A Link with George Stephenson.

Stephenson relics are constantly being discovered on the Home railways. Recently, a 15-ft. length of rail designed by George Stephenson more than a century ago, for the Leicester and Swannington Railway, now part of the London, Midland and Scottish group, was presented to the South Kensington Science Museum, London, by Sir Josiah Stamp, Chairman and President of the Executive of the L. M. & S. The rail, which once formed a part of the original Leicester and Swannington track, is of wrought-iron and of a “fish-bellied” type. It had an original weight of 35 lbs. per yard.

It was on the Leicester and Swannington Railway, opened in 1832, that the locomotive whistle is popularly believed to have been invented. Following a collision between one of the

– 30 –

– 31 –

early trains and a horse-drawn vehicle, Stephenson commissioned an organbuilder in Leicester to make a “steamtrumpet” out of an organ-pipe, and this duly proved effective.