Even, therefore, if there were not a single yard of cutting and embanking to be done on your line, the estimated expense of the London and Birmingham, and the actual cost of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, bid you prepare yourselves for an outlay of not less than 20,000l. per mile; while the money actually paid on the latter, may well make you anticipate that it would be nearer 30,000l. per mile; and this, as has just been stated, exclusive of the expense of cuttings and embankments.
There are persons who will deny this. But instead of occupying your time by entering on any discussion of the question here, I will merely refer you to the paragraph quoted on the last page from the original prospectus of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, and to the following passage from the second prospectus issued by that company on the 26th December, 1825, when the capital was raised to 510,000l. instead of 400,000l.,—that is, to 17,000l. per mile, instead of 12,000l.
“A very prominent objection taken by the opponents of the bill, was founded on the errors in the section and levels, as exhibited before Parliament. These errors, the Committee at once acknowledged and regretted; and, to avoid all chance of similar complaint in future, they have engaged the professional services of most eminent engineers, aided by assistants of undoubted talents and activity; whose combined efforts justify the fullest assurance, not only of the correctness of the plans and sections, but that the whole line will be laid and arranged with that skill and conformity with the rules of mechanical science, which will equally challenge approbation, whether considered as a national undertaking of great public utility, or as a magnificent specimen of art.”
Yet, notwithstanding the “undoubted talent” of those “most eminent engineers,” and their “assistants,” whom the Committee had thus “engaged,” the actual cost of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, has more than doubled the sum which the “undoubted talent” of those engineers and their assistants estimated it would cost, on the second survey of the line.
The objections, therefore, of those who will say that I overrate the expense of a railway, may not be more consistent with fact, than the under estimate of these “most eminent engineers,” and their “assistants of undoubted talents and activity:” while if, after being a second time surveyed and estimated, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway cost a million and a quarter, instead of the half million to which the revised and reconsidered estimates of these “most eminent engineers” and their “assistants of undoubted talent and activity,” raised it, it becomes a simple rule of three question to estimate how much the London and Birmingham Railway will cost, above the two and a half millions, which it is now stated will complete the double line that is to be laid down, instead of the quadruple line which was stated to cost three millions. Of the four sums which this railway has been estimated to cost (one and a half millions; two millions; three millions; and two and a half millions; vide note on page 5), nobody can tell which will be right; though there are those who have publicly stated (and staked their critical accuracy on its correctness), that the whole four added together, will not be much more than enough.
It is true, that by having three very sharp indeed inclined planes, of eight or ten feet perpendicular ascent each an almost perfect level might, without very great expense for cutting and embanking, be obtained for four-fifths of your line to the Grand Junction Canal; while, by availing myself of an ascending power possessed by locomotive engines, which has (to my very great surprise) hitherto been overlooked, not only by railway engineers in general, but also by the inventors and improvers of locomotive engines, [8] I could get your engines and their loads up these ascents without any difficulty. But as the rise, during the sixty feet (nearly), of ascent, which must be surmounted in the remaining fifth of your line to the Grand Junction Canal, must be at the rate of one in forty-seven; as the power required to get the loads you must be prepared to send up that ascent, at the rate you must also be prepared to raise them, will, including the friction, &c., of the ropes, render it necessary that the stationary engines should, each of them, be, roundly speaking, 150 horses power—in consequence of these things, and owing to the delay and danger attendant on the steep inclined plane and stationary engine system, as well as for the following reasons, this conjoint method of levels and steep inclined planes, and of locomotive and stationary engines, might be little better for you than making one continuous inclined plane of your line; so as to admit of locomotives running over the whole of it; and, consequently, not needing stationary engines at all.
Notwithstanding the efficacy of steep inclined planes with stationary engines on the summits, where they are absolutely unavoidable, yet are they so objectionable where it is any how possible to avoid them, that the engineers of the London and Birmingham Railway have recommended cuttings and embankments to the amount of twenty-three millions of cubic yards (nearly) in order to avoid them; while evidence makes it appear, that the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company prefer keeping extra locomotives waiting at the foot of their inclined planes, to draw the trains up, rather than use the stationary engines, which, it has been stated, they fixed at the top of those ascents for that purpose.
But these general objections against steep inclined planes and stationary engines, are not the only ones which would operate to the rejection of this method on your proposed line.
To connect it with the London and Birmingham Railway, it must either be carried over the Grand Junction Canal, or the London and Birmingham Railway must be brought across that canal to come to it; and as it may be divined that Mahomet must go to the mountain, rather than that the mountain should come to Mahomet, it may be concluded that your crossing the canal is unavoidable; especially when it is considered that bringing the Birmingham Railway over to the south side of the canal, would render necessary a second crossing of it, in order to take that railway back to the north side again. And as, exclusive of the expense of the wide bridge, you must provide to carry your line of railway across the canal, it would cause, first, a second break, or variation, in your method of draught, by compelling you, after taking the loads from the locomotive engines which brought them from your basin to the foot of the ascent, and getting them up that ascent by means of the stationary engines, either to have other stationary engines adjoining the Birmingham line, to get the loads from the canal to that line, or else to transfer them for that purpose from the stationary engines, to locomotives again; while, secondly, and in addition to this, there would be the objection and opposition of the Grand Junction Company, to the large stationary engines and buildings which you must erect close to their canal to be overcome, it would appear that a method which should avoid the, perhaps, fatal objections, and certainly most enormously expensive Parliamentary opposition of the Grand Junction Company to the proposed extension of your line, would be a desideratum.
In addition to this, there must be the breadth of land required for a railway; which, looking at the width necessary for the embankments, would, considering the value of the ground through which your line must run, render the surface purchase (comparatively) equally expensive as the cutting.