1854.] 



ROBERT STEPHENSON, M.P. 



167 



liable to such oscillation as to lift the front wheels, or at least to 

 take the weight of them so as to render them useless as guides." 



We have quoted this part of Mr. Stephenson's evidence as 

 elucidating his improvements of the Locomotive, and as illus- 

 tratino- the fact that the great improvements on American built 

 Engines have been based, if not directly on these opinions, cer- 

 tainly on similar ones, and that they embody these identical princi- 

 ples as fully as any engine manufactured under Mr. Stephenson's 

 own eye. The American manufacturer has extended the base, 

 and in so doing inci eased the stability, while the more frequent 

 recurrence of short curves has driven him to the adoption of a . 

 contrivance which, while the length and base of the engine is 

 increased, renders it much less liable to derangement on curves 

 than the English engine. We refer to the truck frame, a feature 

 characteristic of American engines, and without which many of 

 the curves on our railways would be impracticable at high 

 velocities. 



Returning again to the width of guage we find Mr. Stephenson 

 assigning as the reason for adopting the narrow guage on the 

 London and Brighton Line, where a junction with no other Line 

 was in contemplation, that he " felt that 4 feet 8i inches were 

 fully adequate for any purpose to which a railway could be 

 applied ; and believing also that the narrower the guage the less 

 was the resistance. I conceived that that would prove safe and 

 economical, and that there was no ground or reason for deviating 

 from it." * * * "We believe the resistance in passing- 

 round curves to be materially affected by the width of the guage. 

 We know that in the collieries about Newcastle, where the 4 

 feet 8-J- inch guage prevails, wherever they come to any mining 

 operations, where the power to be used is that of a horse or man, 

 they immediately reduce the guage, because they want to go in 

 or out amongst the mines with very sharp curves, and the wide 

 guage would be quite impracticable amongst them. In fact the 

 small carriages that are used in the mining operations are upon 

 a guage of about 20 inches, and they go round curves under 

 ground of about 10 or 12 feet radius, and they could only work 

 such mines by such a guage. In the case of every guage when 

 you come to a sharp curve, you see the outside and inside rails 

 quite brightened by the sliding motion, because the one set of 

 wheeb has to slide forward to keep pace with the other, and the 

 others have to slide backwards. In fact, when going round a 

 curve both operations have to take place — the sliding backwards 

 of the one set, and the sliding forwards of the other. Of course 

 as you increase the width of guage the difference between the 

 two becomes augmented, and I think the increase of resistance 

 in a case of that kind would be found to be as the square of the 

 guage, because the increased space that you have to slide over 

 is as the width of guage, and you have to accomplish that in 

 the same time as on the narrow guage: therefore it is in my 

 opinion increased as the square." 



As bearing more directly on the value of an uninterrupted 

 guage over a considerable length of road, and as exhibiting his 

 opinions of the value of a uniformity of guages on lines, worked 

 in connection with each other, the reasons which influenced Mr. 

 Stephenson to recommend the change of the Eastern Counties' 

 Line, which had been laid clown by Mr. Braithwaite, on a five 

 feet guage, to the ordinary narrow guage of 4 feet 8-^ inches 

 will possess some interest, we therefore quote his evidence on 

 that particular : "It became a question," he says, " after having 

 decided upon the Northern and Eastern being altered, which 

 was the only one leading up into the Counties already occupied 

 by the narrow guage, whether we should alter the Eastern 

 Counties' guage which was laid down for fifty miles to Colchester 



into a district of country where the junction of different guages 

 would have been of less consequence, and indeed was little likely 

 to take place, because the Eastern Counties is apart from any 

 other Line almost in the Kingdom. * * * I was quite 

 aware that there would be some difficulty in the first instance 

 in trying to blend two guages together in the same Station; but 

 I had no idea until we went into detail what those difficulties 

 would amount to. Then there was another reason why we 

 decided upon altering it, (the 5 feet guage) in fact we found 

 that the two Lines would require two complete, separate, carrying 

 establishments, we could never make use of the carriages of one 

 Line upon the Line of the other, which we find to be really of 

 vital consequence just now. * * * If they had had two 

 carrying establishments, I consider that they would have spent 

 far more money in the carrying establishment (that is £50,000) 

 than they have spent in altering the guage, and when done the 

 carrying establishment would not have been so effective." 



These opinions are of course predicated with reference to the 

 blending of two short Lines, and are irrespective of the conside- 

 ration of how far railway stock can be run without thorough 

 examination and repair; but on this Mr. Stephenson subsequently 

 expresses his opinion that carriages might be run from Euston 

 Square to Glasgow or Edinburgh without change or requiring 

 repair. He says, " The carriages are now, from our experience, 

 become so substantial and so secure and efficient in the arrange- 

 ments that they run 400 or 500 miles very frequently, and in 

 fact, I dare say, a great many carriages run a great many 

 thousand miles without having any thing done to them except 

 greasing." 



Had Mr. Stephenson observed at any time a serious objection 

 to the narrow guage of 4 feet 8-^ inches, he would doubtless 

 have changed it, when called upon to advise with reference 

 to the construction of the Belgian Railways, where no conside- 

 rations of future junctions with established Lines had any 

 weight in determining the guage to be adopted; he says in 

 reference to these Lines : " There of course there was a new 

 field open to us, and it would have been competent to introduce 

 a wider guage or a narrower one, just as our experience might 

 dictate ; but we had no reason whatever to urge upon them an 

 alteration from that guage which has already been established 

 in this country, and which seemed to answer every purpose 

 without the least objection. The other Line that I was con- 

 nected with was the Leghorn and Pisa. There of course again 

 we were in a new country, and it was quite competent to alter 

 the guage if it had been deemed necessary. * * * Perhaps 

 if I had been called upon to do so it would be difficult to give a 

 good reason for the adoption of an odd measure, 4 feet 8-j inches; 

 but inasmuch as an inch or two more or less would have 

 involved a different construction of engines on a new model or 

 pattern, I followed it." Similar reasons doubtless prevailed 

 with the engineers of the first Lines of Railway constructed in 

 America, and thus we trace the influence of the old colliery 

 tram roads as fixing the prevailing guage of the Railways of the 

 world ; and what is most singular the leading advocates of that 

 guage have failed to offer to our notice any advantages 

 possessed by it over other guages, and we doubt whether 

 any machinist who might be called upon to design a locomotive 

 of the power of our present first class engines, and entirely irre- 

 spective of any fixed guage or existing model, would approach 

 within several inches of that particular measure. There is 

 doubtless a limit to the width of guage that can be adopted with 

 advantage, and we will now quote Stephenson's reasons for 

 objecting to so wide a guage as that adopted by Mr. Brunei for 



