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HIPPEIS
 HISTORY AND WARFARE
Arther Ferrill, Series Editor

HIPPEIS: The Cavalry of Ancient Greece

Leslie J. Worley
HIPPEIS
The Cavalry of
Ancient Greece

Leslie J. Worley
First published in 1994 by Westview Press

Published in 2021 by Routledge

605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright © 1994 by Taylor & Francis

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in
any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Notice:
Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used
only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Worley, Leslie J.
Hippeis: the cavalry of Ancient Greece / Leslie J. Worley.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8133-1804-l
1. Cavalry—Greece—History. I. Title.
UE75.W67 1994
357'.l'0938—dc20 93-29067
CIP

ISBN 13: 978-0-3670-0286-2 (hbk)

ISBN 13: 978-0-3671-5273-4 (pbk)

DOI: 10.4324/9780429032721
 To
Marjorie C. Worley,
my mother
 Contents

List of Figures x1
Acknowledgments xm

1. Introduction 1

2. The Mycenaean Mounted Warrior 7

3. Greek Cavalry in the Archaic Period 21

4. Greek Cavalry in the Periclean Age 59

5. Greek Cavalry in the Peloponnesian War 83

6. Greek Cavalry in the Fourth Century B.C. 123

7. The Cavalry of Philip II and Alexander III 15 3

8. Conclusion 169

List of Abbreviations 173

Notes 177
Selected Bibliography 219
About the Book and Author 229
Index 230

ix
 Figures

2.1 Mycenae terra-cotta horseman (fourteenth century B.C.), 10

2.2 Horsemen fresco from Mycenae (late Mycenaean
period), 10
2.3 Dark Age Greek mounted warrior (Geometric period), 14
2.4 Mounted warrior wearing bell-shaped corslet following
chariot (late Geometric Attic amphora), 16
3.1 Spartan hippeus (seventh century B.C. ivory fibula-
plaque), 25
3.2 Thessalian cavalry troop and squadron rhomboid or
diamond formations, 31
3.3 Light cavalry depicted on terra-cotta revetment from Thasos
(Archaic period), 37
3.4 A light cavalryman advancing in front of a hoplite (early
Protocorinthian aryballos), 37
3.5 Light cavalry attacking hoplites (sixth century B.C. Attic
black-figure band-cup), 39
3.6 Greek light cavalry attacking barbarian mounted archers
(mid-sixth century B.C. Attic black-figure dinos), 40
3. 7 Corinthian heavy cavalry riding into battle (early seventh
century B.C. Corinthian wine-jug), 42
3.8 Athenian heavy cavalrymen, each equipped with two spears,
metal helmet, and greaves (mid-sixth century B.C. Attic
black-figure mastos), 42
3.9 Two Greek heavy cavalrymen engage in combat (late sixth
century B.C. Attic black-figure vase), 43

Xl
xii Figures

3.10 Corinthian heavy cavalrymen ride toward battle (early

seventh century Middle Corinthian vase), 44
3.11 Greek heavy cavalryman equipped with complete panoply,
including hoplon, or large circular shield, engages in heroic
combat with Amazon (late seventh century B.C. Attic black-
figure amphora), 45
3.12 Battle scene with cavalry and infantry (early sixth century
B.C. Attic black-figure band-cup), 46
4.1 Athenian cavalry phyle formation, 76
4.2 Athenian cavalrymen practice throwing javelins at suspended
shields (fourth century B.C. Attic red-figure crater), 79
4.3 Light cavalryman throwing his javelin (not shown) at a fallen
hoplite, Stele of Dexileos (fourth century B.C.), 80
5.1 Spartan cavalry mora formations, 91
5.2 Syracusan cavalry squadron in formation, 101
5.3 Siege of Syracuse, 105
6.1 Battle of Leuctra (371 B.C.), 143
6.2 Battle of Mantinea (362 B.C.), 147
7.1 Macedonian wedge-shaped cavalry formation, 158
7.2 Battle of Chaeronea (338 B.C.), 161
7.3 Battle oflssus (333 B.C.), 164
 Acknowledgments

As with any literary endeavor, there are a number of people whose

assistance and suggestions were most helpful. I wish to thank them
all, from my fellow history graduate students at the University of
Washington to the members of the faculty of the Department of His-
tory. Special thanks go to Professor Arther Ferrill and Professor
Carol Thomas. Arther Ferrill suggested the topic of this book, pro-
vided valuable insights and comments early in the writing process,
and helped me in the search for a publisher. Carol Thomas read
much of the first draft, pointed out a number of inconsistencies and
weaknesses, and proposed solutions for these various problems. Fur-
ther, I wish to acknowledge the support and help of Charles D. Ham-
ilton, professor of history, San Diego State University. He also read
much of the first draft and made significant comments, but more
importantly, he constantly encouraged me in my work and was some-
one to whom I could always tum for advice and professional dia-
logue.
Finally, I wish to acknowledge the assistance of the staffs of the
British Museum, the Buffalo Museum of Science, the Heraklion
Museum, the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, the Louvre Museum,
the Martin von Wagner Museum at the University of Wurzburg, the
National Archaeological Museum of Athens, and the Staatliche Mu-
seum of Berlin. It was through the efficient, prompt, and courteous
assistance of these people that I was able to obtain the photographs
for this book.

Leslie J. Worley

Xlll
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Title: Tube, Train, Tram, and Car; or, Up-to-date locomotion

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TUBE, TRAIN,

TRAM, AND CAR; OR, UP-TO-DATE LOCOMOTION ***
 Contents
List of Illustrations (In certain versions of this etext [in certain
browsers] clicking on the image, will bring up a larger version.)
Index: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W.
Some typographical errors have been corrected; a list follows the text.
(etext transcriber's note)

TUBE, TRAIN, TRAM, AND CAR

OR
UP-TO-DATE LOCOMOTION
 TUBE, TRAIN,
TRAM, AND CAR
OR

UP-TO-DATE LOCOMOTION

BY
ARTHUR H. BEAVAN
AUTHOR OF “MARLBOROUGH HOUSE AND ITS OCCUPANTS,” “IMPERIAL LONDON,”
“CROWNING THE KING,” ETC.

WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS

And an Introduction
BY
LLEWELLYN PREECE, M.I.E.E.

LONDON
GEO. ROUTLEDGE & SONS, LTD.
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO.
1903
[All rights reserved.]
“THE CHARIOTS RUN LIKE THE LIGHTNING”
 PREFACE

T HE object of this work is to present the subject of Electrical

Locomotion to the public for the first time, the author believes, in a
popular form, giving interesting information about Tube, Train, Tram,
and Motor-car, but avoiding, as much as possible, technical and scientific
detail.
Electrical traction is of national importance, destined perhaps materially
to abate the evil of overcrowding, by providing cheap and rapid means of
access from centres of industry to country districts and vice versa.
It was predicted by George Stephenson in 1825 that his system would
supersede all other methods of conveyance in this country. Similarly can it
now be prophesied that throughout the world electrical traction will
ultimately supplant all other forms. An age of electricity is dawning, when
“power” may be obtained direct from fuel or from the vast store of energy
existing in the heated interior of the earth, or even from the atmosphere that
surrounds us; when every mountain stream and gleaming waterfall
throughout Great Britain, and each tide as it rises and falls, will help to
generate the subtle fluid, which, produced on a vast scale abroad, where
giant cataracts and mighty rapids abound, may be imported to supplement
our home supply, and be utilised in every manufacturing district; when all
our main lines will be electric, and “light railways” ubiquitous; when coal-
less ships and aerial machines, with perfected accumulators, may possibly
traverse sea and ocean, and invade the domain of condor and eagle; when
farms will be cultivated by electrical contrivances, and their produce
expeditiously conveyed to market, and the sanitation of our streets be
ensured by the universal use of horseless vehicles. An age that may witness
“current” laid on for domestic purposes to every house in the land as a
matter of course; and also as machine-power to village settlements, where
artisans engaged in certain kinds of trade may work amidst the pleasant
surroundings of home. And thus the abstract principle, “Back to the land,”
may become an accomplished fact.
To bring the body of this work precisely up to the date of its publication
being obviously impossible, I take the opportunity of making passing
reference to the railway disaster on the Métropolitain of Paris, when eighty-
four passengers were killed, and which has caused the public mind to be
much disturbed by the possibility of danger in the London Tubes.
As regards trams, the London United Tramways Company established a
record of traffic during the August Bank Holiday period, the total for the
four days being 878,000, that on Monday alone being 330,000 travellers. A
serious electric tram accident occurred at Ramsgate in August, when
nineteen persons were injured by the colliding of one car with another at a
point where the lines converged.
Then, as to motor-cars. The great Gordon-Bennett race in Ireland this
summer was won by a German. A tentative Act of Parliament for regulating
the traffic, to come into force January 1st next, and to continue for three
years, has received the Royal Assent, the speed limit being fixed at twenty
miles per hour.
A service of motor hansom cabs is shortly to be established in London.
The Fischer “combination” omnibus has successfully passed through
repeated private trials, and will probably be adopted by one or both of the
metropolitan chief companies.
Motor bath-chairs, to hold two people, and propelled by electricity, will
be accomplished facts at the World’s Fair, St. Louis, next year.
I have now to acknowledge, with thanks, the assistance of Sir William H.
Preece, who kindly read through the proof-sheets of this volume just before
he fell seriously ill in August, and of his son, Mr. Llewellyn Preece, who
has written the Introduction, and I now leave “Tube, Train, Tram, and Car”
to receive the verdict of those who travel.
ARTHUR H. BEAVAN
September, 1903.
 INTRODUCTION

BY LLEWELLYN PREECE, M.I.E.E.

T HE object of this book is to give the public a general idea as to the

progress now being made in the application of electricity for transport
purposes, and it was intended that Sir William Preece should write the
introduction and correct the author so far as any technical misstatements
were concerned. Unhappily, Sir William Preece has fallen victim to a very
severe illness, which entirely incapacitates him from any work, and will
prevent him from doing anything for some months to come. Just before his
illness, however, he had gone through the proofs and made certain
corrections, all of which, the author tells me, have been accepted, but owing
to the great delay in the publication of this book which has already been
incurred, and to the impossibility of discussing these matters with my
father, I have not been able to check the proofs since the alterations were
made.
The advances which, within the last few years, have been made in the
application of electricity for the purpose of transportation are shown very
clearly in this book, and if the author has made one or two flights on the
wings of fancy regarding the future which may be somewhat startling to the
reader, it must be remembered that if many things which are of everyday
occurrence had been suggested to any of us fifty years ago, and if we had
been told that it would be possible to travel at the rate of a hundred miles an
hour, we should have been somewhat inclined to laugh. As the reader will
learn, such travelling is to be very shortly a fact.
At the same time I do not believe that it will be so much with the high-
speed work as with the tramway and light railway work that electricity will
be of the greatest service to the public in the future.
I look forward to the time when there will be a network of light railways
surrounding every town in the kingdom, enabling the population to spread
itself out once again in the country.
Central power stations distributing electric current over a radius of
fifteen or twenty miles will enable these railways to work at very low cost,
and therefore carry passengers considerable distances at low fares.
The tendency at the present time being to reduce the hours of labour,
whether mental or manual, the time at the disposal of a workman for
travelling will increase, so that with an eight hours working day and cheap
electric light railways, there will be no reason why the poorest labourer
should not live in the country, and at least sleep in a pure atmosphere.
The adaptability of electricity to motor-car work has hardly yet been
sufficiently realised. People see the luxurious electric brougham, described
in this book, running on the streets of London and other large cities, but few
have any idea that not only the wealthy aristocrat, but everyone will, before
long, be able to ride in such carriages, possibly not so luxuriousy fitted up,
but equally comfortable and speedy.
The usual cry at present is that electric cars are very nice, but the owners
have great difficulties with the batteries. Undoubtedly batteries have given
trouble in the past, and still do so to some extent. But if a man buys a horse
and gives it in charge of the gardener’s boy, he is likely to have trouble with
his horse. In the same way, if a man buys an electric carriage and expects
his coachman to look after it, he only naturally does have considerable
trouble. There are several companies prepared to look after and maintain in
continuous use, not only the batteries, but the complete carriages, and this is
greatly improving the reliability of the electric car, and allaying the fears of
those anxious to have such carriages.
Besides this, the battery itself is making great strides forward: its
capacity per cwt. has largely increased, its life is much longer, and its
reliability under great variations of discharge has considerably improved. In
fact, it may be safely said that even now the electric car is more reliable
than either the petrol or the steam car. At present it will not do the same
distance on one charge, nor will it do the great speed other cars will, but this
is the great reason why it should appeal to the British public. The craze for
high speeds does not affect the majority of people. I believe that it is only a
question of a few years for the petrol and steam cars to be placed in
museums and shown as monstrosities of the past, like the mammoth
elephant, and that every cab, omnibus, and private carriage throughout the
country will use electricity as the motive power.
In fact I do not think it unwarrantable to assert that, so far as this country
is concerned, many of us will see the day when the only form of energy
used for transportation will be that known as electricity.
LLEWELLYN PREECE
 CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
The Old and the New Order of Railway Locomotion 1
CHAPTER II
Some Pioneer Electric Railways 11
CHAPTER III
Some Pioneer Electric Railways (continued) 19
CHAPTER IV
Remarkable Electric Railways 31
CHAPTER V
Rejuvenating the Metropolitan Inner Circle 47
CHAPTER VI
The Central London Electric Railway 63
CHAPTER VII
The Tubular System 74
CHAPTER VIII
Touring in the Tubes 90
CHAPTER IX
London’s Tangled Tubes 107
CHAPTER X
London’s Latest and Longest Tube 117
CHAPTER XI
Electric Tramways Generally 128
CHAPTER XII
London’s Tramways 141
CHAPTER XIII
Provincial Tramways 162
CHAPTER XIV
The Shallow Underground System 186
CHAPTER XV
Horseless Vehicles—Electrical and Otherwise 200
CHAPTER XVI
Horseless Vehicles—Electrical and Otherwise (continued) 214
CHAPTER XVII
Horseless Vehicles—Electrical and Otherwise (continued) 224
CHAPTER XVIII
Electricity applied to Navigation (a Forecast) 230
CHAPTER XIX
Some Electric Locomotion Drawbacks 250
CHAPTER XX
Some Electric Locomotion Drawbacks (continued) 258
CHAPTER XXI
Electric Locomotion and our National Life 269
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FIG. PAGE
Electricity. By H. L. Shindler Frontispiece
1. Queen Victoria’s Train on the Great Western
Railway 3
2. Nine Willans-Siemens Dynamo Sets for Electric
Traction, 700 h.p. each 7
3. The Giant’s Causeway 12
4. Waterloo and City Railway’s New Pattern Car 25
5. The Liverpool Overhead Electric Railway 29
6. Plan of a Behr Mono-Railway Car 35
7. Interior of a Behr Mono-Railway Car 44
8. Electrical Power House (the largest in the Old
World), Lot’s Road, Chelsea, to supply the
Metropolitan District and other Railways with
Current 53
9. A 2,000 h.p. Westinghouse Steam Turbine, resembling
the Turbo-Generators (each of 7,500 h.p.) in the
Chelsea Power House 55
10. A New Metropolitan District Railway Car 56
11. A Typical Electric Power Generator—Two
Dynamos, each of about 1,600 h.p. 69
12. A 3,000 h.p. Triple Expansion Central Valve
Electrical Engine 76
13. Shield at Work in a Tube Running Tunnel 79
14. The Western Approach to Piccadilly 123
15. Tram-Car in Paris equipped for Combined Overhead
Trolley and Surface Contact System 133
16. Cross Lane Junction, Salford. The Largest and most
Complicated Overhead Trolley Crossing in the
Kingdom 135
17. Boiler Room, London United Tramways Co.’s Power
House at Chiswick, fitted with Vicars’ Automatic
Stokers 157
18. A London United Tramways Company Tram-Car 159
19. Façade of Queen’s Road Car-Shed, Manchester
Corporation Tramways 170
20. View near Dudley Station, South Staffordshire,
showing a Steam Tram-Car 175
21. View at Castle Hill, Dudley, South Staffordshire,
showing an Electric Tram-Car 181
22. Camps Bay, Cape Town, and Seapoint Tramways 183
23. Boston Subway, showing Entrance at the Public
Gardens 193
24. New York Subway in course of Construction. Car
Traffic maintained 195
25. New York Subway, showing how it was built 197
26. Electric Carriage entirely of British Construction 201
27. A “Crowdus” Electric Carriage 205
28. An Electric Victoria with British Storage Batteries 207
29. A “Fischer” Combination Omnibus 211
30. The “Hercules” Traction Engine, as used during the
Crimean War 217
31. A Ten-ton Electric Trolley 219
32. An Electric Tradesman’s-Van 220
33. Another Type of the “Fischer” Combination Omnibus 222
34. Electric Storage Batteries 237
35. Electric Launch on the Thames 248
36. Where the Poor Live 280

Tube, Train, Tram, and Car

 CHAPTER I

THE OLD AND THE NEW ORDER OF RAILWAY LOCOMOTION

“The thinking minds of all nations call for change.”—Carlyle.

STEAM—THE OLD ORDER

A N immutable law of nature has decreed that whatever attains to

perfection is doomed to perish, for
“The world exists by change, and but for that
All matter would to chaos back,
To form a pillow for a sleeping god.”

Thus it came to pass that in the period 1825 to 1835, when the main
roads of Great Britain were at their best, when the then mode of travelling,
though on a limited scale, had, as regards speed, punctuality, and
organisation, reached the highest possible pitch of perfection, a little cloud
like a man’s hand, presaging the new order of locomotion, arose at the
opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, and overshadowed the old
method. So effective was the competition of the “iron horse,” that in lieu of
the fifty-four splendidly equipped vehicles which in 1835 carried His
Majesty’s mails throughout England, not a single coach left the General
Post Office, St. Martin’s-le-Grand, in the year 1844; while the kings
highways had become almost deserted.
Though this was barely sixty years ago, railways have evolved
themselves out of their embryonic state into a condition approaching the
fateful one of perfect development.
In early days, first-class passengers were boxed up in replicas of old
stage-coaches, the second-class in open carriages exposed to the weather,
and the third-class huddled together in seatless cattle-trucks. Contrast this
with our luxurious Pullmans, and our corridor and vestibule trains for all
classes, warmed throughout, lighted by electricity, and provided with
lavatories, dining-saloons, buffets, and sleeping-cars. “With what further
improvements can we allure the public?” ask anxious directors. One answer
only is possible. “By bringing the mode of locomotion up to date.”
This means, in the case of old-established railway companies, a
complete and costly transformation, or an independent mono-rail track for
long distances; under any circumstances entailing much hardship upon the
share-holders. For at the moment when railway-engineers—improving so
vastly upon George Stephenson’s venerable engine,[1] built in 1822, and
still at work for the Hutton Colliery, its weight only fifteen tons, its speed
ten miles an hour—have constructed such magnificent locomotives as the
“Greater Britain” for the London and North

FIG. 1. QUEEN VICTORIA’S TRAIN ON THE GREAT WESTERN

RAILWAY

Western Railway, or the ten-wheeled giant[2] for the Great Northern

Railway, fifty-seven feet over all, weighing 100 tons, and capable of reeling
off its 65 miles an hour with ease, electricity steps into the field, displaces
the stately engine—resplendent in red, blue, green, or chocolate paint,
glossy as the coat of some highly trained racehorse, and gleaming with
polished brass and steel, finished in all its parts with exquisite accuracy, the
very embodiment of energy under perfect control—and from some
unpretentious-looking building afar off, drives our trains with unseen but
resistless force, at the rate, if desired, of a hundred miles an hour!
The construction of an ordinary steam locomotive is an intricate
operation, necessitating machine-shops, erecting-shops, foundries, forges,
etc., covering acres of ground, as at Crewe, Doncaster, Derby, or Swindon.
Not a hundred engines are exactly alike in pattern, and each one is supposed
to be composed of over five thousand different parts, all of which have to
be stowed away in a necessarily limited space.
“How is steam utilised by the locomotive?” is a question asked again
and again (and not by children only) ever since Stephenson’s engine started
on its triumphant progress from Stockton to Darlington and back, and
which, I venture to affirm, only a small percentage of travellers, even in
1903, can answer “right away,” as our American cousins would express it.
Briefly, then, as follows: Raised up on high is the mighty boiler. Remove
its plates, and running through its entire length will be seen a cluster of
some two or three hundred brass tubes, in diameter that of a penny-piece. At
the rear of the boiler, on a lower level, is the fuel fire-box, with its grate and
ash-pan, while in front is the smoke-box, surmounted by the familiar
chimney or funnel, called in the United States the “smoke-stack,” in British
engines reduced to a minimum of height. Water from the tender surrounds
the brass tubes, and when the fire is burning, flames, smoke, and heated
gases rush through them, escaping viâ the chimney, but in their passage
converting the boiling water into expanding steam, which, when the
regulator is opened, is directed by valves into the hollow cylinders—
sometimes placed below the boiler, but generally visible outside—forcing
by its pressure the pistons backwards and forwards alternately, and, by
means of intermediate machinery, transferring its energy to the driving-
wheels.
The exhausted steam, after accomplishing its work, joins the smoke in
the smoke-box, escaping up the funnel by jerks, which creates a forced
draught through the brass boiler-tubes, and hastens the generation of steam.
ELECTRICITY—THE NEW ORDER
Contrast this with electricity, the definition of whose exact nature is a
task I must of necessity leave to others, but its adaptation to the purposes of
traction can be thus broadly explained:—
 Dynamos or generators are situated at some fixed station, more or less
distant, generating electrical energy, whence the current is transmitted along
a central steel rail, or, in the case of some tramways, viâ overhead wires,
returning to its place of birth by another rail or cable, and completing its
circuit. It is “picked up” by a small locomotive fitted with motors that work
the driving-mechanism, and thus propels the coaches or cars behind it at
varying speeds.
The rotation of the dynamos is effected either by a torrent, waterfall, or
swift-flowing river, absorbed by turbines, or by steam supplied from
ordinary boilers.
In other words, we convert our water and coal into steam, and, indirectly,
the heat in the steam into electrical energy; and the heavy locomotive that
used to carry its own fuel, and manufacture its steam as it tore along with
the train behind it, now leaves tender and boiler at home, and has its driving
power, in the form of electric current, forwarded to it per centre rail, to be
drawn upon when wanted.
The system is beautifully simple, and the machinery compact and
uncomplicated. Smoke defilement is unknown, and the trains are
comparatively noiseless. In short, electric traction is the refinement of
mechanically applied power.
Now let us visit an electrical power station—a small one—and I have in
my mind that of the Waterloo and City Electric Railway.
Hidden away behind a bewildering labyrinth of railway arches, in a cul-
de-sac, approached from a back street, not a hundred miles from a great
railway station, is a plain, very plain brick building, wherein, for aught one
knows to the contrary, such prosaic articles as pots and pans, or cardboard
boxes, may be in course of manufacture. Pass through a door, always on the
swing, and an unpretending office is reached, furnished in the usual manner,
and occupied by clerks engaged upon the ordinary duties of their vocation.
Access to the engineer-in-chief being granted, he courteously conducts
us to the power room, whence issues the energy that drives the trains.
Imagination had pictured a great hall, filled with ponderous machinery
whose component parts are cranks, steel rods, shafts, and toothed wheels, a
wilderness of metal, moving with bewildering rapidity and thunderous
power, in an atmosphere redolent of lubricating oil, a vision of whirling
wheels, an Ezekiel vision of wheels in the midst of wheels, instinct with
life, such as the prophet saw 600 years B.C., by the River Chebar, in the
land of the Chaldean.

FIG. 2. NINE WILLANS-SIEMENS DYNAMO SETS FOR

ELECTRIC TRACTION, 700 H.P. EACH.
By permission of Willans and Robinson, Ltd., Rugby

Nothing of the kind! One portion of a moderate-sized apartment is

devoted to the “fitting” of the motor locomotives, and at the other end,
enclosed within a low railing, resting upon a bed of great solidity, and
occupying but little space, is the machinery in duplicate, as a safeguard
against breakdowns.
It consists of a vertical compound engine, supplied with steam from an
adjoining boiler-house, whose cylinder is coupled direct to the fly-wheels of
the revolving dynamos that are partly sunk into the flooring. These, with
their electro-magnets, are so shut in, and so little can be seen of the
working, that it all looks very mysterious and incomprehensible to the
uninitiated.
In large power-producing machinery an iron staircase leads up to a
platform above the dynamos, giving access to the loftier parts of the
apparatus, which then, in its general appearance and compactness,
somewhat resembles a modern marine engine. On the walls are endless
dials, recording the amount of current generated, localising the exact
position of the trains on the line at any given moment, and checking the
quantity of current picked up by each engine. There is absolutely no smell,
no outward indication of resistless power, while almost Arcadian quiet
reigns in the neighbourhood of the machines.
That these small dynamos are capable of driving heavy cars filled with
passengers at the rate of many miles an hour seems incredible; but faith,
“the evidence of things not seen,” must come into play.
The craving for mere size, however, will be amply gratified when the
great power house at Chelsea, built to supply the Metropolitan, District, and
other railways, is completed (vide Chapter V.).
But what on earth is a kilowatt, or a volt, an ohm, or an ampère?—
expressions that are rapidly becoming as familiar as the word horse-power.
Well, “horse-power” was a term invented long ago by engineers, who
blandly asked one to imagine that an ordinary horse was capable of lifting a
weight of 33,000 lbs. (or some 14½ tons) one foot high per minute. Now,
electricity is a very exact science. There is no mere theory about it; and a
unit is a definite quantity of power, known in that science as a “kilowatt
hour.” Thus, a kilowatt, or 1,000 watts, is the equivalent in measured work
of 1⅓ horse-power, equal to the lifting of 44,000 lbs. per minute, or the
doing of so many units of work, either electric lighting, heating, machinery
driving, or traction.
VARIOUS FORMS OF ELECTRIC LOCOMOTION
Electricity as a locomotive force is being presented to the public in
various forms. There is the ordinary railway, like the Underground, that,
cleansing itself, amending its ways, and becoming converted to the new
order of traction, has been granted a new lease of life. Then there are new
lines laid down, intended from the first to be electrical, with specially
designed cars, diving beneath the Thames, and connecting the north and
south of London. These are our metropolitan pioneer electric railways.
There is also the system of railways specifically and popularly known as
Tubes, most important factors in the travelling world of modern Babylon.
Another division is the system known as Overhead Electric Railways; that
is to say, rails laid upon iron girders supported by columns above the
roadway, a notable example of which is the Liverpool Overhead Electric
Railway.
 Electric tramways are with us in Greater London for good and all, with
their network of lines in every direction. Some are locally worked by the
various Borough Councils; others on a comprehensive scale by the London
County Council, who now strongly advocate also another system, the
Shallow-Underground, by which the cars run in a kind of open trench just
below the surface in the middle of the street.
Next we have endless provincial and urban council electric tramways,
including some very extensive systems for feeding the enormous traffic of
cities and large towns in the Midlands and North of England.
Electric Light Railways, originally intended to be worked on rails laid
down upon the ordinary highway, form a special class by themselves to
serve short-distance traffic in country districts; but to all intents and
purposes they are rural electric trams.
Lastly, we have motor-cars, carriages, omnibuses, cabs, vans, and cycles,
that with electricity as their means of propulsion, will possibly ere long
supersede every other form of traffic in our streets and along our roads and
lanes.
To individualise these various outcomes of electrical traction spread over
the length and breadth of Great Britain is impossible. Their names and their
statistics are enrolled in Garcke’s Manual of Electrical Undertakings, a
work that, like Kelly’s London Directory, grows bigger and bigger every
year.
I propose, therefore, only to notice some of the principal ones; and,
naturally, the pioneer railway lines should have the place of honour.
 CHAPTER II

SOME PIONEER ELECTRIC RAILWAYS

“A worthy pioneer.”—Shakespeare.
THE GIANT’S CAUSEWAY RAILWAY

I N the month of March, 1883, by the opening of the Giant’s Causeway,

Portrush, and Bush Valley Railway, the sister island achieved the honour
and glory of showing the way to the “predominant partner” in the matter
of electrical traction enterprise; winning, however, only by a head, for in
August of the same year the Brighton Beach Electric Railway was
inaugurated.
Who amongst us can say they know Ireland well? To the average tourist
it still remains an unexplored country. The travelling American, however, as
a rule, does it from end to end. Commencing with Dublin, “doing”
Killarney, and working round the magnificent west coast, he returns viâ the
North Channel, always taking en route on the coast of Antrim the Giant’s
Causeway, thundered upon by storms from the wild Atlantic. There, almost
within hail of Britain, are those strange groups of basaltic columns so
familiar to geological students, intensely interesting, invested with many an
old and mystic Celtic legend, yet until recently difficult of access, as other
striking regions in Ireland—an island abounding not only in awe-inspiring
scenery, but in sequestered spots of sylvan beauty; a fair land of mountains
and hills, lakes and waterfalls, crystal streams, and splendid harbours; truly
called the Emerald Isle; where the grass is greenest, and rare coniferæ
flourish; where the myrtle needs no shelter, and the arbutus blooms and
fruits to perfection, and flowers are everywhere, for every little enclosure in
due season glows with the brightest of flax and potato blossom; and lanes
and open country are gay with star-like marigolds, shamrock, violets,
honeysuckle, meadowsweet, catsear, scabious, large purple bugle, and such-
like lowly but welcome plants.
 FIG. 3. THE GIANT’S CAUSEWAY.
By permission of Thos. Cook and Son, Ludgate Circus

From Portrush it is easy to reach the Causeway, though once there, one
often has to wait for favourable weather before proceeding to explore its
cavernous wonders by water.
The present length of the railway is 8½ miles of single line, its gauge
being 3 feet. It is worked partly by steam and partly by electricity on the
overhead system, the current being derived from a generating station three-
quarters of a mile away, where three hydraulic turbines, fed by an adjoining
waterfall, operate the dynamo. Although the railway is out of the way and
on a small scale, the attractions of the Causeway and the surrounding
district result in a respectable passenger traffic of over a hundred thousand
per annum.
THE BRIGHTON BEACH RAILWAY
Under the sanction of the Brighton Town Council, the Magnus Volk Co.,
Ltd., now work the Brighton Beach Electric Tram-railway, which at its
opening was regarded as a great novelty and curiosity, constituting an
additional attraction and amusement to “London by the sea,” and tens of
thousands must have taken a ride in its little open cars since it came into
existence twenty years ago. The gauge is but 2 feet 8½ inches, the “feeders”
are underground, the propelling system is electric, with a third rail, and its
speed is about 12 miles an hour. Starting from the west pier, opposite the
Royal Aquarium, it sets out on its one mile and a half route of single line
and dips beneath the level of the Marine Parade to a level a little above the
beach, passing en route, though hidden from view, many landmarks of old
Brighton, such as Park Place and Gardens, Royal Crescent, Marine Square,
and Lewes Crescent, and terminating at a point near Black Rock.
This was the eastern end of Old Brighton, noted for many an original
character in the “twenties” and “thirties,” not the least interesting of whom
were old Martha Gunn, queen of the bathing-machines, and Sak Deen
Mahomed, a native of the East, who introduced the art of shampooing into
the town, and lived to become a centenarian, his fame being enshrined in
verse by James Smith, one of the authors of Rejected Addresses, who
humorously predicted his longevity as follows:—

“Sprung doubtless from Abdullah’s son,

Thy miracles thy sire’s outrun,
Thy cures his deaths outnumber;
His coffin soars ’twixt heav’n and earth,
But thou, within that narrow berth,
Immortal, ne’er shall slumber.”

Many have been the changes in Brighton since those days. Arundel
Terrace, Kemp Town, Ultima Thule in the east; Adelaide Crescent with
Palmyra Square, its western boundary. From the fields to the north of that
square could be seen, a mile or so off, the village of Hove, the intervening
space being dotted with farms. No one could have dreamt that a great
railway-station would be built there, with minor ones at Kemp Town, West
Brighton, and Hove. Old residents could not have pictured a Grand
Aquarium, a Western and Eastern Pier, nor the destruction of their familiar
Chain Pier. They would be amazed at the spread of Brighton in every
direction, the springing up of palatial hotels like the “Métropole” and
“Grand,” and the increase of the population to some hundred and fifty
thousand; while the coaching world, headed by the popular Sir St. Vincent
Cotton, prince of amateur whips, and all the confraternity of coachmen and
hackney-coach drivers, would have thought anyone a lunatic who had dared
to prophesy that one day a conveyance drawn without horses or steam
power would carry passengers along the Brighton beach!
THE CITY AND SOUTH LONDON RAILWAY
For many years prior to 1890, in Gracechurch Street, at a point near its
junction with Eastcheap, could be seen every day of the week numerous
omnibuses arriving between nine and eleven a.m., and departing between
five and eight p.m., for the suburbs over the water. These ’buses regularly
plied between London and Kennington, Walworth, Camberwell, Stockwell,
Clapham, and Brixton (a few journeying to Dulwich and Peckham), for the
special accommodation of dwellers in those favourite localities engaged in
business during the day. Wealthy “principals” of mercantile and brokers’
firms drove to and from their comfortable Surrey villas in well-equipped
carriages, the junior members in smart traps or dogcarts; but the small
merchants and smaller brokers, the head clerks and the rank and file who do
all the hard work, had to make use of these omnibuses, and when
exceptionally bad weather prevented the vehicles running, they had to get to
and from their offices as best they could on foot. To the working man,
living, say, at Brixton, and engaged upon a City job, the fares—4d. to 8d.—
were prohibitive. The time wasted in these conveyances was great, and at
the best it was an unpleasant way of travelling; overcrowding was common,
and the “fight for the trams” in 1903 is as nothing compared to the frantic
rush for those omnibus seats; while on wet days the sight was piteous.
It is true that City men could use the London, Chatham, and Dover
Railway, to reach these suburbs, but this involved a walk to Blackfriars
Station, and the facing of the crush on its dangerous platforms. There were
also the alternatives of crossing Blackfriars Bridge and using the London
Tramway Company’s horse-cars, or of forcing one’s way over London
Bridge, tramping or “bussing” it along the Borough High Street, and,
emerging at the “Elephant and Castle,” there tapping the trams.
As a matter of fact, these ingenious alternative routes were seldom made
use of. At the close of business, men of all ranks want to get home as fast as
they can, and from some station not far from their counting-houses.
Therefore, in the days I am describing, how could any of those gentlemen
clad in irreproachable frock-coats and new glossy hats, who each day of the
week issued from snug offices in Austin Friars, Drapers’ Gardens, or
Copthall Court, whose business was transacted over the way at the
“House”; how could the brokers of Mark Lane and Mincing Lane, the
underwriters at Lloyd’s, the ship-brokers and ship-owners round about
Fenchurch Street and Leadenhall Street, the flourishing bill-brokers of
Broad Street, and the smaller mercantile fry; how could any of these, if
resident on the Surrey side, be expected to go to and from business by way
of Blackfriars?
However, this unsatisfactory means of communication was hardly likely
to escape the notice of such astute experts as Mr. J. C. Mott, doyen director
of the Great Western Railway, and his far-seeing friends. They took counsel
together, and, after the usual hard task of persuading people, plans were
matured, and in 1884 an enterprise was organised and incorporated as the
City of London and Southwark Subway Company, to construct a line of
railway from King William Street to the “Elephant and Castle,” with an
intermediate station at Marshalsea Road.
This was the initial stage of the present well-known railway.
At the outset, three points had to be considered. How was the subway to
be constructed? What motive power should be employed? And how was the
deep level to be reached by the passengers? A subway under the Thames
was no novelty. The directors of the new line were not the “first that ever
burst into that silent sea” of mud and gravel at the bottom of the swift-
flowing river. Brunel had been long before them with his costly Thames
Tunnel, and Barlow had years ago laid upon its oozy bed the Tower Subway
of iron.
It was decided that a tube, or, rather, two independent tunnels of cast-
iron rings, should be driven side by side beneath the bottom of the stream, a
little to the west of London Bridge, and continued on the Surrey side.
On this system the work was begun by the contractors, Siemens Brothers
and Mather and Platt, and proceeded with quite out of public sight. It was
accompanied with many disheartening delays and seemingly
insurmountable difficulties; but they were all successfully overcome, and
the tubes were brought to a temporary end at the “Swan,” Stockwell, to
which charming retreat, by an Act of Parliament, 1887, an extension of the
line had been sanctioned, making its length a little over three miles.
The motive power eventually selected was electricity, steam being
impracticable, and the funicular or cable system considered unreliable.
Access to and from the trains was to be obtained at the stations by means of
capacious twin-lifts capable of holding many people at a time.
Then the problem of how best to utilise the ample “power,” generated at
the Stockwell Station, for hauling the cars, had to be seriously tackled. It
was not a question of a toy line like that on the Brighton beach, but of the
driving at fair speed, say 15 miles an hour, of comparatively heavy coaches
laden with passengers, and at frequent intervals. Altogether it was a new
departure in electric traction.
How the motor locomotives were effectually to pick up the current was
the puzzle which had to be solved, or the enterprise might at the last
moment collapse and the subscribed capital be lost.
After an infinite amount of anxious experimenting on the part of Mr.
Mott and his scientific advisers—the narrative of which, as told me by that
veteran, sounded like a romance—by a happy inspiration the way was hit
upon; and all other technical difficulties overcome, the line was pronounced
to be in working order (1890), after a series of trial trips, at one of which
the writer had the privilege of being present.
 CHAPTER III

SOME PIONEER ELECTRIC RAILWAYS (continued)

A TRIAL TRIP IN THE CITY AND SOUTH LONDON RAILWAY

O NE o’clock saw a large party of us, chiefly City men, amongst whom
were numerous civil engineers, waiting at King William Street
booking-office to descend into the bowels of the earth by one of the
semicircular lifts, a novelty in point of size. Our turn having come, we duly
filed into the elevator. The telescopic doors clashed upon us, and we stood
for a second or two silently expectant, feeling like a batch of condemned
criminals on a gigantic scaffold waiting for the hangman to draw back the
fatal lever that would launch them into the other world.
Noiselessly the lift descended to an apparently fathomless depth, but in
reality, I believe, some 90 or 100 feet. When released by the janitor, we
found ourselves in a small, well-lighted, cool, and spotlessly clean, white-
tiled station, whence was discernible a couple of small tunnels side by side,
leading to unknown regions, seemingly all too narrow to accommodate
even the miniature cars waiting for us at one of the narrow platforms.
Inspecting the tunnels, the classical man of our party, a wag in his way,
who had hitherto made no remark, was heard to mutter something in Latin,
which, on being coerced, he admitted was out of Virgil, and was translated
thus: “This is the spot where the way divides in two branches.” In vain we
pointed out that the quotation was inappropriate, as the ways were parallel.
He was obdurate, so we left him to his own reflections.
To most of us accustomed to roomy Pullmans and commodious railway
carriages, the cars, though comfortable, seemed cramped, especially in
height. The signal given, off we started, when we noticed that the cars fitted
the tube with such nicety and economy of space that, could the windows
have been let down, we could easily have touched the iron plates of the
tunnel. We realised, too, that although there was no smoke or smell, the
railway was by no means noiseless; neither, in the opinion of several of the
experts present, was the running as steady as on the “Underground.”
 A hint had been given us that at some point where the line dipped and
rose again the cars might come to a temporary standstill. As we rather
uneasily recalled this, the speed gradually slackened, and finally the train
stopped altogether, and simultaneously the incandescent lights began to
pale, and at last subsided into filaments of sickly red. The situation was not
a pleasant one. There we were; many of us with important engagements
awaiting us later in the day; most of us with wives and children who would
expect us home as usual when evening arrived, and grow anxious at our
absence. There we were sealed up in a tube, for all we knew, at a point
beneath the Thames. Not a sound reached us from the locomotive, or,
indeed, from anywhere. Were we thus to remain indefinitely? For walk out
we could not, there being no room outside the carriages. Would some
memorial tablet let into the side of London Bridge, months hence, recall the
fact that near it a goodly company of highly respectable citizens had
perished in a living tomb?
I don’t think we talked much. It was luncheon-time; we were hungry,
and we felt like the occupants of the snowed-up cars in one of Mark
Twain’s stories, who gloomily eyed one another as starvation threatened,
calculating upon whom, by an ingenious and complicated system of voting
previously agreed to, would next fall the lot of being sacrificed for the
benefit of the rest, and I believe I found myself unconsciously speculating
on the plumpness of a youthful stockbroker standing by my side. But after a
very few moments of suspense the train rattled on again, the lights
reappeared, and presently we drew up at the Borough, the first station on
the Surrey side.
Railway booking-offices are not usually things of beauty, least of all
those on the Metropolitan, District, and suburban lines. Here, however, was
a surprise, for we found quite a picturesque stone-and-brick building on the
ground-floor, a cupola surmounting the prettily designed entrance, and a
small dome with lantern by way of roof. And this was a sample of all the
stations along the line.
The Borough recalled the Marshalsea that once stood close by; and there
opposite was St. George’s, Southwark, where Little Dorrit, accidentally
locked out of the prison, was allowed by “the sexton, or the beadle, or the
verger, or whatever he was,” to take refuge in the vestry, where, years
afterwards, she signed the marriage register when wedded to Arthur
Clennam.
 The next stoppage was at the Elephant and Castle—not the tavern of that
name, where in the past on Derby Day the superabundant holiday traffic
usually became hopelessly congested, but the City and South London’s new
station, close to Spurgeon’s Tabernacle, Rabbits’ great boot warehouse, and
Tarn’s vast emporium, that seems to occupy most of Newington Causeway.
Onwards to Kennington Common, once the place of public executions for
Surrey, now a well-kept miniature park. Beyond it, Kennington Oval,
associated with cricket all the world over; and finally we arrived at
Stockwell, the then terminus of the line, since extended to Clapham, where
Tom Hood used to go to school at a house “with ugly windows ten in a row,
its chimney in the rear,” a style of architecture of which many specimens
still exist round and about the Common.
At Stockwell we visited the generating station, recently much extended,
and provided with entirely new plant, and, wondering at and admiring all
we saw, learned from the chief engineer that the contretemps en route was
due to a slight defect in the new and untried power-machinery; and thus at
the point where the dip in the line was greatest, the cars stopped.
An excellent luncheon restored us all to eloquence and equanimity,
extinguishing the cannibalistic feeling of half an hour ago, and, returning
without any incident worth recording, we emerged once more in the City, to
be greeted by the noise of the traffic that ever surges around King William
the Fourth’s statue.
Those were the “green salad” days of London’s Pioneer Electric Railway
Line. Now it runs without a hitch, and has been extended north as far as the
historic “Angel,” thus giving a direct route between Clapham and Islington.
It has powers to exchange traffic with the Great Northern and the City
Railway viâ Old Street, and also to connect itself with the Baker Street and
Waterloo Electric Railway at the Elephant and Castle Station; and in a new
building at Finsbury Pavement it now has commodious head offices.
At the last half-yearly general meeting the chairman, Mr. C. G. Mott, in
the course of his speech, stated that the Board aspired to have a thoroughly
first-class terminus in the City of London, and had deposited plans with this
view. They proposed to construct this station between the present Bank
Station and the King William Street statue.
That the City and South London Railway is most useful and popular is
shown by the number of passengers it has carried—some ninety millions
since its opening—the returns for last year showing about eighteen millions,
over a total route of about seven miles. For the convenience of travellers, it
eventually will have subways, connecting its Lombard Street Station with
the Bank Station of the Central London Railway, and it already has them
from its new London Bridge Station to the London, Brighton, and South
Coast Railway. Finally, it can boast of possessing a station below a church
—a unique position, I believe. St. Mary Woolnoth’s foundations were
completely removed, the vaults cleared out, and the whole replaced by huge
iron girders, whereon the sacred edifice now rests, with the booking-office
below.
THE WATERLOO AND CITY RAILWAY
The month of August, 1898, was unusually warm, and the heat was felt
as much in the City as anywhere. Straw hats were universal; the shady side
of the street, if there happened to be one, was thronged; secluded alleys and
courts were resorted to by the knowing ones who could afford the time to
linger there; and even highly respectable merchants were to be found sitting
in shirt-sleeves at their writing-tables and wishing, with Sydney Smith, that
they could “sit in their bones.”
At the junction of the Poultry with Victoria Street, shadowed by the
Mansion House, from each side of the road a mysterious hoarding had just
been removed, revealing an iron railing enclosing a small area with a
mysterious staircase bearing the announcement that it led to the subway to
the new electric railway, connecting the City with Waterloo Station.
Descending a few steps, and emerging into a tunnelled incline, the
perspiring pedestrian quickly found that here, if anywhere, was a refuge
from the heat, the coolest place in London, and that it was well worth while,
on the pretence of urgent business across the water, to pay twopence each
way, merely to drink in the refreshing air wafted backwards and forwards
along subway, platform, and tube.
This was the Waterloo and City Railway, a short deep-level line on the
tube principle, nearly 1¾ miles long, burrowing under the Thames’ bed. At
the terminus, by rather prolonged inclines and staircases, passengers could
walk to the main or suburban platforms of Waterloo Station and catch the
trains for Wimbledon, Hampton Court, Surbiton, etc.
Like the City and South London, this railway meets a great want. Before
its opening, City men living down the London and South Western line had
no alternative but to catch a South Eastern train from Cannon Street or
Charing Cross; to take an omnibus viâ the Strand across to Waterloo
Bridge; or to cab it by devious routes viâ Blackfriars Bridge. Now they can
reach Waterloo with ease, comfort, and economy.
Under agreement, the line is worked by the London and South Western
Railway Company. The electrical equipment is by the famous firm of
Siemens Brothers, the generating station being up a blind alley adjoining

FIG. 4. WATERLOO AND CITY RAILWAY’S NEW PATTERN CAR

By permission of the “Tramway and Railway World” Publishing Co., London

the dismal arched entrance to Waterloo from York Road. Each train seats
208 passengers; the average speed is 18 miles an hour, and its usefulness is
proved by the fact that over two and a half million ordinary passengers were
carried by it in one half-year, i.e. to December 31st, 1902 (not counting
season-ticket holders), while the receipts for that period were £17,400.
During the busy hours of morning and evening the large trains are used
and always fill up rapidly, but in the slack times of midday single motor-
cars, each carrying 50 passengers, are sufficient to cope with the traffic. The
cars are rather stuffy, and, like the train cars, are narrow and low. At each
end is a small partitioned-off “cab,” where sits a motor-man. No tickets are
issued from the booking-office; but, as in an omnibus, the conductor comes
round and collects the fares, giving a punched voucher in return, which is
retained by the traveller.
THE LIVERPOOL OVERHEAD ELECTRIC RAILWAY