告白 — Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Rides on Railways You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org . If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title : Rides on Railways Author : Samuel Sidney Release date : August 25, 2004 [eBook #13271] Most recently updated: December 18, 2020 Language : English Other information and formats : www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13271 Credits : This eBook was prepared by Les Bowler, St. Ives, Dorset *** START OF Ives, Dorset. RIDES ON RAILWAYS by Samuel Sidney. PREFACE. The 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. In performing this task, I have relied partly on personal observation, partly on notes and the memory of former journeys; and where needful have used the historical information to be found in cyclopædias, and local guide-books. This must account for, if it does not excuse, the unequal space devoted to districts with equal claims to attention. But it would take years, if not a lifetime, to render the manuscript of so discursive a work complete and correct. I feel that I have been guilty of many faults of commission and omission; but if the friends of those localities to which I have not done justice will take the trouble to forward to me any facts or figures of public general interest, they shall be carefully embodied in any future edition, should the book, as I hope it will, arrive at such an honour and profit. S. S. LONDON, AUGUST, 1851. CONTENTS. LONDON AND NORTH WESTERN RAILWAY EUSTON STATION THE MIXED TRAIN CAMDEN STATION AYLESBURY WOBURN AND BEDFORD THE BUCKS RAILWAY BANBURY OXFORD WOLVERTON STATION BLISWORTH, NORTHAMPTON WEEDON RUGBY AND ITS RAILWAYS ARNOLD AND HIS SCHOOL COVENTRY TO BIRMINGHAM BIRMINGHAM WARWICK, LEAMINGTON, KENILWORTH, STRATFORD-ON-AVON SOHO THE BLACK COUNTRY (WALSALL, DUDLEY, WEDNESBURY, DARLASTON) STAFFORD LIVERPOOL MANCHESTER THE ROAD TO YORKSHIRE YORKSHIRE LEEDS THROUGH LINCOLNSHIRE TO SHEFFIELD SHEFFIELD DERBYSHIRE FROM CHESTER TO NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE THE LAKES HOME LIST OF ENGRAVINGS. EUSTON SQUARE, LONDON HARROW-ON-THE-HILL VIADUCT OVER THE RIVER COLNE, NEAR WATFORD LOOKING FROM THE HILL ABOVE BOXMOOR STATION TOWARDS BERKHAMSTED BERKHAMSTED STATION LEIGHTON BUZZARD DENBIGH HALL BRIDGE THE WOLVERTON VIADUCT BRIDGE IN THE BLISWORTH EMBANKMENT VIEW FROM TOP OF KILSBY TUNNEL, LOOKING TOWARDS RUGBY COVENTRY THE SHERBORNE VIADUCT, NEAR COVENTRY THE AVON VIADUCT THE ASTON VIADUCT ASTON HALL NEWTON ROAD STATION, NEAR BIRMINGHAM THE RAILWAY NEAR PENKRIDGE STAFFORD VIEW NEAR WHITMORE VALE-ROYAL VIADUCT EXCAVATION AT HARTFORD VIADUCT OVER THE MERSEY AND MERSEY AND IRWELL CANAL, KINGSTON THE DUTTON VIADUCT THE WARRINGTON VIADUCT LONDON AND NORTH WESTERN RAILWAY. According to Mr. Punch, one of the greatest authorities of the day on all such subjects, the nearest way to Euston Station is to take a cab; but those who are not in a hurry may take advantage of the omnibuses that start from Gracechurch Street and Charing Cross, traversing the principal thoroughfares and calling at the George and Blue Boar, Holborn, the Green Man and Still, Oxford Street, and the Booking Offices in Regent Circus. Euston, including its dependency, Camden Station, is the greatest railway port in England, or indeed in the world. It is the principal gate through which flows and reflows the traffic of a line which has cost more than twenty-two millions sterling; which annually earns more than two millions and a-half for the conveyance of passengers, and merchandise, and live stock; and which directly employs more than ten thousand servants, beside the tens of thousands to whom, in mills or mines, in ironworks, in steam-boats and coasters, it gives indirect employment. What London is to the world, Euston is to Great Britain: there is no part of the country to which railway communication has extended, with the exception of the Dover and Southampton lines, which may not be reached by railway conveyance from Euston station. The Buckinghamshire lines from Bletchley open the way through Oxford to all the Western counties, only interrupted by the break of gauge. The Northampton and Peterborough, from Blisworth, proceeds to the Eastern coast of Norfolk and Lincoln. At Rugby commences one of several roads to the North, either by Leicester, Nottingham, and Lincoln, or by Derby and Sheffield; and at Rugby, too, we may either proceed to Stafford by the direct route of the Trent Valley, a line which is rendered classical by the memory of Sir Robert Peel, who turned its first sod with a silver spade and honoured its opening by a celebrated speech; or we may select the old original line through Coventry, Birmingham, and Wolverhampton, passing through a network of little railways leading to Warwick and Leamington, the result of unprofitable competition. A continuation of the Trent Valley line intersects the Pottery district, where the cheapest Delft and the most exquisite specimens of China ware are produced with equal success; and thus we reach Liverpool and Manchester by the straightest possible line. At Stafford we can turn off to Shrewsbury and Chester, or again following the original route arrive at Crewe, the great workshop and railway town of the London and North Western. Crewe affords an ample choice of routes—1st, to Leeds by Stockport (with a branch to Macclesfield) and Huddersfie