London - Edward Rutherfurd [522]
“I wonder what’s happened to Mary Anne?” said Penny.
Esther Silversleeves and her husband were early as they walked across London Bridge. Mr Arnold Silversleeves was a very respectable man. He was tall, taller even than his father who had presided over the Bedlam. His nose was large and long and he had never been known – though he was quite without malice – to see a joke. But he was already a partner in the firm of Grinder and Watson Engineers, where, apart from his undoubted competence, it was recognized that he had mathematical abilities that were close to genius. His affection for his wife and children was simple and straightforward; though if his life contained a real passion, then it was for cast iron. He had taken his wife to the Great Exhibition once, to show her the machines, but three times, before that, to watch the Crystal Palace being built and to explain to her the principles of its engineering.
He had a most curious way of walking. He would take ten or twenty paces at one speed, then stop for no obvious reason, then proceed, usually at a much brisker pace before quite suddenly changing to a slower speed or simply stopping again. Only his wife, through the long practice of obedience, could ever keep pace with him. It was in this manner, therefore, that they reached the southern end of the bridge and a few moments later entered the large shed-like building where their transport awaited them.
Arnold Silversleeves smiled. It was painted green, except for its brasswork, which was gleaming. Behind it were half a dozen chocolate-brown carriages. It hissed and it steamed contentedly and, occasionally let out a cheerful sort of snort. On the platform beside it, two uniformed guards in peaked caps looked as proud as if they were on guard at Buckingham Palace. The London and Greenwich Railway (the first London line, Terminus London Bridge, opened just as Queen Victoria’s reign was about to begin) was so pleased with itself that the engines seemed positively to puff with pride.
As well they might: for if the age of Queen Victoria was one of huge progress, that was because it was the age of steam.
Though the first steam engine had been invented back in the days of George III, the introduction of steam power had been surprisingly gradual. The steam-powered engines of the textile works up in the north, primitive steamships, a locomotive for hauling coal in collieries, even a steam press for printing The Times of London had all been used since the days of the Regent; but then, with Queen Victoria, came the first passenger railway.
The expansion was amazing. Within a dozen years, there were railway companies competing with each other all round London. Euston Station had opened up the Midlands and the north. Three years ago, Silversleeves and his company had been busily engaged in building a great terminal across the river from Westminster, called Waterloo, from which trains ran to the south and west. If the stagecoaches could carry ten passengers along the turnpikes at, perhaps, eight miles an hour, the carriages rattling along the iron tracks behind a steam locomotive could take a hundred people at forty miles an hour. It was the steam trains that had brought people from far and wide to the Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace. Without the new trains, most of those from the provinces could not possibly have come.
It had also had one other unforeseen effect. Railway trains required a railway timetable; but, despite the gradual adoption of Greenwich Mean Time on the world’s oceans, the provincial cities of England were still keeping their own local time just as they had in the days of the Stuarts. Trying to publish train schedules in such conditions was confusing; and so recently the provinces had begun for the first time to adopt a standard London time. The steam locomotive was bringing order to the kingdom.
Silversleeves loved order; order meant happiness, and progress. “And it’s all a question of engineering,” he assured his wife. Even the poorest folk could benefit.