Slate slabs were originally tried for
sleepers on the Birmingham and London line.
The first railway carriages were built very like to coaches, with an
outside seat at each end for the guard, though passengers often sat
there for the sake of seeing the country.
The fares first charged between Birmingham and London were 30s. by first
class, and 20s. second class (open carriages) by day trains; 32s. 6d.
first class and 25s. second class, by night. In 1841 the fares were 30s.
first, 25s. second, and 20s. 3d. third class; they are now 17s. 4d.,
13s. 6d., and 9s. 5d.
"Booking" was a perfectly correct term when the lines were first used,
as when passengers went for their tickets they had to give their names
and addresses, to be written on the tickets and in the book containing
the counterfoils of the tickets.
The day the Grand Junction line was opened was kept as a general holiday
between here and Wolverhampton, hundreds of tents and picnic parties
being seen along the line.
The directors of the Birmingham and Gloucester line ordered eleven
locomotives from Philadelphia at a cost of 85,000 dollars, and it was
these engines that brought their trains to Camp Hill at first.
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