There was instant bustle, and
in the interest of the moment no one seemed particularly to notice the
tired vermilion engine being led away.
There is a five-minute stop at Crewe. A tandem of engines slip up, and
buckled fast to the train for the journey to Carlisle. In the meantime,
all the regulation items of peace and comfort had happened on the train
itself. The dining-car was in the center of the train. It was divided
into two parts, the one being a dining-room for first-class passengers,
and the other a dining-room for the third-class passengers. They were
separated by the kitchens and the larder. The engine, with all its
rioting and roaring, had dragged to Crewe a car in which numbers of
passengers were lunching in a tranquility that was almost domestic, on
an average menu of a chop and potatoes, a salad, cheese, and a bottle of
beer. Betimes they watched through the windows the great chimney-marked
towns of northern England. They were waited upon by a young man of
London, who was supported by a lad who resembled an American bell-boy.
The rather elaborate menu and service of the Pullman dining-car is not
known in England or on the Continent. Warmed roast beef is the exact
symbol of a European dinner, when one is traveling on a railway.
This express is named, both by the public and the company, the "Corridor
Train," because a coach with a corridor is an unusual thing in England,
and so the title has a distinctive meaning.
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