Loughborough in July, 1841. The return fare was a shilling, and 570 people bought tickets for this reserved train.
A band of music preceded the great party to the station, and at Loughborough the inhabitants turned out to witness the arrival of the "excursion." The idea paid the Company, paid Cook, and paid everybody concerned. Cook was pressed to organise more such, and did so cheerfully. He ran one from Rugby to Derby (100 miles return) for a shilling; sixpence for children, and a series of such popular trips were very successful. At first Cook was very diffident about big and costly enterprises, but gradually he extended his scope. In 1845 he ventured a trip from Derby to Liverpool, with crossings to the Isle of Man. Dublin, and the Welsh coast, 300 miles for 14s. It was so successful that he repeated it two weeks later. Next he ran 800 miles enterprises into Scotland for a guinea, and by 1850 he had contracts with all the great railway companies. He chartered steamships and Continental hotels, and bis name became a guarantee for the safety and comfort of passengers. In 1866 he ran his first excursion to America, and shrank at nothing in the way of enterprise.
The completion of railways made most elaborate and efficient postal facilities possible, with mail vans for sorting en route, and with prompt delivery to every part of the kingdom. It transformed life at the fishing ports, whose salesmen were enabled to charter special express trains of fish vans to convey the catch fresh to London and other large centres. It transferred coal and iron-ore with rapidity from the mines to the industrial centres, and gave such a lift to commerce as cannot be calculated.
The coming of railways made a veritable transition in England, but in their coming they involved a mighty scramble for gain, a perfect fever of speculation in railway shares, and such a sprint of astute competition and jockeying for places as can only be imagined after reading much of the evidence. From 1830 to 1840 a countless number of small lines were projected and built, mostly proving very remunerative. A list of the titles would be a very formidable catalogue. Some very short lines had very long names, and local
