Progress of the work—1881. of danger confronted us, which we had not, and could not have, foreseen.
Of course, the consumption of coal by the pumping-engines was very considerable; but as we were in communication by railway with the South Wales line of the Great Western Railway, and so with the coal-pits, we had never thought it necessary to provide any large stock of coal, when, on the 18th January, 1881, the great snow-storm, which will long be remembered in England, came upon us without warning.
I was returning to the works from London on that day, and left Paddington by the quick train, known as the ‘Zulu,’ at three o’clock. The storm was then raging furiously, but we got through to Swindon, an hour late, only to remain there snowed up all night. When the train reached Portskewett at one o’clock the next day, eighteen hours late, we found all the roads blocked with snow, and our branch railway, from the Great Western to the works, for most of its length blocked to a depth of between 3 and 4 feet. The goods traffic of the main line was entirely disorganized, and it was not till the 21st that we were able to obtain a supply of coal direct from the coal-pits.
We had been reduced to all kinds of expedients, begging and borrowing all the coal we could in the neighbourhood, and finally cutting up timber to keep the pumping-engines going. We were, however, able to do so; but it was not till the 28th that the severe frost which followed the snow-storm broke