Page:History of the Fylde of Lancashire (IA historyoffyldeof00portiala).pdf/95

 Corresponding week in 1844. 1601 Passengers    139  4   6 Goods. 163 18 11                                                  -                                                   303  3   5                                                  - Corresponding week in 1845. 1997 Passengers. 144 12  1                                    Goods. 234 13  4                                                  -                                                   379  5   5                                                  - Corresponding week in 1846. 2820 Passengers. 243 19  0                                    Goods. 308 18  5                                                  -                                                   552 17   5                                                  -

At the present date, 1876, the average weekly traffic on this railway and its branches to Lytham and Blackpool, amounts in round numbers to £1,200 for passengers, and £800 for goods.

The Preston and Wyre Railway was amongst the earliest formed, and the impression made on the natives of this district, who had been accustomed to the slow-going coaches, must have been one of no little amazement, when, for the first time, they beheld the "iron horse" steaming along the rails at a speed which their past experience of travelling would make them regard as impossible. The following lines were written by a gentleman named Henry Anderton, a resident in the Fylde, on the opening of the railway:

"Some fifty years since and a coach had no power, To move faster forward than six miles an hour, Till Sawney McAdam made highways as good, As paving-stones crushed into little bits could. The coachee quite proud of his horse-flesh and trip, Cried, 'Go it, ye cripples!' and gave them the whip, And ten miles an hour, by the help of the thong, They put forth their mettle and scampered along. The Present has taken great strides of the Past, For carriages run without horses at last! And what is more strange,—yet it's truth I avow, Hack-horses themselves have turned passengers now! These coaches alive go in sixes and twelves, And once set in motion they travel themselves! They'll run thirty miles while I'm cracking this joke, And need no provisions but pump-milk and coke! And with their long chimneys they skim o'er the rails, With two thousand hundred-weight tied to their tails!