’s Road, and at a point on the Middlesex bank of
Battersea Reach, facing the ugly parish church of St. Mary, is the
mouth of Chelsea Creek, filled twice a day by the muddy waters of the
Thames, and here the Electrical Works are being erected. They are in
sight of an obscure cottage in Cheyne Walk where the painter Turner
lived in concealment, and where he died. The building, with its four
great chimney-shafts, is unæsthetic to a degree, and Turner would
probably have thought it ruined his favourite landscape. But it
represents something more valuable than æsthetic effect.
When Matthew Doulton, in the infancy of steam, took the Russian Prince
Potemkin round the works at Soho, Manchester, the distinguished visitor
inquired, “What do you sell here?” “We make and sell here,” replied
James Watts’ partner, “that which all the world wants--_Power_.” And
this, on a scale undreamt of by the famous engineer, is what the
Underground Electric Railway Company of London will produce, in view of
the river scenery so much admired by the chief of impressionists, and
which he never wearied of depicting.
This temple of electric force will be the largest in the Old World. In
New York, the Manhattan and the Metropolitan companies both have power
stations slightly smaller. The Rapid Transit Commission have projected
one that will be bigger, while the Waterside station of the Edison
Illuminating Company (partially completed) is on a still larger scale.
It has, however, been stated that the biggest power scheme on earth will
be at Massena, on the St. Lawrence River, Canada, where there will be
fifteen Westinghouse machines, equal to a total of 75,000 kilowatts.
Within the temple there will be turbo-generators fifty feet in length
and ten feet high, constructed by the British Westinghouse Company at
their Trafford Park
[Illustration: FIG. 8. ELECTRICAL POWER HOUSE (THE LARGEST IN THE OLD
WORLD) LOT’S ROAD, CHELSEA, TO SUPPLY THE METROPOLITAN DISTRICT AND
OTHER RAILWAYS WITH CURRENT
_By permission of the_ _Underground Electric Railways Co. of London,
Ltd._]
Works, Manchester, capable of producing the prodigious quantity of
60,000 electrical kilowatts, at a pressure, or force, technically
speaking, of 11,000 volts. In other words, about 100,000 horse-power
could be sent out, theoretically equal to the lifting of over 1,000,000
tons a foot high every minute.[3] Six such power stations could,
therefore, move the great pyramid of Cheops (over 6,000,000 tons
weight), and carry it bodily off on colossal rails, and dump it down
anywhere to order.
For condensing purposes, an enormous quantity of water will be required,
and every twenty-four hours 19,000,000 gallons of water (at times
mounting up to 40,000,000 gallons) will be drawn from the creek for use
in the power house.
The force of 11,000 volts will be much too powerful for direct
application to the purposes of locomotion. It requires reducing by
transformers and rotary converters into the safe and ordinary current of
about 550 volts, which will be effected at sub-stations--Earl’s Court,
South Kensington, Victoria, Charing Cross, Mansion House, and other
places along the line. To these the current will be sent from the power
house, and reduced by the transformers into ordinary low-pressure
voltage, and the fiery O.P. spirit tamed to a pleasant and portable
“under-proof” standard! The current will then be distributed to two
conductor-rails, one located between the present running rails, and the
other outside them. The motors on the trains will receive the current
from one rail by means of a sliding contact-shoe, and return it to the
other rail in the same manner. In passing through the motor the
electricity causes the armature to revolve, which motion, by means of
gearing, is communicated to the carriage axle.
So much for the driving-power of the trains. But what kind of trains do
the public expect?
[Illustration: FIG. 9. A 2,000 H.P. WESTINGHOUSE STEAM TURBINE,
RESEMBLING THE TURBO-GENERATORS (EACH OF 7,500 H.P.) IN THE CHELSEA
POWER HOUSE.
_By permission of the_ _Westinghouse Companies, Ltd., London_]
Surely not the old carriages cleaned up and re-upholstered--made “to
last a little longer,” until broken up for firewood and old iron. The
public will not be disappointed in the new cars, nothing as yet having
been seen in London to equal them.
The trains will be run on the principle of the multiple unit. That is,
each will be made up of seven coaches--three long motor-cars and four
trail-cars--with a motor-man’s cab at each end, and one in the centre.
These eight-wheeled coaches will be rectangular at the sides--not
sloping like those of the Waterloo Tube Company--and very roomy, 52
feet long and about 8 feet 2 inches wide inside, and about 8 feet 7
inches from the floor to the middle of the roof.
[Illustration: FIG. 10. A NEW METROPOLITAN DISTRICT RAILWAY CAR
_By permission of the_ _Underground Electric Railways Co. of London,
Ltd._]
The arrangement of the seats will be somewhat different from that of the
Tube. There will, of course, be corridor cars, which will be entered
from the platforms, through telescopic doors; there will be also sliding
doors. The gain in leg-space will be great, the centre gangway giving a
clear 4 feet, and there will be fewer cross seats. Each train will hold
about 338 passengers; the ventilation of the cars will be perfect; and
the height sufficient for a giant. As the District tunnels are 25 feet
in diameter, and 15 feet 9 inches from the rail level to the crown of
the arch, there will be about 2 feet of head-room, about 2 feet 6 inches
between each train, and the same between the trains and the sides of the
tunnels.
Compare this with the present Inner Circle trains that carry about three
hundred passengers, with gangways that, even in the first-class
compartments, leave no room for incomers to avoid a leg entanglement,
and whose height will hardly admit a tall man in a tall hat to stand
upright. Also compare it with the dimensions of the Central’s cars,
which are 39 feet long, 8 feet wide, and whose height to the middle of
roof is only 7 feet 5 inches, the gangway narrow, with seats in each car
for forty-eight people. The space in the cars of the City and South
London, and the Waterloo and City, is still more exiguous.
It is proposed to run about twice as many trains as at present, each
journey to be made in about two-thirds of the time now required; that is
to say, the trains that now run about ten miles an hour will, it is
anticipated, work up to at least fifteen miles; the total carrying
capacity being estimated at 70,000,000 per annum, increasable, if
necessary, to 100,000,000. There may be an all-night service, for the
convenience of people engaged at Covent Garden market, and for
journalists and others whose work lies in the vicinity of Fleet Street.
A somewhat novel and economical feature will be that the trains, during
the stock hours of the day, can be run in short lengths, as in the City
and Waterloo Railway, and, with their triple motors divided, will
resemble those strange Naidæ worms of the Annelida class that possess
the power of increasing by mechanical division. They will also be able
to go forward and backward without reversing the motor engines.
Brilliant will be the lighting of the cars and stations; the tunnels,
too, are to be illuminated. Fresh air will be obtained by the frequent
movements of the trains through the tunnels, while smoke and smuts will,
of course, become things of the past. The stations, with their wide and
roomy platforms, will in some cases be lengthened by fifty feet to
accommodate the three-hundred-and-fifty-feet-long trains, and be
thoroughly cleansed and repainted, and the tunnels may possibly be
whitened by means of “spraying”--the principle adopted at the Chicago
Exhibition for the finials of the pavilions.
The question of classes, fares, and tickets has not yet been settled,
but we may assume that the system adopted will be somewhat like that of
the Tube. The entire project closely resembles the Metropolitan
Underground Railway of Paris, and the Boston Subway. Lifts are not at
present contemplated, and probably their absence will be no great loss
to active travellers, nor even to the “old, subdued, and slow,” for
trains will so quickly succeed one another that the missing of one will
involve no serious delay. Possibly, however, as time goes on, some new
and convenient form of sloping footway may be adopted.
But alas! for the lovers of the beautiful, the directors, we are told,
“have not decided that they will be warranted in sacrificing, on
æsthetic grounds, the revenue derived from advertisements.”
Then, again, as there will be little or no waiting, even the most
impatient of _voyageurs_ will hardly need the diversion obtained by a
trial of the omnipresent penny-in-the-slot machines, or the
contemplation of the numerous works of art displayed on the station
walls. They will not even need the bookstalls, much less to gape at the
contents-bills of the daily paper.
And, provided the glass roofs be kept clean, and the atmosphere innocent
of smoke and gas, might not the stations--sheltered as they are from the
vagaries of weather, and brilliantly lighted--be transformed into
modified winter gardens, with sturdy flowers and shrubs filling up nooks
and corners, and bold paintings (frequently renewed) of distant lands,
seascapes, and historical subjects, in the recesses now covered by
“Reckitt’s Blue,” etc.? The frequent stopping of trains would be
actually welcomed, and people would travel by the “Circle” for the sake
of seeing the novelties! In fact, every station might be converted into
a thing of beauty.
One other suggestion for the directors of the new Inner Circle. Cannot
something be contrived in the new cars to effectually deaden the sound
of the closing and opening of doors, so irritating to modern nerves, and
unpleasantly associated with the “banging” in the old carriages, and the
“clashing” of the telescopics in the Tubes.
THE NEW METROPOLITAN RAILWAY
The Metropolitan Railway will be electrified in a very similar manner to
the District Railway, the system being the same, _i.e._ alternating
three-phase, converted at sub-stations into continuous current. Access
to the platforms will be by short staircases, and not by lifts. It is
said that when steam is abolished the appearance of the stations may
possibly be improved, but the advertisements are too important a source
of revenue to be removed, and, as the Company says, “they act as a
relief to the bare walls, and their withdrawal would answer no good”! An
effort will be made to cleanse the tunnels, but it has not yet been
decided what method will be adopted.
There exist an abundance of open spaces, ventilating-shafts, and holes,
and the frequent passing of trains in contrary directions will
necessarily keep the air in motion, and thus, as in the District, the
problem of ventilation will solve itself.
The cars will be of the corridor type, seven to a full train, each end
car and the middle one having a motor, and if the contingencies of the
traffic do not require a large train, it will thus be possible to divide
it and run it in two parts. The seating will be both transverse and
longitudinal, and considerably over four hundred passengers it is said
can be accommodated in each full train. As to day and night services,
their frequency, the fares, and the distinction of classes, nothing has
yet been decided.
About a mile from Wembly, where “Watkins’ Folly,” as it is locally
called--at one time aspiring, like Babel’s, to “reach unto
heaven”--shows gauntly against the skyline its first stage of only 150
feet, is Neasden, where, on land belonging to the Metropolitan Railway,
is being erected its power house (the most extensive in the kingdom
owned by a single railway company), capable of producing some 14,000
kilowatts. Water in abundance will be obtained by means of artesian
wells now being bored in the chalk; and coal can be readily supplied.
The current will be applied to cars, as on the District, by a
conductor-rail placed in the near side of the permanent way, with a
return fixed in the centre of the running track. By the end of 1903 it
is hoped that the work will be sufficiently advanced for some trains to
be run by electricity. Finally, as the Metropolitan’s engineer-in-chief
remarks, there will be no marked novelties, but “the very conversion
from steam to electric traction will prove a great novelty and an
attraction. New cars of the latest type will be introduced, the stations
will be bright and cheerful, the atmosphere pure; travel will be
undertaken with a greater degree of comfort, and freedom from
disagreeable odours. In short, nothing that can reasonably be expected
to be performed in the interests of the public will be left undone.”
AMERICAN CAPITAL
A good deal has been said in reference to the source whence the
necessary capital has been obtained for rejuvenating the Inner Circle,
patriotic people objecting to the so-called Americanising of this great
undertaking, though it is hardly a logical objection.
If British capitalists are lacking in enterprise, there is no reason why
London should wait until they evince it. The world will not go to sleep
while Lombard Street hesitates. As Mr. Perks, M.P., Chairman of the
District Company has said, out of the five millions sterling invested in
the new Underground Electric Railway Companies of London, Limited, less
than two millions were held in America, and three millions on this side
the Atlantic. “I do not care,” he said, “where the money comes from, so
long as it is good money”--a wise remark, like the _non olet_ of
Suetonius. What matters it whence the materials of a sovereign have
come? They cannot be ear-marked, and whether its gold is Brazilian,
Australian, South African, or American, is of no consequence. It is a
legal tender, and worth twenty silver shillings.
Another matter that has engaged public attention is the apparent
difference of opinion between the Metropolitan and the Metropolitan
District Companies, as to the control of the Inner Circle. Nature has
designed them to be one, and but for vested and promoters’ interests,
they probably would have been one from the first. They are not merely
brother and sister, but are united by a closer tie, therefore their
motto surely ought to be _Quis separabit_!
Let us hope that long before the scheme is completed there will be a
reconciliation, and a satisfactory working arrangement made “out of
court” between these two parties to an unnecessary divorce suit.
The two lines have carried their millions of passengers, and the
rejuvenated Inner Circle during its new and beneficent career is
destined to carry very many millions more, and prove a great boon to the
metropolis.
CHAPTER VI
_THE CENTRAL LONDON ELECTRIC RAILWAY_
“Tell by what paths, what subterranean ways.”--BLACKMORE.
HISTORY OF THE RAILWAY AND ITS CITY SUBWAYS
When those electric traction pioneers, the City and South London, and
the Waterloo and City Railways, were opened respectively in 1890 and
1898, they were regarded by the public with a certain amount of apathy.
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; and by
general approbation the Central was forthwith dubbed “The Twopenny
Tube,” a name it will always retain.
Like most great enterprises, the Tube Railway had to contend against
considerable opposition before legislative sanction could be obtained
for its construction. It was incorporated on August 5th, 1891, after a
great battle with Parliament and local authorities, in which affray the
late Mr. J. H. Greathead, M. INST. C. E. (deviser of one of the methods
of shield-excavating for driving tunnels), took a conspicuous part, and
the principle of a “free-way-leave” beneath the streets was successfully
confirmed.
The original directors were Mr. Henry Tennant (at one time General
Manager of the North Eastern Railway Company), Lord Colville of Culross
(Director of the Great Eastern Railway Company), Sir Francis Knollys
(Director of the Great Northern Railway Company), the Hon. A. H. Mills
(of Glyn, Mills, Currie, and Co.), and the Right Hon. D. R. Plunket
(Director of the North London Railway Company). Thus the railway element
was strongly represented; the financial to a small but very important
extent, and Court influence by two prominent members of the households
of the Prince and Princess of Wales.
The Company was authorised to construct a double underground line from
Liverpool Street to Shepherds Bush (about 6½ miles); but the plan was
modified, and the Bank of England became the City starting-point. In
their prospectus the directors modestly predicted an annual passenger
traffic of some forty-two millions (or seven millions per mile of line);
but this estimate has been largely exceeded, the average being about
fifty-two millions per annum, or one million per week.
The Company’s capital ultimately reached the sum of nearly four millions
sterling, so the line can hardly be called a cheap one in point of
construction; for, although the “way-leave” beneath the streets was
free, land had to be bought for the surface booking-offices, costly
shafts had to be sunk to the requisite depth, and tunnels driven, and
numerous subterranean stations had to be built. Thus, apart from the
cost of the rolling-stock and installation of a large current-generating
station, the initial expenses soon mounted up.
All the booking-offices and stations are built on one principle, each
with its great electric lift; but special interest attaches to the City
terminus.
It was necessary to make use, somehow, of the open space between the
Mansion House, the Bank, and the Royal Exchange--an ideal spot for a
central railway station. But how was it to be effected? For years the
Civic Fathers had contemplated the construction of subways for the
safety and convenience of foot-passengers at this, which has been termed
the busiest--as it is almost the most dangerous--spot in the world,
though I doubt whether in the year 1903 Piccadilly Circus does not run
it hard.
The Central Railway Company approached the Corporation on the subject,
and eventually it was agreed between the parties that the Railway
Company, in return for being allowed the privilege of constructing their
station beneath the open space, without payment, should make the public
subways, and hand them over in perpetuity to the City.
So for many months the pavement in front of the Royal Exchange was
disfigured by a lofty wooden hoarding, which completely concealed a
shaft, wherein some mysterious work was progressing. But beyond this
there was no outward indication of what was going on below; and,
although the entire roadway in front of the Mansion House was being
undermined, the vast traffic continued as usual.
Arranging this station proved to be one of the stiffest bits of
engineering work ever attempted. Drain-pipes were ubiquitous--a perfect
tangle that had to be diverted. There were old disused and
long-forgotten pipes, electric cables, hydraulic power pipes, pneumatic
tubes, gas and water mains--a maze and wilderness of underground
communications. These were all rearranged in a special pipe-tunnel, 14
feet wide. Then, at a depth of about 20 feet, the booking-office was
built, bit by bit, of steel-work, which had previously been temporarily
put together in a field to ensure its fitting exactly into the
excavation prepared for its accommodation--an area 145 feet one way and
75 feet the other, its outline being on the curve. Its roof, consisting
of girders supporting steel troughing, was filled up with concrete, and
finally with asphalte, upon which thousands of people pass daily without
realising what is below them. Access to the booking-office is gained by
numerous entrances _viâ_ the public subway: two on the Royal Exchange
pavement, two at the bottom of Mansion House Place, one at the Poultry
corner, and one at Walbrook, one in front of the Safe Deposit City
buildings, two each at the corners of Princes Street and Cornhill, and
one at St. Mary Woolnoth Church. The entire arrangement reminds one of a
mole’s subterranean fortress, with its galleries for entrance and exit
branching off in various directions.
These subways, immense conveniences which should be adopted at every
_rond-point_ in London--though it is a strange fact that _habitués_ of
the City seldom use them, they being patronised chiefly by the
“work-girl” and by casual visitors to the central “square mile”--are 15
feet wide and 9 feet high, are lined with glazed brick, and have
electric-lighted stairways at the above-mentioned places.
DESCRIPTION OF THE RAILWAY
Some fifty feet below the Bank of England Station are the twin-tunnels
and their platforms, approached by five lift shafts of twenty feet, and
one stairway shaft of eighteen feet diameter; at a deeper level still
are the tubes of the City and South London Railway, crossing the City
_en route_ to Islington.
These great passenger lifts work with wonderful smoothness (_facile
descensus Averno est_), and without them no fewer than ninety-three
steps would have to be painfully descended.
We are all familiar by this time with the other ten surface stations of
the Twopenny Tube (at the Post Office, Marble Arch, etc.). They are
nearly all alike, and look as if they were waiting for a substantial and
lofty building to be erected upon them, and have little claim to
architectural beauty. The platforms, necessarily rather contracted in
area, are clean and bright, owing to the extensive use of opalite tiling
and glazed bricks, ever spotless, and practically indestructible. Each
train consists of six eight-wheeled bogie-cars, 45½ feet long, with
well-upholstered seats, arranged longitudinally and crosswise, for
forty-eight passengers. The lighting is effected by means of eight
sixteen-candle-power incandescent lamps, supplemented by small shaded
electric lights, excellent for reading by. The windows, of course, do
not open, but practicable ventilating louvres are arranged above them.
Entrance is obtained at each end of the car, and the telescopic gates
are cleverly and expeditiously manipulated by the attendants. Straps are
placed along rods on each side of the roof to aid passengers in
traversing the cars, and above the seats are racks for parcels, etc.
The electric locomotives[4] are curious in shape, with the driver’s
cabin in the middle, and a backward and forward slope for the apparatus
looking like gigantic coal-scuttles back to back. They have eight
wheels, and are fitted with motors, one for each axle. The current is
collected from a central third rail by means of two cast-iron shoes
which rub along it, and is led through an automatic circuit-breaker and
switched to the controller in the driver’s cabin, thence to the motors,
returning to the track rails through the wheels. The total weight of a
locomotive is about forty-four tons, and the average speed is about
fourteen miles an hour, the running time from the Bank to the western
terminus being twenty-four minutes.
At Shepherd’s Bush--once, as its name implies, a rural suburban hamlet,
suggestive of pastoral pursuits, flocks of sheep and lambs, washings and
shearings of fleeces--is the chief power station of the Central,
sub-stations being situated at the General Post Office, Marble Arch,
and Notting Hill Gate.
The premises cover sixty-eight acres, with plenty of room for locomotive
and car sheds, shunting tracks, boiler and engine houses, the latter
most impressive from the size of their six Corliss compound horizontal
engines, each rated at 1,300 horse-power, though, as in so much American
machinery, the somewhat rough exterior detracts from the appearance,
especially in the eyes of British engineers, accustomed not only to
internal mechanical perfection--as in the Central’s engines--but to
nicety of finish throughout. These giants are coupled direct to
Thomson-Houston dynamos, with the capacity, if required, of 5,100
kilowatts, or 6,800 indicated horse-power.
Amongst other contemplated improvements is that of loop-lines between
Liverpool Street and the Bank, which will materially help to accelerate
the traffic.
[Illustration: FIG. 11. A TYPICAL ELECTRIC POWER GENERATOR--TWO DYNAMOS,
EACH OF ABOUT 1,600 H.P.
_By permission of_ _Dick Kerr and Co., London_]
Some remarkable results, not very satisfactory to those interested in
vehicular traffic, have arisen from the opening of the Twopenny Tube.
The standard of travelling has gone up steadily; improvements in ’buses
are constantly demanded (garden seats, spiral spring cushions, etc.)
and--somewhat slowly--conceded. Yet, to quote the words of an omnibus
official, “_they (the public) want more!_” And this at a time when fares
have steadily decreased, and the cost of fodder and maintenance have
seriously increased. Worse still, the Tube’s existence has been keenly
realised all along the line of its route, ladies especially preferring
to go on a shopping expedition by means of the well-lit Tube than by the
not over-clean, and decidedly slow and stuffy, omnibus. The London Road
Car Company’s returns along Oxford Street and Holborn showed last year a
decrease nearly equivalent to the Tube’s increase, and the London
General Omnibus Company’s report for the half-year--December 1st,
1901--was so disappointing, owing to dear forage and decreased passenger
traffic, that its stock fell at one bound ten points, from 105 to 95--a
grave depreciation in value.
The Tube, during the six months ending December 31st, 1902, carried
22,425,776 passengers, a daily average of 121,879, out of which big
total 2,770,854 were workmen at a penny per traveller. On Coronation Day
202,000 people journeyed by the Central.
ITS VENTILATION
At the commencement of its career the Tube’s atmosphere and temperature
were remarkably sweet and equable, not varying much from 62° either in
summer or winter. During a spell of hot weather it felt delightfully
cool, and when east winds blew it was warm compared with the atmosphere
outside.
Trips in the Tube were at one time seriously suggested for the cure of
various maladies as a modification of that usual last resource of the
medical profession, “change of air.”
Before the advent of the Tube, however, many fond mothers with little
faith in the pharmacopœia regarded the Underground as a sanatorium
for children’s complaints. Tunnel air, they affirmed, was good for
croup, whooping-cough, and various other ailments. A doctor travelling
on the Metropolitan once noticed a woman in the same compartment pull
down the window upon entering a tunnel and hold outside a child she was
carrying, so that the youngster might get the full benefit of the foul
atmosphere. When the doctor inquired the reason for this extraordinary
performance, she told him that “tunnel air” had been found to be a
complete cure for croup. And only the other day an East End mother was
discovered by a guard giving her baby two rounds on the Inner Circle
because she had been told by a herbalist and bone-setter that a
sulphurous atmosphere was good for whooping-cough.
But the ideal state of things in the Tube did not continue, and
accusations respecting its ventilation began to be whispered about and
finally proclaimed from the housetops (_vide_ Chapter XIX). However,
practical steps were taken to ensure its efficiency, and at the last
meeting of shareholders the chairman said that the Company had now a
better character for ventilation than any other company in London.
At Bond Street Station a powerful fan has been placed at the base of the
lift shaft, which, under ordinary pressure, removes the vitiated
atmosphere from the permanent ways, fresh air taking its place at the
various halting-places. The fan, forty-eight inches in diameter, and
electrically driven, displaces 30,000 cubic feet of air per minute, and
is capable of entirely exhausting the tunnels in a fraction over three
minutes. The fan is worked every night after the trains have ceased
running, and travellers by the early trains literally breathe the
freshest of fresh air.
If a train in the Central should break down and come to a stop in the
tunnel, though it would not, of course, be run into--the block system
making that all but impossible--it might be necessary for the passengers
to get out. The question naturally asked is, “How shall they alight? And
where shall they go when they have alighted?” A fact that not every
traveller knows is that a narrow path at the side of the rails leads to
the nearest station, which cannot be more than a quarter of a mile off,
so that no serious athletic feat is required to get out at the rear of
the train and walk along the Tube.
ITS ANNUAL SALE OF LOST ARTICLES
Like the great trunk-lines, the Central has an annual sale of articles
left in the carriages and not claimed; but the collection differs
considerably from the miscellaneous assortment brought together by, say,
the Great Northern or Great Western. Heavy impedimenta are, as might be
expected, absent; but who could have been the owners of the 25 bottles
of whisky, the 13 boxes of cigars and cigarettes, the 300 ladies’
umbrellas, and the 264 gentlemen’s umbrellas, the walking-sticks
innumerable, the 150 pairs of spectacles and eyeglasses (showing that
the light is so good that reading is a favourite way of passing the
time), the 44 fur necklets, 920 pairs of gloves and 14 muffs, the 166
empty purses, and the multitude of books, chiefly fiction? While every
week someone very mysteriously leaves behind a spirit-bottle--evidently
recently emptied of its contents--enclosed in cardboard and done up in a
neat parcel.
How the Twopenny Tube, and others like it, were constructed will be
described in the next chapter.
CHAPTER VII
_THE TUBULAR SYSTEM_
“Thy arts of building from the bee receive;
Learn of the mole to plow, the worm to weave.”--POPE.
ORIGIN OF THE SYSTEM
Last year there were sounds of strife in that financial atmosphere where
dwell Titan capitalists, who think and talk and dream in millions; a
battle of giants, like the conflict imagined by Milton, when the satanic
host levelled “triple-mounted rows” of deadly tubes with such effect
against seraph and seraphim, “that whom they hit none on their feet
could stand, though standing else as rocks.” But the conflict now past,
concerned tubes of another kind--iron railway tubes, that seem to be the
destiny of underground metropolitan travellers. The Morgan group, the
Yerkes’ combination, and other great coalitions, mustered their
battalions for the fray. The London County Council, following the policy
of Lord Stanley’s army at Bosworth field, hovered aloof ready to take
advantage of the defeat of either; the Corporation of London anxiously
watched from afar; the great suburban railway companies shivered in
their shoes; a parental Legislature held the balance impartially between
the combatants; while the people whom the matter most concerned--some
six millions of Londoners--had to sit down with folded hands and,
patiently or impatiently, await their fate.
Recollecting this tangle and uproar of conflicting interests, it behoves
everybody to have some notion of the subject of the Tubes and their
construction.
Like many other things in the world, there is nothing new in the idea of
boring a hole through the earth and lining it with brick or iron. As
Pope suggests, mankind doubtless learnt the art from Nature, though the
correctness of the poet’s zoological knowledge is hardly shown in the
examples heading this chapter. For ages past--before London
existed--that skilful excavator, the mole, tunnelled through the earth,
making roads and galleries, the friction of his fur, set perpendicularly
on his skin, lining his tube so that the soil did not fall in. The larvæ
of the humble caddis-fly covered the inside of their cases with fine
silk; and the trap-door spider lined its 12-inch long shaft with similar
material to prevent the tumbling in of loose particles and to afford
itself a foothold in climbing up; while the ant constructed her
galleries and stuccoed them with the finest grains of soil, so that the
inner walls presented a smooth, unbroken surface.
With the advent of man and his civilisation came the extensive use of
furs, and in these the grubs of the moth--in the abstract the most
engaging of creatures--made galleries whenever they got a chance, lining
them with their own silk, wherein to undergo their transformation into
the pupa stage.
Well-experienced engineers, such as the vine, beech, pine, and
bark-boring beetles, are all tube-makers; but it is the pholas, or
_teredo navalis_, who is the arch-borer, so skilled an expert in lining,
that, though only the size of a quill and “soft in body,” he pierces the
hard timbers of ships and quay-piles, lining the tubes as he proceeds
with a saliceous substance as hard as china. The body of the Teredo is
like a long white worm, varying from a foot to two inches and a half in
length, and about the width of a finger. From him, it is said, the elder
Brunel took his idea of the shield which he employed in constructing the
tunnel beneath the Thames after the shaft had been excavated.
[Illustration: FIG. 12. A 3,000 H.P. TRIPLE EXPANSION CENTRAL VALVE
ELECTRICAL ENGINE
_By permission of_ _Willans and Robinson, Rugby_]
But his clever system was crude, and not calculated to cope with porous
or aqueous soil; therefore, when the stratum of clay, through which the
work was being carried forward, broke off abruptly, a serious influx of
water took place. The work had to be abandoned, and was only completed
after much delay and ruinous expense. In a commercial sense, it was an
utter failure.
Since Brunel’s time, engineering has developed its resources _pari
passu_ with the development of science. Hydraulic force displaces the
primitive screw power, and steel plates the cumbersome timber works used
in the Thames tunnel.
Tunnelling through rock, like the Mont Cenis and St. Gothard mountains,
is a comparatively simple engineering feat, as no lining is required; so
also is the ordinary railway tunnel, carefully bratticed and propped
inside, and securely cased with brick or stone. But it is, as the Great
Western Railway knows to its cost, in dealing with water-bearing strata,
_vide_ the Severn Tunnel, that a system is required, not only to protect
the men as they bore with a gigantic centre-bit through clay, chalk, or
gravel, but, pholas-like, to line the tunnel simultaneously. This is
obtained by the use of the famous shield invented by the late Mr. J. H.
Greathead, and employed by him in the construction of the City and South
London and Waterloo and City Railways, though he did not live to witness
the adoption of his principle in the Twopenny Tube.
RAILWAY TUBES, HOW THEY ARE BORED
A revolution in tunnelling has been brought about in constructing Tube
railways. By the new process a great cylinder or shield at the bottom of
a shaft is pushed forward by hydraulic power into the soil ahead of it.
The navvies work inside, excavating the earth in front of them, and fit
up iron segments at the rear of the tail end of the cylinder, or shield.
Thus, on the one hand, the exact size and shape of the tunnel is
ensured, and the workers are fully protected from the risk of the roof
falling in.
This arrangement of shield and iron tube resembles an old-fashioned
single-drawn telescope; the outer case being the shield, and the inner
tube the lining of the tunnel. These shields have fronts that bear a row
of steel knives forming a true cutting edge, and are so arranged that
they can, if required, bore a circle slightly larger than the iron
segments of the tube. As the shield slides away from the inner tube, the
space it occupied is filled in with what is called “grout,” a kind of
porridge of water and lime, which soon sets as hard as stone. This is
ingeniously blown in through apertures in the iron lining by means of
compressed air, and effectually fills up cracks accidentally formed in
the soil, which might otherwise extend to the surface and cause
subsidence in the foundations of buildings. Theoretically, therefore, no
disturbance of the ground below or above the tubular lining is possible.
In the pioneer Tube railways, the City and South London for instance,
the diameter of the tunnels was only 10 feet 6 inches, that of the
Central 12 feet, but the Great Northern and City Company made a new
departure by fixing the width at 16 feet. For the construction of this
railway, the shield was designed by Mr. E. W. Moir, M. INST. C. E., and
varies in some important respects from the Greathead shield. A
remarkable photograph, which, by the courtesy of the _Tramway and
Railway World_, I am able to present to the readers of this book, shows
this shield at work in the construction
[Illustration: FIG. 13. SHIELD AT WORK IN A TUBE RUNNING TUNNEL
_By permission of the_ _“Tramway and Railway World” Publishing Co.,
London_]
of a running tunnel, 16 feet in diameter, on the above line. The Great
Northern shield is much more powerful than any hitherto employed.
Greater hydraulic force is applied, and the “jacks” are more numerous,
and considerably larger. The shield used for the sixteen-foot tunnel may
be taken as typical of others up-to-date. Its cylindrical skin is
composed of half-inch steel plates riveted together at the bottom of the
indispensable shaft, which may be, in the future, anything from 50 to
500 feet beneath the surface. In length, the shield from the rear to the
cutting edge in front is 8 feet 9 inches, half of this being used by the
excavators (as in Brunel’s Thames tunnel), the after part for the
erectors of the metal segments of the tube. Round the shield front are
mounted ten heavy cast-steel cutters, the pressure upon them being no
less than two tons to the square inch, the hydraulic rams exerting this
pressure direct upon the back of the cutters, and the purchase is taken
off the edge of the nearest tunnel segment already in position. The
excavated soil is taken away in trolleys, which, as in a mine, are drawn
by ponies on a miniature track, and afterwards sent up to the surface by
the nearest shaft.
London clay is generally the kind of soil thus bored through in the
metropolitan tubes. The Central, while sinking the shafts, met with it
29½ feet below the surface; but before this was reached, 12 feet of made
ground, 18 inches of loam, and 16 feet of gravel, had to be pierced.
The London clay ran almost without a break between the Bank and
Shepherd’s Bush, the only hiatus being at a point between Red Lion
Street and Berner’s Street, where the Woolwich and Reading strata
cropped up, which proved to consist of hard, red, streaky clay, some
beds of white sand, and, strangely enough, beds of hard limestone rock,
whose presence had not been anticipated.
Tube railways are carried out at considerably varying depths; the
Central running in places 100 feet (_i.e._ the height of Westminster
Abbey’s nave) below the road, and at the Bank only 65 feet.
Some of the proposed tubes burrow much deeper; for instance those of
Charing Cross and Hampstead Railway will be from 120 to 216 feet below
the surface. Apparently, there is no reasonable limit to the depth at
which engineers are prepared to lay their railway tubes.
THE TUBE MOLE AT WORK
By an instinct--the heritage of years--of a kind that prompts
gamekeepers to slaughter indiscriminately eagles, hawks, crows, magpies,
owls, and even squirrels, classing them with such vermin as pole-cats,
stoats, weasels, and rats, ignorant farmers and gardeners wage war
against the mole, asserting that in driving his tunnels he throws up
unsightly heaps of soil, and, worse still, loosens and destroys the
roots of plants and grass, totally ignoring the fact that Mr. _Talpa
Europæa_, though he may occasionally disturb the earth around, acts as a
very efficient surface drainer, and still better, is a persistent chaser
and devourer of his natural prey, the wire-worm, and other injurious
insects.
Our Tube mole throws up no hillocks, but he is accused of being the
source of much mischief, and of endangering the houses on the
surface--damaging, as it were, their roots--by the vibration arising
from the continual passage of trains along the iron galleries and the
consequent subsidence of the ground. This has given rise to numerous
complaints, so pronounced as to become the subject of an official
inquiry.
Some foolish objections have been raised to deep-level railways, and
equally unreasonable claims for injury done by them have been brought
into court. Where a vibration clause is inserted in any Tube Railway
Bill, there might be ingenious claims manufactured for compensation. For
instance, a watchmaker might come forward and say that the vibration
caused by the railway prevented him from setting his chronometers, or a
wine merchant might say that his wines were shaken up; and in this way
the company might be subject to endless litigation.
When it was proposed to bore tunnels 70 feet below the royal demesnes of
Hyde Park, St. James’s Park, and the Green Park, and as much as 216 feet
below Hampstead Heath, approximating in the former case to the height of
Queen Eleanor’s memorial at Charing Cross, and in the latter to that of
the twin towers of Westminster Abbey, it was at once urged by the
representatives of a certain Preservation Society that the trees,
plants, and flowers of the three parks would be detrimentally affected
by the Tube, and that the Hampstead Heath tunnels would “very probably
drain the upper surface of the soil and destroy vegetation all round.”
To which unthought-out contention Mr. R. E. Middleton, a well-known
civil engineer, replied that “at the depths proposed for the parks the
tunnels were to be constructed through a stratum, not of loose soil, but
of stiff London clay, so that any question of destroying trees, plants,
or flowers was rather absurd; in fact, vegetation would in no way be
affected.” He might have added the argument that, although ordinary
railway tunnels abound, no one had ever heard of the overlying fields
and woods being deleteriously affected by them.
CLAIMS FOR DAMAGE BY TUBING
Now, in dealing with the matter of alleged injuries to buildings from
vibration set up by Tube railways, I quote the following case to show
how visionary are some of the claims brought against Tube Companies.
On the 14th of October last, at the Lambeth County Court, an action was
brought against the Great Northern and City Railway Company by an
individual living in Hoxton for damage alleged to have been done to his
premises by the construction of the tunnels. The plaintiff stated that
in consequence of this the repairs of his house had cost him £62, and
that in another house of his, cracks had appeared. A photograph, taken
twelve months before the tunnels were made, which showed a crack in
front of one of the houses, was pointed out to the witness, who said
that he had never noticed it.
For the defence Mr. Douglas Young stated that he acted for the Company
when the tunnels were about to be constructed, and, anticipating claims
of this nature, he caused photographs to be taken of all houses which
showed cracks on the line of route. The cracks shown in the photos then
taken were practically in the same condition now. The repairs necessary
were not caused by damage done by the tunnels, and came entirely within
the repairing clauses of the leases. The jury returned a verdict for the
defendant Company on the ground that no damage had been done by them.
On the other hand, among the Tube Railway cases brought into court last
year and this, was the following, which illustrates the contention that
though there may be a certain amount of truth in the plaintiff’s
arguments, exaggerated ideas prevail as to the sums that can be claimed
for injury, present or prospective. It also shows the uncertain state of
the law on the subject of ownership of the subsoil--a hard legal nut.
In the London Sheriff’s Court, 17th April, 1902, Mr. Under-Sheriff
Burchell sat, with a special jury, to consider a claim for compensation
brought by Mr. William Howard, of 11, Cornwall Terrace, Regent’s Park,
against the Baker Street and Waterloo Electric Railway.
Mr. Morton, K.C., said that in August, 1900, Mr. Howard became aware
that a subsidence was taking place, and that the walls of his house were
cracking, this being unmistakably due to the borings for the railway
which were being made underneath the property. In the course of these
borings the Company had taken away part of the subsoil of the claimant’s
premises without having given notice to treat, and this, counsel
submitted, constituted a distinct trespass. The value of the property,
counsel contended, had been deteriorated to the extent of at least £50
per annum. Mr. Howard’s lease had ten years to run, the rental being
£200 a year.
After expert evidence had been given, the Hon. A. Lyttelton, K.C., for
the railway company, said it was ridiculous to assert that the Company
had committed an act of trespass. They disputed the claimant’s alleged
ownership to land sixty-five feet below his premises, and were
determined to fight the question in the courts, inasmuch as it was one
which affected the whole of the electric tube railways in London.
One witness called on behalf of the Company said that the damage to the
property could be remedied by the expenditure of a ten-pound note.
The Under-Sheriff said that an important feature of the case which the
jury had to decide was whether the claimant was the owner of the
subsoil. As such he would be entitled to compensation for any vibration
that might occur when the railway commenced to run in about two years’
time. He left it to the jury to decide their verdict under two heads,
namely, “what damages had at present been sustained,” and, “what damage
was likely to accrue through vibration.”
After a brief deliberation the jury awarded £357, in one sum, as
damages.
On the 6th of February of the present year, before Mr. Justice Ridley
and a special jury, the hearing was resumed of the case in which Mrs.
Dawson, a widow, carrying on the business of a draper at the junction of
City Road and East Street, sued the Great Northern and City Railway for
£10,000 damages, alleged to have been caused by the tunnelling
operations in the vicinity of her premises. The claim included some
£4,000 which it is estimated it would cost to put the buildings in a
proper state of repair, and £5,000 representing loss of business during
the time it would take to complete the work of reinstatement.
The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff under the following heads:
Amount for taking the subsoil occupied by the tunnel, £50; structural
damage, £2,000; damage to trade and stock, £2,100; total, £4,150.
Mr. Dobb asked that judgment should be entered.
Mr. McCall thought the judge had no power to enter a judgment of the
High Court because the proceedings were in the form of an interpleader
action.
Mr. Justice Ridley said he would give judgment in the sense in which the
word was used in the Lands Clauses Act.
Judgment was given accordingly.
At a meeting of the Auctioneers’ Institute held last year, Mr. G. M.
Freeman, K.C., speaking on this subject, pertinently remarked that
various questions were likely to arise between the promotors of the new
order of underground railway and the owners of adjacent property, and he
gave it as his opinion that the assertion that no possible damage would
be caused, had not been wholly verified, and that the rights of
compensation to persons equally injured ought not to depend upon whether
a piece of the subsoil under the street was or was not appropriated. In
his judgment, all owners who could prove damage done by the construction
or working of an underground railway, should have the same title to
compensation.
VIBRATION
The outcome of the Board of Trade inquiry last year into the vexed
question of tube vibration was interesting. It showed that alleged
annoyance from vibration has not been altogether imaginary, and some
novel facts were produced. Fourteen meetings were held, and evidence was
given by some of the residents along the line of the Central Railway
route, their habitat ranging from Bucklersbury in the City to Kensington
Palace Gardens in the west. A large number of the witnesses represented
householders having “frontages,” and among others, the Holborn Borough
Council. They all deposed as to annoyance caused by the vibration, and
were of opinion that the shaking was most perceptible when the trains
first began running in the morning; between five and eight p.m.; and
shortly after midnight, just before the trains ceased running.
Had any of these gentlemen resided on the north side of Victoria Street,
near its western end, they would hardly have complained about mere
vibration. In that delectable locality the backs of the houses overlook
the Metropolitan District Railway, and if the dining-room happen to be
in the rear, as in many of the flats it is, every wine-glass and tumbler
on the table quivers in a fearful manner, all the ornaments tremble, and
the whole apartment is agitated as each train thunders by.
But even this is nothing, contrasted with the daily experience of
dwellers in suburban side streets, where passing of steam-rollers,
pantechnicon-vans, and other elephantine vehicles, not only shakes the
tenements to their basements, but forces out the mortar that is supposed
to bind together the brickwork, dislocates the window-frames, turns
askew the pictures on the walls, and would eventually, if not seen to,
reduce the “eligible villas” to ruin.
However, the Board of Trade Committee, as in duty bound, personally
investigated the Tube complaints and satisfied themselves that
vibrations, sufficient to cause vexation to the inmates, were really
felt in some of the houses near the Central, and the result of the
inquiry was as follows:--
That it was a matter of chance whether any given train caused a slight,
or a severe, vibration; also that trains which produced much _tremblór
de tiérra_ in one house, as likely as not caused but little in another,
and that apparently different apartments in the same residence were not
similarly affected by one and the same train. It was demonstrated that
the locomotives, and not the cars, were responsible for the greater part
of the disturbances, the reason assigned being that too great a
springless load was carried on each axle of the engines, a method of
construction adopted to obviate the necessity for gearing.
Acting upon the Committee’s representation, the Central Railway Company
ordered two new types of locomotives, in one of which the
“unspring-borne” load was much reduced by gearing. The other was not
distinct from but attached to the train, the motors being carried at one
end of two or more coaches--the motor-car system of electric traction in
fact. The difference in weight was remarkable; the original gearless
engines being 44 tons, the new geared pattern 33 tons, while the
motor-cars only came up to 20 tons.
Some novel experiments were made, and in order to identify the trains,
the houses in which the observers took their places with recording
instruments were connected by telephone with the signal-boxes at the
adjoining stations. Quite satisfactory were the results, and it was
found that, during some two hours, the passing of every train drawn by
the heavy gearless locomotive was distinctly felt, but was not
discernible when the new engines were attached. Therefore the Committee
concluded that, so far as the Central was concerned, the adoption of
motor-cars would so reduce the _tremblement de terre_ as to cause all
real annoyance to cease, though the sound of the trains, particularly at
night, might still be detected. As to the oscillation of the cars--a
rather marked feature in the Tube--it was attributed by the Committee’s
experts to the unevenness of the surface of the rails. As these leave
the rolling-mills they are usually slightly curved, and the process of
straightening them _in situ_, however skilfully carried out, inevitably
leaves a certain amount of waviness. When the speed is high, a condition
of things soon arises whereby the irregular impulses produced by the
uneven rail surfaces establishes a rocking movement of the rails and the
road-bed, converting both into an elastic instead of a rigid support.
This is increased and maintained by the pounding of the gearless
locomotives in the narrow tubes, intensified by the hard unyielding
material of which they are composed.
Another fact to which the Committee called attention was, that in
consequence of the small diameter of the tunnels (12 feet), the fit was
too close, and the pressure in front of the trains necessitated greater
power to overcome it than if more space had been left between the roofs
of the carriages and the tubes.
In the agitation respecting damage alleged to have been done by the
construction of the Tubes, it was proved that provided the apertures are
made of sufficient size, and suitable locomotives used, and the
permanent way properly laid with stiffer and deeper rails, the chance of
injury to houses by the _moviéndo la tiérra_, as the Spaniards call it,
can be reduced to a minimum.
Modern science tells us that earth tremblings are with us at all times
and in all places to an extent not realised. We are assured that, by
Professor J. Milne’s instruments, quiverings, and slopings of the
earth’s crust, insensible to the most delicate spirit-levels, can be
detected. It is now known that earthquake movements can be felt right
through the earth, and all round its surface. Latterly, Professor Milne
has also discovered that his observatory in the Isle of Wight sinks
slowly during a part of the year, and rises as slowly during another
part--as if the breast of the earth were heaving. For five months in the
year, the tall buildings in a city may be heeling over towards the west;
then they come back with extreme slowness to the perpendicular, and
finally cant a little to the east.
Surely, then, we need not complain about an occasional mild earth-shake
produced by the passing of the useful Underground, or Tube trains,
seeing that the good they do so far outweighs their defects.
CHAPTER VIII
_TOURING IN THE TUBES_
A SKETCH
“She doth stray about.”--SHAKESPEARE.
Mrs. Rosamond was a pleasant, chatty, little woman, and a universal
favourite. Her abundant hair was brown, her eyes, shaded by long dark
lashes, were deepest blue, and above them rose, not the “bar of Michael
Angelo,” but a low, smooth, and pretty forehead, where, however, a
phrenologist would have looked in vain for the faintest trace of the
“bump of locality.” She was a shrewd judge of character in men and
women, especially the former. She loved beautiful scenery and everything
refined in art and literature. She had great sympathy with the suffering
and distressed; but her ability to take mental notes of things and
places, and to find her way about towns and cities, as some do by
instinct, was utterly wanting in Lilian Rosamond; yet, with the strange
perversity that impels people with bad eyesight to drive dog-carts or
motor-cars, or to steer yachts, she persisted in going about strange
localities unaccompanied, and when any expedition was planned,
audaciously posed as an authority on quickest and best routes. But she
was a native of the fair “North countree,” and, lying _perdu_ beneath
her sweet disposition, was a vein--a thin one--of self-will.
“Why,” she argued, “should she not find her way about like other people?
Had she not from childhood lived at Lymm, Cheshire, and roamed about
that district without difficulty? Had she not frequently travelled to
the old county city? Had she not braved the terrors of the Great Central
Station at Manchester _en route_ for Halifax--changed carriages there,
in fact? And had she not once actually journeyed all by herself to
London on a visit, returning safely to her own town?” All of which was
perfectly true, but she omitted to add that, in going up to town, her
parents had, as it were, to see her “labelled and consigned” through the
medium of a fatherly guard, while her friends in town had been strictly
enjoined on no account to miss meeting her at Euston, and never to let
her go anywhere in the metropolis unaccompanied. In fact, her family
were in an agony of suspense until she was back again.
Mrs. Rosamond had married a gentleman-farmer of Welsh extraction, and
her life had fallen on pleasant lines in a remote Radnorshire village
bearing an unpronounceable name made up of consonants. The year 1902
arrived, and with it, in June, an invitation from her sister-in-law to
spend Coronation week with her in Edith Road, West Kensington; and off
she started, her easy-going husband, who had seldom tested his wife’s
sense (or absence) of locality, and had no suspicion of how much it was
lacking, merely remarking as he saw her into the train, “Now, my dear,
mind you wait at Paddington a reasonable time to see if Annie is there
to meet you. She is not always punctual, and if she does not turn up,
take a cab. Don’t attempt to get to Edith Road by omnibus or Underground
Railway. You don’t know London, and a four-wheeler will be cheaper in
the long run. Now, don’t forget this, there’s a dear little woman, or I
shall worry all day long about you.”
In the same carriage with her was a lady of uncertain age, whom Mrs.
Rosamond quickly guessed to be unmarried and an “organiser”--one of
those assertive, independent, “heel-less” women of the genus
_plantigrade_, who know everything and want no assistance from anybody.
Falling into conversation, Lilian Rosamond remarked that she hoped to
see the King’s procession to the Abbey, a seat having long ago been
secured for her, and that she had been told she would have to go a very
long distance from the West End and might have to start by the first
train on the Twopenny Tube to the Bank, and that then by _another_ Tube
she somehow would get to the Borough High Street (where her “stand” was
situated) by way of the “Elephant and Castle.”
This led to the subject of West Kensington, her destination, and how she
proposed reaching it from Paddington. “Why,” said the plantigrade lady,
“what on earth made your husband tell you to take a cab? It is two miles
off at least, and you are sure to be over-charged. Never mind what he
said. Men are always extravagant in these matters. Besides, you can
think for yourself; you are a woman, not a baby. Now, I’ll tell you what
to do. If your sister is not at the station, book your luggage--you say
you have not got much with you--to be sent on by the railway parcel van,
cross the road to the Praed Street District Railway Station, get out at
Notting Hill Gate, cross the road there to the Tube station, and for
twopence you will be at Shepherd’s Bush in a few minutes.”
This suggestion seemed to Mrs. Rosamond good and attractive, but she
bravely resisted the allurements of a journey by an unfamiliar route;
and, recalling her husband and his injunction, after waiting a quarter
of an hour at Euston and finding that no one came for her, she allowed
herself to be stowed away by an attentive and sympathetic porter into a
stale, straw-smelling four-wheeler, and arrived safely at No. 28, when
cabby promptly asked, and received, half a crown--a moderate
eighteenpence more than his legitimate fare; but cabmen, like
everybody else, must live somehow!
The longest day recorded in the almanac dawned clear and fair, and Mrs.
Rosamond, rising at an unearthly early hour, started for Islington,
where she had promised to breakfast with a relative--an unusual kind of
feat to attempt, but easy of accomplishment by leaving Shepherd’s Bush
very early for the Bank of England, where, as it was explained to her in
an off-hand, businesslike manner by her sister’s husband, all she had to
do was to hit the right subway, book afresh at the Bank Station of the
City and South London Electric Railway, and “in a jiffy, as easy as A B
C” (so he put it) she would find herself at the “Angel,” Islington, and
be with her aunt in time for the coffee and rolls.
Mrs. Rosamond was delighted at the prospect, and no happier woman than
she stood outside the Tube’s terminus that bright summer morning.
The booking-office was full of people--of the working class, thought
fair Mrs. Rosamond, who, observing that each person paid the sum of
three-halfpence through the glass partition that screened the clerks
from too close contact with the public, tendered that modest sum like
the others, without specifying her destination. But though plainly, she
was too daintily dressed and too self-evidently a lady to escape notice,
and was rather surprised at being asked if she wanted a workman’s
ticket. “Oh no!” she hastily exclaimed. “I am only going to the Bank,
and then to Islington on a visit.” “Well, then, your fare is twopence.”
And she received in return a small slip of paper and not the familiar
pasteboard ticket covered with undecipherable letters and figures.
Following the crowd, Mrs. Rosamond dropped the document into a sloping
box fixed at the side of the gate and presided over by a railway
official, the process suggesting to her lively imagination the method by
which votes are recorded at a School Board election.
Wide open stood the door of a gigantic lift, the like of which she had
never seen, which quickly filled with a compact mass of some fifty men
and a sprinkling of women. There were upholstered benches at the sides;
and a civil young artisan offered her his seat, but Lilian preferred to
stand and look about her. The electro-lighted apartment was not
æsthetic, and the unsightly advertisements, and notices warning
travellers against smoking, spitting, or standing too near the doors,
did not add to its beauty; and when the telescopic gates were clashed
together and fastened, the whole thing reminded Mrs. Rosamond of a great
cage full of specimens of the British _Homo Sapiens_ packed for
conveyance and exhibition to inhabitants of other regions.
Suddenly, gently, and noiselessly the lift began to descend, and it
seemed as if it would never stop. But stop it did, at a depth of seventy
feet, which might have been seven hundred so far as Mrs. Rosamond’s
sensations were concerned. Once again the iron gates clashed, and the
wild animals--I mean the passengers--streamed forth, our fair traveller
following, to the platform.
Was she dreaming? Had she, like Alice in Wonderland, suddenly become
diminutive, and was she waiting for a well-groomed little white rabbit,
with gold watch and chain, to emerge from what resembled a burrow at the
end of the station? It was so _very_ small. Everything was on a reduced
scale, the standing-room was a mere strip of planking, the tube like a
pea-shooter. Surely it would not take in the train! However, it was
deliciously cool and light, and the tiles that lined the station were,
as she found by touching them with her gloved hands, perfectly free from
smuts.
In a few moments, from the open cutting at the opposite end of the
platform, where lay the shunting tracks, a bright light and metallic
clattering heralded the strange-looking chimneyless locomotive. Behind
it came five attractive-looking cars joined together, and gleaming with
light. At their point of junction were telescopic gates, flung open as
soon as the train stopped, and Mrs. Rosamond, who had just time to
observe that there were not _two_ rails only on the track, but a _third_
in the middle, hurried into the first car she could find, and the
earliest train on the Tube glided into the tunnel _en route_ for the
Bank.
Lilian Rosamond at once discovered that the cars just fitted the Tube.
She would like to have touched the sides, but as the windows were sealed
up this was impossible.
Everything looked delightfully clean, and, considering the crowd, she
was lucky to find a seat next to an intelligent and quiet-looking,
middle-aged man, who turned out to be a foreman engaged upon great
building works proceeding in the City. The speed increased, and the
noise and the rattling of the cars increased in proportion--a condition
of things she had not expected, and it was a relief when the train
slowed down and made its first pause at Holland Park. Here a few workmen
got in, but not a soul got out! Mrs. Rosamond, looking about her,
noticed that her _companions de voyage_ were not in appearance such as
she had expected at so early an hour. It is true they nearly all
smoked--cigarettes mostly--some sticking to the old-fashioned short clay
pipe charged with most pungent tobacco; but they did not swear or use
strong language, they were not all dressed in corduroy, nor were their
clothes dirty, neither did they universally carry huge “bass-bags”
containing saws, and other sharp and nasty tools. Her neighbour, the
foreman, with whom she soon got into a lively conversation, told her
that most of the men (masons chiefly) were employed on a “big job” at
Finsbury, and would travel to the Bank. He also volunteered the
information that he lived in Caxton Road, close to the Shepherd’s Bush
Station of the Tube; that he had to get his own breakfast at 4.30 or
thereabouts, or wait until he got to the City, when he had it at a snug
little coffee-shop in Moorfields; that he had used the Tube ever since
its opening in 1900 day after day, starting by the first train in the
morning, and returning, as his place and work suited, along the route at
all hours, from five o’clock to eight, and sometimes (though seldom) by
the last train from the Bank at 12.30 p.m.; and that the cars between
the former hours--when people were leaving the City for the day--were
more crowded than in the early morning, in fact crammed, with not even
standing room.
At Notting Hill Gate there was a rush of operatives. By this time the
cars were packed, and the little woman perceived the uses of the sliding
leather straps suspended overhead, to which the unlucky seatless ones,
who filled up the whole of the gangway, held on like grim death, to
avoid tumbling about as the train oscillated.
At the Marble Arch some few persons, a dozen or so, tried to push in,
but the five cars were _complet_, and so they continued, until, at the
British Museum Station, a section of the passengers alighted, as also at
Chancery Lane and the General Post Office. Then, after a run of 6½ miles
from Shepherd’s Bush in twenty-four minutes, the Central “early workmen”
pulled up at the Bank terminus at a platform resembling the others all
along the line.
Mrs. Rosamond went up in a big lift, not to the surface as she expected,
but found herself landed in a broad asphalted, bewildering subway lined
with white bricks. Brilliantly lighted white passages seemed to stretch
away in all directions, full of people tearing about here, there, and
everywhere in the utmost confusion, some ascending steps that appeared
to lead to the daylight, others descending slopes that ended in more
brick-lined passages. At once she recalled her host’s injunction “to hit
the right subway” for the Islington Tube Line, but becoming a trifle
excited and confused, she went up the staircase that looked the
shortest, and found herself in Cornhill, along which she strayed a short
distance, and came to St. Michael’s, when she thought she had reached
the station, because she had been told it was underneath a church. But
there was no City and South London Railway, and her host had omitted to
say that the subway between it and the Bank was contemplated only. So
Lilian asked her way, and quickly found what she was seeking close by at
the corner of Lombard Street and King William Street. And now, growing
confident by experience, and perceiving that the booking-office and
general arrangements resembled those of the Two-penny Tube, though on a
smaller scale, she went to the booking-office window and tendered
twopence. The clerk politely inquired, “All the way, miss?” and on her
replying in the affirmative, demanded, and received, fourpence, giving
her an ordinary ticket in return. She thought this strange, being
different from the Tube system, the more so when she saw no glass box
wherein to drop it. But there was the lift, and so she descended. Alas!
when she got to the bottom, she forgot to make inquiries, being absorbed
in meditation about her husband. “What was he doing at that particular
hour?” she wondered. “Had he gone out fishing? Was he making the rounds
of his farm, and looking after his pet livestock, the pigs?” A train
came up, and without giving the matter a second thought, she got into
it, and found the cars pretty nearly empty. They were narrow and low,
and the atmosphere was close.
Away they sped, by London Bridge, the Borough, the “Elephant and
Castle,” Kennington Park Road, the Oval, and Stockwell, but the guard
did not call out the names of these stations, and only when the terminus
was reached did Lilian rouse herself from her reverie, and stepping out
of the station after giving up her ticket, gazed aghast, not at the
“Angel,” Islington, which she knew was a locality nearly all bricks and
mortar, but upon a large open space--Clapham Common! In fact, the poor
_voyageuse_ had gone down the wrong lift at the Bank Station, and had
failed to notice the names of the stations as she came along.
To recover her equanimity, Mrs. Rosamond thought she would stroll about
a little before going back to Islington, which, it was explained to
her, was at the other extremity of the line. Much refreshed by an hour’s
walk and the novelty of the _terra incognita_, she booked again, and
resumed her pilgrimage, determined that this time there should be no
mistake.
What was it? Was it fatality? or was it some mischievous whispering
spirit that caused her to keep mentally repeating the words, “Bank
Station”? An echo, perhaps, of the instructions received the evening
before. Anyhow, she did not go straight on, but as soon as the train
reached the City, she alighted at the Bank, and found herself once more
in the maze of subways branching off from the Central’s booking-office.
The little woman was in despair. What must she do? It was no use asking
her way, everybody seemed in too violent a hurry to attend to other
people; so she walked mechanically down a disagreeably steep asphalted
incline and along a wood-paved, white-tiled tunnel, and saw at the end
an electric Tube station. There was the usual narrow platform, the
glazed tunnel, the electric light, and the four-car train, but no
queer-shaped engine, and the carriages looked smaller than those of the
Central and of a different build, the glazed sides sloping inwards
towards the low roof. There was no booking-office, so she stepped into
the train, where, as in an omnibus, tickets were issued and punched for
the sum of two-pence. The cars were narrow and stuffy, and she did not
like them, but looking up, she caught sight of a brass plate giving the
name of the engineers at Preston, Lancashire, and this quite cheered
her.
In about five minutes the train stopped, and everybody got out and
streamed up stairways and along passages into what proved to be a vast
railway terminus--Waterloo; and she realised the dismal fact that by
inadvertence she had taken the Waterloo and City Railway, instead of the
City and South London! It was the word “City” running in her head that
had done the mischief.
Nothing was left but to return, and so, through lofty cavernous regions
beneath the terminus, over bridges, and down endless slopes of
wood-paving, she managed to reach the up-platform.
Now came the rush of early City-bound men, season-ticket holders, who
had travelled by the London and South Western line from all parts of
Surrey served by it. They came pelting down the inclines as if their
lives depended upon catching a particular train. Most of them carried
neat hand-bags, suggestive of legal documents or company prospectuses,
and nearly all had a morning paper. The bulk of them were well dressed,
with an indefinable air indicative of the suburban resident. Mrs.
Rosamond found them exceedingly pleasant, and was soon chatting with a
military-looking gentleman, irreproachably groomed, with a lined and
shrewd face, and old enough to be her father. He was, in fact, an
eminent solicitor in Tower Royal, Cannon Street, who, hearing of her
adventures, appeared to sympathise very deeply. “A little _too_ deeply,”
said her husband, on hearing her narrative, not that he was distrustful
or jealous, but he preferred to do most of the sympathising himself. The
man of law tried to be facetious, and in explaining at some length the
difference between metropolitan “tubes” and the “Underground,” so
confused Mrs. Rosamond that she ended by thinking they were one and the
same thing--a fatal error on her part, as we shall see. Dilating upon
the subject, and upon the trials she had endured that morning, he
remarked that he was sure her friends and the world in general would be
great losers were so pleasant and vivacious a lady as herself to remain
underground. At which fair Rosamond smiled--she had beautiful teeth, and
a smile became her; but she grew somewhat reserved in manner when he
insisted upon escorting her along the right subway, and felt decidedly
relieved when he courteously left her on the pavement at the “Poultry,”
by Mappin and Webb’s.
It was getting on towards eleven o’clock, and Mistress Rosamond, who,
beyond a cup of coffee hastily swallowed before she started, had tasted
nothing for six hours, began to feel faint, experiencing that
distressing sensation which makes one think the ground is about to rise
up and strike one, and that hearing and vision are about to fail. She
_must_ have something to eat and drink, but _where?_ Dimly she recalled
how in the old days a very dear brother, who knew his London well, was
fond of expatiating upon the merits of certain reliable places
in the City where the inner man could be most satisfactorily
refreshed--Birch’s, Sweeting’s, Pimm’s in the “Poultry.” Why, she was
actually standing in the “Poultry”! So, following the curt, but
respectful, directions of a civic policeman, who must have been at least
six feet two inches in his stockings, she, without crossing the road,
easily discovered the haven of refuge in question, and being shown up to
the ladies’ dining-room, sat down at a table near a window which looked
upon busy Cheapside.
Though rather too early in the day for the regular menu, consultation
with a grey-headed waiter--who strongly reminded her of some Church
dignitary (a dean for choice) in layman’s attire, and who became
immensely interested in his client, partly because her blue eyes
recalled to him those of a daughter “lost awhile”--resulted, within
twenty minutes, in a dainty repast, some scalloped oysters, a “portion”
of the choicest Scotch salmon cold, with cucumber, and dainty roll and
butter, followed by a cheese soufflé, and--by the “dean’s”
advice--neither tea, coffee, nor wine, but a glass, just one glass, of
Pimm’s “particular” stout, a beverage our traveller was unaccustomed to,
but found an admirable accompaniment to her fish luncheon. The bill was
paid with a handsome _douceur_, which the “dean” condescended to accept;
and refreshed, and with renewed determination to carry out her original
line of march, Mrs. Rosamond stepped out and walked along Cheapside.
There the shops at once attracted her attention: the jewellers, the
hosiers--in one of which latter she bought some neckties and collars for
her spouse--the print-sellers, and the London Stereoscopic Company’s
seductive window. Here she looked up at the church clock far above her
head, and finding the time getting on, and becoming just a little
flurried at the discovery, started at once to resume her wanderings. “If
you please, constable, can you tell me the nearest way to the
Underground Railway?” “Straight as you can go, miss, down the lane, Bow
Lane, in front of you, and you will find the station across the road at
the bottom.” “Thank you very much,” and, mentally, “What a fine set of
fellows the City policemen are! I wonder if they are all married; where
do they live, and what are their wages?”
Straight down the narrow lane she went, and at the Cannon Street end
asked another policeman the way to the Underground. He pointed to the
opposite side of the road, and, stopping the traffic, conveyed her
across, and she found herself in the Mansion House Station of the
District Railway.
There were no officials to be seen, only the booking-clerks, one of
whom, with the professional instinct for turning an honest penny for his
employers, instead of advising her to return to the Bank close by, up
Victoria Street, promptly recommended her to book by the District
Railway to Bishopsgate Street, get across Finsbury Circus to Moorgate
Street, and then take the City and South London Tube Railway to the
“Angel.”
By this time Mrs. Rosamond had become too tired to discuss the matter,
and was disinclined to go back by the way she had come. So she got into
a first-class carriage of a Circle train, and, with a sigh of relief,
settled down snugly into the far corner.
Whether it was the reaction, or the effect of the glass of stout, was
never known, but after passing Cannon Street Mrs. Rosamond began to feel
drowsy and dreamy, imagining she was nearing home in the local train,
and wondering if her husband had received her telegram, and would come
to meet her. She fell asleep, and a lovely picture she made, with lips
slightly parted, and her long, curved eyelashes resting, like a child’s,
on her soft cheeks. There was revealed just a few inches of well-fitting
black silk clocked stockings, neatly-turned ankles, and a charming pair
of very small dark tan shoes.
Time sped on, and, with it, the Circle train, past Bishopsgate,
Farringdon Street, and King’s Cross, with its maze of metropolitan
underground lines; through dismal tunnels, black with smoke; through
brick-lined cuttings, foul with sooty deposit; past stations, each one
hung, by way of adornment, with the same monotonous, highly-coloured
“works of art,” drawing attention to Colman’s Mustard, Reckitt’s Blue,
Nestle’s Milk, Bovril, Oxo, Lemco, Globe Polish, Ogden’s Cigarettes,
Bird’s Custards, and Stephen’s Inks, and provided with
penny-in-the-slot machines, with bookstalls bearing a strong family
likeness, and with here and there a refreshment bar, where buns and
sandwiches of the Mugby Junction type might be had.
At High Street, Kensington, where the engine was changed, the guard
looked in, admired the sleeping beauty, and discreetly withdrew in
silence.
In the middle of the tunnel between Sloane Square and Victoria, the
train pulled up with a jerk, the signal having been suddenly put against
it. Mrs. Rosamond woke, and looking at her watch, found that she must
have been slumbering nearly an hour, and a fellow-passenger told her
that by the time the train reached the Mansion House Station she would
have completely traversed the circle of the Underground! “Well, I _will_
see this matter through,” she said to herself, “and I will not go again
into that horrid Bank Subway. After all, I shall soon be at Bishopsgate
Street.” So she went on.
How, on her arrival there, she escaped having to pay the full fare, no
one knows. She kept her own counsel; but the ticket collector and the
guard probably thought she was too nice to be worried with
interrogations.
Her brief impressions of the Underground were that only in a few
respects was the Tube an improvement upon it. The Inner Circle Trains,
she thought, ran more smoothly; there was less rocking of the carriages,
and less rattling noise; but they were badly lighted; the banging of
doors was awful; the atmosphere sulphurous and stifling; and carriages,
stations, staircases, and tunnels looked as if they had not been cleaned
for months. Worse than all was the mode of pulling up the train with a
jerk, which, at each stopping-place, almost invariably threw the
alighting passengers into their fellow-travellers’ laps.
Resolved now to ask her way at every step, she contrived, by minutely
following directions, to find and to cross Finsbury Circus, whence she
was quickly in Moorgate Street, and at once discovered the City and
South London Railway Station. Continuing to seek information for the
Islington lift, the Islington platform, and the Islington train, she
would not budge an inch until she had been thoroughly posted up. Once
more in a Tube car, and by way of Old Street, and the City Road, she at
last arrived at the “Angel,” and felt as if she had indeed reached the
gates of heaven!
Milner Street was close by, and she was soon at her aunt’s house, but,
alas! not to breakfast, for it was nearing twelve o’clock. That
relation, an impatient woman, tired of waiting, had gone out for the
day, and had left no message! This was too much for the little woman, it
was the last straw, and flinging herself on the sofa, she thought
sympathetically of how in the past
“A north-country maid up to London had strayed,
Although with her nature it did not agree;
She wept and she sighed, and she bitterly cried,
I wish once again in the north I could be.”
Quickly she returned to Shepherd’s Bush, _viâ_ the Bank and the Twopenny
Tube, in the latter finding a totally different class of people from
those she had travelled with in the morning, and plenty of room for
everybody. She went back home the next day, sacrificing her seat for the
Coronation procession; and she registered a vow that if ever she came to
London again she would study closely the route for any proposed
expedition as carefully as if she were on an “unaccompanied” Continental
tour.
She kept her vow; and, I believe, eventually, her “bump of locality”
became considerably developed.
The moral of this practically true sketch is, that in view of the
complicated system of metropolitan Tubes and Undergrounds, no one
without an experienced escort, unless endowed with a talent for
locality, can hope to get about London without trouble and difficulty.
In fact, a _Metropolitan Bradshaw_, or _Metropolitan Guide to
Underground London_ is urgently needed.
CHAPTER IX
_LONDON’S TANGLED TUBES_
“Tangled in the fold of dire necessity.”--MILTON.
THE TANGLE
To inflict upon the readers of this book a map of existing and projected
railways in London would be cruel; and for them to try to master it
would be torture worthy of the Inquisition, with loss of reason as the
inevitable result.
Roughly speaking, the lines above and below ground stream inwards from
the outskirts, after the fashion of the tramways; with this marked
difference that there is a direct communication from east to west by the
Central Railway, and an Inner Circle route engirdling the middle portion
of Greater London.
As with the tramways, the routes of nearly all these lines appear to
have been adopted happy-go-luckily. “Here are Highgate, Walthamstow,
Beckenham, Kew, Hendon,” say the promoters; “what we have to do is to
make a railway from these suburbs, and, somehow or other, get as near
the metropolitan centres as possible, and dump down our passengers. The
problem of intercommunication is not our business. We leave that to
others.” So the lines of the various companies meander away, often by
the most indirect routes, and finally arrive more or less near their
objective destinations, Charing Cross, or the Bank of England.
If Napoleon the Great with prophetic glance could have foreseen London
linked to distant villages in every direction, these hamlets growing
into towns, and as population increased, being irresistibly drawn into
Greater London’s maelstrom of brick and mortar, even he would have been
appalled by the problem of how to give ready means of access from one
part to the other. Anticipating railways and electric tubes, he would
probably, with the marvellous fertility of resource that distinguished
him, have formulated a plan whereby a given circular space in the
metropolis would be divided into sections, a mile square, with a station
in the centre and at each corner, so that all within that area would
have access to a railway, at no point more than half a mile distant, the
tube railways below the surface, and others above, converging at a great
central depôt. On reaching the limit of the circle, the lines (that
would necessarily cross under and over one another) would, by means of
loops, return and keep up a continued circulation of traffic from rim to
rim of the circle, which, as the city grew bigger and bigger, could be
enlarged, and the lines extended, the process continuing _ad infinitum_.
This, of course, would have been an impossibility; the characteristic
British love of half measures and of temporising being opposed to any
really comprehensive and imperial scheme, and local jealousy would not
have tolerated the necessarily masterful, though wise, domination of a
One Man Power in carrying out the plan.
Therefore the great railways and the suburban railways were allowed to
do pretty much as they liked, as seen in the entire absence of system in
approaching London, and in dealing with its vast traffic.
To meet the difficulty a central station has often been mooted, and much
good would ensue therefrom if it accommodated _all_ the lines.
Recently, in connection with the Great Western Railway, the idea has
been revived, and the site of Christ’s Hospital suggested. In fact, it
is an open secret that overture upon overture has been made on the
subject, but the enormous price demanded by the old school authorities
has always been the bugbear.
The feasibility of an Inner Circle Tube, however, linking together all
the lines, with ramifications to serve the suburbs, worked jointly under
a pooling arrangement by the various companies, has commended itself to
certain experts.
It is true that four of the great trunk lines are already connected by
subways with the Inner Circle Railway--the Great Eastern at Liverpool
Street; the Great Western at Praed Street; the London, Brighton, and
South Coast at Victoria; and the South Eastern and Chatham at Cannon
Street, Blackfriars, and Victoria. The Brighton Company has already a
subway connection between London Bridge and the City and South London
Tube Station there, and the Mansion House subway will by-and-by be
similarly connected with the City and South London Bank Station.
Also there are the purely suburban lines to be considered, such as the
South London Railway, worked by the Brighton Company; the Metropolitan
Extension, a part of the Chatham Company’s local system; the West London
Railway, which gives a north-to-south connection at Chelsea for several
companies; the Hammersmith and City Railway; the Hampstead Junction
Railway (from Willesden to Tottenham); and the local services of the
London and North Western; the Great Northern Railway (already committed
to a tube); and the Midland Railway, which, with the Great Northern,
has access to the south of London, _viâ_ Ludgate Hill.
But the matter now engaging public attention is not Subways, but
Tubes--how to disentangle the different schemes, and evolve order out of
chaos.
The Tubes open for traffic are the Waterloo and City Railway; the City
and South London Railway; Clapham Common to the “Angel,” Islington; and
the Central London from the Bank to Shepherd’s Bush. While those in
progress more or less advanced, are the Great Northern and City Railway;
the Brompton and Piccadilly Circus Railway; the Bank to Finsbury Park;
the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway; Paddington to Waterloo, and
thence _viâ_ St. George’s Circus, Southwark, to the Elephant and Castle.
All last session members of the House of Commons were, so to speak,
overwhelmed with Tubes.
Tubes to the right of them,
Tubes to the left of them,
Tubes in front of them,
Volley’d and thundered!
But the Select Committees fared worse, the task before them being even
more arduous. There were promoters who sought for powers to construct
Tubes to cross and recross proposed and existing lines, and even to bore
parallel with others, while some wanted to create isolated and
disconnected sections, leading apparently nowhere. Petitions and
protests against the various schemes poured in from innumerable sources;
from every quarter petitions in favour were also laid down at their
feet. Truly, the members of the Committees found that of making many
Tubes (as of books) there was no end, and that much railway promoting
was a weariness of the flesh.
Long and loud waged the conflict of the various aspirants to bore
through the foundations of London. The smaller promoters’ attention
finally became fixed upon the financial and legislative duel of two
magnates, each representing a similar and important scheme for joining
together the existing unlinked metropolitan tube lines.
It was as if through some narrow gorge leading to desirable pasturage,
the smaller denizens of wood and forest tumultuously endeavoured to
force a passage, and falling out by the way, their strife was suddenly
arrested to watch the single combat of two rival antlered monarchs of
the glen, who fought to the death to obtain the sole right of way.
Out of the Parliamentary hurly-burly emerged triumphant the well-known
Yerkes group with its comprehensive scheme (the first in the list given
below) the only very important one sanctioned.
Thus closed the session of 1902, and in the Railway Committee Rooms, for
a time at least, the
“Fiery fight is heard no more,
And the storm has ceased to blow.”
The following Tube Railways were authorised:--Brompton and Piccadilly
Circus Railway (Acts 1897, 1899, 1902), that of 1902 authorising _inter
alia_ its amalgamation with the Great Northern and Strand. The Charing
Cross, Euston, and Hampstead Railway to be continued to Edgware by a
previously authorised line (Acts 1893 to 1900 and 1902). The City and
Brixton Railway, to cross the Thames independently of the City and South
London Tube, and to have stations at St. George’s Circus, Southwark, and
at Kennington Oval (Act 1897), with a new City station communicating
with the South London Railway (electric). The Great Northern and City
Railway, Finsbury Park to the Bank. The Metropolitan District Railway
(Act 1897), a Deep-level Electric to work with the Brompton and
Piccadilly Tube. The North West London Railway (Act 1899) from the
Marble Arch to Cricklewood.
THE ROYAL COMMISSION
For some time past it had been made clear that no Select Committee of
the Houses of Parliament, however efficient, could be expected to cope
with the problem of metropolitan combined tubes, tramways and vehicular
street traffic; and in view of the probability of other Tube Bills being
promoted during the session of 1903, it was strongly urged upon the
Government to consent to a Royal Commission on the matter.
So, before the meeting of this year’s Parliament, a Royal Commission was
appointed with a most comprehensive programme of arduous work.
General satisfaction seems to have been expressed with the composition
of the Commission. No better chairman could have been found than Sir
David M. Barbour, whose acquaintance with official inquiries is probably
greater than that of anyone else in Great Britain, he having been
associated with several Royal Commissions. Special knowledge bearing on
the peculiar problems to be solved, characterises most of the members.
Sir John Wolfe Barry is perhaps the best-known consulting railway
engineer in the country, having acted in this capacity to many of the
leading railway companies, and, in 1901, having taken part in the
inquiry respecting vibration on tube railways. Sir George Trout Bartley
has represented North Islington in the House of Commons for nearly
eighteen years, and from lifelong residence in London has a wide
knowledge of its needs. Earl Cawdor has been Chairman of the Great
Western Railway for the last eight years. Viscount Cobham has been a
Railway Commissioner since 1891, and prior to that, was temporarily
Deputy-Chairman of the Great Western Railway. Sir Joseph Dimsdale, being
a banker, has had wide experience as a financier. Ex-Lord Mayor, and
City Chamberlain, he represents in the House of Commons the City of
London, which is vitally concerned in the question of efficient transit.
Mr. G. S. Gibb, the General Manager of the North Eastern Railway for the
past twelve years, is a railway expert of great experience. As Permanent
Secretary of the Board of Trade, Sir Francis J. S. Hopwood has a
specially trained mind, and an intimate acquaintance with railway
matters, having been formerly Secretary of the Railway Department. Mr.
C. S. Murdoch, C.B., has been for many years in the Government service,
and has acted, since 1896, as Assistant Under-Secretary of the Home
Department. Sir John P. Dickson-Poynder is a member for the Chippenham
Division of Wiltshire, and represents St. George’s, Hanover Square, at
the County Council. Sir Robert T. Reid, K.C., member for Dumfries since
1886, was Attorney-General in the last Liberal Government, and may be
regarded as the official representative of the Opposition on the
Commission. Lord Ribblesdale, a member of the London County Council, was
Chairman of the Joint Committee of the Lords and Commons on Tube
Railways in 1901.
Soon after the appointment of the Commission it was suggested that the
labour would be considerably lightened if the subject of pedestrian and
vehicular traffic included in their programme were eliminated or, at any
rate, indefinitely postponed, and attention concentrated upon Tubes and
Railways, making--as they have the power to do--an interim report; and
thus avert disastrous delay in the realisation of the Tube Schemes
before the Parliament of 1903.
Early in the session a somewhat significant announcement was made in the
House of Commons, in reference to these schemes; only two of which were
very important, viz., the Central London’s proposal to complete the
circle; and the North-East London Railway scheme, which (if passed) will
embrace twenty-two miles--nine being in tubes--tapping the traffic
between the City and Leyton and Walthamstow, whose combined population
is over two hundred thousand people.
The following is the statement made on the 2nd of March by Mr. Jeffreys,
as Deputy-Chairman of Committees, who said he had had the advantage of a
conference with the Chairman of Committees in the House of Lords and the
President of the Board of Trade, and they had come to the conclusion
that certain of the bills connected with London traffic ought to be
postponed until the result of the Commission dealing with this matter
had been reported. The deep-level railways which they thought ought to
await the completion of this inquiry were the Central London Railway;
Great Northern, Piccadilly, and Brompton (New Lines and Extensions)
Bill; North-West London (Marble Arch to Victoria) Railway Bill; Clapham
Junction to Marble Arch Railway (Nos. 1 and 2) Bill; Metropolitan
District Railway Works Bill. There were certain other Bills which they
thought might go to Committees, viz.: Charing Cross, Euston, and
Hampstead Railway Bill; Great Northern, Piccadilly, and Brompton Railway
(Various Powers) Bill; Baker Street and Waterloo Railway Transfer Bill;
and the City and North-East Suburban Electric Railway Bill.
There were, besides, certain other railway measures which were doubtful,
and these, they thought, ought to be held over until the Chairman of
Committees of the House of Lords, the President of the Board of Trade,
and himself had considered them. These Bills were the City and South
London Railway (Angel and Islington) Bill, and the Metropolitan District
Railway (Various Powers Bill).
But the Royal Commission is, after all, only a temporary expedient; and
the question remains, as to what shall be the Governing Power of
London’s railway traffic; for it must be taken for granted that both the
City Corporation and the London County Council frankly admit that the
underground locomotion of the metropolis has become so complicated that
the general supervision of some great public department is necessary. Is
it to be the London County Council, the Board of Trade, some new body
resembling the Light Railways Commission, or a joint committee of
members of both Houses of Parliament, appointed each session, to
consider all questions affecting locomotion in or near London?
Here we are reminded that the London County Council has been considering
whether or not to apply for parliamentary powers to take over the burden
of linking together the various districts of London by a series of
tubes. A colossal undertaking, involving, it is said, a capital of fifty
millions!
Whether it be advisable for the Council, in addition to its other heavy
responsibilities, to extend its municipal trading on so vast a scale, is
doubtful; for it has the ratepayers to consider.
If it be the fact that mercantile enterprise cannot grapple with the
task, then there would be good and sufficient reason for the Council or
the Government to attempt it. But private capital is generally
obtainable for a really promising scheme.
Besides, such gigantic undertakings obviously require men of good
business capacity and considerable railway experience to devote their
time exclusively to the work. One would think that county councillors
(as such), efficient as they may be, have already as much work as they
can readily get through, from one week’s end to another.
CHAPTER X
_LONDON’S LATEST AND LONGEST TUBE_
“Green pastures and Piccadilly.”--W. BLACK.
Sanctioned by the Legislature as one of the most comprehensive schemes
laid before it last year for linking together existing underground, as
well as trunk, lines, the Great Northern, Piccadilly, and Brompton
Railway, now under construction, has attracted such universal attention,
and traverses such hitherto exclusive quarters, that it deserves more
than a passing reference.
From a traveller’s point of view, the effect of this new railway will be
far-reaching. Dwellers near District Railway termini, such as Wimbledon,
New Cross, Bow Road, South Harrow, Hounslow Barracks, Richmond, and
intermediate stations, will have, by means of exchange--at Earl’s Court
Station with the Metropolitan District Railway; at Gloucester Road and
South Kensington Station with the Metropolitan and Metropolitan District
Railway; at Piccadilly Circus Station with the Baker Street and Waterloo
Railway; at Cranbourn Street Station with the Charing Cross, Euston, and
Hampstead Railway; and at King’s Cross and Finsbury Park Stations with
the Great Northern Railway--ready access to practically all centres and
quarters of our big city; its own immediate objective from Earl’s Court
being Finsbury Park, a distance of 7½ miles. It is similar in
construction to the Central. The cars, built at Loughborough, will
resemble those of the new Inner Circle, and the driving force will come
from the Power House at Chelsea.
Truly, under pleasant scenes will the new Tube be carried--as
fashionable, romantic, and historical a route as any in London. Here is
Earl’s Court, where, in the midst of market gardens far away from town,
once stood John Hunter’s house, where the great anatomist kept a
menagerie of wild beasts to experiment upon, and in the dead of night
boiled down the body of O’Brien, the Irish giant, to obtain the
skeleton, which now adorns the museum of the College of Surgeons. The
well-known Edmund Tattersall lived close by for many years at Coleherne
Court, on the site of one of either Fairfax’s or Lord Essex’s redoubts
(they appear to have had a good many), thrown up after the battle of
Brentford, when the victorious Royalists were expected to cross the
river (which they never did) and besiege London.
Gloucester Road, the next station, recalls the fact that when the
District Railway came there, it was still a mere lane with hawthorn
hedges, a blacksmith’s forge somewhere near, while pleasant paths right
and left led to orchards, in the midst of which was St. Jude’s Church,
so famous later on for its fashionable congregation and its eloquent
preacher, the Rev. Dr. Forrest, now Dean of Worcester.
From Gloucester Road the Tube runs under pleasant Stanhope Gardens and
part of Harrington Road with its fine mansions, to South Kensington. The
ground about the Hoop and Toy Tavern close by was, so tradition says,
designated in the draft Parliamentary Bill for the Great Western
Railway terminus. At that time the site was sufficiently countrified to
satisfy those who would banish railway stations to Jericho or to the
uttermost verge of London, and remained so for a long time; and I have
been told by an old Bromptonian that he has seen a covey of partridges
put up where the Natural History Museum now stands.
At this point the new Tube--leaving its course parallel with, but at a
far deeper level than, the District Railway--proceeds unaccompanied to
Piccadilly, and, so to say, enters the Brompton Road at the Oratory of
St. Philip Neri, formerly a very plain brick edifice erected by the
Oratorian Fathers, who had begun their good work on a humble scale in
King William Street, Charing Cross, in a building subsequently occupied
by Woodin, the ventriloquist, and later on by Toole, as his own peculiar
theatre.
The present conspicuous basilica is at last completed, all but the
towers. Adjoining it, down an avenue of trees, recalling the approach to
Shakespeare’s last resting-place, is Holy Trinity Church, Brompton,
reminiscent of Dr. Irons, its vicar, who ultimately became Rector of St.
Mary Woolnoth, beneath which is the City station of the City and South
London Electric Railway.
Brompton Square is close by, associated by many of us with a once
popular song, “Ada with the golden hair,” composed and sung by G. W.
Moore, of the Christy Minstrels. In this Square have dwelt many actors
and actresses: Wigan, Buckstone, Robert Keeley, etc.; and also Shirley
Brooks. At one corner used to be a house standing a little back from the
road, occupied by an eccentric individual whose craze was to have
several clocks in every room, and the task of keeping them in order
encouraged a watch-and-clock-maker to settle down in a small shop next
door. Another feature of his craze was to present a watch of some kind
to every lady he knew; so that his neighbour must have done a fair
business. A bank now occupies this site, and the author recollects
watching the strong-room being built deep down in the gravelly soil
peculiar to South Kensington. Next door will be located the
unpretentious Brompton Station of the new railway. An official of the
bank was heard to remark facetiously that he trusted the Tube would not
bore into the strong-room aforesaid--a new possibility and grievance to
be duly noted.
Directly underneath Brompton Road goes London’s latest Tube, passing
“Harrod’s,” the most palatial General Store in the metropolis, if not in
the world. It originated some years ago in a narrow little shop, where
good tea, excellent butter, and, rumour says, jam made by Mr. Harrod’s
mother, were the chief articles sold to the customers, the bulk of whom
were of the working-class.
Now Knightsbridge is reached, in olden times called Kingsbridge, when it
was represented by a bridge only (on the site of the modern Albert
Gate), built by Edward the Confessor over a brook, or bourn, rising,
like the Tybourn and the Oldbourn, in the Hampstead Hills, and flowing
thence to the Thames.
No part of London has so completely changed in appearance as this; lofty
modern buildings having taken the place of small old-fashioned houses.
These improvements culminate at Sloane Street, where anyone approaching
town by way of Kensington, meets the first of the numerous metropolitan
“rond-points,” surrounded by mansions and shops so tall as to put into
the shade the French Embassy and the houses at Albert Gate, which for
many years were considered the highest in town. At the equestrian
statue of Field-Marshal Lord Strathnairn, four thoroughfares
converge--Kensington Road, Brompton Road, Sloane Street, and St.
George’s Place--pouring around it a continual stream of traffic day and
night. Three of these thoroughfares are perfect paradises to ladies who
delight in such alluring shops as Harrod’s, Harvey Nichols and Co., and
Woolland Brothers, whose prolonged and magnificent frontages are
unequalled in Modern Babylon.
A few doors from the “rond-point” in Brompton Road is a Tube station;
and the workmen, as they bore close to the triangular grass-covered
enclosure in front of Tattersall’s, are probably unaware that a
comparatively slight deviation would take them through a pit beneath the
enclosure, which, tradition avers, was used, during the Great Plague of
London, for the dead. It is likely enough; for centuries ago there
existed, a little to the east of Albert Gate, a hospital belonging to
the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, which in 1665 was given up for the
use of infected patients; and as this little piece of ground has never
been disturbed, it probably was originally the burying-place attached
to the hospital, and was converted into a plague-pit.
A house close to Hyde Park Court was once occupied by Charles Reade, the
novelist. At a house close by (long since pulled down), Horace Smith,
joint-author of _Rejected Addresses_, lived from 1810 to 1818, and drove
himself daily to and from the City--he was then a stockbroker--in a
vehicle called a “whisky.” A little farther on, where the London and
County Bank is dwarfed by the late Sir Herbert Naylor Leyland’s great
mansion, used to stand the “Fox and Bull,” a quaint old tavern dating
back to Queen Elizabeth’s time, and a favourite resort of Sir Joshua
Reynolds, George Morland, and other painters. Holy Trinity Chapel, St.
George’s Place, no longer wedged in between two public-houses, replaces
an old church where the celebrated Prime Minister--then plain Robert
Walpole--was married in 1700 to a Lord Mayor’s daughter, who became the
mother of Sir Horace Walpole. In St. George’s Place, where it faces the
Park--surely one of the most desirable of situations, the first
intimation that we are approaching “Green pastures and Piccadilly”--is
the Hyde Park Corner Station of the new railway, next door to No. 8,
conspicuous as the residence of the Baden-Powell family, on the site of
which house, in an old-fashioned tenement, lived for many years John
Liston, the comedian identified with the character of “Paul Pry.” Being
freehold--a unique feature in the neighbourhood--this small plot of
ground has cost the Company dear. It had to pay £30,750 for its
acquisition.
It is hard to believe that at this point London once terminated,
Lanesborough House, where St. George’s Hospital stands, being described
in Pennant’s days as a “country mansion,” and thus it remained until
little more than a century ago. While in the time of Charles the Second,
near Hamilton Place was an inn, bearing the sign of the “Hercules
Pillars,” signifying that, like the “First and Last House” at Land’s
End, no habitation existed beyond it.
All sorts and conditions of people, mostly distinguished, live, and have
lived, along this part of the route, which has its Tube stations at Down
Street and Dover Street. There is Apsley House, and next to it Baron
Rothschild’s mansion. At No. 1 Hamilton
[Illustration: FIG. 14. THE WESTERN APPROACH TO PICCADILLY.]
Place lived the great Lord Chancellor Eldon. From 139, Piccadilly (Lord
Glenesk’s) Lady Byron, after one of her quarrels with the poet, fled
with her infant daughter. At Nos. 138 and 139, formerly one building,
the Marquis of Queensbury (the notorious “Old Q.”) used, when an
octogenarian, to sit at a certain window for hours, and ogle the passing
fair sex. Gloucester House adjoining, is the residence of the Duke of
Cambridge, occupied, when it was Elgin House, by the Earl of Elgin, who
brought over to England the famous marbles that bear his name. Nearly
opposite Down Street, on the park side of Piccadilly, stands a curious
reminder that once upon a time, parcels and packages of all kinds had to
be conveyed all over London, not by train or by Carter Paterson’s speedy
vans, but on the shoulders of stalwart porters. It is a “bulk,”
replacing an old timber one. A “bulk,” it may be explained, is a kind of
shelf supported by two posts at a convenient height for the bearers of
burdens to temporarily dispose of them and rest awhile. On the site of
No. 106 (the St. James’s Club) was formerly the “Greyhound,” a very old
inn, which, with the “White Horse” close by, and the “Half Moon,” a
little further on, was a favourite pulling-up place for the numerous
carriers, tranters, and market-gardeners who were incessantly coming
from the country to town; for Piccadilly was one of London’s great
highways westward. In a house (now a club) at the corner of White Horse
Street, Sir Walter Scott sometimes stayed when in town. Cambridge House
(the Naval and Military Club) recalls Lord Palmerston and the notable
political receptions of his accomplished wife. At the corner of Clarges
Street, where lived Edmund Kean and also Lady Hamilton, is the Turf
Club, and at No. 84 the Imperial Service Club, the last of Piccadilly’s
line of clubs that, commencing with The Bachelors’, at the corner of
Hamilton Place, forms a kind of approach to the real club-land of St.
James’s Street and Pall Mall. Bath House, at the corner of Bolton
Street, was the residence of the late millionaire, Baron Hirsch. No. 80,
Piccadilly, and No. 1, Stratton Street together form the town house of
the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, and it was from No. 80 that her father, Sir
Francis Burdett, M.P., was, in 1810, amidst serious rioting, taken to
the Tower for having made use of bad language in the House of Commons.
From the roof can be obtained a splendid view of the Westminster and
Pimlico district, across the Park, rightly called “Green,” with its
beautiful stretches of turf and graceful trees, and far away to the
Surrey Hills and the Crystal Palace.
Devonshire House, seen through its fine old iron gates--brought here
from Chiswick--is plain enough externally, but its saloons are very
handsome, and here the lovely Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, reigned
as Queen of Fashion long ago. Arlington Street reminds us of the Marquis
of Salisbury, of Earl Nelson, who lodged here, and of Sir Horace Walpole
and his father. In Albemarle Street, Percy Bysshe Shelley once had
quarters at Cooke’s Hotel.
The Tube now carries its passengers ninety feet below the beautiful
Piccadilly shops, past St. James’s Street and Bond Street, the
Burlington Arcade and Burlington House, past the Egyptian Hall, past
Fortnum and Mason’s--so universally associated with hampers, long-necked
bottles, and race-meetings; past the Albany, where lived Byron, Lytton,
and Lord Macaulay; past the Prince’s Restaurant, and its neighbour, St.
James’s Church, where there are some splendid specimens of Grinling
Gibbons’ wood-carving, and where, in 1762, occurred a singular thing. In
some unexplained manner the vaults caught fire, and two hundred coffins
with their inmates underwent an uncontemplated process of cremation;
past St. James’s Hall opposite (eventually to be enlarged and converted
to purposes other than harmony only). And now Piccadilly Circus, where
six roads meet, and where, next to Spiers and Pond’s Restaurant, is the
Piccadilly Circus Station of this, the longest Tube. Subways should
certainly be arranged for access to this station, to avoid the very
dangerous crossings from each of the six roads. Why does not the London
County Council, emulating the City Fathers and their Mansion House
subterranean passages, undertake this beneficent work in the West End?
We are now in the region of music-halls, theatres, cafés, dining-places,
and Scott’s, the famous shell-fish shop.
“What is the origin of the name _Piccadilly_?” is a question asked again
and again. It is difficult to decide. Was it from the ruffs called
“peckadils” (from the Spanish _pica_), whose stiffened points were like
diminutive spearheads, worn by the mashers or dudes of the early
Carolean period, who gathered here at a gaming-house, Piccadilly Hall?
Or was it, as Pennant thought, from the “piccadills” (cakes) which may
have been sold in the surrounding fields? Who in the year 1903 can
decide?
Here I pause. The rest of the new Tube’s route to Stamford Hill is
useful but prosaic, and none of the remaining ten stations, except
Cranbourn Street, Covent Garden, and Holborn are surrounded with any
remarkably interesting associations, either historical or modern.
From South Kensington to Piccadilly this railway is certainly an
aristocratic one. Daintily-clad ladies will, doubtless, use it largely
for shopping and paying visits. The rank and fashion of London will
patronise it. Countesses, marchionesses, even duchesses, may condescend
to travel by it; nay, royalty may even give it a trial! Nobody would be
surprised to see its booking-office æsthetically designed; the officials
well-groomed and decorous as bank clerks; the lifts luxuriously
upholstered with seats for all; the _cars-de-luxe_ (for which an extra
charge would be made) beautifully decorated, warmed in winter and
delightfully cooled during summer heats, with fresh flowers provided,
and perfumes sprayed at intervals to remove the least trace of bad
smell; copies of the _Court Guide_ and the most fashionable magazines at
the disposal of the passengers; umbrella and parasol stands; special and
comfortable quarters for pet dogs; the smoking-cars models of elegance
and comfort; and the guards’ uniform scarlet and gold.
Seriously, however, is there or is there not, “one little rift within
the lute”? Will the size of the tunnels--11½ feet in diameter--suffice
for maintaining an equable and pure atmosphere throughout the year?
Doubtless it will; for special attention has been given to this matter
by the distinguished consulting engineer, and inlets for fresh, and
up-cast shafts for foul air, together with fans worked by machinery,
will be liberally provided.
CHAPTER XI
_ELECTRIC TRAMWAYS GENERALLY_
“And I have taken away your horses.”--AMOS iv. 10.
HISTORY OF TRAMWAYS
Nearly fifty years ago there arrived in this country an enterprising
citizen of the United States bearing the name of George Francis Train,
with whom will always be associated the first attempt to introduce
tramways into Great Britain.
Like many other innovators, Train was ahead of his time, and after
vainly struggling against indifference, and, in London, against the
strongest opposition voiced by the Chief Commissioner of Works, he
returned home a wiser and a sadder man, having failed to launch his
great enterprise.
Not unreasonably he complained that his system had not been given a fair
trial, and that his nationality was against him, pointing out that in
Ireland he had, on the contrary, received sympathy and encouragement
from the fact that he was an American.
The truth was, his ideas were immature, and his tram-lines utterly
unsuited to the street traffic of great cities.
His first attempt was at Birkenhead, in 1860; and three years later he
laid down a line, four miles long, from Hanley to Burslem, in
Staffordshire, and also a short one at Darlington. In the year 1861 he
constructed a line from the Marble Arch along the Uxbridge Road, and
another from Westminster Bridge to Kennington Park. The track was
ballasted, not paved, and the macadam very soon “rutted” on each side of
the rail; but the worst feature was that the tread of the rail being an
inch below the road surface, the wheels of vehicles were seriously
injured and sometimes wrenched clean off as they endeavoured to leave
the lines.
A tremendous agitation ensued against the tramway system. Train’s rails
were compulsorily taken up, and his ideas were dismissed as
impracticable.
Yet the bread had been cast upon the waters, destined to be found much
later on, but not by George Francis Train. For ten years after the
Birkenhead line was laid down, tramways remained in a very primitive
condition, the sole aim being to obtain a smooth track, and so lessen
the wear and tear caused by the uneven macadam. The rolling-stock was
crude in the extreme, and the rails were fastened down to longitudinal
sleepers, so that the spikes invariably worked up, but this defect was
remedied when steel girders came into use. The trams were, of course,
drawn by horses, for until 1880 no better means of traction appears to
have been thought of. Nobody was a bit interested in the tramways, and
carriage-folk detested them, so they were banished to the outskirts of
the City and “over the water.”
The West End recognised them not, except to sign petitions against their
introduction. The “poor man’s street railway,” it affirmed, must keep
its proper place in the south, the far north, and the far east of
London.
It was left to private enterprise to run the lines, and practically
four companies--the North Metropolitan, the London Street Tramways, the
South London Company, and the London Tramways Company--monopolised the
business, there being no enterprising London County Council to compete
with.
VARIOUS METHODS OF HAULAGE
For a decade--up to 1890--all kinds of improved methods of haulage were
tried: compressed air, coiled springs, underground cables (a well-known
example of which was the Highgate line, which was always breaking down),
and, lastly, gas traction and steam traction.
To all these methods there are serious objections. Horse traction is
expensive, besides being distressingly trying to the animals themselves.
It is necessary to keep up a large stud for each car, and the horses
when idle are eating their heads off. Their fullest speed with the heavy
cars is necessarily low. Starting is a slow process, and at the best the
rate of progress (including stoppages) does not exceed four miles an
hour.
Compressed air and coiled springs may both be consigned to pigeon-holes,
labelled respectively “doubtful” and “impossible,” there being of the
former scarcely half a dozen examples in Great Britain, though in
America it is said to have worked well and on an extensive scale.
Cable traction has many advantages, and for a long time was successfully
adopted in America, but is now abandoned. With the funicular system, in
vogue in Edinburgh, Birmingham, Paris, and Melbourne, travellers have
long been familiar. Where a large number of cars are employed, it has
the advantage of cheapness in working, and the machinery does not easily
get out of order. But the initial cost is very heavy, and it is not
suitable for complicated lines, or for tramways with several branches;
and therefore extensions, unless straight, are almost impracticable,
though it is superior to all others, save that of electricity, for very
severe gradients. As the cable moves at a uniform rate, a car can
neither vary its speed nor reverse its course. Then there is a
difficulty in dealing with the gas and water-pipes during construction
(that is, if they are near the surface), and the conduit forms a
receptacle for street refuse, and becomes insanitary. But the chief
defect is that three-fourths of the total power required to haul the
cars is absorbed in driving the cable.
On a small scale, and with but little success, gas traction has been
recently tried. There is a difficulty in starting the engines, therefore
they have to work continuously, which causes the unpleasant noise
familiarised to us by petrol-driven motor-cars when standing still.
There is a decided smell from the “exhaust” of the engine; the vibration
is considerable; and, as at present designed, the cars cannot mount a
moderately steep hill.
Steam traction has been in use for some time, but has not improved, and
is not popular. Great wear and tear of the track is caused by the weight
of the locomotive, and the public object to the long intervals of
service, consequent upon the necessity, for economical reasons, of using
large cars. Steam involves sulphurous gases and general dirtiness,
besides the apprehension, fanciful or real, of an occasional “blow up.”
VARIOUS METHODS OF ELECTRIC TRAMWAY TRACTION
Dismissing all these systems, we turn to electricity, as admittedly the
best agent for tramway traction, and, until some marvellous discovery
displaces it as a force, likely to remain and to become universally
adopted.
Blackpool was first in the field with an electric tramway in 1883.
Several other provincial districts followed suit, including Bristol and
Stockton-on-Tees. London, in 1900, welcomed the completion of Mr. J.
Clifton Robinson’s great scheme for electrifying that portion of the
London United Tramways running between Hammersmith and Kew.
The year 1903 sees metropolitan and suburban electric trams in every
direction; while in the provinces they will soon cover the face of the
land, so extraordinarily rapid has been their acceptance. On every hand
signs are evinced of the direct influence upon the general prosperity,
comfort, and pleasure of all classes of people by a cheap and rapid
electric tramway service.
The electric system admits of an easy extension of routes, and is of all
systems the simplest to work. The cars can be readily backed or diverted
in any direction. They are roomy, clean, well lighted and ventilated,
and, if necessary, can be heated; the seats are comfortable; and the
speed is double that of horses, while, without any fuss, gradients of 1
in 8 can be tackled. Of its popularity none can doubt, especially in hot
weather, when exhausted town-dwellers swarm on the roof of the cars for
a breath of fresh air as they travel merrily along at the rate of twelve
miles an hour.
Existing tramways can be adapted to this system with rapidity, and all
experts bear testimony to the fact that electric haulage is
comparatively so cheap, and the development of traffic on its adoption
so great, that horse traction has no chance against it.
There are four kinds of electric-tramway traction which, though
apparently rather puzzling, are readily explained. These are the
Conduit; the Surface Contact; the Overhead (or trolley); in each of
which the current is conveyed to the line--as in an electric
railway--from a power house; and the Accumulator, or Self-contained Car,
the motive power being obtained from storage batteries carried on the
car itself, and these supply the current direct to the motor on the car.
[Illustration: FIG. 15. TRAM-CAR IN PARIS EQUIPPED FOR COMBINED OVERHEAD
TROLLEY AND SURFACE CONTACT SYSTEM
_By permission of the_ _Dolter Electric Traction Co., Ltd., London_]
In the conduit system the main conductors (or feed-wire), always in this
country placed underground, are carried in a conduit or tube under the
track, which has a narrow longitudinal slit on its upper surface level
with the road. Through this slit passes a bracket carried by the car in
such a manner as to make contact with the two conduit-conductors. The
objections to this system are the heavy cost of construction, its
liability to derangement from floods, the expense of cleaning the
conduits, and its tendency to accumulate filth.
The closed conduit, or surface contact system, consists of a series of
plates or studs placed along the track a few feet apart and flush with
the road, and insulated from each other. Under ordinary circumstances
these are disconnected with the conductor, which is laid entirely below
the surface, but when a car passes over them they become, by means of
switches, automatically connected with it, so that the current can be
conveyed through them to the car motors. In other words, the studs are
“alive” while the car is over them, and “dead” as soon as it has passed.
This is a very practicable method, and in certain cases is preferable to
the open conduit. Defects, however, there are, but the Dolter apparatus
claims to have overcome them, and it is greatly in its favour that the
system has been successfully worked in Paris for more than two years. It
has the merit of readily lending itself to a combination with the
overhead trolley system.
Of all systems, by far the best known to the public is that of
“overhead,” recognised immediately by the tall iron poles inseparable
from its adoption. Ninety-five per cent. of the world’s electric
tramways are worked on the overhead principle. The distribution of
electric energy is by means of a wire, called the trolley wire, upheld
by insulated brackets on poles twenty feet above the ground, along the
entire track, which is divided into sections, each section taking its
current from the main conductor-wire, which is laid underground, through
the iron poles. Should any one section of the trolley wires meet with
mishap, only the cars working on that section are stopped; those on the
remaining divisions, having an independent source of current, continue
to run
[Illustration: FIG. 16. CROSS LANE JUNCTION, SALFORD. THE LARGEST AND
MOST COMPLICATED OVERHEAD TROLLEY CROSSING IN THE KINGDOM
_By permission of_ _Geo. Hill & Co., Manchester_]
without interruption. At the upper end is a small deeply grooved wheel
which, by means of springs at the base of the trolley pole, is pressed
against the under side of the trolley wire overhead, and in that
position remains as the car proceeds. From the wire the electric current
passes through the grooved wheel and down the trolley pole to the
motors, of which there is one at each end of the car.
In all three systems the motor itself is suspended from the axle, which
it turns; and the armature of the motor is parallel to the axle and
nearest to the centre of the car. On the end of the armature is a small
cogwheel which gears into the teeth of a larger wheel keyed to the axle,
and this turns round the wheels of the car. A coiled spring supports the
field-magnet of the motor, and when the driver turns the lever on to the
top of the controller (which is a high box in front of each platform
containing a series of wires connected with the motor), and switches on
the current, the motor is lifted up on the first revolution of the
armature, the coiled spring takes up the motion of the motor, and
prevents the car starting with a jerk. The current, when done with,
returns to the source of supply by the ordinary tram rails, which are
specially connected at the joints for this purpose. It is maintained
that for cheapness of construction, simplicity of operation, reliability
in action, and flexibility in adaptation, this method is superior to all
others.
There was at one time a certain objection to it on æsthetic grounds. The
earlier examples, when clumsy wooden posts and festoons of wire
obstructed the view and seemed to choke up the street, undoubtedly
justified the protest against the “overhead”; but now that slender iron
poles, ornamental rather than otherwise, and, in some cases, rosettes
attached to the houses, are used for the suspension of the trolley wire,
people have become reconciled to the appearance of the thoroughfares,
and no longer object to the apparatus.
One more system, an ideal one, remains to be considered. It is that of
the “Self-contained Car,” which carries a battery of secondary cells,
whence the current for working the motors is taken as required. But, for
the present, there are serious obstacles against its general
application. The great weight of the accumulators leads to a
disproportionate consumption of power, and involves heavy expenditure on
the permanent way and in rolling-stock. The batteries must be recharged
at frequent intervals, and must either be removed from the car--a
troublesome process--or the car must be kept idle while the cells are
revivified. Accumulators as a rule do not live long, and have to be
renewed.
Thus the working expenses are so heavy that, ideal as the system is, and
delightful the smooth running of the cars, it does not pay commercially
to adopt it, and we must wait patiently in the hope that one day a
perfect and practical secondary battery will appear on the scenes. Great
improvements in lightness and durability are in the air.
Tramcars have become luxurious compared with the makeshifts that did
duty in George Francis Train’s day, and each new line endeavours to make
its rolling-stock superior to the others. Some cars are double-decked,
_i.e._ have seats outside; some are single-decked, _i.e._ have no
outside seats. They are roomy and comfortably upholstered, and the
windows are curtained, or provided with louvre shutters to keep the sun
out. Those of the London United Tramways are models of comfort, and
people who recollect only the early examples, mostly of foreign
construction, would be surprised at the advance made. They seat thirty
inside and thirty-nine outside passengers, have spring cushions covered
with plush moquette, and ceilings panelled in bird’s-eye maple. There
are electric push-buttons for signalling the motor-man; electric light
is provided, and ventilators extend the whole length of the car,
ensuring an abundant supply of fresh air.
No cars, however, in Great Britain have reached the pitch of perfection
attained in America by the palace and parlour tramcars; the former
fitted up like a Pullman, with little tables and easy-chairs, and
windows prettily curtained. Of this type, perhaps the most superb is in
Buenos Ayres. Decorated in early French style, it is beautifully
finished; while inside it resembles a drawing-room, with windows
separated by carved pilasters and draperies of white silk and gold
damask. A fine Wilton carpet covers the parquetry floor, whereon stand
woven cane fauteuils with gold plush seats. At each end of the car is a
buffet, and one of the platforms is provided with an ice chest, while an
electric heater produces tea and coffee when required.
I cannot close this chapter introducing the subject of tramways, without
reference to the “Rush for the Trams” that attracted so much attention
last year. The rushes in the Blackfriars Bridge Road began shortly after
five o’clock and continued until seven p.m., and were described in the
daily journals as follows: “South London, thanks to the L.C.C., rejoices
in an excellent tram service. There are many trams going everywhere
within a reasonable distance--Streatham, Greenwich, Tooting, New Cross.
Now, however hard or however fast you rush at a tram, it is not to be
bullied into holding more than a certain number. If, however, you rush
sufficiently fiercely and with sufficient violence, you may either
knock or frighten out of the way a girl who has been waiting longer than
you. Some genius discovered this and rushed; others, not to be beaten,
rushed also. The result is that every evening the Blackfriars Road is
the scene of a savage fight for the incoming trams, where men and women
meet in unequal strife.... All notions of chivalry, of ‘ladies first,’
are thrown to the winds, apparently, on these occasions, with the result
that many young girls, weak women and children, rather than share in the
unequal strife, are content to walk all the way home.... Long before the
trams arrive at the starting-point, they are boarded at either end, and
a jovial crowd, knocking off one another’s hats, poking out one
another’s eyes, swarms on to them. As an entertainment, this is not
without merit; as an exhibition of the passions, it is undoubtedly
interesting. But if you happen to be weak or a woman and want to get on
one of these cars, it is possible you will fail to consider these
things. Only a day or two ago a fatal accident occurred in the rush for
the trams. Such a serious case is, no doubt, rare, but small injuries
must be of frequent occurrence, torn clothes and bruises part of the
daily round, the common talk of those who struggle for the trams. It is
unpleasantly common to see women knocked off their feet and dragged in
the road. Nor is the Blackfriars terminus the only battlefield. The
Westminster Bridge Road is no whit better, and there, with a roadway
somewhat narrower and a somewhat larger quantity of quick traffic, the
danger is even greater.”
The remedy for this state of affairs was thus significantly pointed
out:--
“When electricity is fully adopted the service will be able to deal with
a larger traffic, for, although the same number of cars will be
running, they will run faster, and each will carry 50 per cent. more
passengers, so that the carrying capacity of the line will be much
increased. Till then there is no hope of improvement. It is impossible
with horse traction to run more cars, or run them faster.”
CHAPTER XII
_LONDON’S TRAMWAYS_
“When all is done, the help of good counsel is that which setteth
business straight.”--BACON.
THE L.C.C. AND LONDON’S TRAFFIC
All tramways within the boundaries of the County of London--an area of
some 16½ by 12 miles--will eventually be controlled and worked by the
London County Council, who, under the Tramways Act of 1870, have the
power of purchasing, either compulsorily at the expiration of twenty-one
years from the passing of the Act, or by agreement, any tramway
undertaking within their official territory. A heavy responsibility
truly; but whether for good or for evil, municipal trading has come to
stay, and the principle as applied to tramways seems to be particularly
appropriate in this, our great metropolis, with whose locomotive system
none but a very powerful and experienced governing body can ever hope to
successfully cope.
Mr. J. Allen-Baker, the vice-chairman of the L.C.C.’s Highways
Committee, reporting on the subject of our congested highways, said:
“Even though there should be no future increase in street traffic, I
believe it to be the imperative duty of the Council to seek a remedy,
and how much more when we feel assured that London will keep growing,
and that within the next thirty years both a water and locomotive
service will have to be provided for an estimated population (in Greater
London) of probably not less than ten or twelve million people; and
whatever the growth _outwards_ may be, the best system of rapid transit
for the central districts will always become more and more essential.
If, therefore, we are to cope with either our present or our future
requirements, and prevent our streets from becoming really impassable,
it is, in my judgment, our duty to take up the subject at once, and seek
from His Majesty’s Government those additional powers and amendments to
existing Acts of Parliament that will enable the Council, as the central
authority, to carry out these improvements in the interests of the whole
metropolis.”
I doubt if anybody realises the gigantic scale of Greater London’s
street traffic, so much of it being hidden away. It is estimated that in
one year travellers by cabs and omnibuses number 580,000,000, and by
tramways 400,000,000. By Underground, Tube, and suburban railways
890,000,000 travel; and should the metropolis increase at the rate
expected by Mr. J. Allen-Baker, in thirty years’ time there will be
something like 4,000,000,000, or 11,000,000 human beings per diem,
moving about on wheels or on foot.
All these facts will doubtless be carefully considered, and, if
possible, the problem of London’s traffic solved, by the Royal
Commission--Sir David Miller Barbour, K.C.S.I., K.C.M.G., in the
chair--appointed in February last to deal with the subject. (_vide_
Chapter IX.). It is authorised to report:--
(1) As to the measures which they deem most effectual for the
improvement of the same (the street traffic) by the development and
interconnection of railways and tramways on or below the surface, by
increasing the facilities for other forms of mechanical locomotion, by
better provision for the organisation and regulation of vehicular and
pedestrian traffic or otherwise; and
(2) As to the desirability of establishing some authority or tribunal to
which all schemes of railway or tramway construction of a local
character should be referred, and the powers which it would be advisable
to confer upon such a body.
THE L.C.C. AND REHOUSING
The tramway policy of the L.C.C. is so connected with the housing, or,
rather, with the rehousing question, that although this book is purely
on the subject of electrical traction, I cannot avoid making some
reference to it.
For fifteen years, since, under the Local Government Act of 1888, the
Council was constituted, it has slowly been winning the confidence of
Londoners. Aggressive at first, it has relinquished the altruistic
theories of youth, and it now realises the fact that it is a body of
trustees acting not for one class only, but that it must administer its
heritage in the interests of the community at large. Jealousy of its
powers is dying out, and by comprehensive and energetic action it
justifies itself as the one central privileged body able to deal with
the highway, and with the housing problem of Modern Babylon.
One of its provinces, in fact its statutory obligation, is to provide
new accommodation--not necessarily in the same locality--in place of all
houses destroyed as unfit for human habitation. It also takes upon
itself voluntarily (where no such legal obligation exists) in certain
instances to provide for rehousing, and, wherever possible, this is
effected in the same districts. But this cannot as a rule be done when
rehousing is compulsory, and to meet the difficulty, estates have been
acquired, and blocks of houses and cottages erected at Croydon, Wood
Green, Brixton Hill, Holloway, Hammersmith, and other more or less
suburban spots. The Model Dwellings built on the site of Millbank
Prison, and inspected by the King and Queen on February 18th last,
accommodate 4,500 men, women, and children. At Tooting, the L.C.C.
scheme provides for 8,600 people; at Norbury, for 5,800; while at
Tottenham there will be quite a new town of 40,000 artisan inhabitants.
Encouragement is given by the Council to the idea that working-men and
women--since they cannot, in so many cases, live chock-a-block with
their employment--should be provided with homes upon, or a little
beyond, the Council’s boundaries, and be brought backwards and forwards
by train, for the popular 1_d._ Being practical men, the Councillors
know that any transference on a large scale of London factories to the
country, however desirable, cannot be effected yet awhile. And even if
they could acquire sites in the centres of industry, and erect gigantic
lodging-houses, the cost would be prohibitive. They have to deal with
the present necessity. Their ideal is probably the workshop as it exists
in London, with the heads of firms at Belsize Park, Bayswater, and
Dulwich, the clerks at Wandsworth, Chelsea, and Fulham, and the workmen
at Tottenham, Wood Green, and Hammersmith.
On the other hand, figures quoted by Mr. Troupe, of the Home Office,[5]
show to what a large extent it might be possible to relieve congestion
by the removal of factories to the country. He said that there were 748
factories in London classified, in the following proportions, viz. 50
for machine-making, 30 for bread and biscuit-baking, 14 for
cabinet-making, 11 for turning out fruit preserves, 16 breweries, 47
book-binding establishments, 72 printing houses (not including
newspapers), and 19 saw-mills. In these 748 factories close upon 200,000
people were employed, representing with their families some 600,000
human beings, and if, following the recent example of the largest
cabinet-makers in London, the bulk of these removed into the country,
which they might do if suitable railway arrangements could be made, a
considerable number of the 600,000 men, women, and children would be
rehoused amidst “fresh woods and pastures new,” greatly to their
benefit.
This is a dream at present, as factories cannot without great loss be
summarily transferred from suitable urban quarters where water-frontages
and locomotive facilities exist. They have grown up with, and in many
cases created the district in which they are situated. Bermondsey has
for years been the home of the leather trade, Lambeth of the pottery
industry, and although Mr. Justice Grantham instances Doulton’s as an
awful example of an uneconomical delinquent London manufactory--their
clay in Dorsetshire, their coal in the Midlands, their salt in Cheshire,
and their works on the banks of the Thames--it is no light matter to
break with long business ties and take up with fresh ones, not so easy
to leave the old love and take up with the new.
It will be granted, however, that Mr. William L. Magden was right when
he maintained that “no manufacturer about to commence business at the
present day would fix upon London as a suitable position. He would
choose rather a district in which land was cheap, and in which he could
obtain cheap power for his machinery and transport for his goods. He
should not in future be limited to the colliery districts or to the main
lines of railway. Light railways serving as feeders to the main lines,
and the supply of electrical energy over large areas from main power
stations, could provide for both these requirements, giving the
manufacturer ample assurance that his works could be run cheaply, and
that the raw material and manufactured products could be efficiently
handled. By such means electrical science is capable of opening up
thousands of square miles in England for manufacturing purposes, the
native population of which has been languishing under the chronic
complaint of agricultural depression.”
THE L.C.C.’S TRAMWAY SYSTEM
Whether, as regards tramways, the L.C.C. will be the central authority
recommended by the Royal Commissioners, time will show; but meanwhile it
has already established its tramway system, which can be seen at work in
our midst. In order to understand it the more easily, it should be
assumed that all the lines, including those of the London United
Tramways Company, are in the hands of the Council, that they are more or
less linked together, that powers for new lines have been granted, and
that electrical traction in some form has been adopted throughout.
On studying a tramway map, one is struck by the fact that, starting from
the central area of London, all the tram-lines meander towards the
Council’s boundaries, where they will eventually no doubt join and
interchange through traffic with the vast light railway or rural tramway
systems of various companies in the direction of north and south,
north-east, south-east, north-west, and south-west; but that “through”
(or cross-country) communication from west to east, practically does
not exist.
In the north-west there are huge areas of brick and mortar as destitute
of tram-lines as Central Australia, so that anyone living in the
Regent’s Park districts has to “train” it eastward, or, if he be bent on
“tramming” it, has to go by an inconvenient and awkward route to Hackney
or Bow.
Another notable feature of the map is that, although there are almost as
many tramways on the south as on the north side of the river, there is
no access from one to the other, the bridges being looked upon as sacred
thoroughfares, along which tramcars--certainly not as unæsthetic as
omnibuses, or waggons laden with vegetables--may not pass, although
Westminster is the widest bridge in the world, 85 feet; Blackfriars, 80
feet; and Vauxhall and Lambeth will be equally wide, and broad enough to
accommodate the trams without inconvenience.
At present the lines are painfully disunited, without starting-point or
terminus. The gaps in the lines require to be filled up, and where this
is impracticable, shallow underground tracks should be made use of. The
great defect, however, would at once disappear if the lines could cross
the Thames at Westminster and Blackfriars; but if this be persistently
refused, light bridges or tubes ought to be specially provided at
convenient points with four tracks for the use of tramways only.
The history of the London County Council’s work towards the improvement
of metropolitan highways dates back to the early nineties, when the
Council began to acquire tramway companies. A most important step was
taken in 1897, when the whole of the lines and depôts belonging to the
North Metropolitan and London Street Tramways Companies in the County of
London were purchased, the purchase-money being £800,000. In 1899 the
Council acquired the South London Tramways at a cost of £882,043, and
still more recently the control of the South Eastern Metropolitan
Tramways Company and the South London Company has been effected.
Negotiations for other acquisitions are pending, and, as a matter of
fact, there are now not a dozen miles of tramway lines within the county
which the Council has not already purchased.
The North Metropolitan lines have been leased by the Council to the
Company for fourteen years from 1896. The South London lines are worked
directly by the Council, and in the year 1901-2 no fewer than
119,880,559 passengers were carried over the system, 53,639,489 being at
halfpenny fares and 50,913,036 at penny ones. The traffic receipts for
the year amounted to over £439,000, and the mileage run was over
10,000,000. About 4,500,000 workmen’s tickets were issued during the
year.
Thus our metropolitan Councillors have, after due deliberation and much
searching of hearts, launched a prodigious undertaking. Whether it will
or will not prove too costly is another matter. Dr. Alexander B. W.
Kennedy, their consulting engineer, in his report, said: “I hope,
therefore, that the Committee will find themselves able to believe that
the enterprise in which they are about to embark is one which will not
only be for the benefit of Londoners generally, but one also which will
pay its way, and on which, therefore, there would seem to be no reason
for grudging such expenditure as to make the whole scheme one of a kind
suitable for and worthy of the greatest city in the world.”
Not long ago the Council decided to adopt electrical traction on all
their lines, involving an ultimate cost of £9,000,000 which will
include the necessary generating stations, rolling-stock, purchase of
smaller undertakings, and extensions. The result attained will be a
splendid system, equivalent in length to two hundred miles of single
track, though not larger than that of some big provincial cities.
Wherever possible the system will be that of the conduit underground;
more expensive than the trolley method, but in the crowded streets of
London--where every inch of space is valuable--advantageous, and from a
severely æsthetic point of view, preferable, because it dispenses with
poles and wires. But on lines acquired by the Council where already
exists the overhead principle, there will be no difficulty in arranging
the cars so that they can be run from one system to the other, either
with no stopping at all at the point of change, or with a delay of but a
second or two. The cars, except the trucks, will be made in England by
British firms, and are to be double-decked, double-bogied, and
thirty-two feet long; they are to hold twenty-eight passengers inside,
and forty-two on the roof, and will be in two compartments. They will
resemble the Liverpool cars, described in Chapter XIII, and will be
painted a chocolate colour. The speed will be a maximum of twelve miles
an hour, with an average of about seven.
Supposing, therefore, that all the L.C.C. parliamentary Bills are
carried through, and that all the disunited lines are properly and
harmoniously linked together, and through communication established in
every direction, it will be feasible to take some such day’s business
journey within the Council’s boundaries as that of Benjamin Short which
I am about to relate. But before doing so I think the very important
decision of the Lord Chancellor in an appeal case, November 27th, 1902,
on the subject of the maintenance of tramway tracks should be
recorded:--
THE MAINTENANCE OF TRAMWAY TRACKS
On March 4th, 1900, Mr. Fitzgerald was driving a horse and Ralli car in
Grafton Street, Dublin, when the horse stumbled and fell, and the
respondent was flung out of the cart and sustained serious injuries. On
the ground that the surface of the paving at the place where he was
driving was unsafe for horses and in a condition which was a danger and
annoyance to the ordinary traffic, he brought an action against the
tramway company, and was awarded £1,000 damages, the jury holding that
the part of the roadway for which the company was responsible was at the
time slippery and unsafe, and that this was the cause of the horse
falling. They, at the same time, found that the misfortune was not
caused by the fabric of the pavement being improperly constructed or
maintained.
The Lord Chancellor, at the conclusion of the arguments, moved that the
appeal should be dismissed. The tramway company had been permitted the
use of the public highway subject to certain obligations, which
practically meant that while they were to use it they must take care
that the safety and convenience of the public were consulted. They were
not to have a monopoly of the highway, and it was their duty to take
care of the public convenience in respect to that part of the roadway
over which they were permitted to exercise a kind of subordinate
dominion. It was not denied that the surface of the roadway became, in
certain states of the weather, a danger and a nuisance to the public,
and it was a strong contention to say that, having received
instructions from the road authority to do that which would have
prevented the accident, there should be no liability upon them. The
obligation, as he read the statute, was to keep the pavement in a fit
and proper condition for public traffic. How that was to be done was a
question of mechanical engineering, and neither the Legislature nor the
Court was called upon to enter into the question as to how it could best
be done. All the judges without exception seemed to agree that the best
and most proper mode of doing it was to do what the road authority
directed them to do, and that they had deliberately disobeyed.
A BUSINESS JOURNEY BY L.C.C. TRAMS
Benjamin Short was born and brought up in London, and if any man living
knew its ins and outs he did. He was a jovial-looking little man, always
called Ben, for, said his father, “We christened him Benjamin for long,
but as he grew so slowly, we called him Ben for short; for _short_ he
is, and short he always will be--except of cash!”
Short the elder was a small tobacconist in the days when the fragrant
weed was first put up and sold in packets--a paying idea, as he soon
discovered--and to effectually put it into practice, he used a
fast-trotting mare and a roomy, comfortable trap.
Ben, as he grew up, was allowed to accompany his father on these
journeys, and having abundant powers of observation and natural
quickness, he came to know more about Greater London than most men of
double his age. He was cut out for a commercial traveller’s career, and
a traveller, in due course, he became, inheriting from his father a snug
bit of capital.
At the time of which I am writing, Ben lived at Stamford Hill, close to
the London County Council boundary, in a well-built house with a bit of
land at the back, in which he had invested his inheritance. He called it
“The Watchmaker’s Rest,” and it faced the tramway line. Its front garden
was the envy and admiration of the neighbours. There appeared in their
season the choicest bulbous flowers, lovely annuals, herbaceous plants,
chrysanthemums, and asters, all of irreproachable quality, for Short,
being a sober and steady man, devoted his spare time to horticulture, at
which he was an adept.
Ben Short travelled for a large wholesale firm of watchmakers and
jewellers in Clerkenwell, whose ware-house was not far from the
junction of Goswell Road and Old Street. Thither Short went to business
every day at eight o’clock from Stamford Hill, not by a Tube (“Toob” he
called it), but by the tram which passed his door. He was a first-rate
salesman, working on salary and commission, as active and enduring as a
bee, but as no travelling expenses within the London district were
allowed him, he had to get about as cheaply as possible.
Hitherto he had been in the habit of working a single section of town
until it was exhausted, and then taking up another. But one July morning
the head of the firm asked him if he could vary the plan and take the
pick of several districts in one day as an experiment. This was done to
test Short’s capacity as against that of an English-speaking German
traveller, a protégé of his partner, who had already tried his best by
train and ’bus to cover a large area in one day, but had blundered over
the job. Ben Short, who had noticed a “foreigner” hanging about the
place a good deal, drew his own conclusions therefrom, and promptly
acquiesced in the proposition, and replied that he was quite willing to
show how much could be done in twelve hours by one who knew his London
well and how best to make use of its locomotive facilities. Ben intended
to make a record!
To save time he took home with him from the sample-room his bag, an
inconspicuous, well-worn old companion. It was easily carried, as the
contents, though valuable, were light. Next morning at 7.30 to the
minute he was at breakfast, clean as a new pin, thoroughly well groomed,
a man of peace, but if you had put your hand into the side pocket of his
coat you would have found a smooth ivory handle, suspiciously like that
of a neat six-shooter--in case of accidents! At eight o’clock he was in
a comfortable electric tram bound on his first stage to far-off
Hammersmith.
The route was _viâ_ Stamford Hill, High Street, Stoke Newington Road,
and Kingsland Road, and, branching off at Hackney Road, by way of Old
Street and Clerkenwell Road, to the western end of Theobald’s Road.
Thence, a long stretch by way of Hart Street, Bloomsbury, along part of
New Oxford Street, into Oxford Street, past the Marble Arch, along the
Uxbridge Road, past Notting Hill Gate, and down the beautifully paved,
broad incline towards Shepherd’s Bush, then to the left through Brook
Green, and so to the Broadway, Hammersmith--one of the most interesting
rides in London, and but recently added to the London County Council
system, after tremendous agitation and opposition on the part of the
“Tube” and others, but absolutely necessary to complete the linking of
other and disjointed sections.
Here, at Hammersmith, Ben Short transacted some very satisfactory
business in King Street. It was early; his “clients” had just finished
their breakfasts, their shops had been but a few minutes opened, and
they had leisure to attend to his persuasive arguments. He was a
favourite wherever he went, and as he carried exactly the kind of goods
to attract, he quickly booked orders and was free to proceed.
On board once more, at good speed Ben was rolled along Fulham Road,
leaving on the right the big convent jealously guarded by high walls,
which made Ben fall to wondering how any sane young woman could
voluntarily cut herself off from a world about which she probably knew
practically nothing. On went the tram, past the big buildings of the
Fulham Workhouse, past the entrance to Fulham Palace and the Bishop’s
Park, along the widened High Street of Fulham, over Putney Bridge, and
by way of Putney Bridge Road and West Hill, Wandsworth (a new route), to
Lower Tooting--altogether a pleasant trip at that time of the year, for
gardens, at which he critically and eagerly gazed, greeted Ben in every
direction.
Wasting no time, Short called upon all the most likely customers, and
again he was in luck, for whether they wanted watches and jewellery or
not, orders were booked.
Now the energetic little man had to get to the “Elephant and Castle.”
Along the Balham Hill Road, with its pleasant shops and lively
pedestrians, was plain sailing enough, past umbrageous Clapham Common on
the left, edged with sedate and comfortable mansions recalling the old
days when prosperous Evangelicism dwelt exclusively in Clapham; then by
way of Clapham Road and Kennington Park Road to the far-famed “Elephant
and Castle.” Here a less sharp-witted man than Short might well be
bewildered by the wonderful concentration of tram lines converging from
Walworth Road, New Kent Road, Newington Causeway, London Road, St.
George’s Road, and the road he had come by. Here, if anywhere, as at the
Mansion House, well-arranged passenger subways are needed.
Our “commercial” did much business round about, for it was one of his
best districts for cheap goods, and then he thought it was time to
refresh the inner man. In a neighbouring cool, clean little crib--“a
close borough of his own,” he called it--he rested, and made intimate
acquaintance with a noble piece of silver-side, some crisp lettuces, and
any amount of piccalilli--he was a lover of cold meat and pickles--but,
in accordance with a rule he never broke in business hours, he
restricted himself to coffee as a beverage.
Short, braced up by his luncheon, was now ready to set out for the wilds
of Plumstead--a somewhat long journey. He started by train from the
“Elephant and Castle” _viâ_ the New and the Old Kent Roads, New Cross
Road, Greenwich Road, Trafalgar Road, Greenwich and Woolwich Lower Roads
to Woolwich, and by the Plumstead Road to Plumstead itself. He worked
the two districts together, but his luck had deserted him, and orders
were fewer and farther between than he altogether liked; but he was not
going to “chuck the thing up” yet. He would do a bit of the East End,
and thus complete the circuit of London.
He took the same route back from Plumstead as far as Blackwall Lane,
then _viâ_ the Blackwall Tunnel to East India Dock Road, Burdett Road,
and Mile End Road to its junction with Cambridge Road. In this
neighbourhood he did his only extensive bit of walking. The district,
though poor, was large, and he did a fair amount of business, but as
time was getting on he decided to return home; so by Cambridge Road,
along Cambridge Heath, Mare Street, Lower and Upper Clapton Roads, he
got back to Stamford Hill, and was put down almost at his own house.
He had travelled by electric tramway some fifty miles at a cost of about
2_s._ 1_d._ (or a halfpenny a mile). He had done a lot of business, and
had been absent just twelve hours!
In the bosom of his family he found ample compensation for his
exertions. A hearty welcome and a savoury supper, accompanied by
something that was _not_ coffee, awaited him, and the following day the
firm received him with acclamation. The Teuton was not “in it,” and Ben
Short reigned supreme as its chief and highly appreciated traveller.
LONDON UNITED TRAMWAYS COMPANY
Want of space forbids more than the mere mention of the South
Metropolitan and the London Southern, the Woolwich and South Eastern,
the West Ham, and the Northern Middlesex Tramways. But this chapter
would be incomplete without some reference to the useful and popular
organisation, the London United Tramways Company, that takes up the
running at the London County Council’s boundary.
Forty million passengers were conveyed last year over its original route
of twenty-two miles, extending from Shepherds Bush and Hammersmith to
Southall, Hounslow, and Twickenham. In one week alone over a million
were carried.
Last April an important extension was inaugurated from Twickenham, which
brought the trams through Teddington and Hampton Wick right to the gates
of
[Illustration: FIG. 17. BOILER-ROOM, LONDON UNITED TRAMWAYS CO.’S POWER
HOUSE AT CHISWICK, FITTED WITH VICARS’ AUTOMATIC STOKERS
_By permission of T. and T. Vicars_, _Earlstown, Lancashire_]
Hampton Court Palace, and from Richmond Bridge to Hampton Court. In the
near future these extensions will be connected with new lines running to
Uxbridge, Thames Ditton, Surbiton, Hook, Kingston, New Malden,
Wimbledon, and Tooting; while eventually these western and southern
tracks will, by the system of tubes, rejuvenated underground railways,
and the L.C.C.’s electric tramways, be joined to those of northern and
eastern London. In three years’ time, when its extensions are completed,
the London United will have 100 miles of tram lines in operation.
The gauge is the standard 4 feet 8½ inches. Throughout the route the
overhead trolley system has been adopted. At Chiswick is the power
house, and the mains convey the electricity to sub-stations, six miles
apart, where rotary converters change the alternating into direct
current, and transform down the high voltage of 5,000 into the Board of
Trade limit of 500. In the fine boiler-room T. and T. Vicars’ automatic
stokers are used, and very interesting it is to watch the machines
continually pushing small charges of coal into the furnaces without any
direct human agency.
Mounted on two four-wheeled bogie trucks, with two 25 horse-power
motors, the handsome cars seat thirty-nine passengers outside and thirty
inside. On the Sunday after the opening of the extension no fewer than
200,000 people journeyed from Hammersmith, Shepherd’s Bush, and
Richmond, to Kew, Twickenham, Teddington, and Hampton Court; and on Whit
Monday, 1903, the number reached 400,000, thus establishing a record. So
great was the rush during some part of those days that a two minutes’
service of cars had to be provided.
The extension from Twickenham to Hampton Court was opened by Mr. C. T.
Yerkes, the Chairman, and author of the happy alliance of train, tube,
and tram, which may possibly enable many toilers in the East End to live
in the country. At the least, it will give them the chance, when
possessed of a little leisure and a few pence, to quickly exchange their
sordid environment for one of the numerous sylvan spots which surround
London, especially in the west.
[Illustration: FIG. 18. A LONDON UNITED TRAMWAYS COMPANY TRAM-CAR
_By permission of the_ _London United Tramways Co., Ltd._]
Alluding to this, Mr. C. T. Yerkes, at the inauguration, significantly
remarked that it was a strange fact that London was particularly behind
in transportation, being the most backward of all cities. Though during
the last twenty years in London, 900 miles of streets had been made, and
340,000 houses had been built, it was only within the past few years
that intramural transportation had been even spoken of. The London
United Tramway Company, he said, expected to join very intimately with
the Metropolitan District, forming a continuous line to Hampton Court
from the City; and they anticipated connecting with the Great Northern,
Brompton, and Piccadilly Circus Railway. People would be carried very
cheaply, and when the District was electrified the mileage rates would
be abolished in favour of uniform fares, which were far the best. Poor
people who were living in an unenviable condition should have the chance
of getting into the country.
On the much-debated question of American capital and American enterprise
in Great Britain,[6] Mr. Speyer spoke no less to the point. He said that
those who undertook to provide the metropolis with an up-to-date system
of locomotion should be encouraged, for they performed a task that
should have been done twenty years ago. English capital had had every
opportunity of investment in underground lines, and if only half of the
five millions had been subscribed in this country it was not the fault
of the promoters. They would have preferred that the Underground Company
should have English shareholders only, but unfortunately they had had to
allot half of the shares of the Company to Americans and foreigners. One
would have thought, he said, that there would have been more keenness in
London to build its own underground railways, which would so materially
add to the well-being of the masses. If either of the proposed lines
were situated in South Africa, Australia, or Klondyke, London investors
would have been tumbling over each other to subscribe. But the fault of
these lines was that they were at our own doors. It was a fact,
incredible though it might seem, that the richest city in the world did
not appear able or willing to provide the funds for what was really a
public necessity--_quicker transit_. So let them hear nothing more of
American invasion, if people here stood with folded arms and allowed
others to do the work which they ought to have done themselves; for
while they persisted in this _non possumus_ attitude, no one could blame
the Company if they went elsewhere.
CHAPTER XIII
_PROVINCIAL TRAMWAYS_
“They shall measure to their cities round about.”--DEUTERONOMY xxi. 2.
THE LIGHT RAILWAYS ACT OF 1896
In the year 1896 an Act of Parliament was passed which, it is no
exaggeration to say, revolutionised tramway locomotion, and was destined
to produce consequences undreamt of by the promoters of the measure.
Under the Tramways Act of 1870, Municipal Corporations had been
exercising their powers of buying up existing tramways, working them in
the interests of the ratepayers, and of generally entering into the
business of providing a cheap and efficient means of traversing the area
within their boundaries. They used the new Light Railways Act of 1896
occasionally, but only for the promotion (by two or more combined local
authorities) of certain lines running through several districts.
Prior to 1870, tramways, like railways and canals, had to be promoted by
special Bills, and the Tramways Act of that year was intended to
facilitate their construction, and to cheapen and simplify the method of
obtaining parliamentary powers, either by Bill or by the alternative of
an application to the Board of Trade for a Provisional Order authorising
the construction of the tramway, the said Order being subsequently
confirmed by an Act of Parliament introduced by the Board.
The Act of 1870 provided that no tram line should be sanctioned without
the consent of the district local authority, and that the local
authority might buy up the undertaking at the end of twenty-one years at
its then value--practically only the worth of the rolling-stock and
plant, without any allowance for the goodwill of a going concern.
In either case (that of a private Bill in Parliament or a Board of Trade
Provisional Order), if a tramway was planned to run through two or more
districts, the consent of the local authorities having jurisdiction over
two-thirds of the length of the line was sufficient. But this condition
gave the local authorities owning just over a third of the route, power
to veto the whole scheme.
Under the same Act, land, otherwise than by mutual agreement, could not
be acquired by tramway promoters.
Up to 1896, electric tramway schemes had remained in abeyance, but
though the Light Railways Act removed many obstacles to their increase,
and made electric traction commercially possible, it did not bestow
perfect liberty of action. But the fresh legislation on the subject,
anticipated during this year’s session of Parliament, will doubtless
result in such amendment of the Act as will abolish all ground of
complaint on the part of the advocates of the industry.
At the time the 1896 measure became law, hardly any Tramway Company in
Great Britain, whether horse-drawn or steam-propelled, paid its way,
except in a few large centres. The companies knew that the time was
drawing near when they could be bought out by corporations; so they had
no inducement to make expensive reforms; and only by charging high
fares, and by avoiding every possible form of capital-expenditure,
could they keep their heads above water. Their undertakings, one and
all, sank into a state of inefficiency, and a strong public feeling
arose in favour of their being reformed, and worked with improved cars
and at popular tariffs by local authorities. So, one by one, these
bodies absorbed the private companies, placed new rolling-stock on the
lines, and adopted electrical traction, to the advantage of the public,
and in one notable instance--that of Glasgow--it is claimed, at great
pecuniary benefit to the ratepayers also.
MUNICIPAL TRAMWAY UNDERTAKINGS
Throughout the British Isles these municipal tramway undertakings now
flourish and increase in number. Take a map, and we shall see that the
coast line from the North Foreland to Plymouth is dotted with towns
provided with electric trams, while inland, Camborne, a Cornish
tin-mining centre, marks their western English limit. Then round Land’s
End along the Bristol Channel it is the same. South and North Wales show
a blank until Llandudno is reached. Then up-to-date towns provided with
electric traction thicken on the Lancashire coast as far as Fleetwood.
In the Isle of Man there are no fewer than four electric tramways.
Except at Glasgow and district, the west of Scotland is bare of any kind
of tram, and continues so round the North Cape and the East Coast until
we come to Aberdeen, Dundee, and Kirkcaldy. Next are clusters reaching
from North Shields to Middlesbrough. After this, electric trams are to
be found at Hull, Great Grimsby, and Yarmouth.
Inland are three great centres--Liverpool, Manchester, and
Birmingham--around which “electrified” towns gather thickly. Isolated
Guernsey and the Isle of Wight each possess an electric tram, the
latter being on Ryde pier.
In Ireland there is a wide stretch of country, empty and desolate from
an electric tramway point of view, _i.e._ from the Giant’s Causeway to
Cork, except at Newry, Dundalk, Lurgan, and Dublin. By far the greater
number of these British and Irish tramways are on the overhead trolley
system.
The 1896 Act provided for the establishment of a Light Railways
Commission of three members, whose special work was to facilitate the
construction and working of tramways or light railways in Great Britain
and Ireland, the Commissioners being appointed by the Board of Trade.
Application for a Light Railway Order may be made for a county, borough,
or district council by any individual, corporation, or company, or
jointly by councils, individuals, corporations, or companies.
Applications have to be referred to the Commissioners in the first
instance, and, if approved of, are placed before the Board of Trade for
confirmation. Provision is made by the Act for the purchase of land
under certain conditions specified in the Lands Clauses Act. Provision
is also made for enabling local authorities to acquire any undertaking
whose route passes through their district, the time and terms of
purchase being arranged by agreement between the promoters and the
municipalities, the terms of sale, usually thirty-five years’ purchase,
being settled on the basis of a fair market value of the line in full
work, but with no allowance for compulsory acquisition.
Local authorities, landowners, and adjacent railway companies have the
right to object to proposed lines. The local authorities, however,
possess no power of veto, but generally the Commissioners refuse
applications from promoters if their schemes are strongly protested
against by the municipalities concerned.
To what extent this Act has been taken advantage of may be judged by the
fact that last year no fewer than forty-seven municipalities were stated
to have disbursed, or to have decided to disburse, eleven millions
sterling in their electric tramways. In several instances the
municipality owns the tramways and leases them on certain conditions to
large companies or syndicates, a kind of compromise between absolute
urban control and unrestricted private enterprise.
How it works in the provinces can be understood by taking as examples
four of the largest cities in Great Britain, viz., Glasgow, Liverpool,
Manchester, and Birmingham.
THE GLASGOW TRAMWAYS
Glasgow, with a population of some seven hundred thousand, possesses the
most successful and lucrative system of municipal tramways in the world,
the working for the year ending May, 1902, on a capital expenditure of
nearly two millions, showing a gross revenue of £614,413, with a gross
balance of £200,371; and so large was the reserve fund in consequence,
that it was applied to the writing off of all expenditure on the old
horse-traction plant and equipment, so that the capital account included
only the expenditure relating to the new (electrical) system of
locomotion. In the language of the bookmakers, the city of Glasgow’s
tramways stood, financially, on velvet. In 1894 the Corporation began
the service of tramways (heretofore leased by it to a private company)
with everything new--buildings, horses, and cars--their policy being a
very frequent service at low fares. Not satisfied with horses, they
soon began to search about for some better method of traction, and in
1899 resolved to substitute electricity on the overhead trolley system,
and accordingly the change was effected; new lines were from time to
time constructed, until at the present moment Glasgow possesses,
including leased lines, 140 miles of single track and nearly six hundred
double and single-deck cars.
Unlike the somewhat haphazard fashion of London, the Glasgow tramway
lines have been planned in a skilful manner and on a definite system, to
give means of transit from the north and south and east and west of the
city. It is divided into five separate and independent areas, each
supplied with current from its own sub-station, but these areas can be
interconnected if necessary.
On a convenient side of the Clyde, with ample facilities for obtaining
coal and water, is the main generating station, built with a steel
framing clothed with Glasgow plastic clay, two great chimney-shafts, 263
feet high, towering above it. In this fine building is contained a
mighty specimen of what is called the three-phase distribution of
electrical energy, the system being to create the power at one centre
and distribute it over a wide area; that is, electricity is produced in
the form of three-phase alternating current at a pressure of 6,500
volts, and sent on to five outlying sub-stations, where it is
transformed to a potential of 310 volts, and then converted from
alternating into continuous current at 500 volts, for working the cars.
The total capacity of the main station is:--
Three-phase plant, 10,000 kilowatts.
Direct-current plant, 1,200 kilowatts.
The engines used to produce this are of 16,000 h.p. capacity, while each
of the generators is of the great weight of ninety tons, almost the
largest in existence for traction work.
Altogether, the tramway enterprise of Glasgow is in its magnitude and
its good management almost unique. The size of its power-house will be
surpassed by that which supplies the Electrified Metropolitan District
Railway; but the wise and economical arrangement of its traffic can
hardly be beaten, and is a model to other large cities and towns
contemplating the adoption of electric tramway traction.
THE LIVERPOOL TRAMWAYS
On a large scale are the Liverpool Corporation Tramways, the total
mileage being 127 of single track, the rolling-stock 451 cars, and the
capital a little over a million.
When the Corporation acquired the Liverpool United Tramways and Omnibus
Company’s undertaking, in 1897, they at once decided to use electricity
on the overhead trolley system, instead of horses. Singularly graceful
centre and bracket poles with arched arms and scroll-work were adopted
in the wide thoroughfares, and in the narrow streets the overhead
conductor-wire was upheld by rosettes attached to buildings on each
side.
The new cars are remarkably fine and comfortable, and include the
Continental single-deck, with a side entrance, and the double-deck,
about 27 feet long, with doors at the ends, and with three large,
well-curtained plate-glass windows on each side. A special kind of
staircase is fitted to these double-deckers to enable people, the aged
and infirm in particular, to descend in safety even when the cars are in
motion. They are also fitted with useful revolving route-indicators,
which, being illuminated, light up the upper deck as well. No one can
grumble at the fares charged, which are at the rate of one penny per
stage of two miles. That these tramways are a great boon is shown by the
enormous number of passengers--nearly 100,000,000--carried last year.
At Pumpfields, near the Exchange and Waterloo Goods Stations, and at
Lister, near Newsham Park, are the power stations, each housing plant of
15,000 horse-power (up to 7,500 kilowatt capacity). The energy is
distributed to sub-stations, and thence to the cars at the safe orthodox
pressure of 500 volts.
The Liverpool tramway routes necessitate many twistings and turnings.
The junction of lines at the intersection of the London Road and Lime
Street is a sight worth seeing, there being at that place special
trackwork with sixteen points.
THE MANCHESTER TRAMWAYS
Manchester--fifth largest city in the empire--has a wide district to
serve, as the Corporation works certain tramways in such districts as
Stockport, Heaton-Norris, etc. Thus its track consists of 150 miles of
single line, and its rolling-stock of 600 cars, worked on the overhead
trolley system.
These cars are of three sizes, and carry respectively 67, 43, and 20
passengers, the smallest cars being single-deck. The larger ones have
six nicely-draped plate-glass windows on each side, and the upholstery,
fittings, and lighting are excellent.
The estimated capital expenditure is the same as at Glasgow, two
millions sterling. A speciality of the Manchester Tramways undertaking
is its splendid car depôt, the site covering three acres, two and a
half of which is roofed over. The façade to Boyle Street is 700 feet
long, and reminds one of some large and picturesque public school, a
tramway-car depôt being the last thing one would take it to be. It is
claimed to be the largest car-shed area in Europe, and the covered-in
portion is the most extensive in the world. In this and three other
similar sheds and a few smaller ones elsewhere all the cars are stabled.
Formerly they were concentrated in one place.
[Illustration: FIG. 19. FAÇADE OF QUEEN’S ROAD CAR-SHED, MANCHESTER
CORPORATION TRAMWAYS
_By permission of the_ _Manchester Corporation Tramways._]
The cars are of the British Thomson-Houston Company type,
double-motored, and are fine examples of elegance and solidity combined,
and fitted with all the latest improvements for the comfort of
travellers.
THE BIRMINGHAM TRAMWAYS
Birmingham, as regards tramways, stands in a peculiar position. Its city
area is restricted; it has only short lengths of tram lines, and these
require to be linked up with outlying districts. The lines were leased
to the City of Birmingham Tramways Company, but whether the Corporation
will or will not take them over now, has not yet been decided. However,
by a majority of fourteen votes it has sanctioned the substitution of
electricity on the overhead method, and this is being proceeded with;
and when the transformation is complete Birmingham and district will
have an electric tramway system of nearly a hundred and ten miles. Its
tramways have always been popular, and at a charge of a penny for a
three-mile ride--a record for cheapness--56,000 passengers made use of
them on Mafeking Day, no small proportion of a city of 522,182
inhabitants!
Before quitting the subject of tramways, it will be interesting to note
the fares charged in different parts of the world. In London they begin
at a halfpenny. On the Continent they vary; for example, in Berlin the
fare is 1¼_d._ for two miles, and a halfpenny for each additional mile;
in Paris it is 3_d_. inside, with transfer ticket, and 1½_d._ on the
platforms, or outside the car; in St. Petersburg 1¼_d._ and 1½_d._ is
the fare; in Stockholm it is the curious sum of 1⅜_d._; in Florence it
is 1_d._ from the suburbs to the city, and 1½_d._ across the city; in
Cape Town it is 3_d._ for three miles; and in Canada the fare averages
2½_d._, and 5_d._ after midnight.
PROVINCIAL RURAL TRAMWAYS
The memorable question once put to the House of Commons, “What is a
pound?” to this day has not met with a strictly accurate reply. The same
may be said of the frequent inquiry, “What constitutes a Light Railway?”
Under the Act of 1896 a Tube should officially be described as a Light
Railway. So should a Shallow Underground, an Urban Tramway, and a Rural
Tramway. So, too, should a Brighton Beach Line, or any short train
running along a pier. So also should any railway line for the carrying
of minerals, worked by heavy sixty-ton locomotives, and hauling five or
six hundred tons of ore at a time! _Reductio ad absurdum._
The originators of the Act did not define what a Light Railway really
is, but they evidently had in their minds, _inter alia_, that railways,
unrestricted by Board of Trade regulations as to fencing, sidings,
gradients, and permanent stations, should be permitted to run along the
high roads, acting as feeders to the existing lines, to the benefit of
the small towns, villages, and farms near which they passed. Thus a
pleasing vision unfolded itself of revived agricultural prosperity, of
handy little trams peacefully steaming along the highways, stopping,
when hailed, at some convenient corner, where the farmers’ waggons would
be in waiting with produce to be taken away to market in exchange for
goods delivered to them.
It was a promising idea, for the cost of construction per mile would
necessarily bear no comparison with that of ordinary heavy railways. But
in this form Light Railways were not developed. Agriculturists abandoned
the hope of any immediate relief, and it came to be recognised that the
Act meant a development, not of goods, but of passenger traffic, and
that, so far as extra-urban districts were concerned, Light Railways
meant Tramways, just as they did in town or city.
It may be asked, “Do not local railways answer all requirements of the
ever-increasing population and already congested districts? Whereabouts
are these country tramways that we hear so much about? and in what
respects are they so useful and necessary?”
For goods the network of local railways covering the country is no
doubt fairly sufficient, and eventually, when well-organised services of
electric-motor waggons aid in feeding them with merchandise collected
and delivered at the very doors of consignor and consignee, they will
fully answer their purpose; but for linking together city, town,
village, and hamlet in the interests of working-men--in many districts
the chief customers--they are almost useless. 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. What they wanted, and what, until the introduction of
electric traction, they waited patiently for, was a service of
comfortable cars, that would pass their houses every few minutes, and
would take them long stages for, at the utmost, a twopenny fare.
To meet this want, in various parts of rural England, more especially in
Staffordshire, horse and steam tramways were tried, but the latter
method, from mechanical reasons, proved to be a failure. The rails
weighed but 45 lbs. to the yard; they were set in iron chairs and laid
on wooden sleepers, and the engines were of the locomotive vertical
boiler type. Soon it was found that the weight of the water damaged the
locomotive, and the incessant vibration and pounding shook the track so
much as to necessitate constant renewal, and the expenditure became so
great that many private Steam Tram Companies either wound up, were
reconstructed, or were taken over by the local authorities.
Unattractive was the appearance of these old-style tramcars--great
cumbersome, top-heavy, two-storied structures, drawn by what looked like
a big iron box with a black funnel poking through its lid. They were
dirty, they smelt, the service was irregular and slow, and the fares
were too high.
MANUFACTURING CENTRES--GREAT BRITAIN
Studying an up-to-date map of Great Britain, one is struck by the fact
that in the distribution of cities, towns, and villages it resembles the
stellar system, with London as the governing central body, while lesser
planets, each surrounded by groups of satellites (not very bright ones,
it is true), varying in size and importance, represent subordinate star
centres. These have grown, and still grow bigger and bigger, the suburbs
of a large town reaching out farther and farther until they touch the
outskirts of the next town, so that in some districts an overgrowth of
houses and factories covers many a square mile.
In the quiet old days that are gone, a working-man, particularly if a
weaver, could labour far away in the country in some miniature workshop
or in his own little room at home. But for years past he has been
compelled to trudge backwards and forwards to some big factory or mill,
where steam-power was concentrated, and run upon so economical a
principle, that outside of it the individual workman had no chance of
gaining even the barest livelihood. With the advent of steam the
villages in certain parts of England were abandoned for the town, where
clusters of great workshops had sprung up. A new order of things arose,
and operatives, if they could, lived within the town boundaries. But as
rates, taxes, and rent increased, they concentrated in outlying hamlets,
within walking
[Illustration: FIG. 20. VIEW NEAR DUDLEY STATION, SOUTH STAFFORDSHIRE,
SHOWING A STEAM TRAM-CAR]
_By permission of the_ _Manual of Electrical Undertakings, Ltd.,
London_]
distance of their work. Thus these hamlets gradually became townlets,
and eventually towns, which in their turn developed into centres of
industries--lesser lights revolving round the greater.
All over the kingdom manufacturing industries have a natural tendency to
settle down in particular localities favoured by the proximity of the
raw material, and by railway or water facilities. Thus Dundee, Aberdeen,
and the North of Ireland are associated with linen and strong textiles;
the Eastern counties and Lincolnshire with agriculture; Warwickshire and
Yorkshire with machinery; Burton-on-Trent with beer; Coventry and
Nottingham with cycles; and so on. Any intelligent schoolboy could reel
off a list of such towns and their products.
Swansea, with its great works for smelting copper and tin ore--the
former brought from South Australia, Chili, and Cornwall; the latter
from the Straits Settlements and Cornwall--and its manufactories of tin
plates, bolts, and zinc goods, is the centre for neighbouring towns
associated with its industries, such as Porth, Pontypridd, and Penarth,
which, together with the Mumbles, are partially linked together by
tramways.
Glasgow, where shipbuilding, armour-plate rolling, and locomotive
constructing flourish, has around it the towns of Gourock, Greenock,
Rothesay, Coatbridge, and Bridge of Allan, all more or less commercially
interested in the great northern city.
Newcastle-on-Tyne and Sunderland, headquarters of England’s
shipbuilding, are surrounded by places connected with or engaged in
kindred industries, as Tynemouth, Stockton, the Hartlepools, Gateshead,
Jarrow, and North and South Shields--the last four practically suburbs
of Newcastle--a fine field for electric tramways.
Then in Yorkshire we have such centres of the linen and woollen
interests as Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield, Halifax, etc., begirt with
townlets which are in process of being interconnected; and further
south, in South Lancashire, Burnley, Oldham, Ashton, Blackburn, Preston,
Rochdale, Bolton, Manchester, and Liverpool, together with endless
smaller places--every one of them engaged in our gigantic cotton
trade--cover large thickly populated areas, supplied with tramway means
of intercommunication.
THE BLACK COUNTRY AND THE POTTERIES
A remarkable instance of the localisation of special industries, and of
a city begirt with good-sized towns, is to be found in the South
Staffordshire Black Country, its central sun being the city of
Birmingham. While in the Potteries are a number of small towns almost
touching one another--star clusters, destined maybe eventually to
coalesce into a single planet of the first magnitude. Here humanity
swarms.
Alighting from a train at any wayside station in the South or West of
England, if one walks along the main road, and avoids the villages, one
may go for miles without meeting a soul. The Londoner, whose nerves have
been unstrung and jarred by incessant contact and friction with his
fellow-citizens for months at a stretch, has only to journey a few
miles, say to Chertsey, Ewell, Epsom, or anywhere in Herts or Surrey,
and in a few moments he finds a peaceful solitude not likely to be
disturbed save by passing cycles or motor-cars. But in the Midlands, and
for that matter anywhere in the North, it is different. There the bulk
of Britain’s population is concentrated. One cannot go for a stroll
without coming across individuals of all ages, who, although accustomed
to see many people, stare at every stranger after a fashion unknown in
the home counties, as if he or she were a wanderer from another planet.
And should it be a child whose curiosity is thus aroused, he will
probably follow the stranger for miles, gaping at nothing!
In the past, the manners and customs of the Black Country folk were
decidedly rough, based on the principle of a blow first and an
explanation afterwards. But this little trait has, under the modern
influence of inter-communication with the outer world, been
considerably modified. They work hard and “play” hard, and are given to
week-end excursions and an annual “outing” to Blackpool, Southport,
Lytham, or other favourite seaside resort. They earn good wages and, if
steady, quickly save money and live in comfortable houses of their own;
but if otherwise, their “good pay” only accelerates the wretchedness of
their surroundings. Lavish with their cash, they are hospitable in the
extreme; great consumers of plain beef and mutton, sweets and kickshaws
they relegate to the women and children; but they no longer--as was
affirmed of puddlers and miners during the boom of many years ago--drink
champagne and feed their bull-pups on loin-chops and rump-steak. They
are keen on dogs, pigeons, and singing-birds. Dog-fights are a thing of
the past, of course, but it is whispered that suspiciously high-bred
gamecocks are still to be seen sub-rosa throughout the district!
Altogether they are not half as black as they are painted; neither is
the aspect of their country, though except in the neighbourhood of
Birmingham it can hardly be called picturesque. They represent the
sturdy old Midland English, independent and brusque, whose confidence
once gained will not be betrayed.
Here, then, in the country called “Black,” is a concentration of
industrial centres, each possessing great natural wealth of coal and
iron, and turning out in enormous quantities cutlery, anvils, bolts,
buttons, ironwork of all kinds, guns, hinges, locomotives, nails, pens,
pins, rails, rifles, screws, tin and zinc-lined goods, tools, tubes,
etc.
In its eighty-square-mile area, between Wolverhampton and the
headquarters of “Chamberlainism” on the one side, and Stourbridge and
Walsall on the other, dwell over a million people, distributed among
some twenty-one towns ranging in size and population from Quarry Bank
(8,000 inhabitants) to Wolverhampton (94,000), and including such
familiar places as Handsworth (38,000), Stourbridge (17,000), Tipton
(33,000), Wednesbury (29,000), and West Bromwich (68,000), all busily
engaged in the industries before mentioned.
Such in a few words is the Black Country district, which the adjoining
Potteries closely resembles. A more promising field for tramway
enterprise could hardly exist. No wonder that George Francis Train in
1860 selected North Staffordshire for one of his earliest, though
unsuccessful, ventures--a two-mile tramway from Hartley to Burslem, in
the very heart of the Potteries.
THE NEW ORDER OF RURAL TRAMWAYS
Subsequently tramway companies came on the scene, with horses and steam
traction, and--in one instance--with electricity. There were five
distinct enterprises: the South Staffordshire Tramways Company, the
Birmingham and Midland Tramways Company, the Dudley and Wolverhampton
Tramways Company, the Wolverhampton Tramways Company, and the Dudley,
Stourbridge, and District Electric Traction Company (a short line of
about four miles).
Not only were these lines entirely separated and disconnected, involving
tedious changing of cars, but two of the five were actually of different
gauge from the rest, making through communication impossible. It was no
system, merely a conglomeration of _disjecta membra_. The tramway
condition of the district became thoroughly unsatisfactory, utterly
inadequate to the needs of the travelling public. Matters gradually went
from bad to worse, and a financial Lord Kitchener was urgently needed to
remodel everything.
He appeared in the form of a powerful organisation, the British Electric
Traction Company, with a share capital of £4,000,000, which entered into
negotiations with the various companies and with the local authorities
controlling no fewer than twenty-two districts, into which the Black
Country area is divided. The proposition was to combine all the Black
Country tramways into one great system to be worked by electricity in
the most up-to-date manner, to give frequent service, to ensure rapid
and comfortable communication between all parts, to straighten things
out well, and to adopt this motto, “One management, one method, one
gauge,” provided the local authorities would for some years suspend
their rights under the Acts of 1870 and 1896 to buy the tramways for
practically the worth of old iron.
Some of the local authorities thought well of it. Others did not,
contending that they, and not the Company, ought to undertake the
reform; while the rest saddled their adherence to the scheme with such
impossible conditions, that the negotiations dragged wearily on, and it
was some time before the great scheme was finally carried through at the
cost of much trouble with the local authorities in the matter of routes
selected for the requisite extensions. In one instance the line,
instead
[Illustration: FIG. 21. VIEW AT CASTLE HILL, DUDLEY, SOUTH
STAFFORDSHIRE. SHOWING AN ELECTRIC TRAM-CAR
_By permission of the_ _Manual of Electrical Undertakings, Ltd.,
London._]
of being carried in the natural way direct to the urban boundaries of a
large town, was compelled by the authorities of the area involved to
turn off at an angle and to gain access to the town in an utterly
roundabout fashion, much as if in London, one was obliged in approaching
St. Paul’s by Ludgate Hill to deflect up the Old Bailey, and to reach
the cathedral by way of Newgate Street.
One thing only is still wanted to make this Light Railway scheme
(typical of other similar ones) perfect, and this is that its cars
should have running powers right into Birmingham and other large towns,
and it is to be hoped that before this book is published they will be
granted. Travellers do not want to change cars when they arrive at the
municipal boundary. They want to move from one centre of population to
the other, to get in at the Birmingham starting-point, and to get out in
the centre of Walsall, West Bromwich, or Wolverhampton, as the case may
be, or even to go without changing as far as Kinver, on the edge of the
Black Country, a favourite holiday resort hitherto inaccessible to the
manufacturing population.
In the North Staffordshire Potteries the British Electric Traction
Company has pursued the same policy as in the Black Country with
excellent result, as may be judged by the number of passengers in 1901.
In the Potteries and the Black Country many millions made use of the
tramways, the system throughout being that of the overhead trolley, and
the combined length of track about 75 miles.
LOCAL AUTHORITIES AND RURAL TRAMWAYS
The whole question of local authority in its relation to rural tramways
needs settling on a sound common-sense
[Illustration: FIG. 22. CAMPS BAY, CAPE TOWN, AND SEAPOINT TRAMWAYS
_By Permission of_ _Dick Kerr & Co., London._]
basis, making the requirements of travellers the dominating object to
the exclusion of petty differences and local aspirations and
jealousy.[7]
If Great Britain is to be networked with these handy means of transport,
and the interspaces of town and village bridged over with cobweb lines
of trams, an Act of Parliament should settle a universal gauge, and on
equitable terms provide for free running powers, whether in town or
country, and encourage an interchange of traffic.
It is constantly urged that it is better for cities and great towns to
create tramway lines of their own, and work them within their own
boundaries, and that the task of dealing with the rural interspaces
should be left to the small towns and areas, and not to private
enterprise. The opponents of this principle argue that one great
objection to municipal trams is that they are compelled to work within
artificial local boundaries, and that there are grave drawbacks to
municipal trading in any form. As to the interspaces, to work them by
themselves would never pay, and any interspaced tramway system would be
almost useless without intimate connection with urban centres as
feeders, which is only obtainable by the uniform control afforded under
joint stock enterprise. Besides--say the objectors to municipal or rural
council control--if private working is the most economical way of
running tramways in interspaces, it should be still more economical in
towns.
Surely, therefore, there would be no hardship in restricting the
development of urban and rural tramways to local authorities wielding
power over areas of a certain size and importance, and the loss to small
communities of the power of objection or veto to large schemes ought not
to be felt by them. They and the landowners should take warning from the
history of railways, and encourage in every way the introduction and
extension of tramways, which in remote districts would vastly relieve
the tedium of existence, enabling labourers and others to temporarily
exchange some dull little village for the comparatively lively market
town at a nominal cost. Whereas, in many instances, instead of welcoming
this herald of a brighter and less monotonous life, too often is
repeated the scene immortalised in _Punch_ some years ago. A brickfield:
“Bill, who’s that chap?” “Do’ant know. A stranger, I should think.”
“Then heave ’arf a brick at his ’ed.”
Capitalists should be encouraged to embark in tramway enterprises that
are bound to be beneficial to everybody, and in which they would be
entitled to a fair return of interest; for truly the labourer is worthy
of his reward.
CHAPTER XIV
_THE SHALLOW UNDERGROUND SYSTEM_
“Through the faithless excavated soil
See the unweary’d Briton delves his way.”
BLACKMORE.
IN LONDON
Hitherto we have been considering Metropolitan Electric Railways
constructed at considerable depths below the surface, or lifted up on
high, as at the Liverpool Docks.
There is another system, however, and one that is strongly advocated by
the London County Council, at present chiefly as a means of linking
together existing tram lines by taking the cars underground through
congested areas and bringing them to the surface again where the traffic
is less dense.
In its ever-increasing congested condition, London reminds us of a
patient afflicted with dropsy of long standing, susceptible to
occasional alleviation, but hopelessly incurable. In Tudor, Stuart, and
Hanoverian days the town gave no signs of this malady; but with Queen
Victoria’s reign the germs of it became evident, and now the giant city
lies prostrate in a state of helplessness that has baffled the most
skilful engineering physicians, whose remedies, trains and trams and
tubes, have been successful only in giving temporary relief to the
sufferer, who forthwith resumes and even increases his original bulk.
For ages the ocean, without breaking its bounds, has absorbed the rivers
and streams running into it; but imagine the process reversed, and the
English and Irish Channels and the North Sea unrestrictedly pouring
their torrents into the Thames, the Forth, or the Liffey! Only one
result could ensue. The channels thus gorged with water, their currents
would cease to flow. A similar fate threatens London, into whose narrow
and inelastic fairways an Atlantic of traffic is ever pouring. One day
the current will be unable to flow, and there will be a permanent
condition of “block.” Then, and only then, perhaps, will a partial
migration of town to country bring about a more natural state of things,
and save this colossal city from utter collapse.
These shallow tramways of the London County Council are a novelty in
England, but on a large scale have been successfully adopted in Paris,
Buda-Pesth, Boston, and New York. At present the shallow subway which
the Council has been authorised to construct at a total cost of
£279,000, commences at Theobald’s Road, Holborn, where it forms a
junction with an existing surface tramway, the property of the Council.
Thence the line falls in level, until, in Southampton Row, it runs
beneath the street, whence, in a trench of inconsiderable depth, it
passes along the new thoroughfare, Kingsway, from Southampton Row to the
new Strand crescent, Aldwych. There it turns towards the Embankment, on
gaining which near Waterloo Bridge it again comes out to the surface. In
its total length of about five-eighths of a mile it has four stations.
Its motive power is electricity on the underground conduit third rail
system. The cars, running singly, and at frequent intervals, are
single-decked. It claims for its principle that the station platforms
are readily accessible, so that instead of having to descend a great
number of steps, or to enter a lift to reach the cars, passengers arrive
there by means of a short well-lighted stairway; that the ventilation of
the tunnels is perfect, and the speed of the cars equal to that of the
trains, and as they run singly and close together, long waits are
avoided, and thus they are specially suited for short-distance
travelling. It also claims a general immunity from vibration.
To thoroughly understand how a complete system of shallow underground
works we must go abroad to Paris, Buda-Pesth, Boston, and New York. I
may remark that in describing this system a certain amount of repetition
is inevitable.
PARIS
Paris has its “Twopenny Tube,” or rather its equivalent. On July 30th,
1900, Londoners for the first time travelled by a deep-level line from
the City to Shepherds Bush, a distance of 5·77 miles; and a few days
earlier, on the 19th of the same month, the Electrical Chemin de Fer
Métropolitain de Paris--the main channel of an elaborate system that
links together every district of the capital--was opened for traffic.
This chief artery connects at the fortifications, the Porte Maillot with
the Porte de Vincennes, a distance of 6·6 miles. In other words, it
crosses Paris diagonally from north-west to south-east; from a point at
the north of the Bois de Boulogne to another at the north of the Bois de
Vincennes; the eighteen stations (including terminals) on the main line
being Porte Maillot, Rue D’Obligado, Place de L’Etoile (Arc de
Triomphe), Avenue de L’Alma, Rue Marbœuf, Champs Elyseés, Place de la
Concorde, Tuileries, Palais Royal, Louvre, Châtelet, Hotel de Ville,
St. Paul, Place de la Bastille, Gare de Lyons, Rue de Reuilly, Place de
la Nation, and Porte de Vincennes.
On the Métropolitain there is a three-minutes’ service of trains during
the day, and a six-minutes’ service at night. On the London Tube the
intervals vary from two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half minutes in the
day, while at night they are the same as in Paris, both railways being
open for some twenty hours out of the twenty-four.
In Paris two classes of passengers are provided for: first and second.
The former are called upon to pay 2½_d._, the latter 1½_d._, for any
length of journey. Up to nine a.m., second-class, or workmen’s tickets,
are issued for 2_d._, the return half being available for the remainder
of the day.
Thus, as regards date of opening, length of line, service of trains, and
average fares, there is a close similarity between the English and
French lines; but the system is widely different. In London we burrow
deep; in Paris they go just beneath the surface, the authorities after
much hesitation having adopted the shallow underground system. Our Tube
trains are shot through huge iron pipes penetrating the subsoil at
depths varying from sixty to a hundred feet, and to get at the rail
level, passengers must take a perpendicular journey in a big lift. But
their Parisian counterparts trip down a few steps and along a
brightly-lighted, white-tiled tunnel, so beautifully ventilated and
smokeless--electricity being the motive power--that an enthusiastic
expert declares its atmosphere to be “perfectly clean and sweet.” The
tunnels are as near the surface as possible, and on the greater part of
the line the keystones of the masonry arches are only about 3 feet 6
inches below the street level. The excavations were at first attempted
by means of shields, as in “tubular” work; but this had to be abandoned
in favour of the time-honoured “cut and cover” plan employed in the
construction of our early underground railway.
When the great Parisian scheme is completed upon a twentieth-century
model, much more finished and convenient in many ways than any of ours
in London, it will comprise a total length of 38·86 miles of track,
seven-tenths being laid in shallow covered trenches, the remainder in
open cuttings or on viaducts, the entire cost being estimated at twelve
million sterling. An interesting feature of the scheme is that each
section is self-contained and ends in loops, so that shunting is
obviated. No trains run from any one distant strip of line into another,
but where there are crossings, or where the termini touch, there are
stations to facilitate changing. This arrangement ensures a rapid
service, maintained with regularity and punctuality on each section.
Like our “Tube,” the success of the Parisian Métropolitain was from the
first immense, and at the end of ten months showed a return of over
forty million passengers.
BUDA-PESTH
Along the Boulevard Andrassy at Buda-Pesth there is a shallow electric
tramway built upon similar principles, a few feet under the main
thoroughfare, which is by no means a failure, financially or otherwise.
BOSTON
Now let us cross the Atlantic, and note what has been effected at Boston
and New York.
The former--the picturesque old-world capital of the State of
Massachusetts, with its population of over a million--is familiarised
to every schoolboy who knows anything of history and the War of
Independence, with the city where the tea was thrown into the harbour by
Colonials disguised as Mohawks, an incident that indirectly brought
about the creation of the United States. It is a city also sacred to
literati as being the home of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and is so
old-fashioned--or so excessively up-to-date, whichever you please--that,
until recently, neither cabs, omnibuses, tubes, or underground railways
were to be found within its boundaries. What with the uneven surface and
the labyrinth of the streets, Boston is picturesque in spite of itself,
and its old buildings emphasize this. There are the two New England
meeting-houses. The “Old South” has been proudly preserved in its
ancient state, although the ground on which it stands is almost as
valuable as that in the City of London. Architecturally, it is a brick
barn, with a pretentiously ugly steeple. “Old North” has an equally
plain body, but from its steeple, as a tablet affixed to it sets forth,
“the signal lantern of Paul Revere warned the country of the march of
the British troops to Lexington and Concord.” King’s Chapel, another
ecclesiastical antiquity of Boston, was, for a quarter of a century
after 1749, the place of worship of the official British colony, and
accordingly became an eyesore to the earnest puritanical Bostonians.
But Boston cannot, like Charlestown, South Carolina, boast of a St.
Michael’s Church, famous for its beautiful steeple, so greatly
resembling that of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields as to suggest that
probably they were both designed by the same architect, Gibbs, one of
Wren’s pupils.
In the Act passed by the State Legislature authorising the construction
of the Boston subway, it was stipulated that its length should be some
five miles, and its total cost not more than one and a half million
pounds sterling.
The construction of the subway was begun at the Public Gardens, where an
incline, a hundred yards long, carries the surface lines into the
tunnel, passing under the edge of Boston Common to Tremont Street. It is
joined by a branch subway from Pleasant Street, where another incline
leads to the surface. From this junction the subway proceeds beneath the
Tremont Street side of the Common to Park Street, which is the central
point of the system. Thence it is carried directly beneath Tremont
Street to Scollay Square, and by means of a bifurcation under Hanover
Street on the one hand and Cornhill on the other to a junction under
Washington Street. The tunnel continues under Washington Street to
Haymarket Square, and immediately rises by an incline to Causeway
Street, where it connects with both the surface and the elevated lines.
Wherever possible, the subway was carried out by open excavations, and,
as in the Paris Métropolitain, by the old-fashioned “cut and cover”
method. The roof of the tunnel is generally about three feet below the
surface, though in some places considerably lower. At and near the
stations the subway sides are lined with white glazed bricks, whitewash
being used elsewhere.
There are five stations in the Boston shallow underground, viz. at
Boylston Street, Park Street, Adams Square, Scollay Square, and
Haymarket Square. These are approached by short stairways, protected
from the weather by neat clock-surmounted kiosks, or small iron
structures, in shape resembling our cab shelters, and placed at
convenient points, either on the sidewalks or--where there is sufficient
width--in the centre of the
[Illustration: FIG. 23. BOSTON SUBWAY, SHOWING ENTRANCE AT THE PUBLIC
GARDENS
_By permission of the_ _London County Council_]
roadway. Passengers can thus, by about twenty-five steps, go to and from
the platforms in a few seconds. The ticket-offices are at the bottom of
the stairways. The passenger returns at Park Street (the busiest
station) are among the largest in the world, being 28,000,000 per annum.
The Boston surface street cars adopt the overhead trolley principle of
electric traction, and the elevated railway-cars the third rail system,
both these systems being continued throughout the subway.
The subway is illuminated electrically, but a considerable amount of
natural light is also obtained, especially at the stations; and Captain
Piper, deputy of the New York Police, when on a visit to London last
February, discussing the question of ventilation in tube railways, gave
it as his opinion that the freshest air he had “struck” in an
underground railway was at Boston. “The air,” he said, “is excellent.”
The subway is, of course, perfectly clean, smokeless, and comparatively
quiet; neither in the streets can any noise be heard from the cars that
are continually passing close beneath. By an extension of the subway
under Boston harbour, the surface lines in the district of East Boston
are connected with the main system, thus making the entire length eight
miles of single track.
NEW YORK
In New York, after much careful consideration of the advantages and
disadvantages of deep tunnels (tubes) and shallow railways, the Rapid
Transit Commissioners decided upon the latter as being likely to give
the best facilities for quick travelling. On account of its peculiar
peninsular shape, admitting of extension in one direction
[Illustration: FIG. 24. NEW YORK SUBWAY IN COURSE OF CONSTRUCTION. CAR
TRAFFIC MAINTAINED
_By permission of the_ _London County Council_]
only, the problem of transportation in the Empire City is comparatively
easy, the routes being straight, and no necessity existing for
intercommunication as in London. But, on the other hand, the number of
persons to be carried morning and evening is greater.
Instead of the arched roof and masonry side-walks of the ordinary
underground, there is a rectangular structure with a framework of steel
beams riveted together, concrete enclosing the erection completely at
the top and sides, and forming the bottom, rows of steel columns helping
to support the roof between the tracks--in other words, a kind of
Britannia Bridge let into the surface of the earth. The line has four
tracks, the two centre ones being reserved for an express service (30
miles an hour), with stations 1½ miles apart. On the other tracks the
stations are closer together, about four to the mile. So that there are
two kinds of stations; one with platforms on the outside of the outer
(or slow) track (at which only local trains stop), and another with
platforms for fast trains only, and island platforms for either local or
express trains. At the former stations the subway is sufficiently deep
to allow of a bridge over the entire four tracks, with staircases
leading to the various platforms. By means of loops, and, in places, by
the lowering of the express track beneath the local tracks, crossings
and switchings at the termini are, as in the Paris Métropolitain,
eliminated, and the cars run continuously without any shunting whatever.
Its general scheme is as follows. Starting with a loop round the General
Post Office, a four-track route is taken direct to the Grand Central
Station in 42nd Street. It then turns west along 42nd Street to
Broadway, and proceeds under Broadway to 104th Street, a distance of
seven miles. Here the four tracks divide, a
[Illustration: FIG. 25. NEW YORK SUBWAY, SHOWING HOW IT WAS BUILT
_By permission of the_ _London County Council_]
double track continuing along Broadway to Kingsbridge, and another
double track going in an easterly direction under the Harlem river to
the Bronx district. Each of these branches is seven miles long, making a
total length, for the whole system, of twenty-one miles, seven being for
four track and fourteen for double track. The northerly ends of the
double-track line are on the surface for a combined distance of about
five miles, the remainder being shallow underground. At convenient
points inclines lead to the surface from the subway, and are linked to
street trams and elevated railroads. Electricity is exclusively used for
traction and lighting, and the cost of the entire scheme was originally
estimated at £7,000,000.
Now, what is the conclusion to be come to as to the adaptability of the
shallow underground system to our vast metropolis, whose station at
Liverpool Street is the busiest in the world, with its “turnover” of
forty-five millions of passengers per annum; St. Lazare, at Paris,
coming next with forty-three millions?
In newly-constructed thoroughfares provision for shallow subways, and
for sewers, pipes, cables, etc., can be easily made; but in
old-established streets the difficulty and expense in making them would
be formidable, as vaults and cellars used for business purposes
frequently extend right across the narrow carriageways, and a perfect
network of conduits would have to be displaced and moved either below or
alongside the subway.
Some idea of the cost of interfering with sewers may be gathered by the
fact that in constructing the New York subway an entirely new outfall
sewer, over six feet in diameter, had to be built one mile in length! On
the other hand, labour is cheaper in this country than in America, and
in London there is no rock to be removed as in New York.
In conclusion, I would quote from the report of Lieutenant-Colonel
Yorke, who was sent over to Paris two or three years ago by the Board of
Trade to inspect the Métropolitain. He thinks that as regards
convenience for passengers and economy of working, the balance of
advantage lies with the shallow tunnel or subway as compared with the
deep-level tube. But he hesitates a little when confronted with the
thought of what would happen to London while its roadways were in
process of being undermined. The difficulties in the way of adopting the
subway would, he says, be great, though he does not emphatically declare
that he considers them prohibitive; and he approves of the attempt made
to introduce the system in the manner adopted by the London County
Council beneath the new street between Holborn and the Strand.
CHAPTER XV
_HORSELESS VEHICLES--ELECTRICAL AND OTHERWISE_
“Cars without horses will go.”--MOTHER SHIPTON.
PRIVATE MOTOR-CARS
The above prediction, constantly quoted at the advent of railways, is
being realised with the utmost exactness. Except the late craze for
cycling, nothing is more remarkable than the boom in the motor-car.
Prior to the passing of the “Locomotives on Highways Act” in 1896,
motoring was an impossibility. Even then its advance was slow, and until
about three years ago motor-cars were decidedly unpopular. The London
street boys--miniature representatives of public opinion--derided them,
and, with their usual fiendish lack of sympathy, rejoiced when they came
to grief; while ’bus-drivers and cabmen ironically likened all
automobiles to traction engines, cherishing the delusion that they
continually broke down, cost a small fortune to maintain, and, worse
than all, dislocated every bone in their occupants’ bodies.
This contempt reached a climax when certain lemon-coloured electric cabs
were seen plying for hire, ugly to look at and limited in speed; while
simultaneously a line of steam omnibuses, so cumbersome and weighty
[Illustration: FIG. 26. ELECTRIC CARRIAGE ENTIRELY OF BRITISH
CONSTRUCTION
_By permission of_ _Henry F. Joel & Co., London_]
as to really merit comparison with traction engines, began to run to
Victoria Station.
But an extraordinary and rapid change has come over popular taste, and
nothing is needed to bring motor-cars into universal use, save a
lowering of their cost; for even the cheapest are rather beyond the
means of people with moderate incomes. This may be one reason why they
are so fashionable, though the King’s marked predilection for travelling
by them has done much to make “motoring” the correct thing; and His
Majesty has recently consented to become a patron of the Automobile
Club.
Before the advent of the motor-car, Society, though tired of “biking”
and craving for a novelty, could not tolerate the notion of being seen
in any other than a well-horsed vehicle. Society now thinks differently,
as evidenced by a stroll in the Park during the season. There, in the
midst of graceful landaus and other equipages drawn by the most splendid
horses in the world, may be seen endless electric and steam barouches,
broughams, victorias, and cars, all perfectly noiseless, and magnificent
petrol motor-cars (_not_ noiseless!), resplendent with brass and
oxidised silver fittings and upholstered in morocco, whose fair
occupants are smartly dressed in tailor-made motoring gowns or, on warm
days, in ordinary carriage toilettes.
Some of the fashionable hotels own big cars and run them in lieu of
coaches for their customers’ benefit to various places near London;
while, to the vexation of omnibus companies, motor waggonettes, duly
authorised by Scotland Yard, ply to and from Putney and Piccadilly
Circus, always “full up” with people, no longer the butt (as they used
to be), but the envy, of pedestrians. And these public cars, though not
perfect, are an advance upon omnibuses, and do not break down more
frequently than horsed conveyances.
In the country motor-cars have become indispensable, more especially to
landed proprietors, with houses always full of visitors who, with their
luggage, have to be conveyed to and from the station. They are much used
for race-meetings and for conveying shooting parties to the covert side,
stubble, or moor, in comfort, golfers to the links, and fishermen to the
riverbank; picnics would be failures without them; and delightful
excursions to all kinds of outlying places are arranged by the host,
proud of “motoring” his guests, who thus are made acquainted with bits
of beautiful scenery they would otherwise have remained ignorant of; as
in the case of the King’s and Queen’s visit to Chatsworth last January,
when a feature of the programme was a series of motor-car tours in North
and West Derbyshire. In fact, the motor is a most important factor in
English country life, and the art of managing it is gradually
superseding that of riding, driving, and four-in-hand coaching. Eheu!
Horseless vehicles are not actual novelties. They have merely been in
abeyance while the perfecting of our iron roads has proceeded. The
earliest practical specimen emanated from an inventor named Guyniot a
hundred and thirty years ago, but nothing commercially serious came of
it, and the idea slept. In 1786 William Symington produced his
steam-engine, to run upon an ordinary road. It had the condenser and the
ratchet-motion used in his steamboat, an invention of which he was the
originator. The boiler and funnel were in the front, a coach on
C-springs between them, and the steering gear, with a kind of bicycle
handle-bar, at the rear. The machine, it was said, worked well.
Then, in 1821, a steam-coach by Griffiths attracted much attention,
being the first self-propelled vehicle to ply for passengers on British
roads. It had a boiler with water-tubes as now used in the Serpollet and
Belleville systems for motor-cars. In appearance it somewhat resembled
the Symington, but carried a double coach mounted on railway springs.
Walter Hancock’s three-wheeled steam-coach of 1828 looked like a
tricycle with a big funnel, and was propelled by a pair of oscillating
cylinders working the double-cranked axle of the steering-wheel.
In 1859 the Marquis of Stafford had a steam-coach built that weighed
less than a ton. With its chain-action it anticipated the modern
bicycle: in front it had a kind of bath-chair seat facing the steering
gear. In this vehicle Lord Stafford and party of three made trips at
from nine to twelve miles an hour over heavy roads without any
difficulty, it being easy to guide and remarkably steady. In these steam
coaches the funnels appear to have been placed in the rear.
All these ideas, though from one point of view crude, undoubtedly
represented
“...such refraction of events
As often rises ere they rise.”
The motor-car industry in Great Britain is flourishing, and it is
estimated that out of a total of some ten thousand horseless carriages
in the country one-tenth are of home manufacture (the remainder being
French or American), a small proportion, truly, but a great increase
upon the number built in 1890; and at the Reliability Trials of the
Automobile Club last September (1902), thirty-five of British make took
part in the contest, and only twenty-six of Continental or American
origin, a most satisfactory feature to those who are eager to see
British makers second to none in motor-car construction, especially, as
the aim of the competition was to encourage the building of machines
that would be thoroughly dependable in all conditions of road and
weather.
[Illustration: FIG. 27. A “CROWDUS” ELECTRIC CARRIAGE
_By permission of the Fischer Motor Vehicle Syndicate, London._]
At the last Crystal Palace Automobile Show, national vanity was
certainly gratified. Not only was the exhibition the largest ever held
in the country, but was a concrete example of the remarkable progress of
an industry which, so far as these islands are concerned, started
lamentably late in the day. There were brought together at the Crystal
Palace about seven hundred and fifty motor-propelled vehicles of every
class, ranging from the powerful steam lorry, capable of transporting a
load of 7½ tons, to the latest “flier,” light and elegant of
construction, and costing anything up to some £3,000. Motor tricycles
and bicycles formed a strong section. The cosmopolitan character of the
exhibition is shown by the fact that among the two hundred or so
exhibitors were the leading English, French, Dutch, Italian, and German
firms.
By general consent the show was regarded to have made plain the fact
that in efficiency and reliability the English maker has drawn at least
level with his foreign rival, while, so far as the production of motors
for _commercial_ purposes is concerned, he still stands far ahead.
Automobiles are of all sizes up to magnificent 40-or 60-horse-power
racers. For town use there are broughams, victorias, landaus, and
landaulettes (open or closable for country work), the phaeton with four
seats, placed two by two, looking forward, and the tonneau--a kind of
small omnibus with a movable back--with the two rear seats in the
corners.
Sometimes cars are run with six seats arranged in three pairs, with
plenty of room both for the driver and the coveted box-seats. Most cars
of either pattern have a glass front screen, while some have a fixed
roof as well. The greater number are driven by the use of petrol, the
machinery being in front under what is called the “bonnet,” and the ease
with which the oil can be obtained has great advantages for a touring
expedition.
Steam is also employed for motor-cars, and is practically noiseless, but
there are obvious objections to its use, however skilfully the working
parts are constructed.
In London, electromobiles are extremely popular, and no wonder, for
there is no smell, no vibration, and no noise; the speed attainable is
great, and they are under perfect control, advantages involving the use
of storage batteries, the recharging of which is a lengthy operation,
seldom taking less than five hours. But, as Mr. Llewellyn Preece
observed about twelve months
[Illustration: FIG. 28. AN ELECTRIC VICTORIA WITH BRITISH
STORAGE-BATTERIES
_By permission of the_ _Electric Power Storage Co., Ltd., London_]
ago, “this condition of affairs is gradually disappearing; private
electric carriages are now to be seen in London, and their number is
increasing. Cars can be obtained capable of running to Brighton,
Portsmouth, and other places within seventy or eighty miles of the
metropolis.” (_i.e._ on one charge. They may be called “short-tour
cars.”)
Electric town-cars are generally of the landaulette type--for
theatre-going, and for paying visits in such inaccessible suburbs as
Stoke Newington, Balham, and Hampstead. They carry from two to four
passengers, can attain a speed of fourteen miles an hour, and will run
forty miles without recharging.
A long-distance electric car, to compete with petrol, has yet to be
made, but it will shortly be possible to obtain one of moderate weight
at a reasonable price that will cover one hundred and twenty miles on a
single charge; and, as a matter of fact, tours of more than a thousand
miles (from London to Glasgow and back) have been satisfactorily
accomplished.
PUBLIC CONVEYANCES
The perfect motor-omnibus, and, for that matter, the perfect ’bus of any
kind, has yet to arise, and is suggestive of Darwinism in the length of
time required for its evolution. But can London and the long-suffering
traveller wait ten million years or so--putting up meanwhile with the
inconvenience of existing vehicles--until the omnibus companies wake up,
or are superseded by more enterprising business adventurers?
Why, for instance, should all omnibuses be stuffy? There was a reason
for it when their floors were covered with straw and they were shut in
with doors. But now there are no doors, and there is nothing to harbour
damp; yet even when the passengers sitting at the entrance of the
omnibus are assailed by icy blasts, those at the far end are in an
atmosphere of mustiness strongly suggestive of stables. Then, on days
when the roads are greasy, these vehicles crawl along, often taking an
hour and a half to travel from Fulham to Liverpool Street (a distance of
about six miles). Upon such minor nuisances and annoyances as the
exiguous space (about 2 feet 6 inches) between the seats, ticket-giving
and ticket-examining, the jarring of brakes, the rattling of loose
coach-bolts, the lurching of the top-heavy structure, the windows that
will not open, the glare and dust in summer, the Cimmerian darkness in
winter and at night, the stout people who take up too much room, the wet
umbrellas and odoriferous waterproof cloaks, the exasperating and often
unnecessary stopping every few hundred yards to the distress of the poor
animals, it is needless to dilate. We experience them every day of our
lives.
But better times are in store for the horses, and better times for our
children (perhaps even for ourselves), who will see in London’s streets
electric omnibuses in which it will be a delight to travel.
Between Oxford Circus and Cricklewood (not far from Hendon) are now
running improved motor-omnibuses built in Scotland for a London
syndicate, to the requirements of the Chief Commissioner of Police. It
will be remembered that some years ago a very large Thorneycroft steam
’bus plied for custom. It carried thirty-six passengers, but, turning
the scale at three tons, it was of illegal weight as a vehicle, and
should have come under the definition of a traction engine with speed
limited to four miles an hour, and preceded by a man with a red flag. So
it was ultimately withdrawn.
But the new “Stirling” steam omnibuses are only 32 cwt. when empty. The
engine is of 12 horse-power, and is geared for three forward speeds of
4½, 9, and 14 miles per hour, with one slow reversing speed, while by a
clever contrivance the driving machinery ceases to act if 14·2 miles be
exceeded, both steering gear and brakes being under perfect control.
Handsomely fitted up, with large windows that can be taken bodily out in
hot weather, and with comfortable leather-covered spring seats, the new
’buses are a decided step in the right direction.
At the last meeting of the London General Omnibus Company the
deputy-chairman stated that there was no kind of motor traction that
would pay the company to take up. If anything was done in that direction
it would be in the use of petrol. Steam was of no use, because of the
great vibration, and he doubted if the Government would permit 15,000
such omnibuses to run over the streets. In his opinion the time to take
up motor omnibuses had not yet arrived.
But the London Road Car Company has taken a different and more
far-sighted view of the situation, and a combination of petrol and
electricity is now to be tested by it.
Cars of the Fischer combination pattern have arrived from America. Each
has a 10 horse-power petrol engine which drives a dynamo, the current
from which is used to work a motor acting directly on the wheels.
This may, perhaps, seem a needless complication, but there is much
method in it. A 10 horse-power engine is not sufficiently powerful to
drive a fully-laden ’bus up a hill at any reasonable pace, but there are
many places where a ’bus will run by its own weight, and needs no
engine. The new car is provided with accumulators. When little or no
power is required by the motor, the current is switched on to the
accumulators, so as to store up a reserve for hill-climbing. So when
necessary, the car draws on the reserve in the accumulators, and with
them and the dynamo develops not 10 but 20 horse-power, enough to take
it up and over any hill that ’buses climb.
[Illustration: FIG. 29. A “FISCHER” COMBINATION OMNIBUS
Capacity fifteen passengers; weight, 2 tons 13 cwt.; speed, 12 miles an
hour
_By permission of the Fischer Motor Vehicle Syndicate, Ltd., London_]
The manager of the Road Car Company is of opinion that the new vehicles
will carry from twelve to twenty passengers. Owing to the greater speed
of the motors, however, the passenger accommodation provided by, say,
half a dozen such cars would be greater than that of a similar number of
omnibuses, for the service would be more frequent. Not much increase of
speed can be hoped for in congested areas, but outside these the motor
should be able to run half as fast again as the horsed ’bus.
There exists, however, no reason why a still more improved and refined
omnibus service should not be started, electricity alone being adopted,
instead of steam, petrol, or a combination. Runs of seventy and eighty
miles without recharging are perfectly feasible by using standard
long-distance batteries, and would suffice for the daily journeys of the
omnibus, while the recharging could be effected with little or no
trouble after working-hours.
Motor-omnibuses, besides working on the regular routes, can be run on
the tramway time-table system on tramway sections where there is little
traffic; while for developing scantily-populated districts and
accustoming people to travel, automobile public conveyances are perfect
agencies, the very fact that they can choose their own route
accentuating this great advantage; and on special occasions, for
instance when exhibitions are held in places inaccessible by tramways,
they will be a source of considerable profit.
Our provincial towns (take Eastbourne and Hastings for example) are
beginning to wake up on the subject, and many of them have adopted or
contemplated the starting of some form of horseless omnibus, in several
cases the motive power being electricity. Across the Atlantic automobile
’buses are run by the Fifth Avenue Stage Company of New York City down
Fifth Avenue, and have proved most popular; while in Chicago there are
three lines of electric omnibuses successfully competing with the street
cars for patronage. They are double-decked, seating forty passengers,
and when they are “full-up” express speed is put on, and there are no
more stoppages until the down-town district is reached.
As to four-wheeled cabs, they are hopelessly behind the times, though
excellent ones may be evolved out of the landaulette type of
electromobiles. During sixty-two years of sullen toleration on the part
of the public, the growler has improved but little, and it remains a
mystery why in the streets of the world’s metropolis comfortable and
comely private vehicles cannot be hailed for hire, as in other cities.
New and improved cabs, such as the “Brougham,” the “Clarence,” and the
“Chesterfield,” from time to time appear in our streets, and inspire
hope that a general reformation is about to take place, and that neat
little coupés will be universal. But in some unaccountable manner, after
a brief season they disappear from public view--as did the
lemon-coloured electric broughams of a few years ago--relegated to some
mysterious region where vehicular failures find employment when banished
from Modern Babylon.
CHAPTER XVI
_HORSELESS VEHICLES, ELECTRICAL AND OTHERWISE (continued)_
MOTOR-CARS IN WARFARE
The question of mechanical traction in war is of the gravest importance,
the increasing size of armies and the large area they cover when in
action, necessitating the employment of some form of haulage other than
that of railways or horses.
For bringing up guns and their ammunition at a critical moment
automobiles are of the greatest value. At the Motor-car Reliability
Trials last autumn there was present a military officer of considerable
experience who was much impressed with the possibilities of the motor in
battle. If, he argued, sixty cars could run down from London to the
South Coast easily in three hours carrying an average of four passengers
each, the same number of horseless vehicles could convey sixty
machine-guns to Brighton in a similar time. A corps of these might, he
said, have proved extremely handy in the late South African campaign. To
illustrate this, he pointed out that quick-firing guns carried on
automobiles might possibly have ended the Boer War after the action of
Poplar Grove. He was present on that occasion, and could speak with
authority. All the enemy had been routed out of their far-reaching
trenches and were in full flight. Then was the time to push home the
attack, but cavalry and infantry were thoroughly done up by the great
flanking movement and were unable to follow up their advantage. In full
sight of our army, the Boers scuttled away along the plain with only a
few desultory shells fired after them. “Now,” said the officer, “if we
had only possessed a few automobiles with guns on that occasion we
should have scored very heavily. The veldt was level enough for the
purpose. A big victory at that critical moment might have thoroughly
demoralised the Boers, already much disheartened by Cronje’s defeat a
short time before at Paardeberg, and so caused them to surrender without
much ado.”
No doubt the gallant soldier took rather a sanguine view of the
situation; but of one thing he might have been certain, viz., that at
that time neither an unenterprising War Office, nor a Colonial
Department capable of requisitioning ordinary infantry from Australia to
act against the wily mounted Boer, would for one moment have thought of
sending motor-cars out for the purpose he suggests!
Not only for light artillery, but for heavy guns, motors can now be used
in warfare, and Lord Roberts had a road-train constructed for South
Africa sufficiently armoured to withstand rifle-fire, and powerful
enough to draw a couple of heavy guns with their crews and ammunition,
the motive power being steam.
In the prosaic work of conveying stores, motor-tractors with lorries
are fast becoming integral parts of our complicated war-system, and the
report of the trials held at Aldershot in December, 1901, is decidedly
in favour of their employment on a large scale. The tests were severe,
and included two days’ running (with full loads) of thirty miles a day,
and a march of 197 miles (also with full loads) in six consecutive, days
on roads both hard and soft, and even over boggy ground, the gradients
being various, and in places very stiff. The first prize was awarded to
the Thorneycroft Steam Waggon Company, but although the committee
believed that these steam lorries were serviceable and useful for the
present, they were much struck with the great possibilities of machines
burning heavy oil. Their observations were as follows:--
“Compared with horse-draught, these trials have shown that
self-propelled lorries can transport five tons of stores at about six
miles an hour over very considerable distances on hilly, average English
roads under winter conditions. The load transported by each single lorry
(five tons) if carried in horse-waggons of service pattern would
overload three G.S. waggons, requiring twelve draught horses, besides
riding horses, whose pace would not ordinarily exceed three miles an
hour. Moreover, the marching of 197 miles in six consecutive days would
not have been accomplished by horses even at that speed without the
assistance of spare horses.”
To this report appeared the following appendix of considerable
importance:--
“The committee, in carrying out the tests, travelled in motor-cars, and
as a result of their experience they remark, ‘The committee desire to
bring to special notice the incidental demonstration afforded by these
trials of the great possibilities for staff work, and for work in
connection with the command of long transport trains, of the motor-car.
No vehicles drawn by horses could have possibly covered the distances or
kept up the speeds required; portions of the roads, sometimes miles in
length, had to be traversed and retraversed several times, and at speeds
beyond the capabilities of horse-flesh. Riding horses would have been
knocked up to an extent necessitating large relays. The staff officer,
moreover, instead of being fatigued, is always comparatively fresh at
the end of the day.’”
No wonder that the Army, from the Commander-in-Chief downwards, is
quickly becoming devoted to motoring. The quantity of work that can be
got through by means of the automobile is a revelation to those who have
been used to travelling by means of horses.
[Illustration: FIG. 30. THE “HERCULES” TRACTION ENGINE, AS USED DURING
THE CRIMEAN WAR
_By permission of_ _Sampson Low, Marston, & Co., London_]
During the Crimean War, Boydell’s traction machine was used to haul open
trucks on the road and across country. Its engine, the “Hercules,” was
fitted with a curious arrangement, which, by means of rails attached in
six sections to the wheels, enabled it to lay down and take up its own
track as it went along.
In the South African campaign the military traction engines did some
excellent work, and, as they rolled over the plains, startled the
Kaffirs out of their senses at the unwonted sight of what they probably
thought was some new and monstrous form of rhinoceros.
It has yet to be decided what is the best motive power for lorry cars in
warfare, both oil and steam motors having, as compared with those driven
by electricity, the disadvantage that the machinery moves by a series of
shocks. Doubtless the ideal power would be one that acted evenly. The
electric motor is superior to all others in the regularity of its
action, and its steering is most readily effected. All that is wanted to
adapt electric traction to military purposes is a perfected storage
battery, and the day may not be far distant when extensive use will be
made of light accumulators capable of being safely carried and of being
recharged as readily as a steam engine can be supplied with fuel.
MOTORS IN AGRICULTURE
In England the use of steam for agricultural machinery has hitherto been
confined to the purpose of ploughing and threshing. But coal in some
districts is dear, and farmers are beginning to find that oil engines
are more economical, there being no loss of fuel in the sudden stopping
of work during wet weather; but petrol has a nasty trick of not
vaporising readily when it is frosty, and here electricity steps in with
an admirable _force-motif_.
With a dependable electro-motor, the farmer may work his self-binder all
day long in the harvest-field, and at-night send it up to market with
produce. Moreover, the motor may help to plough and harrow in the
winter, and when there is no work to be done it costs nothing,
having--unlike the horse--no stomach to fill.
In fact, the successful adaptation of the motor to farming may solve the
ever-present labour problem, and do much to resuscitate the agricultural
industry, while fruit and vegetable growers may find it invaluable,
making them independent of high railway rates and bad train service.
But, although the application of the automobile to agriculture is only
in the experimental stage, it cannot be doubted that, in some shape or
other, it will come to the cornfield, the orchard, and the market
garden, while the modern farmer will welcome it gladly.
[Illustration: FIG. 31. A TEN-TON ELECTRIC TROLLEY
_By permission of the_ _Anglo-American Motor Car Co., Ltd., London_]
Probably it will begin, as was suggested by Mr. Rider Haggard before the
Norfolk Chamber of Agriculture at Norwich, in the shape of an
agricultural post. His plan was to enlarge the present system of
parcel-post so that one hundred packages, each of 100 lbs. in weight,
should be carried in the same way as parcels of only 10 lbs., and that
produce of any sort, such as a crate of apples, the carcase of a sheep,
a basket of flowers, etc., should be delivered the next morning to
whatever part of England the goods were consigned.
MERCANTILE MOTORS
The prosaic use of motors is increasing rapidly. In our streets are
frequently seen steam or petrol lorries for the heavy goods of brewers,
stone-merchants, builders, contractors, engineers, asphalt-paving
companies, etc.; substantial vans for wholesale manufacturing houses and
great establishments, such as Bryant and May’s, Maple’s, Harrod’s,
Whiteley’s, and Barker’s; lighter vehicles for smaller tradesmen, carts
for county council and borough council work; a few fire-engines and
ambulance waggons; while in the country any number of motors are used by
shopkeepers to deliver their goods for miles around.
[Illustration: FIG. 32. AN ELECTRIC TRADESMAN’S-VAN
_By permission of the Automobile Co. of Great Britain, London_]
In fact, the mercantile use of motors has grown so much, that before
long we may even see “Black Maria” delivering and picking up its daily
quantum of _détenus_ through the medium of stored-up electricity.
We must just glance at the subject of motor-bicycles, driven by petrol
and “sparked” by electricity. They are beginning to be much used for
getting about quickly, for trailers, and as sporting machines for
“breaking the record.” In September last year, at the Crystal Palace,
some extraordinary results were obtained by them in the matter of speed,
one of them covering no less than fifty miles in an hour and eight
minutes!
Sir Martin Conway’s opinion, humorously delivered this year to the
Society of Arts, respecting “stupid cyclists” and motor-cycles, is worth
recording. He said that the first thing on which he desired knowledge
concerning motor-cycles was how he was to fall off, as he fell off every
machine on wheels some time or other; next, how long it would take a man
to understand the parts in a motor-cycle, or whether they were
hopelessly removed from the range of the ordinary stupid person; then,
how the thing vibrated; and, finally, which of them did not break down.
He said that he had been told that the pleasure with a motor-car was
considerable when it went, and the annoyance even more considerable when
it did not go.
Motors are everywhere, and are used for every purpose. There are motors
in the Equatorial Free States of the Congo, where there is no energetic
policeman, stop-watch in hand, to time the “driver” and summon him; and
one day--who knows?--there may be motor-cars in use at the North Pole.
The motor has even been the indirect cause of political upheavings, for
it is said that the revolution in Morocco came to a head because the
fanatical tribal allies of the Pretender resisted, amongst other
European articles, the introduction of automobiles into the country, and
opposed their use by the enlightened emperor, as too progressive, and
not in accordance with the Mussulman faith.
[Illustration: FIG. 33. ANOTHER TYPE OF THE “FISCHER” COMBINATION
OMNIBUS
_By permission of the_ _Fischer Motor Vehicle Syndicate, London_]
Meals are sent out in motor-vans by the London Distributing Kitchen
Company from its well-equipped premises near the Army and Navy Stores,
the breakfasts, luncheons, and dinners being placed in air-tight baskets
in aluminium receptacles. In Manchester, for some time past, “meals by
motor” have been an accomplished fact, and most popular and lucrative
the scheme has proved.
Motoring has its romantic side. For instance, in France--the birthplace
of the automobile--abduction by motor has been initiated, and our lively
neighbours may possibly contemplate the revival of that mediæval custom
of wedlock by force. This young lady, however, seems to have been a not
unwilling party to the transaction.
Going to school by motor has also been made practicable across the
Channel. For some months the Ecole Lacordaire, in Paris, has been
running a Serpollet steam omnibus, which collects the pupils and conveys
them to and from the school. The day’s run gives a total of sixty miles.
Monsieur Serpollet has lately carried out an interesting test with the
vehicle. He made a run of sixty miles with twelve passengers, and the
cost for petrol was 1_s._ 2_d._ per passenger, or rather more than four
miles for a penny. The omnibus averaged eighteen miles an hour.[8]
CHAPTER XVII
_HORSELESS VEHICLES, ELECTRICAL AND OTHERWISE_ (_continued_)
SPEED OF MOTOR-CARS
To motorists the pressing question of the day is _speed_. In England the
motor-car was in its infancy when the present law came into force.
Before its birth, no mechanically propelled carriage could travel along
the highway faster than four miles an hour; but six years ago a
determined attempt was made to adapt the law to the exigencies of modern
traffic. Fourteen miles an hour was decided upon as the maximum speed,
and the Local Government Board subsequently reduced the limit to twelve
miles. But these regulations are now out of date.
A few years ago there was a great outcry against cycle speeds. That has
died out, not because cyclists ride more slowly, but because the public
has come to realise that, with a readily controllable vehicle like the
bicycle, the greater speeds are not dangerous. Similarly the public is
now much exercised in mind concerning speeds of twenty to twenty-five
miles an hour by motor-cars. It will not be long before they realise
that these velocities are quite safe under certain conditions, and that
the motor-car might almost under any circumstances be allowed to travel
twice as fast as a horse, indeed even faster. It is said that this year
the speed of the motor-car is expected to approach a hundred miles an
hour. The Hon. C. S. Rolls came very near to attaining it at Welbeck
last February, when he made an attempt on the flying kilometre record.
The best of four runs gave the time of 27 seconds, which is a speed of
82⅘ miles per hour, and 1⅕ seconds better than Mr. Jarrott’s run over
this course last year. Whether it will rank as a world’s record is not
certain, as the road in the Duke of Portland’s park has a slight
favouring gradient. The French official record on the Dourdan road is
twenty-nine seconds, a speed of seventy-seven miles per hour,
accomplished by both Fournier and Augières. Mr. Rolls drove an 80
horse-power Mors, which he entered for the Paris-Madrid race.
Estimates of speed differ in the most extraordinary degree, and the Hon.
J. Scott-Montagu gave to the _Car_ the following humorous table, the
result of an inquiry at a police court:--
Miles.
“Private opinion of mechanic in charge 12
His opinion when talking to his friends 20
His opinion when in court 8
Policeman’s private opinion 14
Policeman’s opinion in court 28
Farmer’s opinion when a pony was frightened 50
Maker’s guaranteed speed 16
Actual speed 10”
Motorists are evidently assumed to be made of money, if we may judge by
the following statement made by a correspondent of _Motoring
Illustrated_ this year. He says, “One curious result of a car case, in
which I was fined £10 for ‘scorching,’ is that in less than a week I
have received upwards of seventy begging letters from charitable
societies or individual beggars. Motor owner and millionaire are
apparently one and the same thing in the popular mind.”
Mr. Leopold de Rothschild, who is entitled to speak with authority on
the subject, frankly admits that there is much justification for the
irritation in the public mind against motor-cars. He strongly condemns
rash driving, but, at the same time, maintains that when motor-car
owners obey the law and observe the courtesy of the road, they ought not
to be looked upon by coachmen, cyclists, and pedestrians, as the enemies
of mankind.[9] Nevertheless, he firmly believes that the dislike of
motor-cars will die away in due time, just as did the dislike of cycles.
The utmost caution ought, he concedes, to be exercised by drivers in the
crowded thoroughfares of large towns.
On the question of their importance generally in relation to British
industry Mr. Leopold de Rothschild says, “We should foster them by every
means in our power. At the beginning not a single one was produced in
this country, but at the present moment some of the machines turned out
in English workshops rival those of the very best French make. In recent
contests on the Continent, too, English cars have more than held their
own. It is sometimes complained that the machines make a great noise.
That defect is being gradually cured. Then it is urged that they raise a
tremendous dust as they speed along. That evil is also being remedied,
and will disappear altogether if the experiment of pouring petroleum on
the roadways should prove successful. Where the motor-car is extremely
useful, I consider, is in enabling people to go across country to attend
hunt meets and visit distant golf links. Then, again, see what
encouragement is given to wayside inns. When in Scotland the other day I
visited a friend who lived twenty-five miles off, and did it comfortably
between luncheon and dinner, and that, too, without endangering the life
of myself or anybody else. I regard the motor-car as a source of intense
enjoyment. Allow the owners greater freedom, but take care that in
return they loyally observe the regulations which are framed by
competent authorities for the safety of the public.”
MOTOR-CARS AND PUBLIC HIGHWAYS
Who can place a limit to the development of motors! The time may arrive
when tram lines will disappear, the roads themselves being of steel and
forming a broad rail upon which self-propelled coaches, omnibuses, cabs,
and cars will ply in every direction, and far and wide into the suburbs.
This is the idea of Mr. A. A. C. Swinton, who also thinks that
eventually motor-cars will drive tram-cars out, because, as he says,
“Tramways are merely a smooth place on a rough road, with a groove to
keep the wheel in a smooth place,” and as one day the whole road will be
smooth the tram-rails will disappear.
Something similar, I take it, was in Mr. Balfour’s mind when, in 1901,
writing to the Warden of the Browning Settlement in Camberwell on the
subject of homes for the workers, he said:--
“What I am anxious people should bear in mind is that trams, railways,
and ‘tubes’ by no means exhaust the catalogue of possible improvements
in transit; indeed, I am not sure that they are the means of
communication for relatively short distances which some years hence will
find most favour. What I should like to see carefully thought out by
competent authorities would be a system of radiating thoroughfares,
confined to rapid (say, fifteen miles an hour or over) traffic (that is
absolutely essential), and with a surface designed, not for carts or
horses, but for some form of auto-car propulsion. If the local authority
which designed and carried out such a system chose to run public
auto-cars along them, well and good. But this would not be necessary,
and private enterprise would probably in time do all that was wanted. In
such a thoroughfare there would be none of the monopoly inseparable from
trams, the number of people carried could be much larger, the speed much
greater, the power of taking them from door to door unique, while there
would be none of the friction now caused when the owners of the tram
lines break up the public streets. It may be urged--and, perhaps, with
truth--that at present the auto-car industry has not devised an
absolutely satisfactory vehicle; but we are, I believe, so near it that
the delay ought not to be material.”
“It is, of course, obvious,” he continued, “that the present difficulty
of locomotion in our streets is almost entirely due to want of
differentiation in the traffic. We act as the owners of a railway would
act if they allowed luggage trains, express trains, and horse-drawn
trams to run upon one pair of rails. The radiating causeways, as I
conceive them, would be entirely free from this difficulty. Neither the
traffic of cross streets, nor foot passengers, nor slow-going carts and
vehicles would be permitted to interfere with the equable running of
fast cars. There would be no danger and no block; and as the causeway
would be connected at intervals with the ordinary road and street system
of the district, and would melt into that system at either end, every
village in which there were enough residents who had to be in London at
a fixed hour every day could have a motor of its own. It might be well
worth a manufacturer’s while, I should suppose, to lodge his workpeople
out of London, and to run them to and from his works.”
No electrician living can predict with certainty what the motor-car may
_not_ result in.
One thing only is probable--that our metropolitan streets will soon be
congested with vehicles to such an extent as to leave no space for
horses. And then will come the complete victory of the automobile.
CHAPTER XVIII
_ELECTRICITY APPLIED TO NAVIGATION (A FORECAST)_
“And knowledge shall be increased.”--DANIEL xii. 4.
DEVELOPMENT IN SIZE OF SHIPS AND STEAMERS
“Don’t give yourself away,” shrewdly remarked an eminent engineer, as I
discussed with him the outline of this work, and the probability that in
the near future, gigantic ships, as long as the Crystal Palace, and
propelled solely by electricity, would traverse the seas. “I have not
yet come across any form of accumulator that could be adapted to such a
purpose, though I admit that the next quarter of a century may produce
some startling results. Still, I would not, if I were you, write about
it.”
My friend, like many scientists, was cautious, and did not like to
commit himself; but I am not professionally restricted, and may freely
indulge in a dream containing many elements of reality, and “take the
wings of fancy,” nay, may also “take the wings of foresight,” and try to
describe a mail-packet of the future.
But before entering into particulars of that phenomenon, the _Princess
Ida_, and to prepare ourselves for the contemplation of her large
proportions, we should note the evolutionary process which has gone on
steadily for the last seventy years, and rapidly during the close of
the Victorian Era, in regard to the size and tonnage of ocean steamers.
To go far back for the purpose of comparison--_i.e._ to the days when
Britain as a maritime nation was in her infancy, or even to Tudor and
Stuart times, when the _Great Harry_ floated proudly in English waters,
and Elizabeth’s _Ark Royal_ defied the Spanish Armada, or when Phineas
Pett reconstructed Charles the Second’s navy and planned those famous
men-of-war, the _Royal Sovereign_, _Royal Charles_, and _Royal
Prince_--is misleading, because up to Nelson’s time the practice of
building ships with an extravagant amount of “sheer” (the forecastle
and stern towering upwards to protect the fighting men, and producing
the outline of a doubled-up old shoe), together with the pronounced
“tumbling in” of the ship’s sides, rendered it difficult to arrive at
any correct estimate of length and beam. Approximately, 1,500 tons might
represent the _Great Harry’s_ measurement, and 150 feet her length, the
Carolean _Royal_ being about the same.
This method of shipbuilding began to be modified while Pepys was at the
Admiralty, but it was very gradually abandoned, and had almost
disappeared at the beginning of the century, the _Victory_, slightly
over 2,000 tons, and some 152 feet in length, showing but a slight trace
of it in her high poop.
In 1834 a merchantman of 1,000 tons was considered a big craft, the
largest on Lloyd’s register for that year being 1,500 tons, upon which
there was not much advance until the “fifties” and “sixties,” when all
the adventurous of England’s manhood were irresistibly attracted to the
goldfields of Australia, and vessels of large tonnage began to be laid
down on the stocks. Of such were the _British Empire_, 2,676 tons; the
_Donald McKay_, 2,636 tons; _Red Jacket_, 2,000 tons; and many others
of from 1,000 to 1,800 tons registered tonnage. These in their turn gave
place to iron “sailers” of immense capacity, the tendency being to build
them bigger and still bigger--“five-masters” of from 3,000 to 4,000
tons--it having been found that they are worked more economically than
smaller craft, and are able to compete with the larger vessels of other
countries, and with the syndicates that threaten to monopolise the
nation’s carrying trade. Foreign examples are _La France_, 3,624 tons,
and the _Preussen_ (biggest in the world), 4,700 tons.
In steamers the development of size has been great, and astonishingly so
since the universal adoption of the screw-propeller. For instance, the
paddle-wheel _William Fawcett_, that pioneered the P. and O. Company,
built in 1829, was but 74 feet long; the Cunard _Britannia_, that took
Charles Dickens to Boston, was a paddle-boat of 1,154 tons, and 207 feet
long; the _Great Britain_ (1843) was 3,400 tons register, and regarded
as phenomenal.
Presently the shipping world arrived at the awakening period of its
history, when steamers of from 350 to 500 feet long, and of from 4,000
to 7,000 tons, began to be common; but old stagers shook their heads,
and asked where and when this enlargement was going to stop. Time went
on, and splendid mail boats, such as the Cunard _Scotia_ and _Persia_,
in their day considered perfect, were looked upon as obsolete, and even
their successors, the _Servia_, 7,392 tons and 515 feet long, the
_Etruria_, 7,718 tons and 502 feet long, and others of similar
dimensions, soon ceased to be wondered at. This was eighteen years ago.
Then, by leaps and bounds, so great was the competition between the
different Atlantic liners, and so strong the demand for speed, that
10,000 tons was soon reached in the White Star Company’s _Majestic_ and
_Teutonic_, and exceeded by the Cunarders, _Campania_ and _Lucania_
(1893), of 13,000 tons each, 620 feet in length, and over 65 feet in
beam.
But Harland and Wolff, of Belfast, who had been building 12,000 ton
boats, metaphorically without “turning a hair,” were determined not to
be beaten, and produced their new _Oceanic_ (1899), 704 feet by 68 feet,
_i.e._ nearly as long as the Haymarket, and about as broad as one
portion of Piccadilly. In her, it was thought, finality had been
reached; but last year Belfast witnessed the launch of a still bigger
vessel, the _Cedric_, 21,000 tons gross register, 700 feet long, and 75
feet wide--the largest steamer afloat! Even she is destined to take
second place, as ere long two ships belonging to the Cunard Line will
dispossess the _Cedric_ of her premier position. These wonderful
creations will be 750 feet by 76 feet, with an estimated sea-speed of 25
knots.
Thus we clearly see how enormously the dimensions of steamers have
increased; for instance, the _Britannia_ (1840) was 1,154 tons, and 207
feet long, and had accommodation for 115 cabin passengers, no “steerage”
being carried. But the _Cedric_ is nearly 3½ times longer, and carries
3,000 people across the Atlantic, besides her crew of 350 hands. In the
same ratio of progression, ships (they will not be called _steamers_,
but _electrofers_) 2,500 feet long, with comfortable quarters for 75,000
human beings, will be the order of the day!
I have not referred to the poor old _Great Eastern_--or _Leviathan_ as
she was originally named--680 feet long, and of 16,000 tons register.
She was before her time, and, like other big steamers of that day, far
too heavy in her plating to be driven economically at even moderate
speed.
Great dimensions and swiftness have been rendered possible by improved
engines, but chiefly by the employment of steel in their construction,
which so materially reduces the _vis inertia_, that in the case of the
_Pennsylvania_, built by Harland and Wolff for the Hamburg-American
Line, although a mighty carrack of something like 585 feet, and 62 feet
by 42 feet, her actual dead-weight is only 8,000 tons. Still more
remarkable will be the reduction--about one-half--when aluminium with
some form of alloy--copper, perhaps--comes into general use.
Torpedo-boats have been built with this metal, and have run with great
smoothness. It exists in every clay and shale formation, and is
scattered throughout the world in immense profusion, our London clay
consisting principally of silicate of alumina. Electricity is used in
manufacturing this beautiful metal, that requires no paint to defend it
from rusting; and, although it has hitherto been a costly article, the
time is not far off--so it is said--when the price will come down to £19
a ton, or less.
A recent and novel application of aluminium to building purposes is to
be seen at Chicago, where a house sixteen stories high is fronted on
both sides with it, instead of bricks or terra-cotta.
Berthing the monstrous ships of the future is a problem met by a radical
and world-wide alteration in the dimensions of docks, supplemented by
quays running out into deep water, which in London would extend on both
sides of the Thames, on the north from Tilbury to the Albert Docks, thus
converting the old river, like the Clyde, into a long water-street lined
by sea-walls, and kept constantly dredged, and connected with London by
special lines of railway.
But what is to be the propelling power of the future leviathans? Not
steam; but electricity, applied to the machinery from storage batteries.
Why not?
ELECTRIC STORAGE AS A MOTIVE POWER
Sceptics in the past argued that it was manifestly impossible that
vehicles would ever be horseless, or that communications would one day
be transmitted by telegraph, not to speak of the time when even the
wires for that purpose would be dispensed with; while the suggestion
that artificial light would be obtained through any other agency than
candles or oil-lamps, and that sail-less ships would be propelled
against wind and tide, seemed savouring of Bedlam!
Yet all these seeming impossibilities, and many more, have become
realities. So, too, will electrical marine propulsion, and, although we
live in a more enlightened era than our ancestors, few persons even now
perhaps realise that ships will be navigated without either sail or
steam power.
By this time, however, the public have become so familiarised with
scientific marvels, that they have ceased to wonder at anything. For
instance, there is nothing really more marvellous than that hundreds, or
even thousands, of horse-power should be borne by a copper wire, or a
moderate cable, and despatched to a distant point with the speed of
lightning for traction purposes; but, without knowing what the nature of
the force is, we cease to be astonished at it. In point of fact, it is
not more occult than heat or light, the attraction of gravity or
cohesion.
Therefore when it was announced last year that Edison had solved the
problem of how to store electrical force effectually, everybody took it
for granted that he had been, or would eventually be, as successful in
this direction as in multiplying electric light and applying it to a
thousand new purposes.
The “Wizard of Llewellyn Park” is necessarily a sanguine inventor, but
he has taken the right and only satisfactory way to determine the
question--that of varied and long-continued experiment. Electricity
differs from all other forms of power in two respects--it can be stored,
and transmitted to a distance. The task of transmission has been, and is
being, rapidly achieved. The far greater object of light and efficient
storage, the most momentous problem awaiting solution in the whole range
of practical physics, may very shortly be solved.
In brief, Edison’s storage battery cells are composed of tiny bricks of
specially-prepared iron and nickel. In charging and discharging, oxygen
is driven from one metal to the other and back again through the action
of a potash solution, and without corrosion or waste. Renewal of the
water supply is all that is needed to keep the cells in good condition,
and a process of recharging has been improved, so that less time is
consumed than for the recharging of other batteries. No wonder he
believes that the application of storage batteries will ultimately be
extended to trains, and especially to ships.
The claim of the Edison Accumulator is that it will occupy about the
same space as the present battery, and that it will weigh only about
seventy per cent. as much, and will be more durable. Men conversant with
the theory of electrical science are not so thoroughly impressed with
the work accomplished as is Mr. Edison. The tests that have been made
have been more than duplicated, it is said, by the batteries now on the
market. We may assume, then, that either Edison’s or somebody else’s
method of storing up electricity for the propulsion of sea-going vessels
will be perfected.
[Illustration: FIG. 34. ELECTRIC STORAGE BATTERIES
_By permission of the_ _Electric Power Storage Co., Ltd., London_]
THE “PRINCESS IDA” IN THE YEAR A.D. 19--
Early one morning in the spring of 19--a small party of ladies and
gentlemen, anxious to avoid the east wind fiend by flying from their
native shores to milder regions, travelled by the electric railway
towards the mouth of the Thames, and, branching off at a point near
Barking Junction, traversed the new line, running for miles alongside
the splendid quays recently completed between Galleon’s Reach and
Tilbury, where special berths were reserved for the leviathan liners
that had begun running from the port of London to Cape Town.
Long before the station was reached inquiring glances had been cast
riverwards for the first glimpse of the giantess _Princess Ida_.
“That cannot be the _Princess Ida_,” said an unbelieving and
short-sighted member of the party to his sharp-eyed friend, who was
pointing to something which in the distance looked like a couple of
White Star _Cedrics_ linked together and towering above the roofs of the
warehouses that commanded the quays.
“Well, you will see for yourself presently,” he retorted. “Seeing is
believing, isn’t it?” And as the train got nearer and nearer, wonder and
admiration increased, and when a break in the line of warehouses gave
them a clear view of the great vessel, her beautiful proportions, her
polished hull gleaming in the sunlight, and her exquisite cleanliness,
their excitement and enthusiasm rendered them speechless.
The _Princess_ was berthed close alongside the river wall, and through a
great sliding port in her side over a short, stout gangway like a
drawbridge, neat motor-cars laden with luggage, and with passengers who
had made the run direct from their London homes, passed in continually,
emerging later from a corresponding port-hole some distance away. Of
cargo there was none, the only resemblance to it being mails, sufficient
in quantity, however, to fully load an ordinary small steamer. As these
were not timed to arrive alongside from the General Post Office until
two o’clock, the party had plenty of leisure to look around, and from
what they had read about this wonderful ship, supplemented by much
information supplied by a courteous and communicative official detailed
as cicerone, they were able to give the following history and
particulars of that interesting up-to-date creation of shipbuilding--the
fair giantess _Princess Ida_.
She was constructed by the Thames Ironworks Company, a flourishing
concern that worthily represented the marked revival of the shipbuilding
industry in the world’s metropolis. The material used throughout, except
for the lower masts, machinery, propellers, and rigging, was aluminium
alloyed with copper. Her dimensions were as follows: length over all,
1,600 feet; breadth amidships, 164 feet; depth from upper deck, 110
feet; estimated gross registered tonnage, 33,500; but her lines were so
perfect and graceful as to mask these enormous measurements.[10] She had
an “entrance” forward like a clipper ship, and a “clearance” aft of the
utmost fineness, the stem being rounded off in most beautiful curves.
Her floor in the midship sections was flat, and resembled the letter U,
and deep bilge keels helped to keep her steady, and enabled her to
settle down upon her shore cradle without risk of canting or straining.
Her horizontal outline revealed to nautical eyes just that amount of
“sheer,” and no more, necessary for strength, rising almost
imperceptibly to a graceful overhanging bow, from which pointed a
tapering bowsprit, apparently short, but in reality a single massive
spar of Oregon pine.
This style had been adopted by the owners because, as they argued, it
added considerably to the beauty of the great ship, and as she probably
would never enter a dock--using a shore cradle when it was necessary to
cleanse the hull--a few score feet added to her length would make but
little difference in the room she took up at the quays. The figure-head,
of oxidised silver, was a beautiful half-draped representation of
Tennyson’s fair Princess--
“All beauty compass’d in a female form.”
Five magnificent pole-masts, set up with thick wire shrouds and
backstays, rose aloft from her deck, their lower part of steel, the
upper section of polished and varnished American fir, terminating in
gilded globes, one of them being specially set apart for the wireless
telegraph apparatus. These masts, with a graceful “rake,” could not have
been much less than three hundred feet high, but were in accurate
proportion to the length of the _Princess Ida_, giving her the
appearance of a Brobdingnagian five-masted fore-and-aft schooner. In an
emergency, sails could be put up from them to keep the ship’s head to
the wind and sea. No ventilators showed their unsightly mouths above the
very broad teak top-rail, for they were not needed; but more than the
regulation number of boats--about eighty, all hoisted electrically--hung
from massive davits, some being electric launches. No great forty-feet
wide funnels to hold the wind; no top-hampering superstructures broke
the deck area, save the deck stairway houses and the wide bridge, with
its chart-room, captain’s sanctum, and binnacle house, in which a wheel
that a child could turn operated the steering-gear, consisting of a
great toothed pinion wheel keyed to the enormous rudder, and worked by
two electric motors used alternately.
From end to end was a double striped and fringed awning. The _Princess_
carried a search-light of enormous range and power on her foremast, and
her sidelights were disposed without any disfiguring effect on her
starboard and port bows, and not in miniature Eddystones. Her anchor
gear, worked by electricity, was the heaviest ever made, and resembled
that of the largest battleship.
Over all floated the red merchant flag of Great Britain, 40 feet by 24
feet, the flag of the South African Commonwealth, the Blue Peter at the
fore, and above the taffrail the beautiful blue ensign of the Royal
Naval Reserve, while in honour of this her maiden voyage she was dressed
rainbow-fashion with innumerable pennons.
The hull was built on the cellular principle, divided into water-tight
compartments up to above the waterline, the decks or floors being ten
in number. The mighty hold, and the space where bunkers would have been
in an ordinary steamer, were filled with storage batteries; so that an
immense area was at disposal for electric power, renewed daily by a
wonderful chemical process, the weight of the batteries--in this case an
advantage--taking the place of ballast, keeping the _Princess Ida_ at an
almost unvarying draught.
Relatively the machinery of the _Princess Ida_ was simplicity itself.
She had three propellers that _looked_ inadequate to move so vast a
bulk. There were no quadruple expansion-balanced engines with cylinders
of 28, 41, 58, and 84 inches in diameter, and no bewildering gathering
of cranks, pistons, rods, and levers, but the shafts were coupled direct
to enormous electric motors which turned them with resistless force,
without the loss involved in the use of a long propeller-shaft. There
was no escaping steam, no heat, no stuffy stokehold and fierce
boilers, no smell of oil and waste, and the ventilation was almost as
perfect as on deck.
Going on board by the central gangway reserved for foot-passengers, one
entered a splendid hall fifty feet high and a hundred feet square,
resembling the lounge saloon of a big hotel, with glass dome-shaped
skylight above--a winter garden with beds of flowers and groups of
sea-loving palms at the side, kept-renewed throughout the voyage;
seductive easy-chairs and couches scattered about; tables here and
there, covered with periodicals and writing material; while at one end
of a platform, used by the ship’s band, and forming a miniature stage,
was a grand piano backed by a handsome curtain of peacock-blue plush,
and, facing it, a fine organ, both instruments strictly reserved for
public entertainments, theatrical and otherwise. The walls of this
beautiful saloon were of polished New Zealand woods, Kauri pine
predominating, than which a lighter and more elegant wainscot can hardly
be imagined. Fireplaces with ornate overmantels burnt logs of wood--a
sacrifice to conventionality and sentiment, as they were not required
for warmth, the ship being lighted and heated throughout by electricity.
In general arrangement the interior of the ship reminded one of a modern
hotel, and the illusion was heightened by the port-holes on the main or
second deck being so arranged as to resemble plate-glass windows set in
frames of great strength, and when the vessel began to move on the
waters it was as if a section of the Cecil Hotel had floated off into
the river. But, though beautifully furnished, the ship was not overdone
with meaningless decoration. Mirrors were restricted in number, and
there was but little gilding. Rare paintings of ships, birds, and
flowers were on the walls, while wood-carvings in the style of Grinling
Gibbons and delicate French bronzes beautified unsightly corners. All
the decks were covered with india-rubber laid over fireproof planking,
reducing noise to a minimum, those below the upper deck being carpeted;
and as all the doors were sliding and shut noiselessly, the general
effect of quietude was delightful, even the electric gongs being subdued
in tone.
The style of upholstery throughout was that of the latest Victorian Era,
modified to meet the requirements of life at sea. There was, of course,
a very grand dining-saloon, and smaller ones for private parties; also a
principal drawing-room, boudoirs, tea-rooms, and in the transoms (_i.e._
the aftermost part of the ship) one small and purely ornamental parlour
in imitation of Princess Ida’s in her college--
“.... a court
Compact of lucid marbles, boss’d with lengths
Of classic frieze with ample awnings gay
Betwixt the pillars, and with great urns of flowers”--
where a statue of that divinity, seated on a throne, with a couple of
tame leopards on each side, was placed as a kind of tutelary genius, to
which the sentimental ladies on board made weekly offerings of the
choicest flowers they could get.
Then there had been skilfully provided in this wonderful ship a small
oratory for the use of Roman Catholic passengers, several libraries,
reading and lecture rooms, a music-room, a cardroom, smoking saloons of
course, a billiard-room, (available in very fine weather), swimming or
rather plunge baths, and electric and ordinary baths in abundance made
of aluminium; besides massage-rooms, coiffeurs’ and barbers’ saloons, a
shooting-gallery, a post and telegraph office, a gymnasium, a
skating-rink, a bowling-alley, a photographic room, an amateur’s
workshop, an apartment specially set apart for ping-pong and similar
games, American bars, and a miniature cafe for the pleasure of those who
would make believe they were still ashore; a tennis-court, a miniature
golf-link, a small running, walking, and cycle track (quoits, cricket,
hockey, and even football could always be enjoyed on the upper deck), an
aviary (parrots prohibited), a natural history room, an aquarium, a
servants’ hall, a nursery (a remote locality) with tracks for
perambulators; small shops for confectionery, millinery, hosiery, and
tobacco; also a printing-press, a dispensary, and a hospital; a cell for
insubordinates, and, alas! a mortuary.[11]
On the upper deck--so great was the distance from stem to stern, twice
up and down being more than a mile--small electric trolley-chairs were
at the disposal of the old or infirm to enable them to take open-air
exercise. A wide shelter-promenade ran round the ship’s sides between
two of the decks, looking out on the sea through spacious port-holes,
and when wind and rain were too pronounced there were the roomy
stairway houses on deck wherein to take refuge.
On every floor there were lifts for those who cared to use them. The
telegraph and telephone made intercommunication easy, and at every
corner of the ship, with its maze of corridors and staircases,
direction-tablets indicated one’s whereabouts.
Families were accommodated with furnished suites of private rooms, which
could be rented or even leased. Here they could bring their own
servants, and be boarded independently of the other travellers. These
suites varied in size from a modest sitting-room and bedroom for
solitary couples, to flats suitable for a large number. There were
bedrooms (not cabins) for spinsters and bachelors, and double-bedded
rooms. The familiar two, four, and six open-berthed staterooms were
conspicuous by their absence.
Of regulations there were few, and these were framed for the general
good and were strictly enforced. No dogs or cats were allowed in any
part of the ship; the playing upon any instrument, except in the
music-room, was prohibited, and this applied even to the private suites;
small children and babies were kept absolutely separate from the adults,
and smoking was forbidden except in saloons set apart for that purpose
and in private rooms.
All cookery was done by electricity,[12] supplemented by charcoal, and
the scale of provisions that had to be dealt with, apart from the ship’s
stores for the crew, was Gargantuan, while fresh fruit, fish, etc., were
always obtained in addition at the various stopping places. For the
round voyage, with allowance for accidents, say forty-two days in all,
there had to be put on board for the passengers: of fish, 36,000 lbs.;
fresh meat (beef, mutton, lamb, veal, and pork), 367,700 lbs.; fowls and
chickens, 16,000; ducks, 1,800; geese, 950; turkeys, 1,500; partridges,
grouse, etc., 3,600 brace; 260 tons of potatoes; 560 hampers of
vegetables; 4,000 quarts of ice-cream; 18,000 quarts of milk; 215,000
eggs; also canned goods, butter, flour, and groceries in proportion. Of
champagne, 18,000 bottles; 15,000 of claret; 110,000 of ale; 45,000 of
stout; 87,000 of mineral waters; and 10,000 bottles of various spirits.
All these, except the stimulants, were preserved in chilled rooms, the
ice being made on board.
At a pinch the _Princess Ida_ could accommodate--besides her crew of
four hundred, a small army of servants, the stewards, and stewardesses
(there were no stokers or firemen)--six thousand souls; but to ensure
comfort, only 3,500 passengers were as a rule booked, necessarily at
high rates. All were of one class, the only difference, as in an hotel,
being in the price paid for position.
The officers were comfortably quartered in the forward part of the ship
in a manner equal to the first class of many a steamer; the crew
beneath, in the so-called forecastle, palatial in comparison with the
old-fashioned sailing ship.
By the time the handy-man had taken these notes H. M.’s mails arrived
alongside, and were put on board by electric trolleys through the
central side port. There was no stupefying, deafening escape of steam,
and no maddening ringing of great bells. The Blue Peter--some fifteen
feet square--fluttered down from the foremast, and a megaphone in
sonorous tones announced that the hour of departure had arrived, and
that visitors must leave for the shore.
The _Ida_ began to show that she could move, and majestically and slowly
shifted her position, until her bow pointed seaward, a mighty cheer
going up from quay and ship. An unseen orchestra gave forth “Auld Lang
Syne,” and in the fading light the _Princess Ida_, glowing with
incandescents, her syren sounding at intervals, disappeared in the river
fog on her maiden voyage.
Going down channel at an easy fifteen knots, it was immediately
noticeable how remarkably steady the great ship was in the choppy sea.
There was an entire absence of vibration, partly attributable to the
metal of which she was constructed, and to the perfect balancing of her
machinery and nice adjustment of weight throughout her holds. Even in
the Bay of Biscay, which was wavelessly heavy in long, sullen rollers
after a mighty storm from the west had died away, the _Princess_ behaved
like a real sea-lady, yielding slowly, but steadily, to the _force
majeur_ of the Atlantic; and no one dreamt of being sea-sick except one
very bilious-looking gentleman, a heavy eater, hailing from Brazil.
In short, she proved herself to be a splendid sea-boat. Not a drop of
water could reach her upper decks; pitch she hardly could, as her great
length enabled her to ride quietly across the valleys between oncoming
waves.
A few hours’ detention at beautiful Madeira, and shortly afterwards
Teneriffe was reached, where it began to be warm; but the ship was so
spacious, and was kept so cool by means of refrigerators, electric fans,
and--when necessary--punkahs, that no one felt in the least
inconvenienced by the heat. There were no smuts, no smoke, and, better
still, no smell of oil or paint (neither of these being used on the
ship), no cockroaches, mosquitoes, flies, or rats!
[Illustration: FIG. 35. ELECTRIC LAUNCH ON THE THAMES
_By permission of the_ _Immisch Electric Launch Co., Ltd., London_]
Here she began to put on speed, working up to eighteen knots an hour,
her maximum (very great speed being no special consideration), and it
was then observed that so smooth and tapering were her lines, that she
slipped through the water raising but little bow wave, and almost as
frictionless as a swift ocean-fish.
An hour or so at lonely Ascension, and the same at St. Helena--in each
case to deliver and receive mails, and to keep up telegraphic
communication with London--a voyage altogether of wondrous beauty and
enjoyment, nights of solemn loveliness, and days that broke in perfect
splendour, cloudless, save for little patches of white here and there,
and the ocean a dazzling radiance of deep blue.
Cape Town--six thousand miles in sixteen days out from Tilbury--and,
greeted by thousands who had flocked from far and near to witness the
sight, the _Princess Ida_ glided to her berth inside the great
breakwater.
And there for the present I must leave her.
I think I have demonstrated that, theoretically at least, the tiny
electric launches, put on the Thames in 1889 by the Immisch Company, one
of which, the _Lammda_, took the then Prince of Wales through Boulter’s
Lock, was the forerunner of the ocean steamer of the twentieth century.
But there is no absolute novelty under the sun; for it is stated that in
1838 a distinguished Roman scientist, Jacobi, invented an electric motor
which drove a small boat on the Neva at two miles an hour.
CHAPTER XIX
_SOME ELECTRIC LOCOMOTION DRAWBACKS_
“Perfection is attained by slow degrees; she requires the
hand of time.”--VOLTAIRE.
THE DEVIL’S ADVOCATE
Little more need be said as to the advantages of the new order of
things, for however technical opinions may differ about the relative
advantages of steam or electricity, there cannot be any doubt that the
public fully recognise the immense superiority of the latter in details
of cleanliness and general comfort.
Tube railways are intensely disliked by some people, and as heartily
appreciated by millions of others. That they are an advantage in many
ways is unquestionable, though they are not yet without defects.
Motor-cars (electric or petrol), to those who use them, appear to be the
safest and most delightful of vehicles, but here again perfection has
not been reached.
With these four well-known forms of traction I must now deal, and not
eulogisticallv. In the old days when some recluse renowned for his
holiness--which he had instanced by living unwashed for years in a hair
shirt until it fell to pieces--died, his admirers frequently put in a
claim for his canonisation. This necessitated the appointment of an
individual called the _Advocatus Diaboli_, a leader of the opposition,
whose duty it was to raise all kinds of objections to the granting of
the sacred honour, and to recall everything possible to the detriment
of the candidate. Not a pleasant task, certainly, but not altogether
unnecessary.
After this fashion it is fair to bring up some sort of a case against
electric traction.
ELECTRIC RAILWAY ACCIDENTS AND BREAKDOWNS
As regards electric railway accidents and blockings of tubes, the
_Advocatus Diaboli_ is able to quote rather too many examples.
Commencing with the United States, where in July, 1902, a car,
descending the mountain on the Mountain and Lake Electric Railway, near
Gloversville, where the grade is a thousand feet in four miles, became
uncontrollable, and, acquiring frightful velocity, collided with another
car which was ascending the slope. Both cars rushed down several feet,
and then ran off the rails. Each car contained seventy passengers, and
of these fifteen were killed and injured. Ten bodies, mangled beyond
recognition, were taken from the wreckage. Most of the victims were
women.
At home there is the disastrous Liverpool Electric Overhead Railway fire
of December 23rd, 1901. The trains are run on the multiple control
principle, a motor at each end, and the accident was due to a defect in
the rear one. But as it is a typical case, I will quote in full the
cause of the accident, as assigned by Lieutenant-Colonel H. A. Yorke,
the Board of Trade Inspector. He says: “A gale of wind was blowing from
the west, that is, from the mouth of the tunnel towards the station,
which caused the fire to spread from carriage to carriage until the
whole train was enveloped in flames. It is estimated that the train was
well alight about twelve minutes after the stoppage. There were
twenty-nine passengers, who, when the train first came to a stand, were
urged by the driver and guard to keep their seats, as there was no
danger. The driver and guard seem to have made some futile attempts to
put out the fire; but it soon became apparent that the fire had obtained
the mastery, and the passengers found it necessary to alight. They had
only eighty yards to walk in order to reach the station, and the
majority of them appear to have gone to their homes without any delay,
and to have suffered no ill-effects from the fire. It appears, however,
from the evidence that a few remained behind, presumably to watch the
progress of the conflagration and the result of the effort to control
it.”
The inspector went on to say that in his opinion it would have been
productive of no serious danger had only the driver acted with a
moderate degree of prudence. When this man discovered that his rear
motor had failed his duty was to disconnect his rear motor by means of
the plug provided for the purpose in his apartment. He should then have
run into the station with one motor, as is often done. For some reason
or other, which cannot be conjectured, the driver, instead of
disconnecting the defective motor, and in disregard of the warning of
the guard, made repeated efforts to bring it into use, the result being
that before long the woodwork of the rear carriage was ignited by the
flashes produced by the electric arc when the current was switched on to
the defective motor. While the driver was so employed both he and the
guard appear to have told the passengers to keep their seats, as there
was no danger. Both these men and the station foreman seem to have
exhibited a lamentable lack of judgment in this respect. It is
impossible not to feel that the sacrifice of life might have been
easily avoided. If the passengers had been hurried out of the train as
soon as it became evident that it had broken down, and if none of them
had been permitted to loiter about the station, their safety would have
been secured. And if the train men and station foreman, who deserve
credit for their efforts to prevent the fire from spreading, had only
realised sooner that the train was doomed, they too had ample time to
escape. The cutting off of the current did no good, but, by putting the
place in darkness, rather increased the difficulties and danger of the
situation.
The lesson of the disaster is, that all woodwork should be removed as
far as possible from the electric machinery of the railway carriages,
and that for the purpose of insulation material should be employed which
is uninflammable.
Of blocks or stoppages on tube railways the following are examples.
Serious inconvenience was caused on December 30th, 1901, by a mishap on
the Central London Railway. It appeared that just before five o’clock in
the morning a motor was being shunted into the Bank Station to take the
first train to Shepherd’s Bush, when, though going dead slow, some of
the gear apparently fouled the current rail, and it jumped the points
just where the two tunnels join, and effectually prevented any train
entering or leaving either. The nearest “cross-over,” by which trains
could be shunted from one to the other, was at the British Museum
Station, but even timely notice did not make the walk through the wet
any the more attractive to business men, the rain having caused all the
omnibuses to be filled long before they got to the station gates. When
the line was constructed it was proposed to make a second siding at the
Bank as at Shepherd’s Bush, and had this been done there would have
been no dislocation of traffic, but fears for the effects of vibration
on buildings above vetoed the proposal. On an ordinary railway a
powerful crane would probably have been run alongside, but the space in
the tube is so circumscribed that it was with the utmost difficulty that
the engine, which weighed forty-four tons, and was resting against the
side of the tunnel, could be moved. As the afternoon wore on, crowds of
City men gathered in the subway in the hope that the obstruction would
soon be removed, but it was not till five o’clock that the line was
cleared and the traffic resumed.
Once more the Twopenny Tube distinguished itself by a stoppage. It was
on December 30th, 1902, the anniversary of the precisely similar mishap
in 1901, but fortunately with less serious results. Then the engine fell
against the side of the tube, and the workmen could only get at one
side of it; but this one settled itself in such a position that jacks
could be got to work under both sides. The points at the terminus very
much resemble those at the ends of the tram lines, and with the
tremendous traffic passing over them (engines 1,200 times a day) the
only wonder is that accidents of this kind do not occur more often than
once a year. With a curious perversity, the engine chose the time--four
o’clock in the afternoon--when it would cause the maximum of
inconvenience, and the thousands of City men and women going home
realised more fully than ever the advantage of the tube. The nearest
cross-over is between the British Museum and Chancery Lane, and notice
was at once given that trains were running between the former station
and the western terminus. As soon as possible gangs of men got to work,
and within an hour and a half the wheels were got on, but unfortunately
it was very difficult to see what had caused the mishap, as in getting
the motor back the evidences of the cause were removed. Some little
delay was occasioned by straightening the bent rails, but at half-past
eight an engine was run to and fro over the points to see that they were
all right again, and a few minutes later the message was sent to all
stations: “Resumed bookings and ordinary working.”
These mishaps showed how necessary it was that, instead of cross-overs,
loops should be provided, round which trains could be run.
January 16th, 1902, witnessed an accident on the City and South London
Electric Railway, happily unattended with serious consequences. A train
left the Elephant and Castle Station shortly after seven a.m., and had
proceeded some two hundred yards towards the Borough when what is
technically known as a “short” occurred in the switch. This means,
roughly, that the current had chosen to go a way of its own instead of
through the insulated wires to the motor. Hence, an “arc” was
produced--that is, an arc lamp on a large scale. The insulating material
began to burn and smell and smoke. Small defects of this kind are common
enough, and the flame is frequently put out with the driver’s hand or
cap. On this occasion the flame resisted all efforts to put it out, and
the driver had to stop the cars and send back for assistance. The
following trains came on slowly, and the engine pushed the broken-down
predecessor on to the Borough Station. It was found necessary to ask the
passengers (fortunately numbering only about thirty or forty) to leave
the train, and the fire was then easily extinguished, though it was
found necessary to cut off the current from the generating station for
a short time. The line was only blocked for about an hour, and the
accident was of little importance except as illustrating one advantage
which, it is said, the “engine” system of electric traction possesses
over the “multiple unit.”
MEDICAL OBJECTIONS TO TUBE TRAVELLING
But apart from accidents and breakdowns, a terrible indictment is
brought against tube railways in general, and the Central London in
particular, which, if true, constitutes a veritable drawback. The
accuser is Dr. L. C. Parkes, Medical Officer of Health for Chelsea, who
says: “Tube railways are still such a comparative novelty, that the
question of the healthiness of this mode of travel has not yet been
fully determined. Dr. Wynter Blyth, in an address a year ago, gave the
results of some experiments on the ventilation and condition of the
atmosphere in the tubes and stations of the Central London Railway. The
chief cause of the movements of air in the tubes and stations, lifts and
stairways, is the passage of the trains along the tubes, which the
carriages nearly fill, thus acting as a piston in a cylinder, driving
air before them and sucking it in from behind in their progress from one
station to another. The condition of the atmosphere, was not excessively
foul, the largest amount of CO ascertained to be present, being 11·9
parts per 10,000 vols. This sample was taken in a carriage containing
twenty-seven people between the Lancaster Gate and Marble Arch Stations.
The amount of CO present in the air of the station’s lifts and stairways
varied between 8 and 11 parts per 10,000. In no case, then, did Dr.
Wynter Blyth find the amount of CO in the air of the tube to be more
than three times the amount usually present in the outer atmosphere of
the London streets (average 4 parts per 10,000). Contrasted with the
tunnel of the Metropolitan Railway between Gower Street and King’s Cross
Stations, where a sample of the air taken showed that CO was present to
the extent of 25·9 parts per 10,000, the air of the tube railway is
comparatively pure.”
Dr. Parkes continues: “It may be safely asserted that constant
travelling day after day, even if only for a limited period each day, in
an atmosphere containing 15 to 20 parts per 10,000 of CO, such CO being
derived solely from a human source, must eventually tend to injure
health. There are two other dangers in tube-travelling which require
notice. First, the danger in the warm summer and the cold winter months
alike of bodily chill. In the hot weather the traveller passes suddenly
from the warm street into a much colder atmosphere below the ground
level. In the winter the reverse happens--the passenger who has been
warmed and enervated by the devitalised air below meets the chilly
wintry blast on emerging into the street. Secondly, the air of the tube
being very dry, and constantly in movement, there must be much organic
dust of human origin floating in it. The dangers of tubercular
expectoration are no doubt intensified in such a dry and shifting
atmosphere as that of the tube, and the cautionary notices to prevent
spitting are wisely exhibited in every carriage.”
On the whole, Dr. Parkes favours open air to other methods of
travelling. He recommends that as far as possible travelling should be
by routes open to the air of heaven.
CHAPTER XX
_SOME ELECTRIC LOCOMOTION DRAWBACKS (continued)_
TRAMWAY ACCIDENTS
When the Chiswick High Road tram-line was being made the tradesmen
petitioned the London County Council against it. They complained of the
annoyance as well as of the danger of the trams. They said that the
trams, being large (carrying seventy people in all) and running on eight
wheels, made considerably more noise than the light horse-car; that the
motor was not silent, and the progress of the trolley along the
shivering overhead wire made a continuous, most unmusical, and
penetrating din; while the brake--of necessity powerful--also had a
harsh note quite its own. To this was added the noise and flash of
electric sparks and a singularly sonorous and imperative bell in place
of the usual whistle; and as the cars came along every two and a half
minutes in each direction, they who dwelt along the route did not find
them altogether lovely.
Some people maintain that electric trams are not merely unlovely, but
are decidedly dangerous to travel in. There have been electric tram
accidents, of course, and very serious ones. For instance, at
Huddersfield, one June night in 1902, a car, as it approached the town
and was half-way down an incline of a mile in length, got out of
control. The trolley arm left the wire, plunging the conveyance into
darkness. By this time the pace of the car was too great to permit of
anyone getting off. It went whizzing past the car standing in the next
loop; but failing to negotiate a sharp curve at the bottom of Somerset
Road, ran straight across the street, smashing the pavement and dashing
with great force into a grocer’s shop, the wooden front of which
collapsed. The front of the car was also driven in. Three persons were
killed and six seriously injured.
At Chatham a catastrophe, resulting in four deaths and many injuries, is
still fresh in people’s minds. It occurred on October 30th, 1902, and
was extraordinary in many respects, the tram being completely wrecked.
The Chatham and District Light Railway is worked as an electric tramway
on the overhead trolley system, and has been in operation about twelve
months. The scene of the mishap was at the foot of Westcourt Street, Old
Brompton, in the parish of Gillingham, close to the main entrance to
Chatham Dockyard, where there is a very steep gradient. A workmen’s car,
filled with mechanics and labourers on their way to work, suddenly
bolted in descending the hill, notwithstanding that the brakes had been
duly applied. The weight of the heavily laden vehicle increased the
velocity every yard of the way, and a terrific pace was obtained.
There is a sharp curve in the railway at the end of the road. The
passengers screamed as they realised their danger. The driver shouted to
them to jump off the car, which many did; and the driver and conductor
themselves took a leap for their lives, and thus avoided serious injury.
As anticipated, the curve proved fatal to the safety of the car. The
heavy vehicle toppled over on its side with a terrific crash, and the
passengers, projected in all directions, made a confused heap in the
highway.
Those who were not seriously injured struggled to their feet, but others
remained prostrate, unable to move, shrieking or groaning with pain, and
several more were rendered insensible. Assistance was speedily
forthcoming, and the sufferers were removed to the Royal Naval Hospital,
which is within a stone’s-throw of the scene of the accident.
In September of the same year a remarkable accident took place at
Glasgow, also with fatal results. About half-past nine one Saturday
night, when the streets were at their busiest, a Possilpark car got out
of the driver’s control, and began to move down a slope of Renfield
Street, which is the main car artery of Glasgow. Where Renfield Street
cuts Sauchiehall Street, the principal thoroughfare of the city, the
vehicle dashed into a Pollokshields car, standing at the junction. Both
cars left the rails, and the runaway, without perceptible interruption,
continued on its career, driving the other before it, the conductors’
platforms being interlocked. A few yards further on a Dennistown car was
encountered. The two locked cars swept down, and, driving the third in
front of them, continued their course down to Argyle Street, a distance
of about six hundred yards. A long succession of cars was moving
upwards, and with the momentum the three heavy cars had then attained a
disaster seemed imminent. However, where the Dennistown line, coming out
of St. Vincent Place, joins Renfield Street, the foremost of the three
runaways took the branch points, swerved with such speed that it failed
to keep the rails, and plunged headlong across the street, being
eventually brought up by the wall of a shop. The second and third cars,
still locked together, followed the former, striking the shop almost at
the same point.
At Devonport another accident, resulting in death, occurred the same
month. About nine o’clock in the morning, a car containing eight
passengers, six of whom were on the top, got beyond the control of the
driver on the incline leading to the South-Western Railway Station. The
powerful brakes were promptly applied, but failed to check the progress
of the car, which rapidly gathered momentum, although the reversing gear
was also applied at full pressure.
At the foot of the slope, where the line takes a sharp curve into one of
the main roads to Devonport, the vehicle, which had by this time
attained a terrific pace, jumped the rails, crossed the road, and dashed
into a wall enclosing the carriage entrance to the station. The force of
the impact broke the wall, and caused the car itself partly to topple
over. Some of the terrified passengers on the top jumped into the
roadway, and others were thrown off. One young man, in jumping off,
succeeded in clearing the car and the wall, but as he alighted in the
roadway, which slopes down to the entrance of the station, a piece of
granite coping, weighing several hundredweight, dislodged by the force
of the collision, fell on his head, death being instantaneous. Other
injured persons were lying in the roadway some distance from the wrecked
car, the upper part of which was a shapeless mass of broken seats and
twisted rails. The position of the car enabled it to be seen that the
brakes were gripping the wheels lightly, while the wooden brakes, which
act on the lines, appeared to be down to the utmost extent.
In this case the verdict of the coroner’s court coincided with the Board
of Trade’s subsequent report, to the effect that the accident was
brought about by the negligence and incapacity of the driver of the car,
the Board of Trade adding that the cause was excessive speed on a steep
gradient and sharp curve, that the driver was responsible for the
accident in failing to use the brake-power, and in disobeying the
company’s orders by leaving the stopping-place without a signal.
These runnings away of electric trams called for increased attention to
the question of brakes, which, though they will always hold a car on a
stiff incline on dry rails, yet when the track is greasy they introduce
an element of danger by reason of their very power. They skid the
wheels, which is always a source of great danger. In such cases safety
lies in relaxing the pressure, but it needs a wary brain and firm nerves
to ease off the brake at all when the car has already bolted.
Then there are collisions, which luckily seldom occur. In October last
one took place between two electric tramcars between Middleton and
Rhodes, near Manchester. The cars were carrying workmen, and the
accident occurred near what is known as the Parkfield loop. The vehicles
were travelling in opposite directions, and owing to some cause, at
present unexplained, they both got on the same line, instead of one
waiting on the loop. About twelve of the passengers were more or less
hurt by broken glass, and one of the drivers was injured about the leg.
Cars can be completely overturned, as was proved by an incident that
happened in December last year to one of the London County Council
trams. It left the metals at St. George’s Circus, and after jolting
along for a few yards slowly toppled over into a ditch three feet deep,
which had been dug on the near side for the purpose of laying the
electrical connections. There were about ten passengers on the top and
twelve inside, and the tram was already overturning before they had
fully realised their danger. Fortunately they retained their presence of
mind, and those on the top, by clinging to the rails, prevented
themselves from being hurled into the roadway. Two small boys, who were
unable to retain their grip of the rail when the side of the car struck
the ground, were thrown off into the gutter, but escaped with little
more than a few cuts and a severe shaking. The cause was difficult to
discover, but probably as the lines were being rearranged some piece of
iron or other hard substance eluded the observation of those put to
watch, got into the groove of the metals, and caused the car to jump the
rail at a spot where excavations were being made.
In our climate tramway traffic is not exposed to any very inclement
weather, so that electric traction is not likely to prove a failure by
reason of heavy snowfalls, as in New York last winter during a blizzard.
ELECTRIC SHOCKS
There is a serious feature in the overhead trolley system which ought
not to be overlooked, as the following will show. In the centre of
Sunderland four principal streets cross, and here, about eight o’clock
one Saturday night in August, 1902, when the thoroughfares were
congested with people, the trolley-arm of a tram-car became entangled,
and no fewer than three live electric wires snapped. A woman received a
severe shock through one of them striking an iron handrail on the tram
which she was boarding; but the promptitude of a motor inspector in
turning off the current averted further personal injury.
The Fulham Public Baths tragedy at the beginning of this year
exemplified the fact that it does not require a high alternative current
to kill. Under certain conditions 200 volts are sufficient. Criminals
are electrocuted at a voltage of 2,000, the current passes in at the
skull. The murderous elephant, Topsy, in New York paid the penalty of
her misdeeds by having a current of 6,600 volts passed through her, and
died in ten seconds; but a minute before, she had swallowed 460 grains
of cyanide of potassium!
My own personal experience somewhat resembles that of the woman at
Sunderland. It was at Ramsgate on a rainy day, and, the car being full
inside, I had to travel outside, seats, metal-work, and everything being
naturally very wet, and in taking hold of the iron framing of a seat I
experienced so strong a shock that I called up the conductor. He
ridiculed the idea, but while he was arguing the matter out, contending
that it was an impossibility, he inadvertently grasped the wet
trolley-pole, which gave him such an electric sensation that he yelled
and fell flat on the roof. The car had to be stopped, and until the rain
ceased no passengers were allowed outside.
MOTOR-CAR ACCIDENTS
By those who dislike them, every imaginable evil is laid at the doors,
or, rather, the wheels of motor-cars, whether propelled by petrol or
electricity, and recorded accidents are quoted, chapter and verse being
given to show that they are the enemies of pedestrian, driving, and
cycling mankind. Here are some examples.
On a steep hill in the neighbourhood of Grimsthorpe, near Bourne, on May
25th, 1902, a motor-car got out of control and overturned. The driver,
employed by Lord Willoughby de Eresby, M.P., for whom the vehicle had
been built at Birmingham, was instantaneously killed, his skull being
fractured. He had brought the car to Grimsthorpe Castle only the
previous evening, and was out with a party of friends, mostly Lord
Ancaster’s employés, when the accident happened. One man was badly
injured, and two others of the party received slight injuries, but a
child, who was flung over a hedge, escaped unhurt.
The following day a motor-car was being driven down a steep hill just
outside Stroud, when the brake failed to act, and the car ran violently
into a stone wall, carrying part of it away. One of the occupants, a
local cloth manufacturer, was seriously injured, and a gentleman who
accompanied him escaped with some ugly bruises.
An accident occurred near Rearsby, Leicestershire, on August 9th, 1902,
whereby the master of the Quorn Hunt, Captain Burns Hartopp, and Mr. A.
Burnaby were injured. The party were motoring from Little Dalby Hall to
Quorn, when, near Rearsby, the car ran into a cow, with the result that
the occupants were pitched out and the car was wrecked. Captain Burns
Hartopp was picked up in a semi-conscious condition, Mr. Burnaby was
more seriously injured, while Mr. Dashwood escaped with a shaking.
A curious escape was witnessed the same day at Monmouth. General Sir
Evelyn Wood, who was accompanied by Colonel Grierson, acting Q.M.G., and
Captain Wood, A.D.C., had been inspecting the Monmouth Royal Engineers
(Militia) under the command of Lord Raglan. Afterwards the General and
staff proceeded in a motor-car to Abergavenny. While the machine was
being reversed towards the entrance of the Angel Hotel a brake refused
to work, and the car mounted the pavement and ran into the wall of a
shop, just missing a plate-glass window. Captain Wood, who had alighted,
narrowly escaped being caught between the motor and the wall.
The following month a motor-car accident occurred at Barnet, when the
Hon. C. S. Rolls was returning home in a motor-car from Barnet Fair. Mr.
Rolls saw a trap containing three or four persons approaching him, and
he steered his car into the hedge, but a collision could not be avoided.
One of the occupants of the trap--a youth--was thrown to the ground, and
the horse was cut on the leg. Mr. Rolls escaped with a slight shaking.
On the 17th of October last, while motoring from Chester, the Rev.
Arthur Guest, vicar of Lower Peover, with his wife and a friend, had a
startling experience. In steering past a milkcart near Lostock Chemical
Works, the car ran into a brick wall and was overturned and badly
smashed. The vicar, strange to say, escaped without injury, but his wife
and friend were not so fortunate.
A lamentable catastrophe occurred in February this year in London, when
Mr. George Edward Colebrook, an Australian merchant, of St. Mary Axe,
E.C., lost his life. It appeared that on the previous Sunday the
deceased went for his first motor-car ride with his brother-in-law,
accompanied also by the owner of the car and a professional driver.
There had been a sharp fall of snow and hail, and the roads were in a
bad state. When attempting to pass at a moderate pace another car in the
Finchley Road, near the Royal Oak at Hendon, the hind wheels skidded.
The car turned round and ran against a raised footpath and then
overturned. Mr. Colebrook was fatally injured, and died on Tuesday
night from concussion of the brain, having been unconscious from the
time of the accident. His brother-in-law received a fractured arm and
other injuries.
THE GENERAL VERDICT
Thus much for the opposition, and the _Advocatus Diaboli_ now resumes
his seat. His accusations appear formidable; but it might be justly
pointed out that if a catalogue were compiled of the serious results
caused by the shortcomings of the horse, motor-car accidents would be
found few in comparison. It might be demonstrated that in twelve days 17
persons had been killed and 143 injured in accidents attributable to
that noble animal.
When the foregoing tram and motor casualties are analysed, it will be
found that the majority were due to lack of control over the brake
power, to ignorance, or to careless driving.
As I have observed before, many evils have been laid to the charge of
electric traction. Last year it was reported in the papers that a young
woman had been instantaneously killed at Shepherd’s Bush by the
overhead wires. The fatality was attributed to one of the guide-wires
breaking at the extreme end (an accident which had really occurred on
the line), but it had been replaced _before_ the young lady fell down in
the road, and it was proved at the inquest that she died in the normal
way of heart disease.
In the old coaching days the dire forebodings of evil arising from
travelling by steam were much more comprehensive than those of the
present day from electric travelling. Horse-breeding, it was said, would
cease and farmers become ruined, their crops perhaps destroyed by
sparks from passing engines; human beings would be asphyxiated while
rushing through the air at tremendous speeds; high roads would fall to
rack and ruin; and every innkeeper on coach routes would be bankrupted!
In fact, a lamentable social revolution was bound to be brought about by
Stephenson’s pestilential proposals!
Of electrical traction, its greatest detractors can only urge--and with
truth--that it is not yet without drawbacks, not yet so perfected as
to render accidents impossible. And the _Advocatus Diaboli_, after due
consideration of his own arguments, generously acknowledges that he has
failed to make out his case.
CHAPTER XXI
_ELECTRIC LOCOMOTION AND OUR NATIONAL LIFE_
“Long sleeps the summer in the seed;
Run out your measured arcs, and lead
The closing cycle rich in good.”--TENNYSON.
HOW IT AFFECTS EXISTING RAILWAYS
Thomas Alva Edison is reported to have said, “Electricity will displace
steam,” and, taking his prediction as a text, I will begin by quoting a
few figures; for Britishers, though they may affect otherwise, dearly
love statistics.
Well, in the year that Queen Victoria ascended the throne the capital
invested in railways might have been expressed in a few figures. When
she died, the “iron horse” represented the vast sum of twelve hundred
millions sterling.
Twenty years ago investments in electric traction enterprises amounted
to not more than £100,000. To-day they involve immense sums, the County
Council’s scheme for London alone running up to £50,000,000! But this is
nothing to the probabilities of the near future, as Mr. Percy Sellon
pointed out to the London Chamber of Commerce. “Within the next ten
years,” he said, “electric supply and traction may be expected, with a
fair field, to engage at least 250 millions of capital”; and this
estimate seems to be by no means exaggerated; in fact, it is
underrated. As one of the leading “dailies” observes, “Apart from such a
large project as the electrification of the District and Metropolitan
Railways, there is scarcely a municipal authority in Great Britain which
has not in hand some scheme of electric railway, tramway, or lighting.
It is as well to think that electricity is not the agent of the future,
but of the present, and an era which has already dawned. In displacement
of steam, electricity is evidently destined to be one of the products of
the first quarter of the twentieth century.”
It may be surmised that by the time Mr. Sellons ten years have expired
all the great railway companies in the kingdom will have adopted
electricity as motive power, certainly on their suburban lines, and for
the passenger traffic on the main lines.
With what effect, and at what cost?
The latter question can hardly be answered, but the former may be
guessed at. For a long time the railway companies will naturally be
reluctant to bring about such a revolution as the substitution of
electricity for steam. Engines of enormous power, such as the new Great
Eastern “Decapod” or ten-wheeler, will be requisitioned to accelerate
the working of trains; and, to save fuel, petroleum will be extensively
adopted on others.
But electricity the public will have, if it is shown to be more
economical in the long run.
Still, to entirely dispense with a great stock of costly locomotives,
substituting up-to-date motor engines--with the possibility looming in
the future that these, too, in their turn, by the perfecting of storage
batteries, may be displaced--to, perhaps, build new cars, or completely
remodel existing rolling-stock; to erect new buildings (in many cases)
for power stations; to lay down third rails; all this would involve an
expenditure that even long-suffering shareholders would rebel against.
While, if the steam locomotives were retained to work an accelerated
goods service on separate tracks, the widening of bridges, cuttings, and
viaducts, the duplication of tunnels on many lines, and the enlargement
of stations and sidings, would entail disastrous expenditure. However,
the change will doubtless be made gradually, perhaps commencing with the
suburban lines, probably as a direct result of the electrification of
the Inner Circle Railway, over whose system several main lines have
important running powers, and which will then be compelled to abandon
steam. Or should some enterprising Socialistic Government come into
power with no such trifling matters as Education, Water, Gas, or Tube
Bills on its hands, it might by the year 1913, in its anxiety to carry
theory into practice, decide to nationalise and electrify our railways
wholesale, and at any cost--to the ratepayers!
The effect, anyhow, would not be so very startling, for by that time
electric travelling would be a matter of course, and disused locomotives
of the type so familiar on the “Underground” would be inquired for by
relic hunters and presented as curios to every big town.
Already the change on the great lines has begun, and it is a significant
fact that the North Eastern have decided to adopt electricity on some
thirty-seven miles of their system in the neighbourhood of
Newcastle-on-Tyne, and a modified form of it in the shape of auto-cars
with petrol engines and dynamos generating the current, on the short
line between Hartlepool and West Hartlepool.
Of electric lines in progress or projected, we have the Manchester and
Liverpool, the London and Brighton, the Edinburgh and Glasgow, and
others.
In London all the big termini will be linked together, and connected
with the metropolitan Tube systems, whatever form the latter may
ultimately assume. This may have the effect of increasing the crowding
and bustling of our big stations, but, on the other hand, a vast number
of wealthy people will use motor-cars from “house-to-house,” dispensing
altogether with the railway.
Trains, more speedily and more economically run, will start more
frequently. Goods traffic will be on entirely separate lines, and
passenger trains will be able to follow one another in rapid and safe
succession.
Exteriorily all the termini will look as they do now, minus the presence
of horsed four-wheelers and hansoms. But Victoria will be greatly
enlarged along Buckingham Palace Road; while Euston, nearly doubled in
size, will have its frontage brought forward to Euston Square. Within,
there will be less confusion, as either the American check system of
booking luggage will be adopted, or that of collecting it beforehand by
the railway company’s swift motor-vans, and there will be less
steam. On the whole, however, the old stations will probably be
unchanged--Paddington, with its familiar transept roof, impressive as in
1854, when the late Queen, travelling from Windsor, paid it her first
visit; the Midland, remarkable for its noble span roof, soaring one
hundred feet above the level of its eleven lines of rail and its four
platforms; the Great Eastern, the largest terminus in the kingdom, under
five great spans--four parallel and one transverse--of glazed roofing,
with its eighteen arrival and departure platforms; and Waterloo, once a
mere shed propped up by arches, but now second in size only to
Liverpool Street, a maze to the uninitiated.
The large provincial stations will most likely remain much as they are
at present--Bristol, Exeter, York, Glasgow, Liverpool, all splendid
specimens of important termini and junctions; Swindon, Crewe,
Manchester, and Warrington, greatly improved, if not entirely rebuilt.
Power machinery will be housed in existing railway buildings when
practicable, and intermediate sub-stations will be marked features along
the railway routes. Pumping-houses, water-tanks, coalyards, stages, and
sidings will have disappeared.
Sleepy wayside stations, with their pleasant gardens and rural
surroundings, will probably remain untouched by the new order of things,
save that the rapid delivery of farm produce by horseless vehicles or by
light railways, acting as feeders, will wake them up.
THE IMPROVEMENT OF STREET TRAFFIC
The general use of horseless vehicles will do more--at any rate in
London--towards the sanitation of great cities than all the enactments
of county or borough councils. Medical experts are agreed that the
condition of the roads, however well kept, in dry weather particularly,
is highly conducive to the spread of all kinds of throat diseases, not
to mention influenza; while if the roads are neglected, the peril is
increased and every sense is offended. Horses, as beasts of burden,
should have no place in crowded thoroughfares, and their presence in
numbers produces on wood-paving a pernicious and offensive ammoniacal
result which anyone can test in, say, Broad Street, after the omnibuses
have ceased running for the day, or, rather, for the night. All over
London, and even in the suburbs, the streets are Augean stables, which
no effort of the Hercules of Spring Gardens or the Guildhall can
effectually cleanse. It is estimated that at the present time there are
over 16,000 licensed horse carriages in London, besides tradesmens vans
and other vehicles, and that 200,000 horses are stabled every night,
necessitating the removal of thousands of tons of manure and refuse
daily.
Noise, too--that distracting rattle and rumble of vans, light carts,
omnibuses, and cabs--will be done away with, and how much this will help
to restore the nervous system of Londoners who can tell? Horses having
almost vanished, the space each one would occupy--some seven feet in
length--will be saved on each vehicle, and thus the increase of traffic
will be partly provided for. Collisions and the running-down of cars
will be unheard of, the steering and stopping powers of the electric
motors being perfect.
ITS SOCIAL RESULTS
The effect of universal electric traction on our social life may be
far-reaching and prodigious. It may result in a partial decrease in the
resident population of London, the working-classes living largely in the
country and travelling up and down at uniform penny fares, clerks and
others doing the same; while the wealthy and the well-to-do may use
their motor-cars to such an extent as to habitually sleep outside the
town boundaries, as may also members of both Houses. Only those persons
whose duties compel them, will live within hearing of Big Ben.
Society will be still more restless, but its members will be healthier,
as fresh air will readily be obtainable. There will be even less time
for reading than now. Formal calls will largely cease; friends in
luxurious electro-cars will “pop in” _en route_ on short surprise
visits, and hospitality will, on the whole, diminish.
In these vehicles, touring parties (_without_ Cook and Son, or Gaze and
Co.) will be constantly arranged to traverse the world. House rents
generally will be lower, save at the seaside and other health resorts,
where they may actually become higher. So that for those who elect to
remain in town, it will be possible to live on a moderate income, rates
and taxes, it is to be hoped, also being lessened.
The cost of living will be reduced, produce of all kinds being more
extensively home-grown and more economically brought to market.
Horses, being discarded for draught purposes, will be plentiful and
cheap; cavalry remounts will be readily obtained, and all over Europe
mounted forces may be the order of the day. The smallest farmer will be
able to employ several horses on his farm, and everyone in the country,
grown tired of cycling and motoring, will have their stables full at low
cost, while in the season Rotten Row will be more crowded than ever with
equestrians.
Wages will be higher, and there will be a wider field and less
competition.
Lastly, hygienic conditions being vastly improved, and smoke abolished,
the death-rate of London and all large cities will be reduced. But the
greatest boon electrical traction can bestow, will be reserved for the
working and poorer classes. Take London, for example.
THE EFFECT ON OVERCROWDING
“Overcrowding! Why, everybody knows what that means!” said the Hon. John
Middlemass. “Only the other day I had to travel to town from
Southampton, and the first-class compartment actually filled up--a
beastly nuisance, for we could not play whist as we had hoped. And in
the afternoon, when on my way to pay a visit at Lancaster Gate, I
couldn’t get a seat in the Twopenny Tube, but had to stand all the way,
holding on by one of the straps in the roof! Overcrowding! Why, the last
time I dined at the Gresham Club in the City, there was not a table to
be got to one’s self. They were all packed, and the waiters could hardly
move about. And that evening at Lady Danby’s reception in Piccadilly we
couldn’t even stir, I can assure you, once we were in her big
drawing-room. While as for supper, it was a fight to get near the
buffet, and when I did manage to get some consommé for Sybil Clare, who
was positively starving, just as I was piloting it out of the crush,
some fool jobbed my elbow, and sent the lot of it right into old Colonel
Curry’s face, and made him swear like a trooper! To make matters worse,
I stepped upon the Dowager Lady Harvey’s train, which had no business on
the floor at all, and, I am told, tore three breadths out of it,
whatever that may mean. Anyhow, I was not asked to any of her dinners
again that season.
“Overcrowding! Yes! You should have been stopping with me at Rookfort
Castle the Christmas after young Lord Staunton had come of age! Two in
each bedroom, I assure you, and they actually had the cheek to ask some
of us to put up with the box-room at the top of the house, as every
square foot of the place was occupied. Oh, yes, I know what trying to
put too many eggs in one basket means! I went through it all on board
the P. and O. _Arabia_, from Bombay. Six in a cabin; no room to dress,
had to take it by turns; all the grub served in double relays; baths out
of the question, unless a fellow sat up all night to grab one; and the
promenade-deck like the enclosure at Ascot on Cup Day; which reminds me
that I never was at any of the big races when the grand stand wasn’t
crowded out.
“Then, as to overcrowding in small houses, used I not to call upon poor
Bristowe, my chum at Eton, who became a lawyer’s clerk at £300 a year,
got married, had eleven children, and lives in a poky little house down
Fulham way--only eight rooms--and I believe some of them sleep in the
bathroom and the kitchen, and the slavey in the scullery!”
Evidently the Hon. John did not know much about the social problem of
overcrowding amongst the poor, and how it has arisen.
“It is not good that man should be alone,” and ever since that divine
maxim was enunciated, man has taken good care to act upon it, in more
senses than one. His nature is gregarious, and as the world he was sent
into ceased to give him its fruits spontaneously, he was obliged to take
to a country life to obtain the means of existence by the sweat of his
brow. He did not readily adapt himself to the new conditions, and, as
the history of Babel shows, there was always a tendency to congregate,
build great cities, and get as much agricultural work done as possible
by slaves.
Nowadays the dislike of solitude is more marked than ever. Who does not
know of beautiful country vicarages whose inmates would give their souls
to go and live in towns; of farms where wife and daughters pass their
time in grumbling because it is so dull at the old house; of squatters
far away in Gipp’s Land or Maneroo Plains, who, as soon as they make
their pile, leave the roomy verandahed station, and, importuned by an
impatient family, settle down at St. Kilda, Toorak, Darling Point, in
Melbourne, or Sydney? Even peasants, country born and bred, seeking to
“better themselves” in Canada, often cannot, or will not, bear the
absence of such small excitement as falls to their lot in their native
village.
This is illustrated by a case known to myself, where a labouring lad,
assisted out to the far West, and there obtaining good wages, and--what
to him was luxury indeed--unlimited eggs to eat, threw up his situation
and came back to his home in Kent and to his wretched wages, simply
because, as he said, “It was too lonely in Manitoba; there was no
amusement and no village inns.”
As Mr. Rider Haggard has remarked, “Some parts of England are becoming
almost as lonesome as the veldt of Africa.”
Therefore there is the danger ahead that Goldsmith’s foreboding may be
realised:--
“Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay.
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade,
A breath can make them as a breath has made,
But a bold peasantry, their country’s pride,
When once destroyed can never be supplied.”
Hodge, as a class, cannot emigrate. He has muscle, he has a wife and
usually several children, but he has no capital, and the colonies, with
the exception of Canada, do not encourage him or want him without. His
advent also means a disturbance in the labour market and lowers the wage
rate. So millions of acres of fertile land in our dependencies where
there is room, and more than room, for all, remain untilled,
dependencies created by British capital, defended from invasion by
British fleets, helped by British taxpayers, but allowed by a succession
of Governments, with the precedent of the American colonies in their
minds, to surround themselves with _chevaux-de-frise_ of exclusiveness.
No longer do great clipper ships leave these shores crowded with hopeful
emigrants, the refrain of “Cheer, boys, cheer,” on their lips, and speed
across wide oceans to the Antipodes. A new order of things prevails.
Workmen’s wages in Australasia must be maintained at a fixed standard,
come what may. Heavy duties must be levied to effect this, and
everything must be “protected,” except the interests of Great Britain.
But Hodge wants to move somewhere and earn more money, so he and his
belongings migrate to London, side by side with other kinds of
impoverished labourers; but, alas! for them, side by side also with the
poor alien, who is unquestionably one great cause of the congestion in
certain districts. Russians, Poles, and Germans swarm into the world’s
metropolis, whose streets, they have been told, are paved with gold that
only requires picking up! They are willing to pay almost any price for
wretched accommodation near their work, where they herd together under
conditions as low as they can well be.
The following illustrates this. At the London Hospital in December of
last year Mr. Wynne E. Baxter held an inquest on the body of Mary
Moretsky Libermann, aged nine, who was accidentally burnt to death. The
coroner said the only articles in the room where the fatality took place
were a small bed and a broken chair, and that the mother and two
children slept in the bed, and four other children on the floor. The
woman, it appeared, came from Russia, and had only been in England seven
weeks. For the small room she paid 3_s._ 6_d._ a week. A juryman urged
that there ought to be some sort of supervision over the kind of house
in which this woman and her family existed.
[Illustration: FIG. 36. WHERE THE POOR LIVE
Original drawing by Hanslip Fletcher
_By permission of Mr. Hanslip Fletcher_]
The presence of aliens and their competition also lowers the already
sufficiently low rate of wages. Houses, therefore, in these
localities--once tenanted by a single family--are let off at exorbitant
rates to as many as can be crammed into them. Lucky, indeed, is the
married labourer who can anywhere secure a single room for 4_s._ to
6_s._ a week. And such a room! No means of preparing a real meal, the
family fare generally consisting of tea, “two-eyed steaks” (herrings),
and a “couple of doorsteps” (two slices of bread) per head.
But, as “General” Booth says, “A home is a home be it ever so low, and
the desperate tenacity with which the poor cling to the last wretched
semblance of one is very touching. There are vile dens, fever-haunted
and stenchful crowded courts, where the return of summer is dreaded
because it means the unloosing of myriads of vermin which render night
unbearable, which (the dens) nevertheless are regarded as havens of rest
by their hard-working occupants. They can scarcely be said to be
furnished. A chair, a mattress, and a few miserable sticks constitute
all the furniture of the single room in which they have to sleep and
breed and die; but they cling to it as a drowning man to a
half-submerged raft.... So long as the family has a lair into which it
can creep at night, the married man keeps his footing, but when he loses
that solitary foothold, there arrives the time, if there be such a thing
as Christian compassion, for the helping hand to be held out to save him
from the vortex that sucks him downward, aye, downward to the hopeless
under-strata of crime and despair.”
Truly in such cases one realises the truth of these lines:--
“God made the country, and man made the town,
What wonder then that health and virtue, gifts
That can alone make sweet the bitter draft
That life holds out to all, should most abound
And least be threatened in the fields and groves.”
Booth writes chiefly of the East of London; but of all overcrowded vile
dens, perhaps none are so bad as those in the West End, frequently not a
stone’s-throw from fashionable thoroughfares and luxurious residences.
At Notting Dale, Kensington, is a district comprising five streets,
consisting entirely of common lodging-houses and “furnished rooms,”
whose occupants are thieves, rogues, professional beggars, hawkers, and
“unfortunates.” It has been rightly named the “West End Avernus,” and so
offensive are the habits of its unwashed crowds, that the policeman on
his beat is often compelled to hold his handkerchief to his nose as he
passes by.
Still lower in the grade of accommodation for a married labourer is the
“part of one room” system; and, lowest of all, the common lodging-house,
where over-crowding is inevitable.
In one alley in Spitalfields there were last year ten houses in whose
fifty-one rooms (none of them more than 8 ft. by 9 ft.--about the size
of a biggish bathroom) no fewer than 254 human beings were distributed;
from two to nine in each apartment, but nine in the room was not the
maximum.
There is an old story to the effect that a district visitor,
sympathising with an occupant of some such lodging as the above in St.
Giles’-in-the-Fields, where four families respectively _tenanted_ the
four corners, was met with the philosophic reply, “Oh, yes, we should
have been comfortable enough if the landlord hadn’t gone and let the
middle of the room to a fifth family.”
Think of all this, fathers and mothers, who jealously guard your
children from every possible source of moral contamination, whose
daughters’ modesty would be startled if accidentally a bedroom window
momentarily revealed their toilettes, whose children at boarding-schools
feel sensitive about dressing and undressing before others.
Yet this is nothing! A well-known rector in the East End says: “From
one of my parochial buildings I have seen through the thinly-veiled
windows of a house, four men and six women retiring for the night in one
room, all of them respectable, hard-working people, and the majority of
them sleeping in beds on the floor,” the rent per week being eight
shillings.
As to the alleged dislike of the very poor to the use of soap and water,
it is chiefly because the privacy essential for tubbing is simply
non-existent.
Probably the lowest depth is attained, as I have said, in the common
lodging-house, where all kinds of characters assemble under conditions
which make innocence and decency impossible, children looking without
any emotion upon sights they ought never to see, and listening to
language they ought never to hear.
The victims of this result of overcrowding are human beings like
ourselves, “fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the
same winter and summer.”
It is not from choice that men, women, and children are thus herded
worse than cattle. Necessity compels them to dwell within a certain
area, especially the “docker,” who cannot afford to take a journey in
search of work, while the smallness and uncertainty of their earnings,
together with the high rent they pay, deprive them of the power to exist
otherwise.
Figures prove little, but it is a fact that for all London the average
population per acre is fifty-seven; and an idea of the extent of
overcrowding in certain localities may be gathered by comparing this
with that of St. George the Martyr, Southwark, which is 210; with
Whitechapel, 225; and with Spitalfields, 330; the latter equivalent to
crowding into the area of Grosvenor Square (six acres), tenements
containing 1,980 souls, instead of 342! On the other hand, in the
wealthy parts of London there is far too much room, great mansions that
could comfortably accommodate scores of people being habitually left
almost empty.
The moral effect of it all is terrible. Thousands of infants, ill-born,
tainted, ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, are growing up under
conditions where purity of thought is impossible, growing up to taint
future generations and undo the good work effected elsewhere in social
regeneration. Why keep the main stream pure if foul rivulets be allowed
to arise and pollute it again? Why make clean the outside only of the
cup and platter?
But, as Cervantes says, “there is a remedy for everything but death.”
And for the “submerged tenth,” who cannot move away to the suburbs, no
doubt in time vast barracks built of steel with garden roofs, unsightly
but utilitarian, will be created in every poor quarter, resembling the
Park Row Buildings in New York, 380 feet in height, and consisting of
thirty stories; or the Fisher, the Marquette, and the Champlain blocks
in Chicago, of seventeen stories each.
These buildings would accommodate thousands of lodgers--British subjects
only--at low rentals, under decent and sanitary conditions. While for
workmen and others in receipt of fair wages cheap electric traction,
enabling them to go to and from their daily task, will solve the problem
of overcrowding so far as they are concerned.
Overcrowding, however, is only one out of a host of problems and
questions that characterised the closing decades of the last century,
and beset the opening of the present one.
We are haunted with problems, and if none existed we should probably
regret it, and try to invent them. There are endless political and
economic problems, the naval and military, the religious and
educational, the national food supply, and with it the land and
agricultural question, the labour question, and the relief of the poor,
who are always with us.
Social problems bristle on all sides, and every active lady appears to
belong, not to one, but to many of the societies for the reform or
abolition of this, and for the bringing about of that, which abound. Mr.
Jellyby’s little project for civilising the natives of Borrioboola-Gha
on the left bank of the Niger, and providing them with blankets, would
be but a drop in the philanthropic ocean of to-day!
Temperance, morality, smoking, marriage laws, vaccination, funeral
customs and cremation, early closing, domestic service, cooking, dress,
hygiene, our boys and girls and what to do with them, in fact,
everything in life, seems to have been converted into a “Question,” and
provides a text upon which more or less eloquent sermons are preached.
Everyone seems to work hard, and has no time for anything. Everyone,
too, is restless and expectant, eager for excitement and change, while
miracles of discovery and invention are wrought so frequently as to be
almost unnoticed.
All nations are being chained together by iron roads or lines of swift
steamers, and everybody travels. Locomotion is the order of the day, a
sign of the times, and electricity is the great factor that has brought
it about.
Just as in the building of some vast cathedral unsightly scaffolding
conceals the graceful proportions of the uprising building, so in what
is going on around us may appear much confusion and absence of purpose.
But out of it is being evolved a state of readiness for the coming era,
when wars shall cease and vexed problems be finally solved.
Meantime the world’s feverish workers might well despair, were it not
that they
“...see in part
That all, as in some piece of art,
Is toil co-operant to an end.”
INDEX
Accidents on electric railways, 251-256
-- to motor-cars, 264-267
-- tramway, 258-263
Adaptability of shallow underground system to London, 198, 199
Advance of motoring, 202
Agricultural motor vehicles, 218, 219
Agriculture, Decay of, 277, 278
Aldershot trials of motor vehicles, 215-217
Aliens and overcrowding, 279, 280
American capital and London’s railways, 61, 160, 161
Balfour’s, Mr., views on motor-cars and public highways, 228, 229
Ballybunion and Listowel Railway, 36, 37
Barnet motor-car accident, 266
Birmingham electric tramways, 170, 171
Black country, Facts and statistics respecting the, 177-179
Board of Trade Committee upon vibration in Tubes, 87
-- -- Report of upon shallow underground system, 199
-- -- -- -- vibration in Tubes, 87-89
Boer war and motor-cars, 214, 215
Boston shallow underground railway, 190-194
Brighton Beach Electric Railway, 13, 14
British Electric Traction Co.’s tramways, 180-182
Brunel’s shield and Thames Tunnel, 76, 77
Buda-Pesth shallow underground railway, 190
Cabs, new and old, 212, 213
Cars, Curious uses of motor, 221-223
-- Description of various motor, 206
-- -- electric tram, 137, 138
Central London Electric Railway, The, 63-73
-- -- -- -- Description of, 66-68
-- -- -- -- Effect on omnibus traffic of, 70
-- -- -- -- History of, 63-65
-- -- -- -- Its annual sale of lost articles, 72, 73
-- -- -- -- Its City subways, 65, 66
-- -- -- -- Means of exit from cars of, 72
-- -- -- -- Ventilation of, 70-72
Centres of Great Britain, Manufacturing, 174-177
Chatham electric tramway accident, 259, 260
Chester motor-car accident, 266
City and South London Railway, The, 15-18, 22, 23
-- -- -- -- A trial trip in, 19-22
Claims for damage by railway tubing, 83-86
Combination omnibus (electricity and petrol,) 210, 211
Conveyances, Public, 208-213
County Council, The London, 143
-- -- -- and rehousing, 143, 144
County Council’s, The London, design for shallow underground railway, 187, 188
-- -- -- tramway system, 140-150
-- -- -- tramways, Business journey on, 151-156
Country, Changes produced by electric locomotion in the, 273
Crimean war and traction engine, 217
Devonport electric tramway accident, 261, 262
Earth tremblings, 89
Electric haulage on tramways by accumulators, 137
-- -- -- closed conduit, 134
-- -- -- open conduit, 133, 134
-- -- -- overhead trolley, 134-137
-- locomotion, Devil’s Advocate and, 250, 251
-- -- Drawbacks of, 250-267
-- -- our national life and, 269-286
-- -- Various forms of, 9, 10
-- motor-cars, 206, 208
-- -- vehicles, 214, 219
-- omnibuses, 211, 212
Electric railway accident in United States, 251
-- -- -- on Liverpool Overhead, 251-253
-- -- accidents, official report upon causes of, 251-253
-- -- breakdown on City and South London, 255, 256
-- -- breakdowns on Central London, 253-255
-- railways, Accidents on, 251-256
-- -- Pioneer, 11-30
-- -- Remarkable, 31-46
-- traction undertakings, Investment of capital in, 269, 270
-- tramcars, Description of, 137, 138
-- tramway accidents, Official report upon causes of, 261, 262
-- -- traction, Various methods of, 131-138
-- tramways generally, 128-140
-- -- Objections to, 258
Electricity, amount required to cause death, 264
-- Definition of terms used in, 8, 9
-- for traction, how produced, 7, 8
-- Signs of the times and, 285
-- Storage of, 235
-- -- applied to navigation, 230-249
-- -- Edison’s system, 235, 236
Emigration and overcrowding, 278, 279
Factories, Removal from London of, 144-146
Flourishing state of motor-car industry in Great Britain, 204-206
General verdict upon drawbacks of electric locomotion, 267, 268
Giant’s Causeway Electric Railway, The, 11-13
Glasgow electric tramway accident, 260, 261
-- tramways, 166-168
Great Northern, Brompton, and Piccadilly Circus Railway, The, 117, 118, 127
-- -- -- -- -- -- Advantages of, 117, 118
-- -- -- -- -- -- Aristocratic character of, 126, 127
-- -- -- -- -- -- Route of, 118-126
Grimsthorpe motor-car accident, 264, 265
Haulage on tramways, Various methods of, 130, 131
High-speed railways, 38-40
History of tramways, 128-130
Horseless vehicles, electrical and otherwise, 200-229
-- -- in the past, 203, 204
How railway Tubes are bored, 77-81
Huddersfield electric tramway accident, 258, 259
Improvements in railway travelling, 2-4
Inner Circle, Rejuvenating the Metropolitan, 47-62
Introduction of tramways by G. F. Train, 128, 129
Investment of capital in electric traction undertakings, 269, 270
Legislation respecting motor-cars, 226
Light Railway Act of 1896, 162-166, 171, 172
-- -- -- -- Effect on rural tramways of, 163, 164
Liverpool electric tramways, 168, 169
-- Overhead Railway, The, 26-30
Local authorities and rural tramways, 182-185
Locomotion, Electric, Changes in the country produced by, 273
-- -- -- at London termini produced by, 272, 273
-- -- Devil’s Advocate and, 250, 251
-- -- Drawbacks of, 250-267
-- -- -- General verdict upon, 267, 268
-- -- Improvement of street traffic arising from, 273, 274
-- -- Its effect upon existing railways, 270, 272
-- -- Our national life and, 269-286
-- -- overcrowding, Effect of, on, 257-286
-- -- Social results of, 274, 275
-- -- Various forms of, 9, 10
-- New and old order of, 1-9
Locomotives, Steam railway, 2, 4
-- Steam in railway, 4, 5
London County Council, The, 143
-- -- -- and rehousing, 143, 144
-- -- Council’s tramway system, 146-150
-- -- -- tramways, Business journey on, 151-156
-- Motor-car accident in, 266, 267
-- Overcrowding in, 279-284
-- Removal of factories from, 144-146
-- termini, Changes at, produced by electric locomotion, 272, 273
-- tramcar overturned, 262, 263
-- tramways in the past, 129, 130
-- United Tramways Company, 156-160
-- -- -- -- Extension to Hampton Court, 156, 159
London’s congested traffic, 186, 187
-- latest and longest Tube, 117-127
-- railways and American capital, 61, 160, 161
-- -- Royal Commission on, 112-116, 142, 143
-- -- Selection of central authority respecting, 115, 116
London’s street traffic, 141, 142
-- tangled Tubes, 107-116
-- congested traffic, suggested remedy for, 108, 109
-- tramways, 141-161
Maintenance of tramway tracks, 150, 151
Manchester and Liverpool Electric Express Railway, The, 40-46
-- -- -- -- -- -- Advantages of, 41, 42, 45
-- electric tramways, 169, 170
-- tramcar collision, 262
Manufacturing centres of Great Britain, 174-177
Medical objections to railway travelling in Tubes, 256, 267
Mercantile motors, 220-223
Metropolitan and Metropolitan District Railways, Construction of, 48-51
-- -- -- -- Differences of opinion between the New, 61, 62
-- -- -- -- Chelsea power house of, 51-54
-- District Railway, New, Driving power of trains on the, 54, 55
-- -- -- rejuvenated, Rolling stock of, 55-57
-- -- -- Rejuvenation of, 51-59
-- -- -- -- Stations and tunnels of, 57-59
-- Inner Circle, Rejuvenating the, 47-62
-- Railway, Rejuvenation of the, 59, 60
-- railways fifty years ago, 47, 48
Modern social questions, 284, 285
Mole, Tube at work, The, 81
-- -- -- -- Objections to, 82
Monmouth motor-car accident, 265, 266
Mono-railway, Ballybunion and Listowel, 36, 37
-- -- Behr’s, 35, 36
-- -- Manchester and Liverpool Electric Express, 40-46
-- railways, 31-38
Motor-car accident at Barnet, 266
-- -- at Chester, 266
-- -- at Grimsthorpe, 264, 265
-- -- in London, 266, 267
-- -- at Monmouth, 265, 266
-- -- at Rearsby, 265
-- -- at Stroud, 265
-- industry, Flourishing state of British, 204-206
Motor-cars, Accidents to, 264-267
-- Boer War and, 214, 215
-- Curious uses of, 221-223
-- Description of various, 206
-- Electric, 206, 208
-- Private, in country, 203
-- -- in town, 202, 203
-- Public highways and, 227-229
-- -- -- Mr. Balfour’s views on, 228, 229
-- Speed of, 224-226
Motor-cars, Speed of, Legislation respecting,226
-- Unpopularity of, 200-202, 226
-- Usefulness of, 226, 227
Motor-cycles, 220, 221
Motor vehicles, Agricultural, 218, 219
-- -- at Aldershot, Trials of, 215-217
-- -- Rider Haggard and, 219
-- -- Warfare in, 214, 217, 218
Motors, Mercantile, 220-223
Motoring, Advance of, 202, 203
Municipal tramways in the British Isles, Extent of, 164-166
Navigation, Electricity applied to, 230-249
New and old order of locomotion, 1-9
-- order of locomotion, 5-8
New York shallow underground railway, 194-198
Official report upon causes of electric railway accidents, 251, 253
-- -- -- -- tramway accidents, 261, 262
Old and new order of locomotion, 1-9
-- order of locomotion, 1-5
Omnibuses, Advantages of horseless, 212
-- Combination (electricity and petrol), 210, 211
-- Electric, 211, 212
-- Existing, 208, 209
-- Steam, 209, 210
Overcrowding and aliens, 279, 280
-- and emigration, 278, 279
-- Effect of electric locomotion on, 275-286
-- in London, 279-284
-- -- -- Facts and statistics relating to, 283, 284
-- -- -- Possible remedy for, 284
-- What it is like, 280-283
-- What it is not like, 275-277
Paris shallow underground railway, 188-190
Parliament, Tube Bills in (1902), 110, 111
-- -- -- (1902), Authorised, in, 112
-- -- -- (1903), Postponed, 114, 115
Piccadilly, Associations of, 122-126
Pioneer electric railways, 11-30
_Princess Ida_, The, 230-249
-- -- Construction of, 239-243
-- -- Description of, 239
-- -- Provisioning of, 245, 246
-- -- Recreations and conveniences on board, 243-245
-- -- Visit to, 238, 239
-- -- Voyage to the Cape of, 247-249
Private motor-cars in country, 203
-- -- in town, 202, 203
Provincial tramways, 162-185
-- rural tramways, 171-174
Public conveyances, 208, 213
-- highways and motor-cars, 227, 228
-- -- -- Mr. Balfour’s views on, 228, 229
Questions, Modern social, 284, 285
Railway accident on Liverpool Overhead Electric, 251-253
-- -- in United States, Electric, 251
-- breakdown, City and South London Electric, 255, 256
-- breakdowns, Central London Electric, 253-255
-- Electric, Brighton Beach, 13, 14
-- -- Central London, 63-73
-- -- City and South London, 15-18, 22, 23
-- -- Giant’s Causeway, 11-13
-- -- Great Northern, Brompton, and Piccadilly Circus, 117-127
-- -- Liverpool Overhead, 26-30
-- -- Manchester and Liverpool Express, 40-46
-- -- Metropolitan, 59, 60
-- -- -- District, 51-59
-- -- Waterloo and City, 23-26
-- Light, Act of 1896, 162-166, 171, 172
-- -- -- Rural tramways effect on, 163, 164
-- Metropolitan, Rejuvenation of, 59, 60
-- -- District, Rejuvenation of, 51-59
-- -- -- New, Driving power of trains, 54, 55
-- -- -- -- Power house at Chelsea, 51-54
-- -- -- -- Rolling Stock of, 55-57
-- -- -- -- Stations and tunnels of, 57-59
-- Mono, Behr’s, 35, 36
-- travelling, Improvements in, 2-4
-- -- in Tubes, Medical objections to, 256, 257
-- Tubes, Annoyance from vibration in, 86-89
-- -- -- -- Official Commission upon, 87
-- -- -- -- -- -- Report of upon, 87, 89
-- -- Depths of, 81
-- -- How they are bored, 77-81
-- Tubing, Claims for damage by, 83-86
Railways, Construction of Metropolitan and Metropolitan District, 48-51
-- Differences of opinion between the Metropolitan and Metropolitan
District, 61, 62
-- Electric, Accidents on, 251-256
-- -- Remarkable, 31-46
-- Existing, Effects of electric locomotion upon, 270-272
-- High-speed, 38-40
-- London’s, Royal Commission on, 112-116, 142, 143
Railways, London’s, Selection of Central authority respecting, 115, 116
-- Metropolitan, fifty years ago, 47, 48
-- Mono, 31-38
-- Tube, open for traffic in London, 110
Ramsgate tramcar shock, 264
Rearsby motor-car accident, 265
Rider Haggard and motor vehicles, 219
Rural tramways, 162-185
-- -- and local authorities, 182-185
-- -- New order of, 179-182
-- -- Old order of, 173, 174
-- -- Provincial, 171-174
-- -- Usefulness of, 172, 173
Rush for the London tramways, 138-140
Shallow underground railway, Boston, 190-194
-- -- -- Buda-Pesth, 190
-- -- -- London County Council’s design for, 187, 188
-- -- -- New York, 194-198
-- -- -- Paris, 188-190
-- -- -- system, The, 186-199
-- -- -- -- Board of Trade report upon, 199
-- -- -- -- Its adaptability to London, 198, 199
Ships and steamers, Development in size of, 230-235
-- -- Use of aluminium in building, 234
Signs of the times and electricity, 285
Social results of electric locomotion, 274, 275
Speed of motor-cars, 224-226
-- -- Legislation respecting, 226
Steam railway locomotives, 2, 4
-- in railway locomotives, 4, 5
-- omnibuses, 209, 210
Storage of electricity, 235
-- -- Edison’s system, 235, 236
Street traffic, Improvement in, arising from electric locomotion, 273, 274
Stroud motor-car accident, 265
Subways and suburban lines, 109, 110
Sunderland tramcar shock, 263
Thames Tunnel and Brunei’s shield, 76, 77
Touring in the Tubes (a sketch), 90-106
Traction engine used in Crimean War, 217
Traffic, London’s congested, 186, 187
-- -- street, 141, 142
Tramcar collision at Manchester, 262
-- overturned in London, 262, 263
-- shock at Ramsgate, 264
-- -- Sunderland, 263
Tramcars, Electric, Description of, 137, 138
Tramway accidents, 258-263
Tramway tracks, maintenance of, 150, 151
-- traction, various methods of electric, 131-137
Tramways, Birmingham, 170, 171
-- British Electric Traction Co.’s, 180-182
-- Electric, Accident at Chatham, 259, 260
-- -- -- Devonport, 261, 262
-- -- -- Glasgow, 260, 261
-- -- -- Huddersfield, 258, 259
-- -- Accidents, Official report upon causes of, 261, 262
-- -- accumulators, Haulage of by, 137
-- -- closed conduit, Haulage of by, 134
-- -- generally, 128-140
-- -- Municipal, Extent of, in British Isles, 164-166
-- -- Objections to, 258
-- -- open conduit, Haulage of by, 133, 134
-- -- overhead trolley, Haulage of by, 134-137
-- Glasgow, 166-168
-- haulage on, Various methods of, 130, 131
-- History of, 128-130
-- Introduction of, by G. F. Train, 128, 129
-- Liverpool, 168, 169
-- London County Council’s system of, 146-150
-- -- in the past, 129, 130
-- -- United Company, 156-160
-- -- -- -- Extension to Hampton Court, 156-159
-- London’s, 141-161
-- Manchester, 169, 170
-- Provincial, 162-185
-- -- rural, 171, 174
-- Rural, Effect of Light Railways Act, 1896, on, 163, 164
-- -- Local authorities and, 182-185
-- -- New order of, 179-182
-- -- Old order of, 173, 174
Tramways, Rural, Usefulness of, 172, 173
-- Rush for the London, 138-140
Trial trip in the City and South London Railway, 19-22
Tube Bills in Parliament (1902), 110, 111
-- -- -- -- Authorised, in, 112
-- -- -- (1903), Postponed, 114, 115
-- London’s latest and longest, 117-127
-- mole at work, The, 81, 82
-- -- -- Objections to, 82
-- Railway, Central London, 63-73
-- -- City and South London, 15-18, 22, 23
-- -- Great Northern, Brompton, and Piccadilly Circus, 117-127
-- -- Waterloo and City, 23-26
-- railways, Depths of, 81
-- -- How they are bored, 77-81
-- -- open for traffic in London, 110
Tubes, London’s tangled, 107-116
-- -- -- Suggested remedy for, 108, 109
-- Railway travelling in, Medical objections to, 256, 257
-- Touring in the (a sketch), 90-106
Tubing, Claims for damage caused by railway, 83-86
Tubular system, The, 74-89
-- -- Origin of, 75, 76
Unpopularity of motor-cars, 200-202, 226, 227
Usefulness of motor-cars, 226, 227
-- of rural tramways, 172, 173
Vehicles, Electric motor, 206, 208
-- Horseless, electrical and otherwise, 200-229
-- -- in the past, 203, 204
Vibration of railway Tubes, Annoyance from, 86-89
-- -- -- -- -- Board of Trade Committee upon, 87
-- -- -- -- -- Report of Board of Trade Committee upon, 87-89
Warfare, motor vehicles in, 214-218
Waterloo and City Railway, 23-26
PLYMOUTH
WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON
PRINTERS
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This is by no means the oldest steam-engine at work in the
kingdom, the doyen being one built as far back as 1767, and used
continuously ever since at Charles Clifford and Sons’ Metal-rolling
Mills, Birmingham. It is of beam type, and the oak beam was only
replaced at the end of last year by one of iron. In 1812 a new
cylinder was put in, but the rest of the engine remains as it was 136
years ago, even to the connecting-rod for rolling-mill purposes. It
is said that this G.O.M. is more economical than many of the modern
engines used in the trade.
[2] The biggest and most powerful locomotive in the world is stated to
be the “Bessemer,” built in 1900 at the Pittsburg Locomotive Works,
U.S.A., weighing with its tender 175 tons. Its height is 16 feet from
rail to top of smoke-stack, and it is capable of easily drawing a
train of 4,000 tons at 25 miles an hour, or 8,000 tons at 15 miles
an hour. Its hauling power is therefore enormous, and so it ought to
be, as the diameter of the smallest ring of the boiler is 7 feet 10
inches. The nearest approach in size to this monster was constructed
in Great Britain for the Santa Fé Railway in Argentina, and weighed
150 tons.
[3] See Chapter I.
[4] These have since given place to motor-cars built in America.
[5] Report of Parliamentary Committee on Housing of the Poor, 1902.
[6] _vide_ Chapter V.
[7] One of the largest tramway schemes ever promoted is contained
in the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Tramways Bill, which came
before Parliament in March last. The routes have a total length of
80 miles, and pass through a district with a population of close
upon three-quarters of a million. The idea is to connect, by means
of electric tramways, the towns of Nottingham, Long Eaton, Derby,
Ilkeston, Ripley, Alfreton, Sutton-in-Ashfield, Pleasley, Mansfield,
Eastwood, Bulwell, and Hucknall Torkard.
[8] In England the motor-car is beginning to play an important part
in country parliamentary elections. Motor-cars are used by commercial
travellers, and are being tried for the official work of the police
about the metropolis. The General Post Office is also giving motor
carriers a trial for letters and parcels; and motors are utilised for
dust-carts.
[9] A very curious and, to the superstitious, significant coincidence
was recently reported from Ireland.
Last year, when permission was asked to repair the road between
Newcastle and Kilcoole, a member of the rural council opposed,
declaring that it was good enough for farmers, and they did not want
to encourage “galoots in motor-cars” and “go-boys on bicycles” in
their neighbourhood. This councillor was, not long since, killed
through the wheel of his cart catching in one of the ruts complained
of!
[10] Both Brunel and Scott Russell, the eminent shipbuilder, argued
that from scientific theory and actual experience there need be no
limit to the size of a ship when constructed on the tubular principle,
except that which the quality of the material imposed.
[11] The Hamburg-American Line’s luxurious yacht _Prinzessin Victoria
Luise_ has a splendidly-equipped gymnasium, where the passengers can
indulge in horse-riding, cycling, and rowing, on the various apparatus
installed. On one of the decks is a first-class “cricket-pitch,” a
tennis-court, and an archery ground.
[12] A heater devised by Mr. E. G. Rivers, chief electrical engineer
to the Office of Works, brings the problem of electric heating for
domestic purposes well within the bounds of practical utility. It
renders possible the employment of electricity for heating buildings,
for cooking, and for other uses in a manner hitherto impossible. Mr.
Rivers is engaged in developing his invention in the direction of
applying it to cooking-ranges, and expects very shortly to adapt it to
that use.
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
safeguard against breaksdown=> safeguard against breakdowns {pg 8}
Motor tricycles and bicylces=> Motor tricycles and bicycles {pg 205}
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Tube, Train, Tram, and Car - or Up-to-date locomotion" ***
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