Chapter II
That short speech of Stephenson's conveys an idea of the enormous amount of prejudice and apposition he and others had to overcome. It also indicates the phenomenal advance of railways in that remarkable period 1825-45. Railway Company projects were launched in rapid succession, and there was keen speculation in the new method of transport. "Trade follows the engine" was a true saying, and towns, colliery owners, rich manufacturers, and all the money interests of the great centres, wanted a hand in railways. So did thousands of country squires, and they got it by keen resistance to tracks being laid through their land. They rocked the new companies for enormous prices for the requisite strip of land, and took toll for damages for disturbance, for noise, for nerve and shock if these monsters came thundering by, and for every sort of pretext. All this called for excessively high capital, and the Companies have ever since carried the burden of the exploiting that took place then. There is hardly a more interesting subject in railway development than this of the grabbing of heavy compensation, but I am unable to pursue it. I am, indeed, engaged on the one task more interesting, that of the welfare of the human clement on the great railway service.
Stephenson, father of drivers, became an extensive locomotive
14
