THE GROWTH OF THE RAILWAY ENGINE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 81, 7 April 1877, Page 4

THE GROWTH OF THE RAILWAY ENGINE.

Alluding to the Railway Jubilee held at Darlington on the 27th Septem- ! bar last, just fifty years after the start'lng of Stephenson's long-fought-for irailway, the Times says— •« Railways 1 'are iaaay to work in thesa days — at least .the making of railways, and even' of the travelling stock. The largest 1 .siised and most perfectly formed rail is \' made and finished in two minutes, and: -almost any number of locomotives .and carriages can be delivered lo order in a month or two. But few know; •what a work of education it was at \ first; what watchfulness, what inven-; .tipn, what fond parental inatinct tbei locomotive required. It reads like the! Btory of a nursery, or the biography of ! a child. How it was Stephenson assis- < ted the draught of the chimney by! letting in the escape from the cylinder; how he cured the asthmatic engine;' ,how lie made one meal, that is one ton ; jo£ coal do the work of six; how be ■ continually assisted the growth and brought out the powers of this noble 'imp of From his own child-; hood he had been accustomed to fashion { the child of his future years, and put j bis whole soul into it; but they who: live in manufacturing districts know ; too well how many a born genius even ;

with the best opportunities, has been shipwrecked on some folly or other. All know how easily a man of talent, education and friends may be a triflor, and pass away leaving no mark behind him. George Stephenson has left -his ; mark ■on • the wJorld. That mart is a 'network of 'tens of thousands of Iron ways, rendering the whole surface of the globe as near and neighborly by the best .jneasure of distance-— that j is', time, as a small state or an ordinary capital. He has comprised us all within a family circle, ' and it is our fault if we indulge in family jars. Whenever we go and look on the earth itself there we see the monument of our common benefactor. .Then: whole line, for all are in fact, one now— is his grave, aaa.his besfrmempna^.) But if we ask for the old home, the small begining,' the:, ancestral ; stock from which all, ,-.th.ese worldwide branches spread it is the humble little line from .Darlington toy Stockton open this day fifty yeara ago. The growth of an oak from au acorn, or the transformation of a continent by the introduction of the plough, will;< hardly strike the imagination so much as the • vastnesa and, rapidly of the growth before us, young as it must still be to many eyes.'