I8i8.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECrS JOURNAL. 



3G3 



The engines are said, by Francis MTiishaw, who had seen many 

 of the old ones, to be "ponderous and clumsy, but still powerful."-^ 

 Many of the old ones were on the line" in 1837. The Lord 

 Brougham was 16 feet long, with six wheels ; each three being con- 

 nected by cranks. The engine-driver rang a bell on coming near 

 a station. About 1836, the steam-whistle came into use for the 

 passenger-engines ; but the bell was used for the coal-engines.^^ 

 Whishaw thought that it was better to have several kinds of 

 signals, rather tlian the steam-whistle only. 



Level road-crossings were then tliought to be without any harm ; 

 and therefore there were fifteen on the Stockton and Darlington 

 line.2'= This kind of crossing was, as is known, afterwards put a 

 stop to by law, but is now sometimes allowed. In 1839 there 

 were no gates on the line, but merely signal-posts, with the word 

 " Signal." 



In 1823 and 1821, further acts of parliament were got ; and the 

 Company were allowed to run locomotives and carry passengers. 

 On the 17th of September, 1825, the line was opened.'^' Stephen- 

 son now tried on a large scale, on the Hagger Leases branch of 

 the Stockton and Darlington Railway, his locomotives, which were 

 thought to be \ery successful. By this time, the 'W'ylam, Ivilling- 

 >vorth, and Hetton tramways were worked by steam-power. 



The gradients on the Stockton and Darlington Railway are 

 mostly steep, 1 in 128, 204., 233, and 427. The line rises from 

 Stockton ; and was worked by stationary engines at the inclines, 

 which are 1 in 30, 32, 33, and lOl.^s jhe length of the main 

 line is 2J miles, but the whole length is now 55 miles 5 furlongs;^'' 

 and there are eight passenger and goods stations. Tlie whole cost 

 per mile is now 9,000/. 1,064 persons are employed on the line. 



Passengers were first carried in stage coaches, drawn by horses ; 

 and it was some time before the locomotive was brought into play, 

 wliile the speed was low. In 1837, Whishaw found the speed of 

 the passenger-trains only 12 miles perhour."" As this was mostly 

 a coal line, it will be seen that the speed of the locomotive would 

 never have been brouglit out here, although its power was fully 

 tried by Stephenson and Nicholas AV^ood. 



Whishaw does not th.ink that the earthworks are heavy, nor does 

 he name any great work. Some of the curves on the main line are 

 sharp, being much under a radius of a quarter of a mile. There 

 are thirteen bridges under, and eleven bridges over, the main line. 

 The slopes of some of the embankments towards the top of the 

 line are planted with firs." The line is ballasted with small coal. 



This is named as the first line on which houses for the workmen 

 were built on the side of the railway,'*- and Whishaw foresaw that 

 it would be followed elsewhere. The end for wliich these cots 

 were built was to keep the waymen and other workmen near their 

 work, and away from the ale-house. 



In 1839, there were 5,000 coal-wagons at work on the line.'^ 

 At that time, there were thirty engines, \'ery few of which were by 

 the Stephensons, some were by timothy Hackwortb, of Shildon, 

 by the Kitchens of Darlington, now directors of the line, and the 

 Hawthorns. The works of Timothy Hackwortb are at Shildon, 

 on the line ; and thus he was stimulated to tlie Liverpool and Man- 

 chester struggle by seeing the engines of Stephenson running on 

 the line before him. At Shildon are likewise the engine work- 

 shops of the Stockton and Darlington Railway. 



The tenders were two waterbutts set on "a wagon frame, and 

 holding together 1,200 gallons of water. Beside" them was the 

 c«ke or coal for the engines. The whole mounted on four 

 wheels.^^ This was the rough beginning of the tender. Coal 

 was burned in the coal-eugines, and coal and coke, mixed, in the 

 passenger-engines. The coke was made at St. Helen's pit, on the 

 line, and was coked for eight-and-forty hours. The cost was 10». 

 per ton. 



In the year ending the 30th of June, 1847, the gross receipts 

 were 113,922/. for the Stockton and Darlington, and Bishop Auck- 

 land and Weardale Railways.^= Of this, 16,115/. was for passen- 

 gers, 71,842/. for coals, 21,439/. for goods, and 3,030/. for lime and 

 stone. The number of travellers was 428,5] 4. Of these, it is 

 said, 33,222 were by horse-coaches (showing that some still ran on 

 the line), and 1,840 by coal-trains. Each passenger travels aoout 

 6i miles, and pays about tenpence as a fare. 911,635 tons, or 

 nearly a million of tons of coals are carried, showing how great is 

 the yield of the coal field. The number of tons of goods is 



24. WhishaWa Analysis, p. 2S0. 25 Whishaw's Analysis, 1837, p. 267. 



30 Whisliaw's Railways of Great Britain, ji. 415. 



a' Ritchie on Railways, p. 233. 28 \Vhishaw ou Railways.— Ritchie on Railways. 



29 Tuck, Railway Shareholder's Manual, p. 243. 



3 Analysis of Railways, p. 292— Qaarlerly Review, vol. 31. 



3> Whishaw on Railways, p. 413. a2 Whishaw on Railways, p. 416. 



3 3 Whishaw on Railways, p. 418. 3 4 Whishaw on Railways, p. 422. 



3 5 Paxliamentary Returns, l{34d. 



125,883. It may safely be said, that no such number was carried 

 before the railway was opened. The number of tons of lime and 

 stone is 89,540, which likewise shows a great trade, and which is 

 much beyond what it formerly was. The cattle carried are few ; 

 1,878 beasts, 2,121 sheep, and 258 swine. 557/. is paid for parcels. 



While the works were going on, Stephenson was beset in the 

 "Newcastle Magazine,"3<i by Mr. B. Thompson, of Ayton Banks, 

 who wished to show that locomotive-engines would never pay, and 

 that Stephenson had reckoned wrongly. Thompson said that 

 locomotives were not equal to horses. 



He further said, that tlie breaking of rails at Killingworth was 

 very great, and that horses were used to help the engines on. If 

 steam were to be used, he thought stationary engines better than 

 locomotives. 



Mr. B. Thompson was the maker of a new kind of rail," which 

 was tried on the Brunton and Shields Railway, but was not found 

 to answer. It was something like Stephenson's, but the rail was 

 fastened to the chair by a screw bolt. 



Nicholas Wood took' tlie side of Stephenson,— said that Thomp- 

 son's tale about the rails and horses was untrue, and gave other 

 reckonings to show that Thompson had made the cost of the 

 locomotives too much. 



This Thompson answered; and a paper war went on, in which 

 Thompson laid against Nicholas Wood, that he had made many 

 mistakes as to horse-power and so forth. ^V^ood seems to have 

 had the better of the fight. 



These were among the early writings of Nicholas Wood, and in 

 all likelihood led to the work' on railways, written by him in 1825, 

 and in which, as is well known, he held 'forth that it was wrong to 

 look for a speed of ten miles an hour. ^V'ood does not seem to 

 have had at first a very ready belief in Stephenson, either in this or 

 in the Safety Lamp ; but he has lived long enough to find Stephen- 

 son in the right, and to be himself the maker of the Brandling 

 Junction Railway, which was mostly done by the means of Robert 

 ^Villiam Brandling, already named as an old' friend of Stephenson, 

 and likewise as the maker of a Safety Lamp. Another great 

 work done by a single hand in the north, is Sunderland-bridge, 

 built in 1790 by Rowland Burdon. This, and the Brandling Junc- 

 tion Railway, show the boldness of the Northumbrians. 



Stephenson may be looked upon as one of the makers of Nicho- 

 las Wood's book on railways, for he made all that belongs to 

 locomotive-engines, and on the Stockton and Darlington Railway, 

 he had set forth the best way of making railways. This is the first 

 great book on railways, and which set Tredgold writing. "V^^ood 

 gives a report by Stephenson, and acknowledges his help in the 

 experiments to discover the precise amount of resistance opposed 

 to the motion of carriages on railways, and the resistance to 

 different forms of carriages.aa These, undertaken seven years 

 before, show how careful Wood liad been in getting his book up. 

 The book is worth the more, from George Stephenson's share in it. 



Wood must have been of great help to Stephenson many other 

 times besides this ; and his reading and mathematical knowledge 

 must have stood Stephenson in good stead. It is said"> that the 

 Rev. ^Villiam Turner, of Newcastle, was a great helper of Ste- 

 phenson with books, with instruments, and advice. 



As an end to this long tale about the Stockton and Darlington 

 Railway, it may be said that the manager is now Mv. George Ste- 

 phenson, nephew of the engineer, so that the name is still kept up. 

 It is hoped, however, that some more lasting remembrance of the 

 great man will be set up on this first of his railway works. Mr. 

 Meynell, of Yarm,"" who laid the first rail at Stockton-on-Tees, 

 is still a director, and should not let his old friend be forgotten. 



IX. LOCOMOTIVE FACTORY. 



Before 1825 Stephenson laid down the Stockton and Darlington, 

 Hetton and Springwell Railways, and set the locomotive at work 

 on them. He had now two learners under him, his sou Robert, 

 born in ] 803, and Ijrought up at Newcastle and Edinburgh ; and 

 Joseph Locke, born in 1805, at Atterclifi'e, near Shefl[ield, and 

 brought up at Barnsley Grammar School. The latter laid out the 

 Springwell tramway, from Springwell to Jarrow,*' which is said 

 to be a good work. 



Both Robert Stephenson and Locke are now members of the 

 House of Commons ; the former a Knight of Leopold, and the lat- 

 ter of the Legion of Honour. These were the first offspring of 

 what has since been found a great school of engineering. By 



3 6 Newcastle Magazine, vol. 1. 



3 7 Ritchie, on Railways, p. 32, where there is a drawing. 



3 8 Wood, on Railroads, 1st edition, p. 175. 



3 9 Gateshead Observer. 4o Gateshead Observer, August 19, 1S43. 



* 1 Gateshead Observer, Aug. 19, 184S. 



47* 



