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Updated: May 24, 2025
On that day five of Stephenson’s locomotives were at work upon the railway, under the direction of his brother Robert; and the first shipment of coal was then made by the Hetton Company, at their new staiths on the Wear. The speed at which the locomotives travelled was about 4 miles an hour, and each engine dragged after it a train of 17 waggons, weighing about 64 tons.
The coals, when raised from the pits, are emptied into the waggons placed alongside, from whence they are sent along the rails to the staiths erected by the river-side, the waggons sometimes descending by their own gravity along inclined planes, the waggoner standing behind to check the speed by means of a convoy or wooden brake bearing upon the rims of the wheels.
Arrived at the staiths, the waggons are emptied at once into the ships waiting alongside for cargo. Any one who has sailed down the Tyne from Newcastle Bridge cannot but have been struck with the appearance of the immense staiths, constructed of timber, which are erected at short distances from each other on both sides of the river.
Many still regarded his travelling engine as little better than a curious toy; and some, shaking their heads, predicted for it “a terrible blow-up some day.” Nevertheless, it was daily performing its work with regularity, dragging the coal-waggons between the colliery and the staiths, and saving the labour of many men and horses.
But even the North meant little to me beyond the staiths where the coal came down from the pits, and the dirty, rain-swept back streets where the shipping-offices were. Once or twice I tried to get quit of the ship and went inland by rail. I saw cathedrals and castles and temperance hotels. A bleak and unfriendly land! Somehow I could not find the key of it all.
The coals, when brought above ground, had next to be laboriously dragged by horses to the shipping staiths on the Tyne, several miles distant. The adoption of a tramroad, it is true, had tended to facilitate their transit. Nevertheless the haulage was both tedious and costly.
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