The Iron Horse

Chapter Eight.

Mrs Marrot and Bob Visit the Great Clatterby “Works.”

We cannot presume to say what sort of a smiddy Vulcan’s was, but we feel strongly inclined to think that if that gentleman were to visit the works of the Grand National Trunk Railway, which are about the finest of the kind in the kingdom, he would deem his own old shop a very insignificant affair!

The stupendous nature of the operations performed there; the colossal grandeur of the machinery employed; the appalling power of the forces called into action; the startling chiaro scuro of the furnaces; the Herculean activity of the 3500 “hands;” the dread pyrotechnic displays; the constant din and clangour—pshaw! the thing is beyond conception. “Why then,” you will say, “attempt description?” Because, reader, of two evils we always choose the less. Description is better than nothing. If you cannot go and see and hear for yourself, there is nothing left for you but to fall back on description.

But of all the sights to be seen there, the most interesting, perhaps, and the most amusing, was the visage of worthy Mrs Marrot as she followed Will Garvie and her son, and gazed in rapt amazement at the operations, and listened to the sounds, sometimes looking all round with a half-imbecile expression at the rattling machinery, at other times fixing her eyes intently down on one piece of mechanism in the vain hope of penetrating its secrets to the core. Bob was not much less amazed than his mother, but he had his sharp wits about him, and was keenly alive to the delight of witnessing his mother’s astonishment.

The works covered several acres of ground, and consisted of a group of huge buildings which were divided into different departments, and in these the railway company manufactured almost every article used on the line—from a locomotive engine to a screw-nail.

Here, as we have said, above 3500 men and boys were at work, and all sorts of trades were represented. There were draughtsmen to make designs, and, from these, detailed working drawings. Smiths to forge all the wrought-iron-work, with hammermen as assistants. Pattern-makers to make wooden patterns for castings. Moulders, including loam, dry-sand and green-sand moulders and brass-founders. Dressers to dress the rough edges off the castings when brought from the foundry. Turners in iron and brass. Planers and nibblers, and slotters and drillers. Joiners and sawyers, and coach-builders and painters. Fitters and erecters, to do the rougher and heavier part of fitting the engines together. Boiler-makers, including platers or fitters, caulkers and riveters. Finishers to do the finer part of fitting—details and polishing. In short almost every trade in the kingdom concentrated in one grand whole and working harmoniously, like a vast complex machine, towards one common end—the supply of railway rolling-stock, or “plant” to the line.

All these were busy as bees, for they were engaged on the equitable system of “piece-work,”—which means that each man or boy was paid for each piece of work done, instead of being paid by time, which of course induced each to work as hard as he could in order to make much as possible—a system which suited both masters and men. Of course there are some sorts of employment where it would be unjust to pay men by the amount of work done—as, for instance, in some parts of tin-mines, where a fathom of rock rich in tin is as difficult to excavate as a fathom of rock which is poor in tin—but in work such as we are describing the piece-work system suits best.

Like a wise general, Will Garvie began with the department in which the less astonishing operations were being performed. This was the timber and sawing department.

Here hard wood, in all sizes and forms, was being licked into shape by machinery in a way and with an amount of facility that was eminently calculated to astonish those whose ideas on such matters had been founded on the observation of the laborious work of human carpenters. The very first thing that struck Bob Marrot was that the tools were so heavy, thick, and strong that the biggest carpenter he had ever seen would not have been able to use them. Bob’s idea of a saw had hitherto been a long sheet of steel with small teeth, that could be easily bent like a hoop—an implement that went slowly through a plank, and that had often caused his arm to ache in being made to advance a few inches; but here he saw circular steel-discs with fangs more than an inch long, which became invisible when in a state of revolution.

“What is that?” said Mrs Marrot concentrating herself on one of these implements, after having indulged in a stare of bewildered curiosity round the long shed.

“That’s a circular saw,” replied Will Garvie; “one of the large ones,—about four feet in diameter.”

“A saw!” exclaimed Mrs Marrot, in surprise. “W’y, Will, it’s round. How can a round thing saw? An’ it han’t got no ’andle! How could any man lay ’old of it to saw?”

“The carpenter here don’t require no handles,” replied Will. “He’s a queer fellow is the carpenter of this shop, as well as powerful. He works away from morning till night with the power of more than a hundred horses, an’ does exactly what he’s bid without ever making any mistakes or axin’ any questions. He’s a steam-carpenter, Missis, but indeed he’s a jack-of-all-trades, and carries ’em on all at the same time. See, they’re goin’ to set him to work now—watch and you shall see.”

As he spoke, two men approached the circular saw bearing a thick log of oak. One of them fitted it in position, on rollers, with its edge towards the saw; then he seized a handle, by means of which he connected the steam-carpenter with the saw, which instantly revolved so fast that the teeth became invisible; at the same time the plank advanced rapidly and met the saw. Instantly there was a loud hissing yet ringing sound, accompanied by a shower of sawdust, and, long before Mrs Marrot had recovered from her surprise, the log was cut into two thick substantial planks.

After two or three more had been cut up in this way in as many minutes, Will Garvie said—

“Now, let’s see what they do with these planks. Come here.”

He led them to a place close beside the saw, where there was a strong iron machine, to one part of which was attached a very large chisel—it might have been equal to two or three dozen of the largest ordinary chisels rolled into one. This machine was in motion, but apparently it had been made for a very useless purpose, for it was going vigorously up and down at the time cutting the atmosphere!

“It’s like a lot of people as I knows of,” observed Mrs Marrot, “very busy about nothin’.”

“It’ll have somethin’ to do soon, mother,” said Bob, who was already beginning to think himself very knowing.

Bob was right. One of the oak-planks had been measured and marked for mortice-holes in various ways according to pattern, and was now handed over to the guardian of the machine, who, having had it placed on rollers, pushed it under the chisel and touched a handle. Down came the implement, and cut into the solid wood as if it had been mere putty. A dozen cuts or so in one direction, then round it went—for this chisel could be turned with its face in either direction without stopping it for the purpose—another dozen cuts were made, and an oblong hole of three or four inches long by two broad and three deep was made in the plank in a few seconds.

Even Mrs Marrot had sufficient knowledge of the arts to perceive that this operation would have cost a human carpenter a very much greater amount of time and labour, and that therefore there must have been a considerable saving of expense. Had she been aware of the fact that hundreds of such planks were cut, marked, morticed, and turned out of hands every week all the year round, and every year continuously, she would have had a still more exalted conception of the saving of time, labour, and expense thus effected.

The guardian of the chisel having in a few minutes cut the requisite half dozen or so of holes, guided the plank on rollers towards a pile, where it was laid, to be afterwards carried off to the carriage-builders, who would fit it as one side of a carriage-frame to its appropriate fellow-planks, which had all been prepared in the same way.

Not far from this machine the visitors were shown another, in which several circular saws of smaller dimensions than the first were at work in concert, and laid at different angles to each other, so that when a plank was given into their clutches it received cuts and slices in certain parts during its passage through the machine, and came out much modified and improved in form—all that the attendants had to do merely being to fit the planks in their places and guide them safely through the ordeal. Elsewhere Mrs Marrot and Bob beheld a frame—full of gigantic saws cut a large log into half a dozen planks, all in one sweep, in a few minutes—work which would have drawn the sweat from the brows of two saw-pit men for several hours. One thing that attracted the attention of Bob very strongly was the simple process of hole-boring. Of course, in forming the massive frames of railway carriages, it becomes necessary to bore numerous holes for large nails or bolts. Often had Bob, at a neighbouring seaport, watched the heavy work and the slow progress of ship-carpenters as they pierced the planks of ships with augers; but here he beheld what he called, “augers and drills gone mad!”—augers small and great whirling furiously, or, as Bob put it, “like all possessed.” Some acting singly, others acting together in rows of five or six; and these excited things were perpetually whirling, whether at work or not, ready for service at a moment’s notice. While Bob was gazing at one huge drill—probably an inch and a half broad, if not more—a man came up to it with a plank, on the surface of which were several dots at various distances. He put the plank under the drill, brought it down on a dot, whizz went the drill, and straightway there was a huge round hole right through almost before Bob had time to wink,—and Bob was a practised hand at winking. Several holes were bored in this way, and then the plank was carried to another machine, where six lesser holes were drilled at one and the same time by six furious little augers; and thus the planks passed on from one machine to another until finished, undergoing, in the course of a few minutes, treatment that would have cost them hours of torture had they been manipulated by human hands, in addition to which the work was most beautifully, and perfectly, and regularly done.

Many other operations did the visitors behold in this department—all more or less interesting and, to them, surprising—so that Mrs Marrot was induced at last to exclaim—

“W’y, Willum, it seems to me that if you go on improvin’ things at this rate there won’t be no use in a short time for ’uman ’ands at all. We’ll just ’ave to sit still an’ let machinery do our work for us, an’ all the trades-people will be throwd out of employment.”

“How can you say that, Missis,” said Will Garvie, “you bein’ old enough to remember the time w’en there wasn’t five joiners’ shops in Clatterby, with p’rhaps fifty men and boys employed, and now there’s hundreds of joiners, and other shops of all kinds in the town, besides these here railway works which, as you know, keeps about 3500 hands goin’ all the year round?”

“That’s so, Willum,” assented Mrs Marrot in a meditative tone.

Thus meditating, she was conducted into the smiths’ department.

Here about 140 forges and 400 men were at work. Any one of these forges would have been a respectable “smiddy” in a country village. They stood as close to each other as the space would allow,—so close that their showers of sparks intermingled, and kept the whole shed more or less in the condition of a chronic eruption of fireworks. To Bob’s young mind it conveyed the idea of a perpetual keeping of the Queen’s birthday. To his mother it was suggestive of singed garments and sudden loss of sight. The poor woman was much distressed in this department at first, but when she found, after five minutes or so, that her garments were unscathed, and her sight still unimpaired, she became reconciled to it.

In this place of busy vulcans—each of whom was the beau-idéal of “the village blacksmith,” all the smaller work of the railway was done. As a specimen of this smaller work, Will Garvie drew Mrs Marrot’s attention to the fact that two vulcans were engaged in twisting red-hot iron bolts an inch and a half thick into the form of hooks with as much apparent ease as if they had been hair-pins. These, he said, were hooks for couplings, the hooks by which railway carriages were attached together, and on the strength and unyielding rigidity of which the lives of hundreds of travellers might depend.

The bending of them was accomplished by means of a powerful lever. It would be an endless business to detail all that was done in this workshop. Every piece of comparatively small iron-work used in the construction of railway engines, carriages, vans, and trucks, from a door-hinge to a coupling-chain, was forged in that smithy. Passing onward, they came to a workshop where iron castings of all kinds were being made; cylinders, fire-boxes, etcetera,—and a savage-looking place it was, with numerous holes and pits of various shapes and depths in the black earthy floor, which were the moulds ready, or in preparation, for the reception of the molten metal. Still farther on they passed through a workroom where every species of brass-work was being made. And here Bob Marrot was amazed to find that the workmen turned brass on turning-lathes with as much facility as if it had been wood. Some of the pieces of brazen mechanism were very beautiful and delicate—especially one piece, a stop-cock for letting water into a boiler, the various and complex parts of which, when contrasted with the huge workmanship of the other departments, resembled fine watch-work.

As they passed on, Bob observed a particularly small boy, in whom he involuntarily took a great and sudden interest—he looked so small, so thin, so intelligent, and, withal, so busy.

“Ah, you may well look at him,” said Will Garvie, observing Bob’s gaze. “That boy is one of the best workers of his age in the shop.”

“What is ’e doin’?” inquired Bob.

“He’s preparin’ nuts for screws,” replied Will, “and gets one penny for every hundred. Most boys can do from twelve to fourteen hundred a day, so, you see, they can earn from six to seven shillin’s a week; but that little feller—they call him Tomtit Dorkin—earns a good deal more, I believe, and he has much need to, for he has got an old granny to support. That’s the work that you are soon to be set to, lad.”

“Is it?” said Bob, quite pleased at the notion of being engaged in the same employment with Tomtit; “I’m glad to ’ear it. You see, mother, when you gits to be old an’ ’elpless, you’ll not need to mind, ’cause I’ll support you.”

The next place they visited was the great point of attraction to Bob. It was the forge where the heavy work was done, and where the celebrated hammer and terrific pair of scissors performed their stupendous work.

At the time the visitors entered this department the various hammers chanced to be at rest, nevertheless even Mrs Marrot’s comparatively ignorant mind was impressed by the colossal size and solidity of the iron engines that surrounded her. The roof of the shed in which they stood had been made unusually high in order to contain them.

“Well, I s’pose the big ’ammer that Bob says is as ’eavy as five carts of coals must be ’ereabouts?” observed Mrs Marrot looking round.

“Yes, there it is,” said Will, pointing in front of him.

“W’ere? I don’t see no ’ammer.”

“Why there, that big thing just before you,” he said, pointing to a machine of iron, shaped something like the letter V turned upside down, with its two limbs on the earth, its stem lost in the obscurity of the root and having a sort of tongue between the two limbs, which tongue was a great square block of solid iron, apparently about five feet high and about three feet broad and deep. This tongue, Will Garvie assured his companion, was the hammer.

“No, no, Willum,” said Mrs Marrot, with a smile, “you mustn’t expect me for to believe that. I may believe that the moon is made of green cheese, but I won’t believe that that’s a ’ammer.”

“No: but is it, Bill?” asked Bob, whose eyes gleamed with suppressed excitement.

“Indeed it is; you shall see presently.”

Several stalwart workmen, with bare brawny arms, who were lounging before the closed mouth of a furnace, regarded the visitors with some amusement. One of these came forward and said—

“You’d better stand a little way back, ma’am.”

Mrs Marrot obediently retreated to a safe distance. Then the stalwart men threw open the furnace door. Mrs Marrot exclaimed, almost shrieked, with surprise at the intense light which gushed forth, casting even the modified daylight of the place into the shade. The proceedings of the stalwart men thereafter were in Mrs Marrot’s eyes absolutely appalling—almost overpowering,—but Mrs M was tough both in mind and body. She stood her ground. Several of the men seized something inside the furnace with huge pincers, tongs, forceps—whatever you choose to call them—and drew partly out an immense rudely shaped bar or log of glowing irons thicker than a man’s thigh. At the same time a great chain was put underneath it, and a crane of huge proportions thereafter sustained the weight of the glowing metal. By means of this crane it was drawn out of the furnace and swung round until its glowing head or end came close to the tongue before mentioned. Then some of the stalwart men grasped several iron handles, which were affixed to the cool end of the bar, and prepared themselves to act. A signal was given to a man who had not hitherto been noticed, he was so small in comparison with the machine on which he stood—perhaps it would be better to say to which he stuck, because he was perched on a little platform about seven or eight feet from the ground, which was reached by an iron ladder, and looked down on the men who manipulated the iron bar below.