Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 146.djvu/340

ting, past Haverstock Hill station, and then with a rush plunged into the murky terrors of Belsize tunnel, which the preceding 10.30 train had filled with vapour, which still twisted and clung to the damp sides in fantastic shapes, rapidly enveloping us as though to hide the Cimmerian terrors beyond. Had Dante been so fortunate as to ride through Belsize tunnel on a locomotive under such conditions, another and a more terrible chamber of horrors would have been added to his pandemonium, in which doubtless a wheeled monster would have figured, before which the most gruesome of his shapes would have flown in terror, crushed and ground in a thick-ribbed region of smoke and steam.

The fire-door is now dropped (with a clang) for the purpose of adding more fuel, and a broad lurid flash of light is flung back on to the tender and the end of the first carriuge, showing the piled-up coal magnified and distorted by the masses of vapour which wreathed down from the roof. The rapid pulse-like beats of the exhaust could be distinctly heard as the arched roof hurled back each reeking concussion.

The darkness becomes more profound and wearisome, when a glimpse of light, lost as soon as seen, and gradually enlarging, gives one the impression of looking through the wrong end of a large telescope.

The light becomes larger and more full-orbed, and quickly, with a sense of relief, we rush into the awaiting glories of the day.

Ajax at the dawn, after the night's encounter, never felt more relief than was experienced by the third man on the foot-plate.

Through Cricklewood, Brent, Welsh Harp, and Hendon, houses, fields, woods, and water trooping past at 60 miles per hour. Now we are breasting one of the first of the numerous gradients which Midland route, and which the accompanying diagram will the better illustrate, both as regards section of road and speed maintained. The spacing between each of the horizontal lines represents 10 miles, the bottom being zero. The rise of 1/175 4½ miles to Elstree was hardly felt, the speed never falling below the rate of 56 miles per hour over the top.

In a few minutes we were racing up another 4½ miles of sloping ground leading to and beyond St Albans. The changes are no longer panoramic, but become almost kaleidoscopic. So far the wary hand of the driver had never left the handle of the regulator, ready to check the slightest slipping that might be caused by the slippery state of the rails in the tunnels, or to check or stop in obedience to the numerous signals encountered.

After a careful survey of the distant lines he laid his hand on the quadrant wheel (the third time since our commencement) and adjusted it with almost mathematical precision to the second notch in the sector, which I afterwards noticed was divided into eight parts.

The smart clean-faced pressure-gauge registered 160 lb. to the inch of pressure, and that, too, with left injector full on (and which was never taken off until our arrival at Nottingham), spoke well in favour of the steaming qualities of the boiler. The light simmering of the steam through the restraining discs of the safety-valves was constant, but never boisterous, a foretaste of scientific driving not to be excelled anywhere, proving the most judicious management of fire and water.