The life of George Stephenson, railway engineer - Lighthouse ...

CH,vp. xvu.] RIVAL COACH COMPANIES. 191
Stockton (the Bay Horse, kept by Joe Buckton), the coach was
always on the line betimes, reducing its eastward rival to the
necessity of waiting patiently (or impatiently) in the rear.
Difficulties, too, occurred along the road. The line was single,
with four sidings in the mile ; and when two coaches met, or two
trains, or coach and train, the question arose which of the drivers
must go back ? This was not always settled in silence. As to
trains, it came to be a sort of understanding that light wagons
should give way to loaded ; and as to trains and coaches, that the
passengers should have preference over coals ; while coaches,
when they met, must quarrel it out. At length, midway between
sidings, a post was erected ; and a rule was laid down that he
who had passed the pillar must go on, and the ' coming man ' go
back. At the Goose Pool and Early Nook, it was common for
these coaches to stop ; and there, as Jonathan would say, pas-
sengers and coachmen ' liquored.' One coach, introduced by an
innkeeper, was a compound of two mourning-coaches,—an ap-
proximation to the real railway coach, which still adheres, with
multiplying exceptions, to the stage-coach type. One Dixon,
who drove the ' Experiment ' between Darlington and Shildon,
is the inventor of carriage-lighting on the rail. On a dark
winter night, having compassion on his passengers, he would buy
a penny candle, and place it, lighted, amongst them, on the table
of the ' Experiment'—the first railway coach (which, by the
way, ended its days at Shildon, as a railway cabin,) being also
the first coach on the rail (first, second, and third-class jammed
all into one) that indulged its customers with light in darkness."
*
The traffic of all sorts increased so steadily and so rapidly
that the Directors of the company shortly found it necessary to
take into their own hands the entire working,—of minerals,
merchandise, and passengers. It had been provided by the first
Stockton and Darlington Act that the line should be free to all
parties who chose to use it at certain prescribed rates, and that
any person might put horses and wagons on the railway, and
* Mr. Clephan has introduoed these particulars in his interesting review of
the first edition of this book, published in the Gateshead Observer; 'and I gladly
avaa myself of his excellent local knowledge on the subject.