The gigantic power of the locomotive engines hourly committed to the charge of these drivers was lately strangely exemplified in the large engine-stable at the Camden Station. A passenger-engine, whose furnace-fire had but shortly been lighted, was standing in this huge building surrounded by a number of artificers, who, in presence of the chief superintendent, were working in various directions around it. While they were all busily occupied, the fire in the furnace, by burning up faster than was expected, suddenly imparted to the engine the breath of life; and no sooner had the minimum of steam necessary to move it been thus created, than this infant Hercules not only walked _off_, but without the smallest embarrassment walked _through_ the 14-inch brick wall of the great building which contained it, to the terror of the superintendent and workmen, who expected every instant that the roof above their heads would fall in and extinguish them! In consequence of the spindle of the regulator having got out of its socket, the very same accident occurred shortly afterwards with another engine, which, in like manner, walked through another portion of this 14-inch wall of the stable that contained it, just as a thorough-bred horse would have walked out of the door. And if such be the irresistible power of the locomotive engine when feebly walking in its newborn state, unattended or unassisted even by its tender, is it not appalling to reflect what must be its momentum when, in the full vigour of its life, it is flying down a steep gradient at the rate of 50 miles an hour, backed up by say 30 passenger-carriages, each weighing on an average 5½ tons? If ordinary houses could suddenly be placed on its path, it would, passengers and all, run through them as a musket-ball goes through a keg of butter; but what would be the result if, at this full speed, the engine by any accident were to be diverted against a mass of solid rock, such as sometimes is to be seen at the entrance of a tunnel, it is almost impossible to calculate, or even to conjecture. It is stated by the Company’s superintendent, who witnessed the occurrence, that some time ago, an ordinary accident happening to a luggage-train near Loughborough, the waggons overrode each other until the uppermost one was found piled 40 feet above the rails! At Camden Station there are every day five spare or pilot engines, with their steam up, ready for assisting a train up the incline, or for any special purposes that may be required. The average cost of the locomotive engines and tenders, which, for the rails between London and Birmingham, are usually purchased by the Company from makers at Manchester, Warrington, and Liverpool, is-- Cylinder 15-inch diameter £1,950 0 0 „ 16 „ 2,113 10 0 „ 18 „ 2,500 0 0 The tenders cost 500_l._ each. CHAPTER VIII. GOODS DEPARTMENT.