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

CHAP. XXIX.] THE COMMERCIAL CONSIDEEATIONS. 365
means by which they might be improved. One of his sugges-
tions was to the efifect that a system of self-acting brakes should
be adopted, so that a train might be more speedily and effectu-
ally stopped than by the ordinary system. He himself, he
stated, had invented for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway
a carriageTbrake, which he had not patented, although, he un-
derstood, a patent for a similar machine had since been taken
out. He proposed to fix to every carriage a brake so con-
structed that, on the moving power of the engine being taken
off, every carriage should be brought into a state of sledge, and
the rolling motion of the wheels thus interrupted. Mr. Stephen-
son would also have these brakes worked by the guard, by
means of a connecting lever running along the whole of the
carriages, by which they should at one and the same time be
thrown out of gear. He also suggested, as an additional means
of safety, that the signals should be self-acting, and worked by
the engines as they passed along the line.
In opposing the views of the fast school of engineers, as to the
alteration of the gauge, the employment of atmospheric pressure,
the formation of " undulating " lines, and the increase of speed
Mr. Stephenson was actuated by a just regard to the commercial
part of the question. He had no desire to build up a reputation
at the expense of railway shareholders, nor to obtain engineering
eclat by making " ducks and drakes " of their money. He was
persuaded that, in order to secure the practical success of rail-
ways, they must be so laid out as not only to prove of decided
pubUc utility, but also to be worked economically and to the ad-
vantage of their proprietors. They were not Government roads,
but private ventures—in fact, commercial speculations. He
therefore endeavoured to render them commercially profitable ;
and he repeatedly declared that if he did not believe they could
be " made to pay," he would have nothing to do with them. He
frequently refused to act as the engineer for lines which he
thought would not prove remunerative, or when he considered
the estimates too low.* He was not ambitious to be thought a
* In his evidence on the Great Western Bill, Mr. Stephenson said, " I made
out an estimate for the Hartlepool Eailway, which they returned on account of
its being too high, but I declined going to Parliament with a lower estimate."