CHAP. VIII. FIRST RAILWAY COACH. 137 low price, and the proprietors of the railway themselves considered that to carry coals at such a rate would be utterly ruinous. The projectors never contemplated sending more than 10,000 tons a year to Stockton, and those only for shipment as ballast; they looked for their profits almost exclusively to the land sale. The result, however, was as surprising to them as it must have been to Mr. Lambton. The halfpenny rate which was forced upon them, instead of being ruinous, proved the vital element in the success of the railway. In the course of a few years, the annual shipment of coal, led by the Stockton and Darlington Railway to Stockton and Middlesborough, exceeded five hundred thousand tons; and it has since far exceeded this amount. Instead of being, as anticipated, a subordinate branch of traffic, it proved, in fact, the main traffic, while the land sale was merely subsidiary. The anticipations of the company as to passenger traffic were in like manner more than realised. At first, passengers were not thought of; and it was only while the works were in progress that the starting of a passenger coach was seriously contemplated. The number of persons travelling between the two towns was very small: and it was not known whether these would risk their persons upon the iron road. It was determined, however, to make the trial of a railway coach; and Mr. Stephenson was authorised by the Directors to have one built to his order at Newcastle, at the cost of the company. This was done accordingly; and the first railway passenger carriage was built after our engineer's plans. It was, however, a very modest, and indeed a somewhat uncouth machine, more resembling a caravan such as is still to be seen at country fairs, containing the "Giant and the Dwarf" and other wonders of the world, than a passenger coach of any extant form. A row of seats ran along each side of the interior, and a long deal table was fixed in the centre; the access being by means of a door at the end, in the manner of an omnibus. This coach arrived from Newcastle the day before the opening, and formed part of the railway procession above. 138 "THE EXPERIMENT." CHAP. VIII. described. Mr. Stephenson was consulted as to the name of the coach, and he at once suggested the " Experiment;" and by this name it was called. The Company's arms were afterwards painted on her panels, with the motto of "Periculum privatum utilitas publica." Such was the sole passenger-carrying stock of the Stockton and Darlington Company in the year 1825. But the "Experiment" proved the forerunner of a mighty traffic: and long time did not elapse before it was displaced, not only by improved coaches (still drawn by horses), but afterwards by long trains of passenger carriages drawn by locomotive engines. No sooner did the coal and merchandise trains begin to run regularly upon the line, than new business relations sprang up between Stockton and Darlington, and there were many more persons who found occasion to travel between the two towns,-merchandise and mineral traffic invariably stimulating, if not calling into existence, an entirely new traffic in passengers. Before the construc CHAP. VIII. RIVAL COACH COMPANIES. 139 tion of the line, the attempt had been made to run a coach between Stockton, Darlington, and Barnard Castle three times a week; but it was starved off the road for want of support. Now, however, that there were numbers of people desiring to travel, the stage coach by the common road was revived and prospered, and many other persons connected with the new traffic got a "lift" by the railway waggons, which were even more popular than the stage coach. The " Experiment" was fairly started as a passenger coach on the 10th of October, 1825, a fortnight after the opening of the line. It was drawn by one horse, and performed a journey daily each way between the two towns, accomplishing the distance of twelve miles in about two hours. The fare charged was a shilling, without distinction of class; and each passenger was allowed fourteen pounds of luggage free. The Experiment" was not, however, worked by the company, but was let to Messrs. Pickersgill and Harland, carriers on the railway, under an arrangement with them as to the payment of tolls for the use of the line, rent of booking cabins, &c. " The speculation answered so well, that several coaching companies were shortly got up by innkeepers at Darlington and Stockton, for the purpose of running other coaches upon the railroad, and an active competition for passenger traffic now sprang up. The "Experiment" being found too heavy for one horse to draw between Stockton and Darlington, besides being found an uncomfortable machine, was banished to the coal district, and ran for a time between Darlington and Shildon. Its place on the line between Stockton and Darlington was supplied by other and better vehicles, though they were no other than old stage-coach bodies, which were purchased by the company, each mounted upon an underframe with flange wheels, and let out to the coaching companies, who horsed and managed them under an arrangement as to tolls, in like manner as the "Experiment" had been worked. Now began the distinction of inside and outside passenger, equivalent to first 140 RIVAL COACH COMPANIES. CHAP. VIII. and second class, paying different fares. The competition with each other upon the railway, and with the ordinary stage coaches upon the road, soon brought up the speed, which was increased to ten miles an hour-the mail coach rate of travelling in those days, and considered very fast. The coaches filled almost daily. "In fact," says a writer of the time, “the passengers do not seem to be at all particular, for, in cases of urgency, they are seen crowding the coach on the top, sides, or any part where they can get a footing; and they are frequently so numerous, that when they descend from the coach and begin to separate, it looks like the dismissal of a small congregation! Mr. Clephan, a native of the district, thus piquantly describes some of the more prominent features of the competition between the rival coach companies;—“There were two separate coach companies in Stockton: and amusing collisions sometimes occurred between the drivers--who found on the rail a novel element for contention. Coaches cannot pass each other on the rail as on the road; and at the more westward publichouse in 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 waggons 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, passengers and coachmen liquored.' One coach, introduced by an innkeeper was a compound of two mourning-coaches, CHAP. VIII. INCREASE OF TRAFFIC. 141 an approximation 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 waggons on the railway, and carry for himself. But this arrangement led to increasing confusion and difficulty, and could not continue in the face of a large and rapidly increasing traffic. The goods trains got sc 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 locomotive engine,though this was not until after the Liverpool and Manchester Company had established passenger trains as a distinct branch of their traffic. The three Stephenson locomotives were from the first regularly employed to work the coal trains; and their proved efficiency for this purpose led to the gradual increase of the locomotive power. The speed of the engines |