Rides on Railways
Rides on Railways
Leading to the Lake and Mountain Districts of Cumberland, North Wales, and the Dales of Derbyshire
Free DownloadThe following pages are an attempt to supply something amusing, instructive, and suggestive to travellers who, not caring particularly where they go, or how long they stay at any particular place, may wish to know something of the towns and districts through which they pass, on their way to Wales, the Lakes of Cumberland, or the Highlands of Scotland; or to those who, having a brief vacation, may wish to employ it among pleasant rural scenes, and in investigating the manufactures, the mines, and other sources of the commerce and influence of this small island and great country.
Book Excerpt
he iron plates on that side; and if he escaped being scalded to death by the bursting of his engine, or having all his bones broken by collision with another, he would be fain to rest for the night within some four bare walls and gnaw a mouldy crust which he brought in his pocket, or, as an alternative of luxury, wade some ten miles through the mire, and feast upon a rasher of rusty bacon and a tankard of the smallest ale at the nearest hedge alehouse."
All this now sounds inexpressibly droll, and yet this prophet of evil was not entirely wrong; nay, in some important particulars he was more right than the railway promoters, whom he so heartily detested. The railway did cost nearly seven millions instead of four millions as calculated by the projectors, and the cost of working before the amalgamation with the Grand Junction did amount to 380,000 pounds per annum: two figure facts which would have effectually crushed speculation could they have been proved in 1831; but then the per contra of traffic was
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