In making these various researches, Mr. Stevenson was enabled to suggest many proposals which can only be regarded as valuable for the period at which they were made, but he gave many opinions, which undoubtedly have come wonderfully true in the history of railway communication.
The Right Honourable Sir John Sinclair, Bart., proposed, in 1823, certain queries to Mr. Stevenson relative to a proposal for the construction of an iron railway between the cities of London and Edinburgh, and the following is an extract from his reply, showing, that while he fully appreciated the value of ship-canals, he entertained the conviction that “iron railways” would become, as I have already said, the highway of the future.
“Regarding the practicability of such a scheme, it may be noticed that the late eminent James Watt entertained an idea of the eligibility and great advantage which might accrue to the public from the formation of a central and considerably elevated line of inland navigation constructed so as to ramify through the interior districts of England, and communicate with the principal manufacturing and populous towns in the kingdom.
“In any comprehensive view of a measure of this kind there can be no doubt that an iron railway would not only be much more practicable, but more commodious and useful for general intercourse than a canal. And the comparative expenses of the two operations would probably be in the ratio of about one to eight in favour of the railway. Again, if the advantages of carriage by the railway and the common road be compared, it will be found that the proportion is at the rate of about one to seven, also in favour of the railway.
“The economy of carriage on the railway, when fully contrasted with that of the canal, is also much greater. It may now, indeed, be considered as a generally received opinion, that, unless for enabling sea-borne ships to pass from one side of the coast to another, so as to avoid a tedious or dangerous circumnavigation, the railway in every other case is preferable. It is at the same time to be noticed that when Mr. Watt suggested the idea of a central line of canal many years since, the railway system was then neither so well known nor so much acted upon as now.”
Mr. Stevenson’s belief that railways would ultimately be the general highways of the world, led him to regard with distrust their immediate introduction into Britain in absence of some public Act for their proper regulation, and accordingly, on 29th January 1825, he writes to Lord Melville in the following terms:—“It seems necessary at this time, even before any Act is proposed for a public railway, that a Committee of the House should take the subject of regulating the width according to the number of tracks, and perhaps the strength of rails and weight to be carried on four wheels, in a public Act, otherwise much confusion will ensue. It will be a great loss if these railways, like the common road, should require to be altered that they may communicate with each other.
“All the engineers I have spoken with, including Mr. Telford, agree in this. I have noticed it to Mr. Home Drummond and Mr. Gladstone.
“I put the specification of the bridge at Melville Castle in train before I left home.”
Had it been possible to carry out the spirit of this suggestion, made at that early period, in an Act of the Legislature, I think, in the retrospect of much that took place during our “railway manias” and “railway company competitions,” it might possibly have proved advantageous to the community.
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The Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, which has ever been foremost to encourage everything that tends to the improvement of the country, regarded the introduction of railways as a matter of great importance, and considering it a subject that came legitimately within their province, offered, in 1818, a premium of fifty guineas for the best essay on the construction of railroads. Many competing treatises were given in, and the Society placed the whole of them in the hands of my father for his opinion and report on their merits, “together with such remarks of his own as he might judge useful.” The result of his examination is given at great length in the Transactions of the Society,[9] accompanied by “notes,” in which he makes several valuable suggestions. Before the period alluded to, the rails in use had been almost invariably made of cast iron or timber; but my father in his notes says—“I have no hesitation in giving a decided preference to malleable iron formed into bars from twelve to twenty feet in length, with flat sides and parallel edges, or in the simple state in which they come from the rolling-mills of the manufacturer.” He also recommends that they should be fixed into guides or chairs of iron supported on props placed at distances in no case exceeding three feet, and that they should be connected with a clamp-joint so as to preserve the whole strength of the material. It is not a little singular that this description, given about forty years ago, may, to use engineering phraseology, be not inaptly called a “specification of the permanent way” of our best railways at the present day.
I close this chapter by giving a letter which shows the value that George Stephenson attached to my father’s researches on railways, while it is at the same time interesting as showing the very moderate estimate which the great Railway Engineer at that time entertained of the performance of the locomotive engine—a machine which was destined ultimately to become, under his skilful management, so important an agent in changing the inland communication of the whole civilised world:—