British Canals: Is their resuscitation practicable?

by Edwin A. Pratt

The reasons for this transition in the London coal trade (and the same general principle applies elsewhere) can be readily stated. They are to be found in the facilities conferred by the railway companies, and the great changes that, as the direct result thereof, have taken place in the coal trade itself. Not only are most of the collieries in communication with the railways, but the coal waggons are generally so arranged alongside the mouth of each pit that the coal, as raised, can be tipped into them direct from the screens. Coal trains, thus made up, are next brought to certain sidings in the neighbourhood of London, where the waggons await the orders of the coal merchants to whom they have been consigned. At Willesden, for example, there is special accommodation for 2,000 coal waggons, and the sidings are generally full. Liberal provision of a like character has also been made in London by the Midland, the Great Northern, and other railway companies in touch with the colliery districts. An intimation as to the arrival of the consignments is sent by the railway company to the coal merchant, who, in London, is allowed three "free" days at these coal sidings in which to give instructions where the coal is to be sent. After three days he is charged the very modest sum of 6d. per day per truck. Assuming that the coal merchant gives directions, either within the three days or later, for a dozen trucks, containing particular qualities of coal, to be sent to different parts of London, north, south, east and west, those dozen trucks will have to be picked out from the one or two thousand on the sidings, shunted, and coupled on to trains going through to the stated destination. This represents in itself a considerable amount of work, and special staffs have to be kept on duty for the purpose.

Then, at no fewer than one hundred and thirty-five railway stations in London and the suburbs thereof, the railway companies have provided coal depôts on such vacant land as may be available close to the local sidings, and here a certain amount of space is allotted to the use of coal merchants. For this accommodation no charge whatever is made in London, though a small rent has to be paid in the provinces. The London coal merchant gets so many feet, or yards, allotted to him on the railway property; he puts up a board with his name, or that of his firm; he stores on the said space the coal for which he has no immediate sale; and he sends his men there to fetch from day to day just such quantities as he wants in order to execute the orders received. With free accommodation such as this at half a dozen, or even a score, of suburban railway stations, all that the coal merchant of to-day requires in addition is a diminutive little office immediately adjoining each railway station, where orders can be received, and whence instructions can be sent. Not only, also, do the railway companies provide him with a local coal depôt which serves his every purpose, but, after allowing him three "free" days on the great coal sidings, to which the waggons first come, they give him, on the local sidings, another seven "free" days in which to arrange his business. He thus gets ten clear days altogether, before any charge is made for demurrage, and, if then he is still awaiting orders, he has only to have the coal removed from the trucks on to the depôt, or "wharf" as it is technically called, so escaping any payment beyond the ordinary railway rate, in which all these privileges and advantages are included.

If canal transport were substituted for rail transport, the coal would first have to be taken from the mouth of the pit to the canal, and, inasmuch as comparatively few collieries (except in certain districts) have canals immediately adjoining, the coal would have to go by rail to the canal, unless the expense were incurred of cutting a branch of the canal to the colliery—a much more costly business, especially where locks are necessary, than laying a railway siding. At the canal the coal would be tipped from the railway truck into the canal boat,[8] which would take it to the canal terminus, or to some wharf or basin on the canal banks. There the coal would be thrown up from the boat into the wharf (in itself a more laborious and more expensive operation than that of shovelling it down, or into sacks on the same level, from a railway waggon), and from the wharf it would have to be carted, perhaps several miles, to final destination.

Under this arrangement the coal would receive much more handling—and each handling means so much additional slack and depreciation in value; a week would have to be allowed for a journey now possible in a day; the coal dealers would have to provide their own depôts and pay more for cartage, and they would have to order particular kinds of coal by the boat load instead of by the waggon load.

This last necessity would alone suffice to render the scheme abortive. Some years ago when there was so much discussion as to the use of a larger size of railway waggon, efforts were made to induce the coal interests to adopt this policy. But the 8-ton truck was so convenient a unit, and suited so well the essentially retail nature of the coal trade to-day, that as a rule the coal merchants would have nothing to do with trucks even of 15 or 20 tons. Much less, therefore, would they be inclined to favour barge loads of 200 or 250 tons.

Exceptions might be made in the case of gas works, or of factories already situated alongside the banks of canals which have direct communication with collieries. In the Black Country considerable quantities of coal thus go by canal from the collieries to the many local ironworks, etc., which, as I have shown, are still actively served by the Birmingham Canal system. But these exceptions can hardly be offered as an adequate reason for the nationalisation of British canals. The general conditions, and especially the nature of the coal trade transition, will be better realised from some figures mentioned by the chairman of the London and North-Western Railway Company, Lord Stalbridge, at the half-yearly meeting in February 1903. Notwithstanding the heavy coal traffic—in the aggregate—the average consignment of coal, he showed, on the London and North-Western Railway is only 17½ tons, and over 80 per cent. of the total quantity carried represents consignments of less than 20 tons, the actual weights ranging from lots of 2 tons 14 cwts. to close upon 1,000 tons for shipment.

"But," the reader may say, "if coal is taken in 1,000-ton lots to a port for shipment, surely canal transport could be resorted to here!" This course is adopted on the Aire and Calder Navigation, which is very favourably situated, and goes over almost perfectly level ground. The average conditions of coal shipment in the United Kingdom are, however, much better met by the special facilities which rail transport offers.