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ones who could afford the time to linger there; and even highly respectable merchants were to be found sitting in shirt-sleeves at their writing-tables and wishing, with Sydney Smith, that they could “sit in their bones.”
At the junction of the Poultry with Victoria Street, shadowed by the Mansion House, from each side of the road a mysterious hoarding had just been removed, revealing an iron railing enclosing a small area with a mysterious staircase bearing the announcement that it led to the subway to the new electric railway, connecting the City with Waterloo Station. Descending a few steps, and emerging into a tunnelled incline, the perspiring pedestrian quickly found that here, if anywhere, was a refuge from the heat, the coolest place in London, and that it was well worth while, on the pretence of urgent business across the water, to pay twopence each way, merely to drink in the refreshing air wafted backwards and forwards along subway, platform, and tube.
This was the Waterloo and City Railway, a short deep-level line on the tube principle, nearly 1¾ miles long, burrowing under the Thames’ bed. At the terminus, by rather prolonged inclines and staircases, passengers could walk to the main or suburban platforms of Waterloo Station and catch the trains for Wimbledon, Hampton Court, Surbiton, etc.
Like the City and South London, this railway meets a great want. Before its opening, City men living down the London and South Western line had no alternative but to catch a South Eastern train from Cannon Street or Charing Cross; to take an omnibus viâ the Strand across to Waterloo Bridge; or to cab it by devious routes viâ Blackfriars Bridge. Now they can reach Waterloo with ease, comfort, and economy.
Under agreement, the line is worked by the London and South Western Railway Company. The electrical equipment is by the famous firm of Siemens Brothers, the generating station being up a blind alley adjoining
FIG. 4. WATERLOO AND CITY RAILWAY’S NEW PATTERN CAR
By permission of the “Tramway and Railway World” Publishing Co., London
the dismal arched entrance to Waterloo from York Road. Each train seats 208 passengers; the average speed is 18 miles an hour, and its usefulness is proved by the fact that over two and a half million ordinary passengers were carried by it in one half-year, i.e. to December 31st, 1902 (not counting season-ticket holders), while the receipts for that period were £17,400.
During the busy hours of morning and evening the large trains are used and always fill up rapidly, but in the slack times of midday single motor-cars, each carrying 50 passengers, are sufficient to cope with the traffic. The cars are rather stuffy, and, like the train cars, are narrow and low. At each end is a small partitioned-off “cab,” where sits a motor-man. No tickets are issued from the booking-office; but, as in an omnibus, the conductor comes round and collects the fares, giving a punched voucher in return, which is retained by the traveller.
THE LIVERPOOL OVERHEAD ELECTRIC RAILWAY
There are few overhead, or, rather, elevated, railways in the world. Somehow they do not seem to be popular, and the tendency, in England at least, is rather towards burrowing like the mole, than soaring above the street level.
In Germany there is a wonderful instance of electrically driven overhead line between Elberfeld and Barmen, on the mono-rail principle, the trains hanging from tracks suspended high above rivers and public roads. At the great Beckton gas works there has been in use since 1894 an iron-built miniature railway elevated on pillars, and it is a curious sight to witness busy little engines incessantly hauling coal trucks from the pier to the retort houses. An ingenious example of the elevated principle is to be seen at the Victoria Station, Manchester, where a railway on a very reduced scale conveys passengers’ luggage from one platform to another, and idlers are never tired of watching it. The track, a double one, is suspended from the roof and runs between platforms five and six. The motive power is electricity, and the motor is placed between the wheels and the track, and it lifts and lowers a basket which holds about 15 cwt. of luggage.
A wonderful instance of a very elevated railway existed at Beachy Head while the new lighthouse was being built 600 feet distant from the base of the cliff, at that point 400 feet high. It conveyed material to the site, the descending load drawing up the ascending empty “skip” on the overhead suspension principle.
Our New York cousins have, in their elevated steam railway, long been familiarised with the system, but for Londoners it possesses the fatal objection that the occupants of the cars as they pass along can look into the front windows of the houses and spy upon the occupants. Running along docks, however, elevated railways are not objectionable; and the earliest example, in this or any other country, of electricity applied to overhead traction is at Liverpool.
Extending along the Mersey—that noble river whose tidal movement is said to be four times the outfall of the Mississippi—for a distance of 6½ miles are the Liverpool Docks, in importance undoubtedly the first in the world, but, until the Overhead Railway was opened, exasperatingly inaccessible to business men whose time was valuable, and bewildering to strangers by reason of their immensity.
Along the line of dock, it is true, ran broad-wheeled omnibuses built to run on the low-level dock railway, but so slow, in consequence of the pressure of traffic and the necessity for frequent shuntings for the passage of goods trains, that to reach the farthest dock usually occupied over an hour. To improve upon this it was proposed, as far back as 1852, to construct a high-level railway; but nothing practical came of it until 1888, when the Liverpool Overhead Railway Company took over the parliamentary powers obtained by the Dock Board, and setting steadily to work, created their line for passengers only, and, from the first, achieved a great success, the number of travellers amounting to many millions annually.
On the 4th of February, 1893, the railway was appropriately opened by the ex-Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, whose devotion to the science of electricity is well known. Pressing a button at the base of a silver inkstand (subsequently presented to the Marquis as a memento), the engines that generated the electric current were set in motion, and by special train his lordship was conveyed over the seven miles of line, and afterwards entertained at a banquet by the Mayor, when, in an excellent speech, he dilated upon the prospect of electricity becoming the motive power of the age.
In the following month the railway was opened for public traffic, and, with its thirteen stations, its five minutes’ service, and its cheap fares, practically extinguished the omnibuses, light or heavy.
From the Overhead Railway a splendid view is obtained of the busiest locality perhaps in the empire. Below are the railway trucks packed close with imported merchandise of all kinds: cotton from America and the East; grain from the ends of the earth; beef, bacon, cheese, butter, flour, and fruit from the New World; wool and tallow from Australia and Argentina. Waggons
FIG. 5. THE LIVERPOOL OVERHEAD ELECTRIC RAILWAY
By permission of the Liverpool Overhead Electric Railway Co.
and carts filled with Manchester goods, hardware, machinery, chemicals, and every imaginable kind of manufactured goods are alongside the big liners that come into port, discharge their cargoes, load up, and are out in the Mersey and off to sea again in a few days. Truly Liverpool is a wonderful place, and although her greatness as a seaport has been threatened by the opening of the Ship Canal to Manchester, it will be a long day before she surrenders her claim to be the chief marine approach to Great Britain.
CHAPTER IV
REMARKABLE ELECTRIC RAILWAYS