[CHAPTER IX.]
THE LIVERPOOL AND MANCHESTER RAILWAY PROJECTED.
While the coal proprietors of the Bishop Auckland district were taking steps to connect their collieries with the sea by means of an iron railroad, the merchants of Liverpool and Manchester were considering whether some better means could not be devised for bringing these important centres of commerce and manufacture into more direct connection.
There were canals as well as roads between the two places, but all routes were alike tedious and costly, especially as regarded the transit of heavy goods. The route by turnpike road was thirty-six miles, by the Duke of Bridgewater's Canal fifty miles, by the Mersey and Irwell navigation the same, and by the Leeds and Liverpool Canal fifty-six miles.
These were all overburdened with traffic. The roads were bad, the tolls heavy, and the haulage expensive. The journey by coach occupied from five to six hours, and by wagon nearly a day. But very few heavy goods went by road. The canals nearly monopolized this traffic, and, having contrived to keep up the rates, the canal companies charged what they liked. They conducted their business in a drowsy, sleepy, stupid manner. If the merchant complained of delay, he was told to do better if he could. If he objected to the rates, he was warned that if he did not pay them promptly his goods might not be carried at all.
The canal companies were in a position to dictate their own terms, and they did this in such a way as to disgust alike the senders and the receivers of goods, so that both Liverpool and Manchester were up in arms against them. Worse even than the heavy charges for goods was the occasional entire stoppage of the canals. Sometimes they were frozen up; sometimes they were blocked by the press of traffic, so that goods lay on the wharves unmoved for weeks together; and at some seasons it occupied a longer time to bring cotton from Liverpool to Manchester by canal-boat than it had done to bring it from New York to Liverpool by sailing ship.
Was there no way of remedying these great and admitted evils? Were the commercial public to continue to be bound hand and foot, and left at the mercy of the canal proprietors? Immense interests at Liverpool and Manchester were at stake. The Liverpool merchants wanted new facilities for sending raw material inland, and the Manchester manufacturers for sending the manufactured products back to Liverpool for shipment. Vast populations had become settled in the towns of South Lancashire, to whom it was of vital importance that the communication with the sea should be regular, constant, and economical.
These considerations early led to the discussion of some improved mode of transit from Liverpool into the interior for heavy goods, and one of the most favored plans was that of a tram-road. It was first suggested by the corn-merchants of Liverpool, who had experienced the great inconveniences resulting from the canal monopoly. One of the most zealous advocates of the tram-road was Mr. Joseph Sandars, who took considerable pains to ascertain the results of the working of the coal lines in the North, both by horse and engine power, and he satisfied himself that either method would, if adopted between Liverpool and Manchester, afford the desired relief to the commercial and manufacturing interests. The subject was ventilated by him in the local papers, and in the course of the year 1821 Mr. Sandars succeeded in getting together a committee of Liverpool gentlemen for the purpose of farther considering the subject, and, if found practicable, of starting a company with the object of forming a tram-road between the two towns.