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

192 LIFE OF GEORGE STEPHENSON. [chap. xvu.
carry for himself. But this arrangement led to increasing con-
fusion and difficulty, and could not continue in the face of a large
and rapidly increasing traffic. The goods trains got so long, that
the carriers found it necessary to call in the aid of the locomotive
engine to help them on their way. Then mixed trains began to
be seen of passengers and merchandise,—the final result being
the assumption of the entire charge of the traffic by the railway
company. In course of time new passenger carriages were
specially built for the better accommodation of the public, until
at length regular passenger trains were run, drawn by the loco-
motive engine,—though this was not until after the Liverpool
and Manchester Company had established passenger trains as a
distinct branch of their traffic.
Three of Stephenson's locomotives were from the first reg-
ularly employed to work the coal trains; and their proved
efficiency for this purpose led to the gradual increase of the loco-
motive power. The speed of the engines—slow though it was
in those days—was regarded as something marvellous ; and a
race actually came off between No. 1. engine, the " Active," and
one of the stage-coaches travelling from Darlington to Stockton
by the ordinary road ;
and it was regarded as a great triumph of
mechanical skill that the locomotive reached Stockton first,
beating the stage-coach by about a hundred yards ! *
For some years, however, the principal haulage of the line
was performed by horses. The inclination of the gradients
being towards the sea, this was perhaps the cheapest mode of
traction, so long as the traffic was not very large. The horse
drew the train along the level road until, on reaching a descend-
ing gradient, down which the train ran by its own weight, the
horse was unharnessed, and, when loose, he wheeled round to the
other end of the wagons, to which a " dandy-cart " was attached,
its bottom being only a few inches from the rail. Bringing his
step into unison with the speed of the train, the horse leapt
* The same engine continued in good working order in the year 1846, when
it headed the railway procession on the opening of the Middlesborough and
Bedcar Railway, travelling at the rate of about fourteen miles an hour. This
engine, the first that travelled upon the first public raUway, has quite recently
been placed upon a pedestal in front of the railway station at Darlington.