My earliest recollection in connection with railways is my first railway
journey, which took place when I was four years of age. I recollect it
well. It was from Derby to Birmingham. How the wonder of it all
impressed me! The huge engine, the wonderful carriages, the imposing
guard, the busy porters and the bustling station. The engine, no doubt,
was a pigmy, compared with the giants of to-day; the carriages were
small, modest four-wheelers, with low roofs, and diminutive windows after
the manner of old stage coaches, but to me they were palatial. I
travelled first-class on a pass with my father, and great was my juvenile
pride. Our luggage, I remember, was carried on the roof of the carriage
in the good old-fashioned coaching style. Four-wheeled railway carriages
are, I was going to say, a thing of the past; but that is not so. Though
gradually disappearing, many are running still, mainly on branch lines--in
England nearly five thousand; in Scotland over four hundred; and in poor
backward Ireland (where, by the way, railways are undeservedly abused)
how many? Will it be believed--practically none, not more than twenty in
the whole island! All but those twenty have been scrapped long ago.
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