Research-reading Sherlock, Transportation Transformation

Alicia Rasley
February 23, 2025

Research-reading Sherlock, Transportation Transformation by Alicia Rasley

Sherlock Holmes wasn’t the very first fictional detective (that was probably Poe’s Dupin). But he was very much a reflection of his time—innovative, cerebral, experimental– and always on the move.

It’s important to note that Great Britain was definitely the Silicon Valley of the industrial era. The railroads, the subway trains, the telegraph cable, the telephone, and electricity—these were all substantially invented or developed by British inventors. The United States was still young at this time, and spent much of the 19^th Century invading the frontier and fighting a civil war. Europe was still ascendant then in science, medicine, and innovation. All this transformation plays out in the backdrop of the Holmes and Watson adventures.

Transportation Innovation

Holmes and Watson were born in the 1850s, early in the railroad era, when immense labor and expense were going into laying track across the nation. They would have grown up mostly dependent on foot travel, whether their own feet or horses’, as in mid-century trains were restricted to connecting major cities. And throughout their adventures, they still resort to foot travel, taking hansom cabs through London, and carriages into the countryside.

But by the time they met on New Year’s Day 1881, there were more than 16,000 miles of tracks connecting every part of the three kingdoms. And Holmes and Watson made good use of this mode of transport to travel to crime sites. Train travel was so efficient then that often they could visit a city like Birmingham and be back the same evening.

For example, in “The Stockbroker’s Clerk,” Holmes and Watson travel to Birmingham with the client, who has unwittingly become employed by a criminal enterprise. (This happens a lot with naïve young jobseekers in Holmes-land, who need to learn, “If a job offer seems too good to be true, it probably is.”) A stagecoach trip of the 120 miles from London would have taken most of the day, but by train, they were in central Birmingham in 70 minutes.

Holmes and Watson are old enough still to marvel at the speed of transport. On their journey to Exeter in “Silver Blaze,” Holmes calculates their miles-per-hour by counting the telegraph poles spaced 60 feet apart, and announces, ““We are going well,” said he, looking out the window and glancing at his watch. “Our rate at present is fifty-three and a half miles an hour.” (This rather complicated calculation is spelled out at “Sherlock Holmes on the Rails”.)

According to British Transport Police History Group, Holmes and Watson also were quick to use the Bradshaw guide to figure out the best route that an aspiring criminal might take: “Holmes only had to say, ‘Just look up the trains in Bradshaw,’ and Watson could reply after a brief glance, ‘There is a train at half past nine due at Winchester at 11.30.’”

The ubiquity and speed of the rail system make it possible for Holmes and Watson to leave town to pursue a clue and return in time for supper. It also is convenient for clients to travel to London for an initial consultation, like Miss Violet Smith, a governess and unwitting heiress. She comes up on her day off, and has time to visit with her elderly mother before going back to her employer.

It helps, of course, that 221B Baker St. is just a mile from Paddington Station, where most westbound trains depart and arrive. In fact, Dr. Watson’s medical practice takes off about 1889 because, as a frequent traveller with Holmes, he is known to all the porters. One brings a maimed passenger to the doctor for treatment in “The Strange Case of the Engineer’s Thumb.” After that, he apparently becomes the go-to medico for the station, and seems to get preferential treatment for carriages and scheduling. Though he and Holmes are far from rich, they often score a corner of the first-class Pullman.

The London Underground

The first urban “subway” was the Metropolitan line, running between Farringdon and Paddington, opened in 1863. While they happily power around the countryside on the Iron Horse, Holmes and Watson aren’t as quick to resort to the equally speedy London Underground. (There is, after all, no first class.) Certainly Holmes’s clients must have resorted to the Underground to consult him, as the station is only a block from 221B Baker Street. For example, in The Beryl Coronet, Alexander Holder came to Baker Street on the Tube.

Holmes and Watson’s only recorded Tube trip together is in “The Red-Headed League”: “We travelled by the Underground as far as Aldersgate; and a short walk took us to Saxe-Coburg Square, the scene of the singular story which we had listened to in the morning.” While this is the only Underground trip I could find in the stories, Watson’s familiarity with the routes and the stations indicate that they must have occasionally risked the smoke and crowds and dirt of the Underground.

Baker Street Station, 1863

In fact, in A Study in Scarlet, Watson, annoyed at an article purporting to teach the value of close observation, describes what sounds like one of his own Tube experience with Holmes: “It is evidently the theory of some arm-chair lounger who evolves all these neat little paradoxes in the seclusion of his own study. It is not practical. I should like to see him clapped down in a third-class carriage on the Underground, and asked to give the trades of all his fellow-travellers. I would lay a thousand to one against him. ” (Holmes calmly asserts that he, in fact, wrote the disputed article.)

Most dramatically, in The Bruce Partington Plans, the civil servant Arthur Cadogan West’s body is found on the Underground tracks near Aldgate. When he’s informed that West had no ticket in his pocket, Holmes shows his familiarity with the Underground rules: “No ticket! Dear me, Watson, this is really very singular. According to my experience it is not possible to reach the platform of a Metropolitan train without exhibiting one’s ticket.”

He must have made other trips on the Metropolitan line, as he remembers something that solves the mystery of the body beside the tracks: “You are aware that the Underground runs clear of tunnels at some points in the West End. I had a vague memory that as I have travelled by it I have occasionally seen windows just above my head. Now, suppose that a train halted under such a window, would there be any difficulty in laying a body upon the roof?” With that clue, they are able to track down the location of the murderer’s flat, and recover the stolen plans.

The Curious Case of the Steamship that Watson Didn’t Write About

The third major transportation innovation in the mid-Victorian era was, of course, the steamship. By the time Holmes and Watson met, ocean-going steam-powered ships were already approaching the speed of clipper ships, and small steam launches were puffing up and down Britain’s many rivers. Interestingly, Holmes doesn’t seem to travel much by steamship or even steamboat. He seldom leaves the British Isles, for one thing, and for interurban travel, he clearly prefers to stay dry in a comfortable Pullman car pulled by a locomotive.

There is one intriguing reference to steamships in “The Adventure of the Norwood Builder.” As he writes up the account of that case, Watson is looking back on the previous months. He recalls a case that Holmes prohibited him from writing about, involving a Dutch steamship: “I find, on looking over my notes, that this period includes the case of the papers of ex-President Murillo, and also the shocking affair of the Dutch steamship Friesland, which so nearly cost us both our lives.”

(More about this at the Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia: https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/The_Shocking_Affair_of_the_Dutch_Steamship_Friesland)

This is one of the tantalizing clues to another Sherlock canon, “The Untold Stories of Sherlock Holmes”, that is, the stories Watson never got to write. Later fanwriters have been tempted to fill in the blank and tell us how Holmes and Watson almost lost their lives in that steamship affair. But, just as it’s important that the dog in “Silver Blaze” did NOT bark that night, perhaps it’s significant that Conan Doyle chose NOT to set stories on steamships, despite their importance to ocean travel at the time. Sherlock, above all, was a British Victorian, and knew that all the excitement and mystery he needed would be within a day’s train travel.

A more extensive experience with steam travel is in The Sign of the Four (when Watson meets his future wife Mary Morstan). The murderous duo, with their stolen treasure, plan to escape England by river, and hire a little steamboat called the Aurora to take them to freedom. But Holmes and Watson commandeer a police boat (also apparently steam-powered, as there is a man tending “the engine”). This becomes an actual steamboat race past the dockyards and towards the Thames Estuary. (You can see a map of their race and read an analysis at Stephen Gaspar’s blog.) They barely escape death by poison dart before finally capturing the escapees in the marshes and recovering the treasure chest stolen from Miss Morstan.

However, Dr. Watson feels more misery than triumph as he restores the treasure to its rightful owner. He has fallen in love with Miss Morstan, and knows he as a poor medical man has no right to this heiress. Fortunately, when he and Mary prise the chest open, they find it empty, as the thieves dumped the contents into the Thames rather than surrender it. Dr. Watson is amazed to find that Mary is just as happy as he is to find herself poor again, for now they are of equal status and can marry without guilt. So this seeming failure turns into the happiest of endings, at least for the lovely couple. (Sherlock, alas, has lost his roommate.)

A transformation just as significant as transportation, at least for Holmes and Watson, is the revolution in communication, and that I’ll discuss next week. And if your heart is stirred by the thought of Sherlock Holmes as an unwitting matchmaker, you can read about Dr. and Mrs. Watson’s origin story here in the Sherlock Holmes Canon.