Hull to Selby by steam packet,
Selby to Micklefield by railway,
Micklefield to Knaresborough by stage coach.
The fares for this journey were ‘6s. 6d. outside and fore-cabin,’ and ‘10s. 6d. inside and best cabin.’ Certainly the traveller could not complain that he did not get plenty of variety for his money.
As an instance of the success of the new Railway in transporting ‘live stock’ may be given another extract from the Hull Directory:—
1842. December 9. A cow, which arrived here by the same steamer as the Post Office bags, outstripped those bags, 14 hours in her arrival at Manchester.
It is to be presumed that the cow travelled from Hull to Manchester by train, while the Post Office bags went by mail coach. But this is left to the imagination of the readers of the Directory.
In 1845 the Hull and Selby Railway was leased to the York and North Midland Company, a powerful company under the control of Mr. George Hudson, the ‘Railway King.’
This year and the next saw what was called the ‘Railway Mania,’ when promoters vied with one another in preparing schemes for new railways which people with money to invest were only too anxious to support. Two hundred and seventy-two Acts of Parliament authorizing new railways were obtained during the ‘boom;’ and when the ‘crash’ came, many lost the whole of the money they had so rashly invested.