The Iron Horse

On receiving the signal, this man moved a small lever. It cost him no effort whatever, nevertheless it raised the iron tongue about six feet in the air, revealing the fact that it had been resting on another square block of iron embedded in the earth. This latter was the anvil. On the anvil the end of the white-hot bar was immediately laid. Another signal was given, and down came the “five-carts-of-coals weight” with a thud that shook the very earth, caused the bar partially to flatten as if it had been a bit of putty, and sent a brilliant shower of sparks over the whole place. Mrs Marrot clapped both hands on her face, and capped the event with a scream. As for Bob, he fairly shouted with delight.

Blow after blow was given by this engine, and as each blow fell the stalwart men heaved on the iron handles and turned the bar this way and that way, until it was pounded nearly square. By this time Mrs Marrot had recovered so far as to separate her fingers a little, and venture to peep from behind that protecting screen. By degrees the unwieldy mass of misshapen metal was pounded into a cylindrical form, and Will Garvie informed his friends that this was the beginning of the driving-axle of a locomotive. Pointing to several of those which had been already forged, each having two enormous iron projections on it which were afterwards to become the cranks, he said—

“You’ll see how these are finished, in another department.”

But Mrs Marrot and Bob paid no attention to him. They were fascinated by the doings of the big hammer, and especially by the cool quiet way in which the man with the lever caused it to obey his will. When he moved the lever up or down a little, up or down went the hammer a little; when he moved it a good deal the hammer moved a good deal; when he was gentle, the hammer was gentle; when he gave a violent push, the hammer came down with a crash that shook the whole place. He could cause it to plunge like lightning to within a hair’s-breadth of the anvil and check it instantaneously so that it should not touch. He could make it pat the red metal lovingly, or pound it with the violence of a fiend. Indeed, so quick and sympathetic were all the movements of that steam-hammer that it seemed as though it were gifted with intelligence, and were nervously solicitous to act in prompt obedience to its master’s will. There were eleven steam-hammers of various sizes in this building, with a staff of 175 men to attend to them, half of which staff worked during the day, and half during the night—besides seven smaller steam-hammers in the smiths’ shops and other departments.

With difficulty Will Garvie tore his friends away from the big hammer; but he could not again chain their attention to anything else, until he came to the pair of scissors that cut iron. With this instrument Mrs Marrot at first expressed herself disappointed. It was not like a pair of scissors at all, she said, and in this she was correct, for the square clumsy-looking blunt-like mass of iron, about five feet high and broad, which composed a large portion of it, was indeed very unlike a pair of scissors.

“Why, mother,” exclaimed Bob, “you didn’t surely expect to see two large holes in it for a giant’s thumb and fingers, did you?”

“Well, but,” said Mrs Marrot, “it ain’t got no blades that I can see.”

“I’ll let ’ee see ’em, Missis, in a minute,” said a workman who came up at that moment with a plate of iron more than a quarter of an inch thick. “Turn it on, Johnny.”

A small boy turned on the steam, the machine moved, and Will Garvie pointed out to Mrs Marrot the fact that two sharp edges of steel in a certain part of it crossed each other exactly in the manner of a pair of scissors.

“Well,” remarked Mrs M, after contemplating it for some time, “it don’t look very like scissors, but I’m free to confess that them two bits of iron do act much in the same way.”

“And with the same result, Missus,” observed the machine-man, putting the plate between the clippers, which, closing quietly, snipped off about a foot of iron as if it had been paper. There was, however, a crunching sound which indicated great power, and drew from Mrs Marrot an exclamation of surprise not altogether unmingled with alarm.

The man then seized a bit of iron about as thick as his own wrist—full an inch and a half in diameter—which the scissors cut up into lengths of eighteen inches or so as easily as if it had been a bar of lead or wood.

“Didn’t I say it could cut through the poker, mother?” cried Bob with a look of triumph.

“The poker, boy! it could cut poker, tongs, shovel, and fender, all at once!” replied Mrs Marrot—“well, I never! can it do anything else?”

In reply to this the man took up several pieces of hard steel, which it snipped through as easily as it had cut the iron.

But if Mrs Marrot’s surprise at the scissors was great, not less great was it at the punching machine, which punched little buttons the size of a sixpence out of cold iron full half-an-inch thick. This vicious implement not only punched holes all round boiler-plates so as to permit of their being riveted together, but it cut patterns out of thick iron plates by punching rows of such holes so close to each other that they formed one long cutting, straight or crooked, as might be required. In short, the punching machine acted the part of a saw, and cut the iron plates in any shape that was desired. Here also they saw the testing of engine springs—those springs which to most people appear to have no spring in them whatever—so very powerful are they. One of these was laid on an iron table, with its two ends resting against an iron plate. A man approached and measured it exactly. Then a hydraulic ram was applied; and there was something quite impressive in the easy quiet way, in which the ram shoved a spring, which the weight of a locomotive can scarcely affect, quite flat against the iron plate, and held it there a moment or two! Being released, the spring resumed its proper form. It was then re-measured; found not to have expanded a hair’s-breadth, and, therefore,—as Will Garvie took care to explain,—was passed as a sound well-tempered spring; whereat Bob remarked that it would need to be a good-tempered spring, to suffer such treatment without grumbling.

It seemed to Mrs Marrot now as if her capacity for surprise had reached its limit; but she little knew the wealth of capacity for creating surprise that lay in these amazing “works” of the Grand National Trunk Railway.

The next place she was ushered into was a vast apartment where iron in every shape, size, and form was being planed and turned and cut. The ceiling of the building, or rather the place where a ceiling ought in ordinary circumstances to have been, was alive with moving bands and whirling wheels. The first thing she was called on to contemplate was the turning of the tyre or rim of one of the driving-wheels of a locomotive. Often had Mrs Marrot heard her husband talk of tyres and driving-wheels, and many a time had she seen these wheels whirling, half-concealed, in their appropriate places, but never till that day had she seen the iron hoop, eight feet in diameter, elevated in bare simplicity on a turning-lathe, where its size impressed her so much that she declared, “she never could ’ave imagined engine-wheels was so big,” and asked, “’ow did they ever manage to get ’em lifted up to w’ere they was?”

To which an overseer kindly replied by pointing out a neat little crane fitted on a tail, which, when required, ran along the apartment like a strong obedient little domestic servant, lifting wheels, etcetera, that a man could scarcely move, and placing them wherever they were wanted. Mrs Marrot was then directed to observe the rim of the wheel, where she saw a small chisel cutting iron curls off it just as easily, to all appearance, as a turner cuts shavings off wood—and these iron curls were not delicate; they were thick, solid, unpliant ringlets, that would have formed a suitable decoration for the fair brow of a locomotive, or, perhaps, a chignon—supposing that any locomotive could have been prevailed on to adopt such a wild monstrosity!

This same species of chisel, applied in different ways, reduced masses of iron in size, planed down flat surfaces, enlarged holes, made cylinders “true” and smooth inside, besides doing a variety of other things.

After seeing the large tyre turned, Mrs Marrot could not be induced to pay much regard to the various carriage and truck wheels which were being treated in a similar manner in that department, but she was induced to open her ears, and her eyes too, when the overseer informed her that the “works” turned out complete no fewer than one hundred and thirty pairs of locomotive, carriage, and waggon wheels a week.

“How many did you say?” she asked.

“A hundred and thirty pair of wheels in the week,” repeated the overseer.

“Every week?” asked Mrs Marrot.

“Yes; every week. Sometimes more, sometimes less; but altogether, pretty well on for 6000 pairs of wheels every year.”

“W’y, what do you make of ’em all?”

“Oh, we make good use of ’em,” replied the overseer, laughing. “We wear them out so fast that it keeps us working at that rate to meet our necessities. But that,” he continued, “is only a small part of what we do. We turn out of the works 156 first-class carriages besides many seconds and thirds, and about 1560 trucks every year; besides three engines, new and complete, every fortnight.”

“Three noo engines every fortnight!” echoed Mrs Marrot; “how many’s that in the year, Bob?”

“Seventy-eight,” replied Bob, promptly. Bob was a swift mental calculator, and rather proud of it.

“Where ever do they all go to?” murmured Mrs Marrot.

“Why,” replied Will Garvie, “they go to all the stations on the line, of course; some of ’em go to smash at once in cases of accidents, and all of ’em goes to destruction, more or less, in about fifteen or twenty years. We reckon that to be the life of a locomotive. See, there’s a drivin’ axle, such as you saw forged by the big hammer, being turned now, and cut to shape and size by the same sort of machine that you saw cuttin’ the tyres.”

They passed on, after looking at the axle for a few minutes, until they came to a part of the building where rails were being forged. This also, although not done by hammer, was a striking process. The place was so hot owing to the quantity of uncooled metal on the floor, that it was not possible to remain long; they therefore took a rapid survey. In one place several men were in the act of conveying to the steam-hammer a mass of shapeless white-hot iron, which had just been plucked from a furnace with a pair of grippers. They put it below the hammer for a few minutes, which soon reduced it to a clumsy bar; then they carried it to a pair of iron rollers driven by steam. The end of the bar being presented to these, it was gripped, dragged in between them, and passed out at the other side, flat and very much lengthened, as well as thinned. Having been further reduced by this process, it was finally passed through a pair of rollers, which gave it shape, and sent it out a complete rail, ready to be laid down on the line.

Here Garvie took occasion to explain that steel rails, although very expensive, were now being extensively used in preference to iron rails, because they lasted much longer. “For instance,” he said, “steel costs about 12 pounds a ton and iron only costs about 7 pounds; but then, d’ye see, steel rails will last two years and more, whereas iron rails get wore out, and have to be renewed every six weeks in places where there’s much traffic.”

“Now, I can’t stand no more o’ this,” said Mrs Marrot, down whose face the perspiration was streaming; “I’m a’most roasted alive, an’ don’t understand your explanations one bit, Willum, so come along.”

“Oh, mother, do hold on a moment,” pleaded Bob, whose mechanical soul was in a species of paradise.

“You’d better come, Bob,” interposed Garvie, “else we won’t have time to see the department where the engines are fitted.”

This was sufficient for Bob, who willingly followed.

The fitting shed at that time contained several engines in various stages of advancement. In one place men were engaged in fitting together the iron framework or foundation of a locomotive, with screws, and bolts, and nuts, and rivets. Others were employed near them, on an engine more advanced, in putting on the wheels and placing the boilers and fire-boxes, while another gang were busy covering the boiler of a third engine with a coating of wood and felt, literally for the purpose of keeping it warm, or preventing its heat from escaping. Farther on, three beautiful new engines, that had just been made and stood ready for action, were receiving a few finishing touches from the painters. Fresh, spotless, and glittering, these were to make their début on the morrow, and commence their comparatively brief career of furious activity—gay things, doomed emphatically to a fast life! Beyond these young creatures lay a number of aged and crippled engines, all more or less disabled and sent there for repair; one to have a burst steam-pipe removed and replaced, another to have a wheel, or a fire-box or a cylinder changed; and one, that looked as if it had recently “run a-muck” against all the other engines on the line, stood sulkily grim in a corner, evidently awaiting its sentence of condemnation,—the usual fate of such engines being to be torn, bored, battered, chiselled, clipt, and otherwise cut to pieces, and cast into the furnaces.

While gazing round this apartment, Mrs Marrot’s eyes suddenly became transfixed.

“Wot’s the matter now?” demanded Bob, in some alarm.

“I do believe—w’y—there’s a locomotive in the air!” said Mrs Marrot in an undertone.

“So it is!” exclaimed Bob.

And, reader, so it was. In that shed they had a crane which rested on a framework overhead, and ran on wheels over the entire shop. It was capable of lifting above fifty tons’ weight and as a large locomotive, ponderous though it be, is not much over twenty tons, of course this giant crane made short work of such. When the men have occasion to remove a wheel from the iron horse, not being able to make it lift up its leg, so to speak, to have it taken off, they bring it under the crane, swing it up as a little boy might swing a toy-cart, and operate on it at their leisure.

Mrs Marrot felt an unpleasant sensation on beholding this. As the wife of an engine-driver, she had long felt the deepest respect, almost amounting to reverence, for locomotives, in regard to the weight, speed, and irresistible power of which she had always entertained the most exalted ideas. To see one of the race—and that too, of the largest size—treated in this humiliating fashion was too much for her, she declared that she had seen enough of the “works,” and wouldn’t on any account remain another minute!

“But you won’t go without seein’ the carriage and truck department, surely?” said Bob.

“Well, I’ll just take a look to please you,” said the amiable woman.

Accordingly, to the truck and van department they went, and there Bob, whose mind was sharp as a needle, saw a good many pieces of mechanism, which formerly he had only seen in a transition state, now applied to their ultimate uses. The chiselled, sawn, and drilled planks seen in the first department, were here being fitted and bolted together in the form of trucks, while the uses of many strange pieces of iron, which had puzzled him in the blacksmiths’ department, became obvious when fitted to their appropriate woodwork. Here, also, he saw the internal machinery of railway carriages laid bare, especially the position and shape of the springs that give elasticity to the buffers, which, he observed, were just the same in shape as ordinary carriage springs, placed so that the ends of the buffer-rods pressed against them.

But all this afforded no gratification to Mrs Marrot, whose sensitive mind dwelt uneasily on the humiliated locomotive, until she suddenly came on a row of new first-class carriages, where a number of people were employed stuffing cushions.

“Well, I declare,” she exclaimed, “if here ain’t cushion-stuffing going on! I expect we shall come to coat-and-shift-making for porters and guards, next!”

“No, we haven’t got quite that length yet,” laughed Will Garvie; “but if you look along you’ll see gilding, and glazing, and painting going on, at that first-class carriage. Still farther along, in the direction we’re going, is the infirmary.”

“The infirmary, Willum!”

“Ay, the place where old and damaged trucks and carriages are sent for repair. They’re all in a bad way, you see,—much in need o’ the doctor’s sar’vices.”

This was true. Looking at some of these unfortunates, with crushed-in planks, twisted buffers and general dismemberment, it seemed a wonder that they had been able to perform their last journey, or crawl to the hospital. Some of the trucks especially might have been almost said to look diseased, they were so dirty, while at the corners, where address cards were wont to be affixed, they appeared to have broken out in a sort of small-pox irruption of iron tackets.

At last Mrs Marrot left the “works,” declaring that her brain was “whirling worser than was the wheels and machinery they had just left,” while Bob asseverated stoutly that his appetite for the stupendous had only been whetted. In this frame of mind the former went home to nurse her husband, and the latter was handed over to his future master, the locomotive superintendent of the line.

Reader, it is worth your while to visit such works, to learn what can be done by the men whom you are accustomed to see, only while trooping home at meal hours, with dirty garments and begrimed hands and faces—to see the grandeur as well as the delicacy of their operations, while thus labouring amongst din and dust and fire, to provide you with safe and luxurious locomotion. We cannot indeed, introduce you to the particular “works” we have described; but if you would see something similar, hie thee to the works of our great arterial railways,—to those of the London and North-Western, at Crewe; the Great Western, at Swindon; the South-eastern, at Ashford; the Great Northern, at Doncaster; the North British, at Cowlairs; the Caledonian, at Glasgow, or any of the many others that exist throughout the kingdom, for in each and all you will see, with more or less modification, exactly the same amazing sights that were witnessed by worthy Mrs Marrot and her hopeful son Bob, on that never-to-be-forgotten day, when they visited the pre-eminently great Clatterby “works” of the Grand National Trunk Railway.

Note. The foregoing description is founded on visits paid to the locomotive works of the Great Western, at Swindon, and those of the North British, near Glasgow—to the General Managers and Superintendents of both which railways we are indebted for much valuable information.—R.M. Ballantyne.