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Updated: May 8, 2025
On leaving Warrington, a few minutes bring us to Newton junction, upon the old Manchester and Liverpool Railway, where George Stephenson established the economy of steam locomotive conveyance twenty-one years ago. In half an hour we are rolling down the Edgehill Tunnel into Liverpool.
Stephenson himself drove the engine, and Captain Scoresby, the circumpolar navigator, stood beside him on the foot-plate, and minuted the speed of the train. A great concourse of people assembled at both termini, as well as along the line, to witness the novel spectacle of a train of carriages dragged by an engine at a speed of 17 miles an hour.
Stephenson became a prosperous and a celebrated man, he did not forget the friend who had taken him by the hand, and helped him on in his early days. He continued to remember Mr.
Stephenson sent in his improved model, the Rocket, constructed after plans of his own and his son Robert's, and it gained the prize against all its rivals, travelling at what was then considered the incredible rate of 35 miles an hour.
His experience in Lowell was here of great value to him, and he had become convinced that the engine of George Stephenson was in the main the coming machine, and needed but to be properly proportioned and of sufficient size to meet every demand.
In this short address there is no time to speak of other sciences, and to point out the particular evidence furnished by each to establish the dominion of law, nor to more than mention the name of Descartes, the first who undertook to give an explanation of the celestial motions, or who formed the vast and philosophic conception of reducing all the phenomena of the universe to the same law; of Montaigne, one of the heroes of common sense; of Galvani, whose experiments gave the telegraph to the world; of Voltaire, who contributed more than any other of the sons of men to the destruction of religious intolerance; of August Comte, whose genius erected to itself a monument that still touches the stars; of Guttenberg, Watt, Stephenson, Arkwright, all soldiers of science in the grand army of the dead kings.
The next morning, George Stephenson was walking in the gardens of Drayton Manor before breakfast, when Sir William Follett accosted him, and sitting down in an arbor asked for the facts of the argument.
Stephenson confessed that if a long tunnel had been made in the first instance through the solid rock of Penmaen Mawr, a saving of from £25,000 to £30,000 would have been effected.
His was an eminently practical mind, and, being so, he did not rest satisfied with reflections and speculations upon the plan he had conceived. He took counsel with men who were the most eminent, both for scientific and practical knowledge, with regard to the construction of railways. Among them, of course, was Robert Stephenson.
Stephenson insisted that no slipping took place, as attempted to be extorted from him by the counsel. He said, “It is impossible for slipping to take place so long as the adhesive weight of the wheel upon the rail is greater than the weight to be dragged after it.” As to accidents, Stephenson said he knew of none that had occurred with his engines.
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