The average cost of the locomotive engines and tenders, which, for the rails between London and Birmingham, are usually purchased by the Company from makers at Manchester, Warrington, and Liverpool, is—
| Cylinder | 15 | -inch diameter | £1,950 | 0 | 0 |
| „ | 16 | „ | 2,113 | 10 | 0 |
| „ | 18 | „ | 2,500 | 0 | 0 |
The tenders cost 500l. each.
CHAPTER VIII.
Goods Department.
The duties of this department, which forms one of the most important establishments at Camden Station, may very briefly be elucidated. It appears from returns lying before us, that during the six months ending the 26th of August last there entered and departed from Camden Station alone 73,732 railway waggon-loads of goods! Now in the annals of political economy there can perhaps scarcely exist a more striking exemplification of the extraordinary extent to which the latent resources of a great country may be developed by diminishing the friction, or, without metaphor, by lowering the tolls of its goods-traffic, than the fact that, notwithstanding the enormous amount thus conveyed along the London and North Western rails, the quantity carried along the Grand Junction Canal, which meanders alongside its powerful antagonist, instead of having been drained, as might have been expected, to zero, has, from the opening of the railway in 1836 up to the present period, actually increased as follows:—
| Tons. | |
| Average amount of goods annually moved on the Grand Junction Canal during the three years prior to the opening of the London and Birmingham Railway in 1836 | 756,894 |
| Average amount of ditto annually moved during the twelve years subsequent to 1836 | 1,039,333 |
| Amount moved in 1847 | 1,163,466 |
Besides the innumerable arrangements necessary for the conveyance along their rails of the number of waggon-loads of goods we have stated, the Company undertake the vexatious and intricate business of collecting and delivering these goods from and to all parts of London, as also throughout the various towns on their line, excepting Liverpool, where the collection and delivery of goods is otherwise arranged. The number of letters on business received by the branch of this department at Camden Station only, averages 300 per day.
For the collection, loading, unloading, and delivery of a certain portion of the merchandise conveyed by the Company on their rails, the Board of Directors have, we think with great prudence, availed themselves of the practical knowledge and experience of Messrs. Pickford and of Messrs. Chaplin and Horne, whom they have engaged as their agents at Camden Station—the Company’s superintendent there marshalling and despatching all luggage-trains, arranging the signals, and making out the weigh-bills, &c. The undertaking is one of enormous magnitude; for besides immense cargoes of goods in large packages, an inconceivable number of small parcels are sent from Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Sheffield, &c. to numberless little retail shopkeepers in London, who are constantly requiring, say a few saucepans, kettles, cutlery, &c.; and when it is considered that for the collection, conveyance, and delivery of most of these light parcels 1s. only is charged, and, moreover, that for the conveyance of a small parcel by the Company’s goods-trains from say Watford to Camden Station, to be there unloaded into store, thence reloaded into and transported by a spring waggon to almost any street and house in London, or to the terminus of any railway-station to which it may be addressed, the charge is only 6d., it is evident that a great deal of attention and skill are necessary to squeeze a profit from charges which competition has reduced to so low a figure.
At, and for some time after, the commencement of railway traffic, it was considered dangerous to convey goods by night. They are now, however, despatched from Birmingham at 8·45 P.M., to arrive at Camden Station at 3½ in the morning. Goods from London are despatched at 9 in the evening, at midnight, at 12½, at ¼ before 1, at 3, and at 5 in the morning. In the day they are despatched at 12·40, at 1·15, at 2·6, and at 6½; and such regularity is attained, that packs of cotton, linen, and woollen goods from Manchester are usually delivered in London almost with the regularity of letters. An immense quantity of fish from Billingsgate, and occasionally as much as 20 tons of fruit from Covent Garden market, are injected into the country by the midday train: indeed the London wholesale dealers in these articles do not now fear receiving too great a supply, as, whatever may be their surplus, the railway is ready to carry it off to the manufacturing districts—Manchester alone swallowing almost any quantity; besides which, large quantities of fruit are conveyed by rail as far as Glasgow. Many tons of meat in hampers, and oftentimes a flock of a hundred dead sheep, wrapped up only in cloths, are also despatched from the country to the London market.