15 Historical Railway Facts You Possibly Never Knew
by Fifteen interesting historical railway facts that will appeal to all lovers of the railways, and those that travel on them.
Through every walk of life events happen which, when put together, create a history. And so it is with Britain’s railway network. Since George Stephenson’s locomotive ‘Rocket’ rattled along the rails at the Rainhill Trials in October 1829, many of the events occurring on the railways have been recorded.
Here are just fifteen of them!
The Duke of Wellington
Although the “Iron Duke” – hero of the Battle of Waterloo – officially opened the Liverpool & Manchester Railway in 1830, he was not a fan of this radical form of travel. He stated publicly that because of the railways, sedition and revolution would easily spread throughout the country by the “lower orders”.
Never on a Sunday
The ultra-religious Victorians disagreed strongly with rail travel on Sundays. On one particular Sunday in 1883 a group of protestors tried to prevent fish being loaded onto a train. Ten people were arrested during the ensuing skirmish who, when released, were hailed as heroes by their fellow villagers.
By 1889, eight thousand members had joined the “Anti-Sunday Travel Union”, who had nearly sixty branch offices up and down the country.
A day out for everyone
With the advent of the railways, Victorian working class families were able to take advantage of a one-day holiday. Such was the popularity of cheap excursions that, in 1848, thousands of people travelled on special trains to Liverpool in order to witness, at first-hand, the public execution of an infamous murderer.
Letting the train take the strain
With the coming of the railways the number of people travelling on the network increased to an extent that could never have been imagined. In 1842, over 24 million passengers had used the railways. By 1850 numbers had risen to a staggering 73 million!
Queen Victoria on the Rails
Although Queen Victoria travelled quite regularly on the railways, she was never completely comfortable with the idea.
Her first journey by train, from Windsor Castle to Buckingham Palace on the 13th June 1842, was not by personal choice, but as a result of two assassination attempts two weeks earlier. Her advisors believed she would be less vulnerable in a railway carriage than in the traditional horse-drawn carriage. On the footplate of the locomotive used for this trip was none other than Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
“Don’t encourage the working classes”
In the early days of rail travel there were three classes of accommodation. First class travellers enjoyed a good measure of luxury; a glazed door to each compartment, armrests, padded upholstery, oil-lamp lighting etc. Second class passengers were only slightly worse off, but third class passengers were treated no better than animals.
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