"The Innocent Railway"
A tablet has been erected naming the railway "The Innocent Railway" on the basis that the line never suffered a fatal accident.
Thomas explains:
Dr Robert Chalmers, reflecting on the E & D trains jogging their leisurely and profitable way round the southern outskirts of Edinburgh and comparing them with trains on more sophisticated railways wrote, 'In the very contemplation of the innocence of the railway you find your heart rejoiced. Only think of a railway having a board at all the stations forbidding the drivers to stop by the way to feed their horses!' The name The Innocent Railway entered the history books and the legend grew that the line was so called because it never killed or injured a passenger. In fact injuries, whether to passengers alighting from trains in motion or to pointsboys taking chances at loops were numerous; the manager himself got a leg injury that left him with a limp for life.
Robertson says:
Its familiar and affectionate soubriquet of the "Innocent Railway" was not due, unless inaccurately, to the legend that no-one was ever killed on it, but rather to an air of old-fashioned unreality which stood by the leisurely horse-drawn tradition long after it had been abandoned elsewhere. Robert Chalmers, who coined the nickname, gently enjoyed himself at its expense: By the Innocent Railway you never feel in the least jeopardy; your journey is one of incident and adventure; you can examine the crops as you go along; you have time to hear the news from your companions; and the by-play of the officials is a source of never-failing amusement. Robertson goes on to observe that a driver was killed in 1840 and two children were killed in 1843 and 1844, citing Parliamentary Papers 1841, 1843 and 1846. A public information plaque at the entrance to the path states that,
You are standing on one of Scotland's pioneering Railways. The Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway was nicknamed "The Innocent Railway" because it was originally horse-drawn in an age which thought steam engines dangerous. It was built to transport coal from the Dalkeith area to Auld Reekie. To the surprise of the promoters, however, the public rapidly took to this convenient novelty and soon 300,000 passengers were carried annually. Thereafter, passengers became as important as freight to the railways. Open carriages, wagons and converted stagecoaches were the first rolling stock. Among its engineering features were an early tunnel, a cast iron beam bridge and an outstanding timber viaduct on masonry piers. The first two still survive. The viaduct at Thornybank, Dalkeith was finally demolished in the 1960s.Read more about this topic: Edinburgh And Dalkeith Railway
Famous quotes containing the words innocent and/or railway:
“See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”
—Bible: New Testament, Matthew 10:16.
Jesus to his disciples.
“Her personality had an architectonic quality; I think of her when I see some of the great London railway termini, especially St. Pancras, with its soot and turrets, and she overshadowed her own daughters, whom she did not understand—my mother, who liked things to be nice; my dotty aunt. But my mother had not the strength to put even some physical distance between them, let alone keep the old monster at emotional arm’s length.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)