Part 13 (1/2)

During the progress of these works the most ridiculous rumours were set afloat. The drivers of the stage-coaches who feared for their calling, brought the alarming intelligence into Manchester from time to time, that ”Chat Moss was blown up!” ”Hundreds of men and horses had sunk; and the works were completely abandoned!” The engineer himself was declared to have been swallowed up in the Serbonian bog; and ”railways were at an end for ever!”

In the construction of the railway, Mr. Stephenson's capacity for organising and directing the labours of a large number of workmen of all kinds eminently displayed itself. A vast quant.i.ty of ballast-waggons had to be constructed, and implements and materials collected, before the army of necessary labourers could be efficiently employed at the various points of the line. There were not at that time, as there are now, large contractors possessed of railway plant, capable of executing earth-works on a large scale. The first railway engineer had not only to contrive the plant, but to organise and direct the labour. The labourers themselves had to be trained to their work; and it was on the Liverpool and Manchester line that Mr. Stephenson organised the staff of that mighty band of railway navvies, whose handiworks will be the wonder and admiration of succeeding generations. Looking at their gigantic traces, the men of some future age may be found to declare of the engineer and of his workmen, that ”there were giants in those days.”

Although the works of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway are of a much less formidable character than those of many lines that have since been constructed, they were then regarded as of the most stupendous description. In deed, the like of them had not before been executed in England. It had been our engineer's original intention carry the railway from the north end of Liverpool, round the red-sandstone ridge on which the upper part of the town is built, and also round the higher rise of the coal formation at Rainhill, by following the natural levels. But the opposition of the landowners having forced the line more to the south, it was rendered necessary to cut through the hills, and go over the high grounds instead of round them. The first consequence of this alteration in the plans was the necessity for constructing a tunnel under the town of Liverpool 1 mile in length; the second, a long and deep cutting through the red-sandstone rock at Olive Mount; and the third and most serious of all, was the necessity for surmounting the Whiston and Sutton hills by inclined planes of 1 in 96. The line was also, by the same forced deviation, prevented pa.s.sing through the Lancas.h.i.+re coal-field, and the engineer was compelled to carry it across the Sankey valley, at a point where the waters of the brook had dug out an excessively deep channel through the marl-beds of the district.

The princ.i.p.al difficulty was experienced in pus.h.i.+ng on the works connected with the formation of the tunnel under Liverpool, 2200 yards in length. The blasting and hewing of the rock were vigorously carried on night and day; and the engineer's practical experience in the collieries here proved of great use to him. Many obstacles had to be encountered and overcome in the formation of the tunnel, the rock varying in hardness and texture at different parts. In some places the miners were deluged by water, which surged from the soft blue shale found at the lowest level of the tunnel. In other places, beds of wet sand were cut through; and there careful propping and pinning were necessary to prevent the roof from tumbling in, until the masonry to support it could be erected. On one occasion, while the engineer was absent from Liverpool, a ma.s.s of loose moss-earth and sand fell from the roof, which had been insufficiently propped. The miners withdrew from the work; and on Stephenson's return, he found them in a refractory state, refusing to re-enter the tunnel. He induced them, however, by his example, to return to their labours; and when the roof had been secured, the work went on again as before. When there was danger, he was always ready to share it with the men; and gathering confidence from his fearlessness, they proceeded vigorously with the undertaking, boring and mining their way towards the light.

[Picture: Olive Mount Cutting]

The Olive Mount cutting was the first extensive stone cutting executed on any railway, and to this day it is one of the most formidable. It is about two miles long, and in some parts 80 feet deep. It is a narrow ravine or defile cut out of the solid rock; and not less than 480,000 cubic yards of stone were removed from it. Mr. Vignolles, afterwards describing it, said it looked as if it had been dug out by giants.

The crossing of so many roads and streams involved the necessity for constructing an unusual number of bridges. There were not fewer than 63, under or over the railway, on the 30 miles between Liverpool and Manchester. Up to this time, bridges had been applied generally to high roads where inclined approaches were of comparatively small importance, and in determining the rise of his arch the engineer selected any headway he thought proper. Every consideration was indeed made subsidiary to constructing the bridge itself, and the completion of one large structure of this sort was regarded as an epoch in engineering history. Yet here, in the course of a few years, no fewer than 63 bridges were constructed on one line of railway! Mr. Stephenson early found that the ordinary arch was inapplicable in certain cases, where the headway was limited, and yet the level of the railway must be preserved. In such cases he employed simple cast-iron beams, by which he safely bridged gaps of moderate width, economizing headway, and introducing the use of a new material of the greatest possible value to the railway engineer. The bridges of masonry upon the line were of many kinds; several of them askew bridges, and others, such as those at Newton and over the Irwell at Manchester, straight and of considerable dimensions; but the princ.i.p.al piece of masonry was the Sankey viaduct.

[Picture: Sankey Viaduct]

This fine work is princ.i.p.ally of brick, with stone facings. It consists of nine arches of fifty feet span each. The ma.s.sive piers are supported on two hundred piles driven deep into the soil; and they rise to a great height,-the coping of the parapet being seventy feet above the level of the valley, in which flow the Sankey brook and ca.n.a.l. Its total cost was about 45,000.

By the end of 1828 the directors found they had expended 460,000 on the works, and that they were still far from completion. They looked at the loss of interest on this large investment, and began to grumble at the delay. They desired to see their capital becoming productive; and in the spring of 1829 they urged the engineer to push on the works with increased vigour. Mr. Cropper, one of the directors, who took an active interest in their progress, said to Stephenson one day, ”Now, George, thou must get on with the railway, and have it finished without further delay; thou must really have it ready for opening by the first day of January next.” ”Consider the heavy character of the works, sir, and how much we have been delayed by the want of money, not to speak of the wetness of the weather: it is impossible.” ”Impossible!” rejoined Cropper; ”I wish I could get Napoleon to thee-he would tell thee there is no such word as 'impossible' in the vocabulary.” ”Tus.h.!.+” exclaimed Stephenson, with warmth; ”don't speak to me about Napoleon! Give me men, money, and materials, and I will do what Napoleon couldn't do-drive a railway from Liverpool to Manchester over Chat Moss!”

The works made rapid progress in the course of the year 1829. Double sets of labourers were employed on Chat Moss and at other points, by night and day, the night s.h.i.+fts working by torch and fire light; and at length, the work advancing at all points, the directors saw their way to the satisfactory completion of the undertaking.

It may well be supposed that Mr. Stephenson's time was fully occupied in superintending the extensive, and for the most part novel works, connected with the railway, and that even his extraordinary powers of labour and endurance were taxed to the utmost during the four years that they were in progress. Almost every detail in the plans was directed and arranged by himself. Every bridge, from the simplest to the most complicated, including the then novel structure of the ”skew bridge,”

iron girders, siphons, fixed engines, and the machinery for working the tunnel at the Liverpool end, had to be thought out by his own head, and reduced to definite plans under his own eyes. Besides all this, he had to design the working plant in antic.i.p.ation of the opening of the railway. He must be prepared with waggons, trucks, and carriages, himself superintending their manufacture. The permanent road, turntables, switches, and crossings,-in short, the entire structure and machinery of the line, from the turning of the first sod to the running of the first train of carriages upon the railway,-were executed under his immediate supervision. And it was in the midst of this vast acc.u.mulation of work and responsibility that the battle of the locomotive engine had to be fought,-a battle, not merely against material difficulties, but against the still more trying obstructions of deeply-rooted mistrust and prejudice on the part of a considerable minority of the directors.

He had no staff of experienced a.s.sistants,-not even a staff of draughtsmen in his office,-but only a few pupils learning their business; and he was frequently without even their help. The time of his engineering inspectors was fully occupied in the actual superintendence of the works at different parts of the line; and he took care to direct all their more important operations in person. The princ.i.p.al draughtsman was Mr. Thomas Gooch, a pupil he had brought with him from Newcastle. ”I may say,” writes Mr. Gooch, ”that nearly the whole of the working and other drawings, as well as the various land-plans for the railway, were drawn by my own hand. They were done at the Company's office in Clayton Square during the day, from instructions supplied in the evenings by Mr.

Stephenson, either by word of mouth, or by little rough hand-sketches on letter-paper. The evenings were also generally devoted to my duties as secretary, in writing (mostly from his own dictation) his letters and reports, or in making calculations and estimates. The mornings before breakfast were not unfrequently spent by me in visiting and lending a helping hand in the tunnel and other works near Liverpool,-the untiring zeal and perseverance of George Stephenson never for an instant flagging and inspiring with a like enthusiasm all who were engaged under him in carrying forward the works.” {189}

The usual routine of his life at this time-if routine it might be called-was, to rise early, by sunrise in summer and before it in winter, and thus ”break the back of the day's work” by mid-day. While the tunnel under Liverpool was in progress, one of his first duties in a morning before breakfast was to go over the various shafts, clothed in a suitable dress, and inspect their progress at different points; on other days he would visit the extensive workshops at Edgehill, where most of the ”plant” for the line was in course of manufacture. Then, returning to his house, in Upper Parliament Street, Windsor, after a hurried breakfast, he would ride along the works to inspect their progress, and push them on with greater energy where needful. On other days he would prepare for the much less congenial engagement of meeting the Board, which was often a cause of great anxiety and pain to him; for it was difficult to satisfy men of all tempers, and some of these not of the most generous sort. On such occasions he might be seen with his right-hand thumb thrust through the topmost b.u.t.ton-hole of his coat-breast, vehemently hitching his right shoulder, as was his habit when labouring under any considerable excitement. Occasionally he would take an early ride before breakfast, to inspect the progress of the Sankey viaduct. He had a favourite horse, brought by him from Newcastle, called ”Bobby,”-so tractable that, with his rider on his back, he would walk up to a locomotive with the steam blowing off, and put his nose against it without shying. ”Bobby,” saddled and bridled, was brought to Mr. Stephenson's door betimes in the morning; and mounting him, he would ride the fifteen miles to Sankey, putting up at a little public house which then stood upon the banks of the ca.n.a.l. There he had his breakfast of ”crowdie,” which he made with his own hands. It consisted of oatmeal stirred into a basin of hot water,-a sort of porridge,-which was supped with cold sweet milk. After this frugal breakfast, he would go upon the works, and remain there, riding from point to point for the greater part of the day. When he returned before mid-day, he examined the pay-sheets in the different departments, sent in by the a.s.sistant engineers, or by the foremen of the workshops. To all these he gave his most careful personal attention, requiring when necessary a full explanation of the items.

After a late dinner, which occupied very short time and was always of a plain and frugal description, he disposed of his correspondence, or prepared sketches of drawings, and gave instructions as to their completion. He would occasionally refresh himself for this evening work by a short doze, which, however, he would never admit had exceeded the limits of ”winking,” to use his own term. Mr. Frederick Swanwick, who officiated as his secretary, after the appointment of Mr. Gooch as Resident Engineer to the Bolton and Leigh Railway, has informed us that he then remarked-what in after years he could better appreciate-the clear, terse, and vigorous style of Mr. Stephenson's dictation. There was nothing superfluous in it; but it was close, direct, and to the point,-in short, thoroughly businesslike. And if, in pa.s.sing through the pen of the amanuensis, his meaning happened in any way to be distorted or modified, it did not fail to escape his detection, though he was always tolerant of any liberties taken with his own form of expression, so long as the words written down conveyed his real meaning.

His letters and reports written, and his sketches of drawings made and explained, the remainder of the evening was usually devoted to conversation with his wife and those of his pupils who lived under his roof, and const.i.tuted, as it were, part of the family. He then delighted to test the knowledge of his young companions, and to question them upon the principles of mechanics. If they were not quite ”up to the mark” on any point, there was no escaping detection by evasive or specious explanations. These always brought out the verdict, ”Ah! you know nought about it now; but think it over again, and tell me when you understand it.” If there were even partial success in the reply, it was at once acknowledged, and a full explanation given, to which the master would add ill.u.s.trative examples for the purpose of impressing the principle more deeply upon the pupil's mind.

It was not so much his object and purpose to ”cram” the minds of the young men committed to his charge with the _results_ of knowledge, as to stimulate them to educate themselves-to induce them to develop their mental and moral powers by the exercise of their own free energies, and thus acquire that habit of self-thinking and self-reliance which is the spring of all true manly action. In a word, he sought to bring out and invigorate the _character_ of his pupils. He felt that he himself had been made stronger and better through his encounters with difficulty; and he would not have the road of knowledge made too smooth and easy for them. ”Learn for yourselves,-think for yourselves,” he would say:-”make yourselves masters of principles,-persevere,-be industrious,-and there is then no fear of you.” And not the least emphatic proof of the soundness of this system of education, as conducted by Mr. Stephenson, was afforded by the after history of these pupils themselves. There was not one of those trained under his eye who did not rise to eminent usefulness and distinction as an engineer. He sent them forth into the world braced with the spirit of manly self-help-inspired by his own n.o.ble example; and they repeated in their after career the lessons of earnest effort and persistent industry which his daily life had taught them.

Stephenson's evenings at home were not, however, exclusively devoted either to business or to the graver exercises above referred to. He would often indulge in cheerful conversation and anecdote, falling back from time to time upon the struggles and difficulties of his early life.

The not unfrequent winding up of his story addressed to the young men about him, was, ”Ah! ye young fellows don't know what _wark_ is in these days!” Mr. Swanwick takes pleasure in recalling to mind how seldom, if ever, a cross or captious word, or an angry look, marred the enjoyment of those evenings. The presence of Mrs. Stephenson gave them an additional charm: amiable, kind-hearted, and intelligent, she shared quietly in the pleasure of the party; and the atmosphere of comfort which always pervaded her home contributed in no small degree to render it a centre of cheerful, hopeful intercourse, and of earnest, honest industry. She was a wife who well deserved, what she through life retained, the strong and unremitting affection of her husband.

When Mr. Stephenson retired for the night, it was not always that he permitted himself to sink into slumber. Like Brindley, he worked out many a difficult problem in bed; and for hours he would turn over in his mind and study how to overcome some obstacle, or to mature some project, on which his thoughts were bent. Some remark inadvertently dropped by him at the breakfast-table in the morning, served to show that he had been stealing some hours from the past night in reflection and study.

Yet he would rise at his accustomed early hour, and there was no abatement of his usual energy in carrying on the business of the day.

CHAPTER XI.

ROBERT STEPHENSON'S RESIDENCE IN COLOMBIA, AND RETURN-THE BATTLE OF THE LOCOMOTIVE-”THE ROCKET.”

We return to the career of Robert Stephenson, who had been absent from England during the construction of the Liverpool railway, but was shortly about to join his father and take part in ”the battle of the locomotive,”

which was now impending.

On his return from Edinburgh College in the summer of 1823, he had a.s.sisted in the survey of the Stockton and Darlington line; and when the Locomotive Engine Works were started in Forth Street, Newcastle, he took an active part in that concern. ”The factory,” he says, ”was in active operation early in 1824; I left England for Colombia in June of that year, having finished drawing the designs of the Brusselton stationary engines for the Stockton and Darlington Railway before I left.” {193}

Speculation was very rife at the time; and amongst the most promising adventures were the companies organised for the purpose of working the gold and silver mines of South America. Great difficulty was experienced in finding mining engineers capable of carrying out those projects, and young men of even the most moderate experience were eagerly sought after.