Amusing Extracts from
The Comic Bradshaw and other Peculiar
Railway Stories
While editing our title TheRailway Age by Cyril Bruyn Andrews I was rather puzzled by this illustration,
taken from The Comic Bradshaw of 1848,
as our author provides no context for the cartoon. I hunted down a copy of The Comic Bradshaw and discovered that
the illustration relates to a section entitled ‘Remarkable Phenomenon in Second
Class Carriages’. It reads as follows:
It is a curious fact in connexion with the wood used in the
construction of second-class carriages, that the further you travel the harder,
and tougher, the rougher, and knottier do the seats become. At first they seem
smooth enough, - in fact handsome, polished planes. In about thirty miles, they get nutmeg-graterish on the surface; by fifty, lumps begin to grow
out of them; by seventy, the lumps are sharper; and ere the hundred be
completed, you would exchange your throne for an arm-chair full of broken
bottles.
The following diagrams will give a notion of the odd
phenomenon we have endeavoured to describe.
The portraits beneath [i.e. the ones at
the start of this post] show the changes, corresponding to the degree of
discomfort of the seat, produced on the countenance of the gentleman who sits
on it.
Several illustrations in The
Railway Age are taken from The Comic
Bradshaw but Mr Andrews has not included some of the most peculiar sections
of this very odd little publication. For instance, there is the following
strange prediction of events a hundred years hence (i.e. hence from 1848!):
OUR PROPHET AGAIN.
This invaluable gentleman has again been, in Campbell's
phrase, sending his spirit, like one of the new street-cleaning machines, to
"¾sweep
Adown the gulf of Time."
The following is one of the scraps which the mental broom in
question has brushed up from the highway of posterity. It is an extract from
the Times of the 1st of April, 1948
“RAILWAY ACCIDENT.
“Some surprise, and not a little uneasiness, was created
yesterday, at the Mesopotamia Station of the United Grand Junction European,
African, Asian, American, and Ponder's-end Railway, by the non-arrival of the
slow train, due at twelve o’clock. Half-a-dozen policemen were, in consequence,
dispatched up the line per the new patent passenger electric telegraph, and the
cause of delay was ascertained to be as follows. It appears that the train was
proceeding cautiously round a rather sharp curve, at a rate of not more than
three hundred miles an hour, when the breathing apparatus of the driver ¾ a steady man, who has been for some
years in the Company's service ¾ gave way, and he was, of course, immediately
suffocated; ¾ not, however, before he had managed to stop and reverse the
engine. The injudicious effects of this last step were, however, soon apparent;
for the train, as might have been expected, started backwards at rather a fast
rate of 700 or 800 miles an hour ¾ the passengers being in a state of considerable alarm.
Fortunately, the accident was observed from one of the new line of patent
safety balloons, which, in company with a couple of ordinary hack flying
machines, gave chase, and having flung their grapnels at the speeding engine, managed
gradually to stop its career. The unfortunate engine man was then attended to,
and being promptly conveyed to the Galvanic and Electro-magnetic Hospital for
the cure of complaints of the respiratory organs, he was skilfully unsuffocated
by the house-surgeon; and after a short delay, was providentially enabled to resume
his place upon the locomotive, and conduct the train to its destination. No
blame attaches to any of the officials of the Company."
This extract is both amusing in its predictions of the world
in 1948 and also interesting because it repeats (perhaps facetiously) the myth
that circulated in the early days of train travel that travelling at speed
would render people either unconscious or dead!
Our title The Railway
Age also includes several engaging and amusing railway stories (for more details visit www.wordstothewise.co.uk. There is,
for example, the story of the fire at New Cross in 1841. While the fire itself
was not funny, its cause was most peculiar:
The disastrous fire was made all the more thrilling as it
broke out at the exact moment when Louis Philippe’s train was announced ready
to take him to Dover. The King of the French had to walk over hose pipes and
through a scene of great disturbance. The flames, only 100 feet from the
railway carriage window from which the King watched them, were reflected in the
helmets of the soldiers drawn up as a guard of honour, and the combined noise
of those who were fighting the flames and those who were cheering the King was
terrific. It was difficult at a moment when the King was arriving and departing
to ascertain the cause of the fire, but it was afterwards found to be the
spontaneous ignition of some vegetable stowed in a paint room.
Another example is the description of a terrified vicar:
One dark night in the year 1784, the venerable Vicar of
Redruth, in Cornwall, was taking a quiet walk in a lonely lane leading to his
church. Suddenly he heard an unearthly noise, and to his horror, he saw
approaching him an indescribable creature of legs, arms, and wheels, whose body
appeared to be glowing with internal fire, and whose rapid gasps for breath
seemed to denote a fierce struggle for existence. The vicar’s cries for help
brought to his assistance a gentleman of the name of Murdoch, who was able to
assure him that this terrible apparition was not an incarnation, or a messenger
of the Evil One, but only a runaway engine that had escaped from control.
The Railway Age is
full of similar accounts of events, personal reactions, poetry, songs and other
reflections on the early days of the railway. As such it provides a fascinating
window on how everyday life and ordinary people were affected by the dramatic
changes that came with the advent of rail travel.
The Comic Bradshaw
includes a list of railway jokes that were venerable in 1848 and are therefore
so old now that they have whiskers! Unlike rail travel itself, rail humour has
not travelled well down the decades. Thus, I began with a joke about a sore
behind and I end on some more sore points that will surely elicit a groan:
LIST OF THE PROCLAIMED JOKES.
Nobody is henceforth permitted to say
1. That an elderly gentleman connected with railroads is a
Railway Buffer.
2. Nor, that a locomotive is like a policeman because it
takes people up to the Station.
3. Nor, that a slow train followed by a quick one is like the
letter W - because the X presses on behind.
4. Nor, that a partizan of the Great Western line is like a
stout exciseman - because he is a broad-gauger.
5. Nor, that a man with a levelling instrument must be a
great wag - for he can take a rise out of anything.
6. *Nor, that the wheels upon railways are lubricated with train
oil.
*To encourage merit, anyone who laughs at this joke may apply
for half-a-crown to the Publisher.
7. Nor, that railroads intended for the conveyance of luggage
are therefore to be caned trunk lines.
8. Nor, that the boilers of express engines are supplied with
brandy and water.
My favourite railway story comes from the days of the old
‘slam-door’ carriages and before carriage doors were centrally-locked. A
bowler-hatted business man was fast asleep in a compartment filled with other
passengers. The train stopped unexpectedly between stations. The business man
woke up suddenly and, thinking the train was at his station, he leapt up,
opened the door and fell on to the track. Obviously a bit disoriented he
wandered up and down for a bit (just his bowler hat was visible to the other
passengers through the window) and then, realising his supposed mistake, he
scrambled back into the carriage, said ‘Silly Me!’, crossed the carriage,
opened the opposite door and fell onto the track on the other side of the
train.
What is your favourite railway joke or funny story? Do let
us know (clean jokes and stories only please!).
Our second-class passenger – clearly at the start of his
journey on his hard wooden seat!
