NINE MILES AN HOUR

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1004, 21 June 1930, Page 12

NINE MILES AN HOUR

EARLY STEAM RAILWAY CENTENARY CELEBRATIONS Canterbury and Whitstable recently celebrated the centenary of the railway which connects the two towns. This was the first railway worked by steam in the south of England, and the first line to carry passengers in carriages drawn by a locomotive. The undertaking was projected by Mr. William James, a Canterbury solicitor and engineer. An Act for its construction was passed in 1825, and Mr. James’s estimate of the cost of the six miles of road was £25,000, but this fell far below the actual cost. George Stephenson, then busy in the construction of the Stockton and Darlington line, was called in, and on his advice the Act was amended, and the estimate raised to £31,000. Further Acts were required to enable the company to raise fresh capital before tlie line was completed. When the line was opened in May, 1830, the carriages were drawn by stationary engines and ropes for the first four miles. On the last two miles the trains were taken into Whitstable by the Invicta, a locomotive constructed by Stephenson. The time for the journey was 40 minutes, and the fares, all one class, were ninepence. The Manchester and Liverpool line was not opened until November, IS3O, and the Stockton and Darlington line carried its passengers in a horse-drawn truck, so that the Canterbury and Whitstable line may’ claim to be the pioneers of steam-drawn passenger traffic. Financially the line was not a success, and in 1546, on the coming of the South-eastern Railway to Canterbury, the stationary engines were replaced by locomotives. In 1853 the line was purchased by the Southeastern. The Invicta. its only locomotive, is now preserved at Canterbury.