CHAP. XVII. RAILWAY SPEED. 365 



George Steplienson had been pronounced insane for 

 stating his conviction that twelve miles an hour could 

 be performed by the locomotive ; but now that he had 

 established the fact, and greatly exceeded that speed, he 

 was thought behind the age because he recommended 

 the rate to be limited to forty miles an hour. He said : i 

 " I do not like either forty or fifty miles an hour upon 

 any line I think it is an unnecessary speed ; and if 

 there is danger upon a railway, it is high velocity that 

 creates it. I should say no railway ought to exceed 

 forty miles an hour on the most favourable gradient ; 

 but upon a curved line the speed ought not to exceed 

 twenty-four or twenty-five miles an hour." He had, 

 indeed, constructed for the Great Western Eailway an 

 engine capable of running fifty miles an hour with a 

 load, and eighty miles without one. But he never was 

 in favour of a hurricane speed of this sort, believing it 

 could only be accomplished at an unnecessary increase 

 both of danger and expense. 



" It is true," he observed on other occasions 

 "I have said the locomotive engine might be mad 

 to travel a hundred miles an hour ; but I alway 

 put a qualification on this, namely, as to what speed 

 would best suit the public. The public may, how- 

 ever, be unreasonable ; and fifty or sixty miles an 

 hour is an unreasonable speed. Long before railway 

 travelling became general, I said to my friends that 

 there was no limit to the speed of the locomotive, pro- 

 vided the works could be made to stand. But there are 

 limits to the strength of iron, whether it be manu- 

 factured into rails or locomotives ; and there is a point 

 at which both rails and tyres must break. Every 

 increase of speed, by increasing the strain upon the road 

 and the rolling stock, brings us nearer to that point. 

 At thirty miles a slighter road will do, and less perfect 



1 It may be mentioned that these I author by Robert Stephenson, and 

 views were communicated to the | noted down in his presence. 



