CHESTER AND HOLYHEAD RAILWAY.
Railways have given an impetus to our country’s civilization. They are the veins and arteries by means of which the circulation of the social body is carried on. Remote places are, by this means, virtually brought near to each other; and thus, while intelligence is diffused, an impulse is given to commerce, each of which advantages most powerfully affects the conditions of the people. The benefits of cheap and quick communication to a great commercial state are too evident to require to be enlarged upon. Time and money are thus importantly saved, and a rapid and economical transit of goods, by lessening their costs, enable the humblest to partake of comforts which were formerly considered as luxuries only for the rich.
Amongst the railway enterprises in this kingdom, the Chester and Holyhead line must be considered as possessing peculiar claims to public attention. The stupendous character of the work—the difficulties which had to be overcome, and the vast sum invested in the undertaking, place this line in the foremost rank amongst the splendid achievements of our days; indeed we may justly consider it the masterpiece of the human intellect, and the wonder of the nineteenth century. In its course, it divides broad estuaries, it penetrates the bowels of the loftiest hills, forming an iron-road where the foot of man had never trod, and the hardiest rocks have succumbed to the irresistible energy of human actions and scientific skill—it crosses the important navigable river at Conway, and the Menai Straits, by means of immense iron-tubes, at such an elevation as not to impede the progress of the largest vessels. It presents an extraordinary display of enterprise and wealth; so large an accumulation of the conquests of energy, and the constituent elements of riches, it may be safely said, was never before collected in the same compass. The whole line is a noble exemplification of art subjugating and triumphing over the opposition of natural difficulties. Its completion formed an epoch in the history and application of mechanical power. If only a few years ago it had been said that people could pass over the Menai Straits, without inconvenience and without danger, at the rate of from 30 to 40 miles per hour, the tale would have been treated as one of those visionary stories, which in former days were the amusements of the nursery.
Holyhead is the terminus of this extraordinary line—a line of great value to this place, effecting as it has done a rapid communication between this port and the eastern part of the county, as well as the manufacturing districts of Cheshire, Lancashire, and the North; while, uniting with other lines, a connexion is opened up with the Metropolis.