CHAP. IX. INCREASE OF LOCAL INTERCOURSE. 



171 





THE FTRST RAILWAY COACH. 



carrying stock of the Stockton and Darlington Company 

 in the year 1825. But the " Experiment" proved the for* 

 runner of a mighty traffic : and long time did not elaps 

 before it was displaced, not only by improved coaches 

 (still drawn by horses), but afterwards by long trains oi 

 passenger-carriages drawn by locomotive engines. 



No sooner did the coal and merchandise trains begin 

 to run regularly upon the line, than new business rela- 

 tions sprang up between Stockton and Darlington, and 

 there were many more persons who found occasion to 

 travel between the two towns, merchandise and mineral 

 traffic invariably stimulating, if not calling into exist- 

 ence, an entirely new traffic in passengers. Before the 

 construction of the line, the attempt had been made to 

 run a coach between Stockton, Darlington, and Barnard 

 Castle three times a week ; but it was starved off the road 

 for want of support. Now, however, that there were 

 numbers of people desiring to travel, the stage-coach by 

 the common road was revived and prospered, and many 

 other persons connected with the new traffic got a 

 " lift " by the railway waggons, which were even more 

 popular than the stage-coach. 



