their projection, it was not believed that people would trust themselves to be drawn upon a railway by an “explosive machine,” as the locomotive was described to be.  Indeed, a writer of eminence declared that he would as soon think of being fired off on a ricochet rocket, as travel on a railway at twice the speed of the old stagecoaches.  So great was the alarm which existed as to the locomotive, that the Liverpool and Manchester Committee pledged themselves in their second prospectus, issued in 1825, “not to require any clause empowering its use;” and as late as 1829, the Newcastle and Carlisle Act was conceded on the express condition that the line should not be worked by locomotives, but by horses only.

Nevertheless, the Liverpool and Manchester Company obtained powers to make and work their railway without any such restriction; and when the line was made and opened, a locomotive passenger train was advertised to be run upon it, by way of experiment.  Greatly to the surprise of the directors, more passengers presented themselves as travellers by the train than could conveniently be carried.

The first arrangements as to passenger-traffic were of a very primitive character, being mainly copied from the old stage-coach system.  The passengers were “booked” at the railway office, and their names were entered in a way-bill which was given to the guard when the train started.  Though the usual stage-coach bugleman could not conveniently accompany the passengers, the trains

were at first played out of the terminal stations by a lively tune performed by a trumpeter at the end of the platform; and this continued to be done at the Manchester Station until a comparatively recent date.

But the number of passengers carried by the Liverpool and Manchester line was so unexpectedly great, that it was very soon found necessary to remodel the entire system.  Tickets were introduced, by which a great saving of time was effected.  More roomy and commodious carriages were provided, the original first-class compartments being seated for four passengers only.  Everything was found to have been in the first instance made too light and too slight.  The prize ‘Rocket,’ which weighed only 4½ tons when loaded with its coke and water, was found quite unsuited for drawing the increasingly heavy loads of passengers.  There was also this essential difference between the old stage-coach and the new railway train, that, whereas the former was “full” with six inside and ten outside, the latter must be able to accommodate whatever number of passengers came to be carried.  Hence heavier and more powerful engines, and larger and more substantial carriages were from time to time added to the carrying stock of the railway.

The speed of the trains was also increased.  The first locomotives used in hauling coal-trains ran at from four to six miles an hour.  On the Stockton and Darlington line the speed was increased to about ten miles an hour; and on the Liverpool and Manchester line the first passenger-trains were run at the average speed of seventeen miles an hour, which at that time was considered very fast.  But this was not enough.  When the London and

Birmingham line was opened, the mail-trains were run at twenty-three miles an hour; and gradually the speed went up, until now the fast trains are run at from fifty to sixty miles an hour,—the pistons in the cylinders, at sixty miles, travelling at the inconceivable rapidity of 800 feet per minute!

To bear the load of heavy engines run at high speeds, a much stronger and heavier road was found necessary; and shortly after the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester line, it was entirely relaid with stronger materials.  Now that express passenger-engines are from thirty to thirty-five tons each, the weight of the rails has been increased from 35 lbs. to 75 lbs. or 86 lbs. to the yard.  Stone blocks have given place to wooden sleepers; rails with loose ends resting on the chairs, to rails with their ends firmly “fished” together; and in many places, where the traffic is unusually heavy, iron rails have been replaced by those of steel.

And now see the enormous magnitude to which railway passenger-traffic has grown.  In the year 1873, 401,465,086 passengers were carried by day tickets in Great Britain alone.  But this was not all.  For in that year 257,470 periodical tickets were issued by the different railways; and assuming half of them to be annual, one-fourth half-yearly, and the remainder quarterly tickets, and that their holders made only five journeys each way weekly, this would give an additional number of 47,024,000 journeys, or a total of 448,489,086 passengers carried in Great Britain in one year.

It is difficult to grasp the idea of the enormous number of persons represented by these figures.  The mind is

merely bewildered by them, and can form no adequate notion of their magnitude.  To reckon them singly would occupy twenty-five years, counting at the rate of one a second for twelve hours every day.  Or take another illustration.  Supposing every man, woman, and child in Great Britain to make ten journeys by rail yearly, the number would greatly fall short of the passengers carried in 1873.

Mr. Porter, in his ‘Progress of the Nation,’ estimated that thirty millions of passengers, or about eighty-two thousand a day, travelled by coaches in Great Britain in 1834, an average distance of twelve miles each, at an average cost of 5s. a passenger, or at the rate of 5d. a mile; whereas above 448 millions are now carried by railway an average distance of 8½ miles each, at an average cost of 1s. 1½d. per passenger, or about three halfpence per mile, in considerably less than one-fourth of the time.

But besides the above number of passengers, over one hundred and sixty-two million tons of minerals and merchandise were carried by railway in the United Kingdom in 1873, besides mails, cattle, parcels, and other traffic.  The distance run by passenger and goods trains in the year was 162,561,304 miles; to accomplish which it is estimated that four miles of railway must have been covered by running trains during every second all the year round.

To perform this service, there were, in 1873, 11,255 locomotives at work in the United Kingdom, consuming about four million tons of coal and coke, and flashing into the air every minute some forty tons of water in the form of steam in a high state of elasticity.  There were also

24,644 passenger-carriages, 9128 vans and breaks attached to passenger-trains, and 329,163 trucks, waggons, and other vehicles appropriated to merchandise.  Buckled together, buffer to buffer, the locomotives and tenders would extend from London to Peterborough; while the carrying vehicles, joined together, would form two trains occupying a double line of railway extending from London to beyond Inverness.

A notable feature in the growth of railway traffic of late years has been the increase in the number of third-class passengers, compared with first and second class.  Sixteen years since, the third-class passengers constituted only about one-third; ten years later, they were about one-half; whereas now they form more than three-fourths of the whole number carried.  In 1873, there were about 23 million first-class passengers, 62 million second-class, and not less than 306 million third-class.  Thus George Stephenson’s prediction, “that the time would come when it would be cheaper for a working man to make a journey by railway than to walk on foot,” is already verified.

The degree of safety with which this great traffic has been conducted is not the least remarkable of its