1830s Travel: The Basics
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 5 авг 2024
- The Liverpool & Manchester Railway was the world's first inter-city passenger railway. Whilst passenger railways had existed since 1807, it was the first steam-hauled passenger service, worked to a regular timetable.
Rail travel in 1830 was very different from what you expect today: compartment carriages with no lighting, heating, or toilets - and in some cases no sides! With a journey time of up to two hours for 30 miles from Liverpool to Manchester, passengers had to be stalwart.
Thanks to Duncan Hough, Cameron McTigue, and Chris Lawton for video. Paul Dore, Lauren Gradwell, Ian Hardman and Matthew Jackson for photographs. And all the "Mosi Gang" for their continued support.
You can follow Rail Story on Twitter @Railstory
Find me on Facebook / onhistoricallines
Support Rail Story on Patreon to get early access to Channel content:
/ railstory
The seat on the roof for a brave passenger sounds like a awesome experience.
Lovely video, hope we get to see more on the rolling stock soon, especially after Hornby's, err, interesting interpretations of L&MR wagons
Fierce! As a writer of fiction this is so interesting, and terrifying, to imagine the travel conditions and lack of safety. Then again it was all new and nobody knew what they were doing, flying blind as it were. Great inspiration for my stories about fledgling rail adventures in fantasy lands, and all its dangers and dramas.
Fantastic stuff as per usual, old bean!
And yet, the casualty rates on trains were only a fraction of what they were on stagecoaches. The big difference, though, was that there could be many more casualties in one train wreck than in the average stagecoach accident. Stagecoaches held up to about 12 persons (most of whom rode on the roof). Weekly issues of The Railway Times used to carry a column of stagecoach disasters as a means, I suppose, of showing how safe the railways really were.
In its annual report for 1841, the very busy Grand Junction Ry. boasted it had conveyed about a million and a half passengers without a casualty. The London & Birmingham, its southern connection, did much the same.
The LIverpool & Manchester, as the pioneer in intercity rail travel, opted for two classes as equivalents to the stagecoach "inside" (first class) and "outside" (second class) seats. As Mr. Dawson says in the video, the second class patrons were in cars with seats but no upper sides or roofs -- until passengers started complaining about cinders falling on them from the locomotive, and catching first their umbrellas, and then their clothes, on fire.
Thank you for covering so many details about the various classes of carriages.
Glad you liked it!
THANK YOU ANTONY.
I had no idea a out the history of 1830’s travel, thank you you for your insight.
excellent. the bits of a train set that arent locos are also interesting.
Vey interesting, I’m very keen on learning about the actual contemporary experience. It says much about times and expectations. I imagine other travel options compared rather poorly even with these austere standards. Everything I’ve learned about travelling by coach and canal appears right grim.
Thanks for making and sharing!
Considering highwaymen were a thing throughout history, yeah.
In the early 1830s you'd have to be in one of only a few parts of the country for the option of modern steam powered coaches; notably between London and Brighton, but only for a short time before the government clamped down on those in favour of the railways.
@@dw620 Actually, the steam carriages were vanquished by turnpike tolls. The turnpike operators were convinced the steam carriages were doing more damage to their roads than horses, so upped the tolls on steam carriages until providing such a service became uneconomic. Steam carriages generally averaged only about 4-6 mph between termini, although they could go faster in spurts along the road.
As always Anthony presents a well produced and fascinating look into the historic railways of the UK. From an appreciative viewer from "across the pond"
Thanks Anthony so much for that, I've rather been waiting for something on coach accommodation. People often overconcentrate on the locos - nowt wrong with locos, but the travelling experience back in the day is just as interesting. Btw in Germany, preservation railways with two and three axle coaches are not unusual. One of them is the DFS - Dampfbahn Fränkische Schweiz. At the end of the 19th century, they came to be built without compartments (open saloon) and were known as Donnerbüchsen - thunder boxes. Look forward to the next instalment!
As Always Anthony this video was a pleasure and a joy to watch with its wealth of information and tounge cheek humour. Excellent effort thankyou.
My pleasure!
Ironic that hornby followed the open third design for Lion to the letter and left out the bench seating too. Almost if the Hornby team did minimal research. But this is a great video which helped enlighten us all.
They just assumed the LMS built replicas of the first- and second-class coaches were accurate. Hornby even told me they thought they were originals and were surprised to be told they were modern replicas. A bit sad really.
Train fares costing a weeks wages , sometimes things have not changed much.
I see we are doing our bit on the footplate...informative Anthony.
Robert Peel (1788-1850) the founder of the first new Metropolitan Policemen Force in 1829.
Very interesting. Thank you.
Top notch as always.
The part about "requiring 50% of carriages to have brakes, yet not increasing the number of brakemen..." was rather interesting. I take it there were no such adventurous souls as on American railways where brakemen were expected to run across the tops of carriage roofs, leaping from car to car in all kinds of weather. Conversely, it seems this is antithetical to Continental practice where particularly French and German trains took to having enclosed brakeman's huts on about every 4th carriage or wagon quite early on, a practice that continued until after the Second World War.
Also, "no brakes on the locomotive" seems odd. Were there not handbrakes on the tender? Did the locomotive driver not try to stop his train by putting his own engine into reverse? Or were they really so proud as to expect the lowly guards in the carriages behind to obey their command to avoid a disaster, in which surely the engine crew would be the first to be killed? Simple logic and self-preservation instinct would have suggested that the engine crew would try to do *something*, especially in an emergency. And I doubt it would have been as rudimentary as Jeremy Clarkson standing up and holding out his arms while shouting about "wind resistance". Perhaps a follow-up episode on Early Railway Braking may be in order.
If im correct the L&M fitted the tenders with handbrakes
Yes, but they were parking brakes.
In the UK, climbing over the roofs of carriages or along goods waggons was strictly prohibited by not only Company Regulations but by the Board of Trade. A practice considered far too dangerous to allow. Especially when there were so many bridges.
On American lines, coaches with a central aisle were already in common use before 1840, so no need to run across the rooftops unless it was a freight train. This doesn't mean operation was necessarily safer - the Camden & Amboy would run trains of eight to twelve cars with only two brakemen (one on the tender, who was also the lookout for problems with the train) and one riding in the carriages. This understaffing resulted in a spectacular wreck in 1839 when a train overran the platform, demolished a waiting baggage car, a crane (for transferring baggage between boats and trains) and then piled into a waiting steamboat at Amboy. Amazingly nobody on the train was killed, though a bystander at the station later died from their injuries.
The situation is analagous with the steam hauled timber tramways that used to operate in the tall forests east of Melbourne before the Second World War. The logs were hauled down the mountains to sawmills in the valleys, then the sawn timber was stacked onto bogies with a steam locomotive pulling the consist to a proper railway where the timber was transfred to railway wagons. A tramway brakeman sat on the last stack of timber and contolled the bell brakes fitted to *every* bogie using ropes. Perhaps the L & M also used ropes connected to brakes on other carriages on their trains?
Great video! I'm finding these early years so interesting but they seem to be mostly overlooked by a lot of enthusiasts, thanks for covering it :)
Planet is a beautiful engine.
Thankyou. Planet is gorgeous. She is the first locomotive I learned to fire, and drive. Once you've been with Planet for any length of time you fall in love with her. I know I have.
Ahh the good old times. Back then, station stops also were longer. Especially once they ran longer distances than Liverpool to Manchester. Locomotives were refilled with water during stops at stations. Passengers could get out and use the station's toilet facilities or buy something to eat. Actually on a number of lines, introducing the first dining cars led to protests of the restaurant owners along the line. In some cases though, it was these restaurants that provided the meals, to be eaten in the dining car. Cooking in a little kitchen in a rolling train was and is a difficult affair.
Heating came along later in the 19th century, either by a stove in the car, by a self-contained heating via steam pipes or by steam coming from the locomotive. Petroleum or gas lights were not very bright and a safety hazard with their highly combustible fuel, so the introduction of electric lights was a great leap ahead in safety. Likewise for the introduction of air brakes ....
delicate looking train
The Planet loco looks superb.
Thank you, Mr. Dawson, for another informative and enjoyable video. It passed too quickly.
I became fascinated with the early railways in Britain and North America (I'm Canadian) several years ago and have been reading through periodicals like American Railroad Journal (from 1832), The Railway Times and John Herapath's original Railway Magazine -- for the sheer joy of learning about this fascinating time.
I've read a lot of the books, too, both technical works and popular histories, including your two recent ones on the L&M for Pen & Sword. Although I have barely scratched the surface of your many videos, I have enjoyed all I have viewed.
I look forward to your next production, both video and written.
If you want early steam plus fantasy, plus car loads of humor(humour in foreign lands); get Terry Pratchett's "Raising Steam". The third of his Moist Von Lipwig series. Introducing steam power to the disk world. If you have not read Pratchett yet, whaat are you waiting for?
Got it. Read it. Loved it. I'm also a big fan of Douglas Adams; Spike Milligan; and Tom Sharpe.
Fascinating video and some interesting comparisons with the current day!
I don't know if they were so hardy. They simply didn't have a choice. There were quite a lot of fatalities in the early days. I saw in another video that the Planet locomotive reproduced here broke it's crank axle and ran off the rails, resulting in injuries and deaths. You just wouldn't know if you would live through the journey!
Whilst Planet locomotives did suffer from a series of broken axles, none of those accidents were fatal. There were 20 accidents in which passengers were killed the Liverpool & Manchester, between September 1830 and July 1845. The majority of them were due to passengers trying to alight from a still moving train. The worst accident was at Parr Moss where passengers alighted - despite remonstrations of the Guard - following the train engine bursting a tube. A train on the other line didn't slow down, didn't see the passengers on the ground due to the escaping steam, and ploughed into them.
Thank you. Interesting details for anyone researching life in pre-victorian Britain.
Glad you enjoyed it
@@AnthonyDawsonHistory It always astonishes me to think that early railway development pretty well spanned the reigns of George lV and William lV before we even got to Victoria.
@@peterjohncooper Most of the West Coast Mainline from Euston to Liverpool, Manchester and Preston was in place the year Victoria was crowned. It's crazy.
Fascinating reality check. When you think how unprepared the trains were for emergency situations, it's a miracle that there weren't more accidents. Or were there lots of accidents and we just haven't heard about them? haha I always look forward to your videos, always something interesting. 😊
Accidents were, thankfully quite rare. I think between 1830 and 1845 the L&M had 20 passenger fatalities. The majority of them were not due to accidents to trains but rather the stupidity of passengers, such as trying to alight from a moving carriage, or jumping out to catch their hat!
@@AnthonyDawsonHistory Well, that's good to know. As for jumping out to catch a flyaway hat, I'll bet he didn't try that again 😄 Sorry, that's a terrible thing to say......
@Anthony Dawson I always appreciate Swansea getting a mention. Thank you.
Platform wise if you could call it that, the Swansea end of the line had a mound, so arguably a very early provision for ease of passenger ingress and egress!
From 1812 the Swansea & Mumbles also had a station building for passengers to wait.
A point regards the cost comfort etc of traveling on the LMR. The people being attracted to the railway had previously only been able to travel inside a stagecoach at great expense (more than by train) or on the roof of the stagecoach, still at some expense and much less comfortable than the LMR blue coaches. The poor might get a ride on a carrier's waggon but would most probably walk. But why would a working person need to travel? They would be toiling most of the time for those able to travel by train!
Love your videos!
Thank you!
Fascinating! In the early 1830s, taking the L&MR seems to me a bit like taking an airplane right after WW1 or a suborbital flight today: risky, not especially comfortable but compared to other forms of travel a trip right into the future. Wonder, if the passengers back then had similar sentiments...
One of the best annalogies Ive heard! Pioneering technology, right at the cutting edge, but far superior to what went before. :-)
@@AnthonyDawsonHistory Better than the iffy roads and horse coaches, which could also runaway or tip over.
Any thoughts on what broad gauge development for the GWR would have looked like if that system had remained such past its demise into the end of steam?
A city that could DEFINTELEY go past 100.. okay they might be a push
It had developed pretty much to its maximum by the mid 1850s, especially since Standard Gauge locomotives could perform as well as the B.G. ones. It would be hard to see how it could have been exploited any further given the sheer cost of building a BG line. Sadly, due to being 'early adopters' of railway technology, the UK has a very limited loading gauge which prevented exploitation of a big loading gauge as in the USA. Small tunnels, bridges, narrow cuttings - even relatively speaknig on the BG - meant you'd never get anything so massive as a Big Boy, not that they were needed of course. BG designs had stagnated from the 'Iron Duke' and 'Rover' class and had got as big as they could within the loading gauge quite early on. The other problem of course was often the weight restrictions over key parts of the GWR - even their first Pacific was too heavy. You may have got more modern designs, but nothing massive. It was an expensive failure to be honest.
Britain simply didn't need massive power. It would have been economic suicide. British builders made some pretty big engines for India and Australia.
Great video very interesting and the video of Manchester Liverpool Road Station is wonderful is that coach always there not seen it before.I will have to fit some benches to my Hornby blue open wagon/coaches now.😁
The Manchester & Birmingham Railway Coach is a permanent feature: it was restored from a complete wreck, having been used as a stable in an orchard. Restoration began at the Llangollen Railway and finished in Manchester with the coach being part of the 'Planet Experience.' The Hornby open coaches are completely wrong sadly - they're too long and the sides are too high. And lack roofs.
Thank you that will explain why they look wrong when compared to pictures.Will have to visit Msnchester Science Museum when all ok and open again and to the Foxfield Railway.
8:07....Like my last trip down to london
Andy, could you do a video on trains in the 1840s using 2-2-2s such as der Adler.
If your going to do more videos about carriages can I put a vote in for the L&MR Chinese carriage please.
😁Greetings Anthony!
- I'm guessing that horse-drawn taxi services, at stations, quickly developed at the same times as of all this rail timetable expansion?
They were there from the start. The Liverpool & Manchester and the Leeds & Selby operate first- and second-class omnibuses to take passengers to stations from the beginning.
@@AnthonyDawsonHistory Interesting - first- and second-class 'Omnibuses' - wasn't the original idea of an Omnibus that it was 'for everyone'?
@@ricktownend9144 well quite. But yet the railway omnibuses mirrored the distinction of first and second-class trains. First-class being more expensive and dropping passengers off at the best hotels. Second-class simply ferrying from the city centre to the railway station.
@@AnthonyDawsonHistory Thank you so much for replying - most interesting. Checking on Wikipedia, horse-buses only started in 1827-9 (Baudry in Paris, Shillibeer in London) but spread very quickly. I wonder if the manufacture of horse-buses and railway carriages was at first carried on by the same companies?
@@ricktownend9144 It was indeed. Companies like Lacey & Allen of Manchester or Melling of Chorlton-on-Medlock were established coach and horse-bus manufacturers and they built carriages for the L&M. Mellings became a major railway carriage builder.
My guess would be passengers would have to guess arrival times based of departure times. Granted that would definitely make guess work for delays more difficult too. I would love a like this for US rail in the early years as well
I certainly did enjoy it and would love to hear more about carriages.
What was the first line to branch off into two, or more destinations?
Railways had been doing that since there'd been railways. If in terms of a public passenger railway, probably the Stockton & Darlington Railway which had several branches - famously the one of Middlesborough which opened in 1830. The S&D, of course, didn't operate its own passenger trains (their operation was leased to stage coach proprietors) and they were horse-drawn until 1833 with some horse drawn services lingering into the 1850s!
Regin of Queen Victoria 1837-1901.
Primitive, and not too safe, but if I had access to a time machine I’d round up some shillings and go for a ride. In the USA it’s still usual to climb up into the train from ground level. Few stations for long distance trains have high platforms.
i have a question regarding passenger travel. it would appear that many steam trains of the 19th century, while renowned for being fast, were not very accurately measured for their top speed, unlike the trains of the 20th century. leading me to wonder if speed and to the destination as quickly as possible was really the high priority? based on this video presentation and other documents, it sounds a bit like as long as they got to wherever they needed to go that was good enough. just curious
great video as always mr dawson!
A "fast" train in the 1830s was running at 25 -30mph. LNWR expresses, for example, even into the 1880s or 1890s jogged along about 45-50mph. Some of the GWR trains achieved a mile a minute (60mph) which was fast for the day. Given the lack of continous, automatic brakes until the 1890s-1900 speeds much faster were incredibly dangerous.
One would assume that if Charles Lawrence wanted to travel to Manchester from Wavertree Lane station, he would not be getting on the second class train. I wonder if he would just take his coach to Crown Street, or if he would use a private train??
Directors had free passes. He would have probably got the train from Crown Street.
For starters, thank you for the video. Train travel in the earliest days were an adventure, certainly.
On the engine "Planet" three gents are standing on the footplate (to use the continental term). The person in the blue coverall is obviously the engineer, sorry driver. I assume the man next to him in the white shirt and black vest is the fireman (assuming that term is the same). That leaves the chap standing in the tender(coal wagon?). Is his job to pass the coal?
Asking for a friend.
The third man on the tender is the trainee fireman. In many of the clips that's me.
@@AnthonyDawsonHistory 👍
@@AnthonyDawsonHistory How many hours do you have to work to move up from trainee to fireman?
@@delurkor years! Start as an engine cleaner; then start getting footplate turns; supervised firing; then gradually do the job on your own to become a 'Passed Cleaner' and then can move up to being a 'Fireman' i.e. with a regular turn. And then start all over to learn to drive... its a very lengthy hands on process.
@@AnthonyDawsonHistory It is a little faster at the museum at which I volunteer, but these are electric cars. Fire is highly discouraged. What museum, you ask. Why the Western Railroad Museum(shameless plug).
👍👍
For a comic depiction of 1830s train travel, see the Buster Keaton “Our Hospitality “ film ruclips.net/video/gGfShmBnMTs/видео.html
How about royal trains?
Are there any plans to rebuild the 1930s coaches to be more accurrate?
I expect they are considered historic in their own right by now, so probably not.
No. They're historic in their own right, and not in the best condition. They were built on the cheap with second-hand materials and four of the six have been used quite intensely for train rides over the last 40 years.
@@AnthonyDawsonHistory I guess that means its up to the future to build good replicas
@@knuckles1206 If there's demand. The blue carriages at MOSI were built from drawings in Nicholas Wood's 1838 'Treatise on Railroads and Interior Communication' so unlike those by the LMS are actually based on known 1830s examples. They lack the luggage boxes under the seats, and are on modern underframes for safety, but they're the best there is. MOSI even had a plan to build a Mail Coach but that, sadly, never got off the ground. I know who has the drawings and a cutting list for it, however.
@@AnthonyDawsonHistory , what is mosi? i'm asking for a 'friend'.
Yeah gotta say walking sounds far better. Good for body, good for the wallet and good for me to live another day
Yep I'd definitely not want to have lived through that time
did they to do that in case their train was involved in a accident
Did they do what?
Ironinc that a intercity ticket from London to Cornwall to Sheffield is still a weeks pay plus it will be late or cancelled so we have come very far in that regards technology wise fast improvement but pointless when a working class man still can't afford to ues it and the high risk of it not arriving lol
Just don't be the poor sod standing behind a Scotsman wearing a kilt, whilst boarding and disembarking from a "coach". Women should have worn britches, if they were that concerned about modesty.