But supposing it to be divided only by the number of those which actually do the work, this expense for repairs amounts to 3527l. per engine, per annum.
The Edinburgh Review for October, 1832, in some measure accounts for this enormity of expense, by saying, “It is said that in the engines used on the Liverpool Railroad, new grate-bars have been melted in a single trip; and the projector of a steam carriage has admitted that cylindrical grate-bars, an inch in diameter, could not last more than a week, when the carriage is in constant work.”
Now as you must have two locomotives (if not more) in constant work, the money expended in their repairs, and in those of your railway—supposing them to be equal to the similar expenses of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway: and any circumstances which should render them less remain yet to be made known—this money would, provided it could be saved, pay 5 per cent. on a capital of nearly 170,000l.: an amount that may render a method, the repairs and current expenses of which, should be importantly less than this, not undeserving of your attention.
In addition to these reasons against a railway, it may be observed, that, supposing you were to lay down such a line of communication for the purpose of conveying passengers to the Birmingham Railway from the west end of London, it will be necessary, not merely that those passengers should be willing to be so conveyed by you, but also that they should be willing to pay, not only you for carrying them to the Birmingham Railway, but also other persons for bringing them to your railway (which will be two miles and a half from Hyde Park corner), in order that they may, thereby, be conveyed to the Birmingham Railway: that is, they must pay you for carrying them thither, over the space of two miles and a half, and other persons for bringing them two miles and a half more from Hyde Park corner, in order that you may so carry them.
Now as the Birmingham Railway crosses the Edgeware Road only two miles and a half from the bottom of Oxford Street, it admits of rather more than doubt, whether, even if you were to lay a railway down, passengers for the Birmingham Railway would take the circuitous, five-mile course, of the Kensington Road, and of your line to it, when they could get thither, both for less money, and in less time by the two and a half miles course of the Edgeware Road.
Therefore, with a view, first, to obviate this objection, and render the course by your proposed line, quicker in point of time, as well as cheaper in point of expense, than the shorter course by the Edgeware Road; and, in consequence, cause passengers to the Birmingham Railway to give your line the preference: second, in order importantly to reduce the cost of the ground required for your proposed line: third, to remove the objections of the owners and occupiers of this ground to a railway being carried through their properties; and thereby save you the expense, as well as the danger of their parliamentary opposition: fourth, to avoid the opposition of, and the great parliamentary expense you would be put to by, the Grand Junction Canal Company: fifth, to furnish you with a cheaper (in point of current expenses as well as first cost), and better method of conveyance, than either canal or railroad will admit of: and, sixth, to possess you of a source of income additional to, and exclusive of, all that either canal or railway would bring in:—for these six reasons,
I solicit the honour of your attention to a method of conveyance, which I beg leave to introduce to your notice, by the following quotations:—
First, from the pamphlet of the gentleman who has informed the world, that what all engineers have hitherto pronounced an “impossibility”—rapid conveyance on canals that is—is now proved perfectly practicable by passengers being daily carried from Johnstone to Glasgow, along the Paisley and Ardrossan Canal at rates of ten or twelve miles an hour: [13] and, second, from Philip’s History of Inland Navigation in England.
Adverting to the aqueducts by which the Union Canal is carried over the various rivers in its course, Mr. Grahame says:—
“Each and all of these aqueduct bridges are higher than any on the Liverpool Railway.
“The Sankey viaduct bridge, which cost nearly as much as all the other railway bridges put together, consists of nine arches of fifty feet span; and is, at the highest point, sixty feet in height. The Avon aqueduct, on the Union Canal, consists of twelve arches, each fifty feet span; the greatest height eighty-five feet; and the average height seventy-four feet above the valley and river.”