Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 146.djvu/342

The deflected arms of the signal-posts had so far showed a clear road, and the only manipulation indulged in was the regular laying on of a few shovelfuls of coal. The vacuum-gauge had from the first constantly registered 20 inches of vacuum, seven of which were sufficient in case of need to stop our onward course.

We pass St Albans, with its ancient abbey looking fresh after its timely renovation, at a speed of 57 miles per hour, and a few minutes later sweep through Harpenden, with its breezy furze-covered heath to the left, the speed-indicator showing 60 miles (good racing speed), and with an increased speed of 65 miles an hour we passed Luton, the town celebrated for its straw hat and bonnet industries. Another three miles and we had reached the height of 400 feet above mean sea-level, or equal to 328 feet above St Pancras. In twenty-one minutes from leaving Luton by my timepiece (which was carefully adjusted to Greenwich time), we round the curve at Bedford, with steam shut off, at the greatly reduced speed of 15 miles per hour, brought about by a slight touch of the brake-handle.

Leaving clean-looking Bedford (proud of its sedgy-banked river) without effort, we rapidly gain speed, as is evidenced by the rise of the water-column in the Stroudley indicator, which, by the by, is snugly ensconced in a corner of the awning.

We glide rather than run through Oakley, and in another 3 miles commence our ascent of Sharnbrook, four miles of one in 120. The task, which carried us to a height of 312 feet above mean sea-level, was not a laborious one, the speed only falling to 50 miles per hour at the summit.

The duties of the men in charge now appear somewhat monotonous, and consist principally in anticipating the distant semaphores that here and there stand out like watchful sentinels of the line. The men in the boxes, as we pass them, by a light touch flash the information of our advance still farther ahead.

We were well up to time; the difficulty was to realise that we were running at the speed indicated, so smoothlt and easily was the work done.

Up hill and down dale, the actual work done being faithfully indicated by the pointer affixed to the reversing screw, which marked the position of cutting off steam in cylinders, on the graduated brass plate, the lineal measurement of which showed the percentages, and which varied but little, ranging from 25 to 30 per cent of piston-stroke,—and that too, with an expenditure not exceeding 21 lb. of Derbyshire coal per mile.

The analysis of the running by the time-table, and gauged by the principal stations, was punctuality to the minute.

Open country, cuttings, towns, and hamlets approached and fled by; stations were approached and passed with no other regard than the warning note of the whistle to stand clear as we thundered through, in some places like a sweeping hurricane,

The stranger would indeed be as dead to influence and sensation as an unpolarised magnet, or the proverbial door-nail, who could leave the luxurious and comfortable coupé (where his study has been to kill time by newspaper, or possibly by a round of cards), and exchange it for the exhilarating atmosphere of the footplate, with the freedom of unrestricted vision, and not feel the afflatus. The difference would be almost everything to him. The