Page:Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.djvu/338

322 I sometimes attached my carriage to a public train to convey me to the point where my experiments commenced, and I had frequently to interrupt their course, in order to run on to a siding to avoid a coming train.

I then asked to be allowed to make such experiments during the night when there were no trains; but Brunel told me it was too dangerous to be permitted, and that ballast-waggons, and others, carrying machinery and materials for the construction and completion of the railroad itself, were continually traversing various parts of the line at uncertain hours.

The soundness of this advice became evident a very short time after it was given. On arriving one morning at the terminus, the engine which had been promised for my experimental train was not ready, but another was provided instead. On further inquiry, I found that the "North Star," the finest engine the Company then possessed, had been placed at the end of the great polygonal building devoted to engines, in order that it might be ready for my service in the morning; but that, during the night, a train of twenty-five empty ballast-waggons, each containing two men, driven by an engine, both the driver and stoker of which were asleep, had passed right through the engine-house and damaged the "North Star."

Most fortunately, no accident happened to the men beyond a severe shaking. It ought, however, in extenuation of such neglect, to be observed that engine-drivers were at that period so few, and so thoroughly overworked, that such an occurrence was not surprising.

It then occurred to me, that being engaged on a work which was anything but profitable to myself, but which contributed to the safety of all travellers, I might, without