Stokers and pokers

The Locomotive Engine.—Camden.

Considering how many fine feelings and good feelings adorn the interior of the human heart, it is curious to observe with what facility we can put them all to sleep, or, if they won’t sleep, stupify ourselves, at any moment when it becomes inconvenient to us to listen to their friendly admonitions. All the while mailing, coaching, and posting were in fashion, every man’s countenance beamed—every person’s tongue gabbled freely as it described not only “the splendid rate” (say ten miles an hour) at which he had travelled, but the celerity with which no sooner had the words “First turn-out!” been exclaimed by the scout, who vanished as soon as he had uttered them, than four horses in shining harness had appeared half hobbling half trotting from under the archway of the Red Lion, the Crown, or the Three Bells, before which the traveller had from a canter been almost suddenly pulled up, to receive various bows, scrapes, and curtsies from the landlord and his rosy-faced cap-beribboned wife. But, although we could all accurately describe our own enjoyments, and, like Johnson, expatiate on “the delightful sensations” we experienced in what we called fast travelling, who among us ever cared to ascertain, or even for a single moment to think of, the various arrangements necessary for watering, feeding, cleaning, and shoulder-healing all the poor horses whose “brilliant” performances we had so much admired? Whether they slept on straw or on stones—indeed, whether they slept at all—what was their diet—what, if any, were their enjoyments—what were their sufferings—and, lastly, how and where they eventually died—it would have been deemed exceedingly vulgar to inquire; and so, after with palpitating flanks and panting nostrils they had once been unhooked from our splinter-bars,

In a similar way we now chloroform all kindly feelings of inquiry respecting the treatment of the poor engine-drivers, firemen, and even of the engine that has safely conveyed us through tunnels and through storms at the rate of thirty, forty, and occasionally even fifty miles an hour—

“Oh no! we never mention them!”

and in fact scarcely do we deign to look at them. Indeed even while in the train, and most especially after we had left it, we should feel bored to death by being asked to reflect for a moment on any point or any person connected with it. We have therefore, we feel, to apologise at least to some of our readers for intruding upon them, in bringing “betwixt the wind and their nobility” the following uninteresting details.

As soon as an engine has safely dragged a passenger-train to the top of the incline at Camden Station, at which point the coupling-chains which connect it with its load are instantly unhooked, it is enabled by the switchman to get from the main line upon a pair of almost parallel side rails, along which, while the tickets are being collected, it may be seen and heard retrograding and hissing past its train. After a difficult and intricate passage from one set of rails to another, advancing or “shunting” backwards as occasion may require, it proceeds to the fire-pit, over which it stops. The fireman here opens the door of his furnace, which by a very curious process is made to void the red-hot contents of its stomach into the pit purposely constructed to receive them, where the fire is instantly extinguished by cold water ready laid on by the side. Before, however, dropping their fire, the drivers are directed occasionally to blow off their steam to clean; and we may further add that once a-week the boiler of every engine is washed out to get rid of sediment or scale, the operation being registered in a book kept in the office. After dropping his fire, the driver, carefully taking his fire-bars with him, conducts his engine into an immense shed or engine-stable 400 feet in length by 90 in breadth, generally half full of locomotives, where he examines it all over, reporting in a book what repairs are wanting, or, if none (which is not often the case), he reports it “correct.” He then takes his lamps to the lamp-house to be cleaned and trimmed by workmen solely employed to do so, after which he fetches them away himself. Being now off duty, he and his satellite fireman go either to their homes or to a sort of club-room containing a fire to keep them warm, a series of cupboards to hold their clothes, and wooden benches on which they may sit, sleep, or ruminate until their services are again required; and here it is pleasing to see these fine fellows in various attitudes enjoying rest and stillness after the incessant noise, excitement, and occasional tempests of wind and rain, to which—we will say nothing of greater dangers—they have been exposed.

The duties which the engine-driver has to perform are not only of vital importance, but of a nature which peculiarly illustrates the calm, unpretending, bull-dog courage, indigenous to the moist healthy climate of the British Isles. Even in bright sunshine, to stand—like the figure-head of a ship—foremost on a train of enormous weight, which, with fearful momentum, is rushing forward faster than any race-horse can gallop, requires a cool head and a calm heart; but to proceed at this pace in dark or foggy weather into tunnels, along embankments, and through deep cuttings, where it is impossible to foresee any obstruction, is an amount of responsibility which scarcely any other situation in life can exceed; for not only is a driver severely, and occasionally without mercy, punished for any negligence he himself may commit, but he is invariably sentenced personally to suffer on the spot for any accident that from the negligence of others may suddenly befall the road along which he travels, but over which he has not the smallest control. The greatest hardship he has to endure, however, is from cold, especially that produced in winter by evaporation from his drenched clothes passing rapidly through the air. Indeed, when a gale of wind and rain from the north-west, triumphantly sweeping over the surface of the earth at its ordinary rate of say sixty miles an hour, suddenly meets the driver of the London and North-Western, who has not only to withstand such an antagonist, but to dash through him, and in spite of him to proceed in an opposite direction at the rate of say forty miles an hour—the conflict between the wet Englishman and Æolus, tilting by each other at the combined speed of a hundred miles an hour, forms a tournament of extraordinary interest.

As the engine is proceeding, the driver, who has not very many inches of standing-room, remains upon its narrow platform, while his fireman, on about the same space, stands close beside him on the tender. We tried the position. Everything, however, proved to be so hard, excepting the engine, which was both hard and hot, that we found it necessary to travel with one foot on the tender and the other on the engine, and, as the motion of each was very different, we felt as if each leg were galloping at a different stride. Nevertheless the Company’s drivers and firemen usually travel from 100 to 120 miles per day, performing six of these trips per week; nay, a few run 166 miles per day—for which they are paid eight days’ wages for six trips.

But to return to the engine which we just left in the engine-house. As soon as the driver has carefully examined it, and has recorded in a book the report we have described, the “foreman of the fitters” comes to it, and examines it all over again; and if anything is found out of order which, on reference to the book, the driver has not reported, the latter is reported by the former for his negligence. A third examination is made by Mr. Walker, the chief superintending engineer of the station, a highly intelligent and valuable servant of the Company, who has charge of the repairs of the locomotive department between Camden and Tring. If HE detects any defect that has escaped the notice not only of the driver, but of the foreman of the fitters, woe betide them both!

While the engine, with several workmen screwing and hammering at it, is undergoing the necessary repairs, we will consider for a moment a subject to which Englishmen always attach considerable importance, namely, its victuals and drink, or, in other words, its coke and water. There is at Camden Station a coke-factory composed of eighteen ovens, nine on each side, in which coal after being burnt for about fifty hours gives nearly two-thirds of its quantity of coke. These ovens produce about 20 tons of coke per day; but, as 50 tons per day are required for the Camden Station alone, the remaining 30 tons are brought by rail all the way from Newcastle. Indeed, with the exception of fifty ovens at Peterborough, the whole of the coke required annually for the London and North-Western Railway, amounting to 112,500 tons, of an average value of 1l. per ton, comes from the Northern Coal-fields. For some time there were continual quarrels between the coke suppliers and receivers, the former declaring that the Company’s waggons had been despatched from the North as soon as loaded, and the latter complaining that they had been unnecessarily delayed. A robin-redbreast settled the dispute, for, on unloading one of the waggons immediately on its arrival at Camden Station, her tiny nest with three eggs in it minutely explained that the waggon had not been despatched as soon as loaded.

In order to obtain an ample supply of water for their engines, the Company at considerable expense sank at Camden an Artesian well 10 feet in diameter and 140 feet deep. The produce of this well, pumped by a high-pressure steam-engine of 27-horsepower into two immense cisterns 110 feet above the rails at Euston Square, supplies all the Camden Station, all the Company’s houses adjoining, the whole of the Euston Station, as well as the Victoria and Euston Hotels, with most beautiful clear water; and yet—though every man who drinks it or who shaves with it admires it, and though every lady who makes tea with it certifies that it is particularly well adapted for that purpose—strange to say, it disagrees so dreadfully with the stomachs of the locomotive engines—(who would ever suspect them to be more delicate than our own?)—that the Company have been obliged, at great inconvenience and cost, to obtain water for them elsewhere. The boilers of the locomotives were not only chemically liable to be incrusted with a deposition of the unusual quantity of soda contained in the Artesian-well water at Camden Station; but, not even waiting for this inconvenience, the engine without metaphor spit it out—ejecting it from the boiler with the steam through the funnel-pipe, a well-known misfortune termed by engineers “priming.”

As much time would be required for each travelling engine to get up its steam ab initio, a coke-furnace has been constructed at Camden Station to hasten the operation. Here nine men during the day, and the same number throughout the night, are continually employed to heat coke, which by means of iron shovels is to be delivered red-hot into the engines’ furnaces.

These preparations having been made, the driver’s duties are as follows:—

On leaving the shed in the morning the engine, after having been heated at the coke-furnace, is conducted on to a great turn-table 40 feet in diameter, which twists it towards a set of rails leading to the water-crane, where it imbibes at one draught about a thousand gallons of cold water, which, under ordinary circumstances, will enable it to draw its train about 40 miles; although in slippery weather, when the wheels revolve on, instead of along, the rails, it of course would not carry it so far. It then proceeds to the coke-shed, an enclosure 210 feet by 45 feet, capable of holding 1500 tons, for its proper supply of coke, namely, 1 ton—a goods-engine usually devouring 2½ tons.

The driver, leaving his engine in charge of his fireman, now proceeds to the office, where he signs his name in a book, the object being that it may be observed whether or not he is perfectly sober. From the chief clerk he receives his coke and time ticket, upon which, at every station, he has to record whatever time he may have lost up to that point; and when his chronometer is wound up, and set to the proper time, he is then considered to be ready for his journey.

The gigantic power of the locomotive engines hourly committed to the charge of these drivers was lately strangely exemplified in the large engine-stable at the Camden Station. A passenger-engine, whose furnace-fire had but shortly been lighted, was standing in this huge building surrounded by a number of artificers, who, in presence of the chief superintendent, were working in various directions around it. While they were all busily occupied, the fire in the furnace, by burning up faster than was expected, suddenly imparted to the engine the breath of life; and no sooner had the minimum of steam necessary to move it been thus created, than this infant Hercules not only walked off, but without the smallest embarrassment walked through the 14-inch brick wall of the great building which contained it, to the terror of the superintendent and workmen, who expected every instant that the roof above their heads would fall in and extinguish them! In consequence of the spindle of the regulator having got out of its socket, the very same accident occurred shortly afterwards with another engine, which, in like manner, walked through another portion of this 14-inch wall of the stable that contained it, just as a thorough-bred horse would have walked out of the door. And if such be the irresistible power of the locomotive engine when feebly walking in its newborn state, unattended or unassisted even by its tender, is it not appalling to reflect what must be its momentum when, in the full vigour of its life, it is flying down a steep gradient at the rate of 50 miles an hour, backed up by say 30 passenger-carriages, each weighing on an average 5½ tons? If ordinary houses could suddenly be placed on its path, it would, passengers and all, run through them as a musket-ball goes through a keg of butter; but what would be the result if, at this full speed, the engine by any accident were to be diverted against a mass of solid rock, such as sometimes is to be seen at the entrance of a tunnel, it is almost impossible to calculate, or even to conjecture. It is stated by the Company’s superintendent, who witnessed the occurrence, that some time ago, an ordinary accident happening to a luggage-train near Loughborough, the waggons overrode each other until the uppermost one was found piled 40 feet above the rails!

At Camden Station there are every day five spare or pilot engines, with their steam up, ready for assisting a train up the incline, or for any special purposes that may be required.

The average cost of the locomotive engines and tenders, which, for the rails between London and Birmingham, are usually purchased by the Company from makers at Manchester, Warrington, and Liverpool, is—

The tenders cost 500l. each.