Part 9

Were a method of conveyance in operation, by which the inhabitants of the west end of Kensington, of Earl’s Court, of North End, of Walham Green, of Brook Green, of Hammersmith, of Turnham Green, of Chiswick, &c. &c. could be carried (more safely than by coaches) from your basin to Hyde Park Corner in two or three minutes, instead of the twenty minutes or nearly half an hour which it now takes to get over that ground, they would so prefer your method of conveyance, as to render the additional outlay required for said two extra miles of tunnel, the most remunerating portion of your whole line; while, in addition to enabling you thus to convey passengers, said branch would enable you also to deliver coals, and other goods at Hyde Park Corner from your canal, for an expense of less than a penny per ton carriage from your canal thither; so that you would rival the Grosvenor Canal, and add importantly to the tonnage trade of your own canal by it.

Should the Birmingham and Bristol Railways be completed, this branch would also enable you to convey goods, as well as passengers, to and from them, and to and from the western parts of town, more cheaply than could any how else be done; an accommodation which laying down your railway could not give. And as I _could_ so construct these two extra miles of tunnel, as to render their cost—the cost of the tunnel itself, i.e.—not more than about five thousand pounds per mile, the expense of this branch would not prove any ruinous addition to your contemplated outlay.

Therefore, for these reasons, I recommend you to prevent its being necessary that people should pay omnibus (or other) proprietors, to carry them from Hyde Park Corner to your basin at Kensington, in order that you may _then_ convey them to the Birmingham (or Bristol) Railway, by extending your line towards Hyde Park Corner, in the manner I have pointed out.

Your case, brought into a focus, is as follows. You have expended a large sum in opening a line of conveyance which, owing to its not being carried far enough at first, does not combine all the advantages your situation admits of. You are, naturally, desirous that it should do this. If you open a communication for goods with the Grand Junction Canal, by extending your own canal, you will do this in degree. You have, therefore, for some years, contemplated carrying your canal up the height between your basin and the Grand Junction Canal. But the enormous expense of this has prevented you from doing it.

Being now informed that your object may be better effected by a railway, you entertain that idea; and as, were you to lay a railway down, passengers, as well as goods, might be conveyed by it, you are desirous of, if possible, bringing the “passenger trade,” between the Birmingham Railway and the west end of London, to your line.

Owing, however, to the distance of your line from the west end of Town; and to the Edgeware Road, offering a shorter and cheaper communication from the Birmingham Railway to that part of the metropolis, your laying down a railway, will, for the reasons I have pointed out, certainly prove a losing speculation.

As the method I propose would be most importantly cheaper than a railway, in point of first cost, and still more importantly cheaper in point of current expenses, I venture to offer it to your notice. And as it would obviate the objection which your distance from Hyde Park Corner would occasion, supposing you were to have a railway, I presume to recommend it to your consideration, as more worthy notice than any thing else you can have laid before you; for the reasons, that it will, in the first place, be much cheaper in point of first cost than any other method of conveyance you can lay down: second, because it will be still more economical in point of current expenses: third, because, in addition to being incomparably safer, as relates to life and limb, than any other method of conveyance, it will be so much more expeditious as to render your circuitous route quicker, _in point of time_, than the shorter route by the Edgeware Road, as well as cheaper, in point of charge: and, fourth, because it will be productive of an important profit, additional to, and exclusive of, what a railway will bring in; and which will return no inconsiderable proportion of what it costs to lay it down.

Were the statements I have given relative to the cost and expenses of a railway, from my own estimates only, they might be doubted by you. In order, however, to avoid this, I have been careful to quote only the “evidence,” which was laid before Parliament, and other documents; which leave no doubt that the first cost and current expenses will be, at least, _equal_ to what I have stated, though they by no means prove that they will not be _more_.

Indeed, it appears susceptible of proof that they will be more. Mr. Grahame, in his “Letter to the Traders and Carriers on the Navigations, connecting Liverpool and Manchester,” relative to that railway, says, “I pledge myself, however, to prove (in case the fact be denied by the Directors) that the aggregate expenditure of the half year, ending on the 31st December, 1832, bears a higher proportion to the income of that period than the expenses of _any_ preceding half-year bear to the income of the same.”

Mr. Graham also says, “The Railway Corporation keep two separate accounts of expenditure, “_ordinary_” and “_extraordinary_.” The “ordinary expenditure” is paid from the annual returns received from working the railway; and the “extraordinary” is paid by borrowing money, or a creation and sale of shares; which is termed “adding to the capital account.” The ordinary expenditure, only, affects the dividend; and it is the interest of every one concerned to make _that_ expenditure appear as low as possible; and, whenever the outlays are commingled, or doubtful, to throw the burden on the obnoxious shoulder. This “extraordinary outlay,” or, as it is termed, “outlay on the railway and works,” or “Capital Account,” has been as great since the railway was opened, as during the period when it was forming. The amount thus laid out in the first fifteen months after the opening of the railway, amounted to nearly 200,000_l._ The outlay on this account in 1832 is not stated; but the interest on borrowed money paid in that year, is given as 10,522_l._ 10_s._ 6_d._, while the interest paid in 1831 was only 5647_l._ 7_s._ 6_d._”

Railway advocates may dispute this; but _that_ I shall not heed. Should they, however, _disprove_ it, I shall not be able to deny that I am liable to the censure due to him who investigates in the spirit of a partisan, rather than in that of a candid examinant.

It may be objected, in answer to the advantages which I have stated would result from your substituting this Pneumatic Railway for the common railway you contemplate, that you have never heard of it before, except in the way of ridicule and contempt; while not only have the engineers of the day condemned it, but also do even some of yourselves entertain doubts as to the sanity of the man who can propose such a thing to you.

In allusion to objectors of this latter description, the M. D. who did me the honour to propose the first Resolution at the “Town Meeting” at Brighton, said, in the course of his speech on the occasion, that “Mr. Vallance had had to contend with the greatest difficulties; such as were enough to appal any man: he had been derided and ridiculed: his system had been treated as visionary, theoretical, and fantastic: he had been called a wild projector—nay, some had even gone so far as to say that he was mad. If so, he (Dr. Yates) must say, with Polonius, ‘there was method in his madness.’ And to such insinuations he (Dr. Y.) would reply, in the words of Hamlet, there was that which ‘sense and sanity scarce could be delivered of.’”

With my defence against insinuations of this kind thus provided, I may turn to the more serious objections of the engineers whom you may consult: who, I am well aware, will treat the proposition only as Brindsley’s proposal to carry the canal over the Irwell was treated by the engineers of his day.

Were this any thing new, I might feel it. But when we have it on record that the professed engineers of the period have done the same by _every_ proposition that has been brought forward, until its being established by others, caused them to see that money might be made by imitating, instead of continuing to decry the inventor, their exclamations of “impossible,” “absurd,” and “madness to think of,” may well be disregarded.

Had Telford, or Stevenson, or Rennie, or Brunel, or any other first-rate man, originated the proposition, then, indeed, they might have had some faith in it! But for an unknown nobody to do such a thing, is of itself enough to prove that it _cannot_ be worth attention.

To these gentlemen I reply, by asking them—to whom are we indebted for the steam-engine in its application to steam-vessels, and locomotive purposes, as well as a first mover for machinery? Savary, its first inventor, was a miner. Newcomen and Beighton, its first improvers, were, one of them a country blacksmith, and the other a plumber, while its grand improver, the great Watt, was a mathematical-instrument maker. To whom are we indebted for our canals—for our nationally-important cotton machinery—for the public application of the gas-light principle—for the system of railway transmission—for the hydrostatic press—and the other manifold improvements, which have raised us to the station we fill? Is it to men, who, at the periods when these improvements were first devised, were of high name, and established reputation as civil engineers? Hear what one whose situation enabled him to decide, says on the subject:—

“What has been the means of raising our native country to that eminence in civilization which renders her the admiration of the world? Her improvements in the arts and sciences.

“From whom have those improvements chiefly sprung? From men who have emerged from the humbler walks of life.

“What was Sir Richard Arkwright; a man to whose genius this country is indebted for very much of its commercial prosperity; to whose improvements in the machinery for spinning cotton, we are indebted for being enabled to keep the cotton trade chiefly confined to ourselves. What, I say, was the great Arkwright? A barber. Yet do we owe our proud superiority in this department of our national greatness to the unassisted efforts of Dick the barber.

“Who was Ferguson? A simple peasant; a man, who, wrapped in his plaid, passed the winter nights on the ground in contemplating the heavens; and who, by arranging his string of beads on the cold heath, at length completed a map of the stars, and raised himself to the knowledge of our late sovereign.

“Who was Dr. Herschel, the discoverer of so many important astronomical facts? A boy who played the pipe and tabor in a foreign regimental band. Who was the great Watt? A mathematical instrument maker.

“Who was Smeaton, the builder of the Eddystone lighthouse, and the first engineer of his day? An attorney.

“Who was the great Brindsley, whose canals have given such an accession of power to our commerce, by the facilities of internal communication? A country millwright.

“Nicholson was a cabin boy: and Ramadge, the best maker of reflecting telescopes in the world, was a cutler.”

In continuation of this list of “nobodies,” to whom we owe so much of our national greatness, I ask, to whom are we indebted for the very inventions which the engineers of the present day claim as their own, with justice equal to that wherewith the organ-_blower_ considered the tones of the instrument _his_?

Railways have been in use among us for a century and a half; and, notwithstanding that those of this remote date, were no more comparable with those of the present day, than the matchlocks of the same period are with a modern gun, the _principle_ was equally developed in the one case as in the other. Yet is there no engineer who can claim the credit of having said “As this principle admits of most important benefits being conferred on society, provided it be worked out, and carried to the perfection it admits of, I will devote myself to such working out and perfecting.”

Locomotive engines have been seen among us for these thirty years. Yet did the engineers of the day no more perceive and seize _their_ advantages than they did those of railways. But, after the perception and talent of various persons, who were in business had, for the purpose of adapting them to the necessities of their different trades, so improved railways and locomotive engines, as to have rendered the latter capable of running _regularly_ upon the former, at rates of from five to eleven miles an hour, forth came our engineers, and, claiming both inventions as their own, set themselves up as having enlarged the boundaries of science, enabled man to outstrip the fleetest animals, and almost to vie with the winds!

And, last of all, I ask, to whom are we indebted for the latest important discovery, by which unprofessional perception has shewn, that what _every_ engineer of the present day had pronounced to be, not only a mathematically-demonstrated, but also a _practically_-proved “impossibility,” is as perfectly, and as easily practicable, as it was for Columbus to make the egg stand on its end.

We have nearly 3000 miles of canals in the island; the draught on which being twenty times easier than on common roads, and the “wear and tear” equally less, it has, ever since they were first cut, been an important object to render the rate of conveyance along them rapid enough to induce persons to travel from place to place _on_ them, as well as to send their goods by them.

This became more particularly important, when, in consequence of the rapidity attained on railways, it was found that they could combine the conveyance of passengers with that of goods; and I do not hesitate to say, that any engineer, who had, in 1825, informed the Canal interest that he had discovered a method by which conveyance could be effected on canals at the same rate as by mail-coaches, or post-chaises on turn pike-roads, and for one-tenth of their expense of draught, might have made terms with them for the adoption of this method, which should have brought him in above 100,000_l._ sterling.

But, so far from the engineers of the day informing the canal interest that they could do any thing for them in this case, they universally preached despair with respect to it; satisfying them, by mathematical demonstration, that, owing to the resistance of fluids to bodies moving through them, increasing according to the square of the velocity, rapidity of transmission along canals was no more possible than for a coal-barge to beat to windward like a cutter.

It is true they admitted that the steam-engine gave them power enough to more vessels on canals as rapidly as steamers move on rivers. But, they said, owing to the surge which it was _unavoidable_ such rapid motion _must_ create, the banks of the canals would be so soon washed down, that it was impossible to avoid ruining the canals, if rapid conveyance were attempted on them. Therefore, though steam has been in use as a moving power on our rivers for above these twenty years, it has never yet been employed for a similar purpose on our canals, except in the way of experiment.

In consequence of these things, they could do nothing to meet the wishes of the canal interest: and, in the evidence on the Birmingham Railway, before the Lords’ Committees, on the 29th June, 1832, it is stated, in answer to an inquiry as to what was the quickest kind of canal communication between London and Birmingham, that “The fly boats go by the shortest route, and they are three days and three nights on the road.” Now as this “shortest route” is 152½ miles, it appears that the quickest rate of canal conveyance by “fly boats” was less than 2⅛th miles an hour; while in answer to the question, “What time is occupied by the slow boats?” it is replied, “About six or seven days: they seldom travel at night.”

In this state of despair on the part of the canal interest, and amid this chorus of “impossible,” on the part of the whole of the engineers of the present day, a private gentleman (William Houston, Esq. of Johnstone Castle) became impressed with the opinion that, equally as we can, by giving it rapid motion, cause a flat stone to skim over the surface of the water (as boys do, when playing at what they call “making ducks and drakes”) so might we, by giving rapid motion to a properly constructed boat an a canal, cause it, not only to skim _over_ the water, so as to avoid raising the wave which the engineers had pronounced equally unavoidable as it would be fatal to the banks of canals, but also much more easily than boats can be drawn _through_ the water.

On putting this thought into practice, Mr. Houston found the result to be what he had anticipated; and the consequence is, that it is now established by actual and _daily_ practice on the Paisley and Ardrossan Canal, that boats which carry more passengers than (on an average) the locomotive engines, of twenty and thirty horse power each, draw on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, at rates of from 15 to 20 miles an hour, {62} are drawn from Johnstone to Glasgow at the rate of ten miles an how by _two_ horses only; while a velocity so high as 15 miles an hour has been attained: “and this speed was not limited by _the labour of the draught_, but by _the power of speed_ of the horses.”

In other words, that which the whole of the engineers of the present day had pronounced and _demonstrated_ to be utterly impossible, is now constantly done, several times every day, as a regular passenger-carrying business, on the Paisley and Ardrossan Canal.

And, although the charges for this rate of conveyance are “just one-half, and one-third, of the fares in the Liverpool Railway coaches, the profits are such, as to have induced the proprietors to quadruple the number of boats on the canal;” while the passengers, instead of being boxed up as in the railway coaches, and exposed to the weather, as in the railway “second class carriages,” may either take exercise on the decks, or seat themselves in the long cabins of these passenger-boats.

As this method of rapid canal conveyance is becoming generally adopted, this simple idea of a private gentleman, has not only put to shame the whole of the engineering talent of the present day, but has also possessed the kingdom of nearly 3000 miles of liquid way, which, as if by the stroke of a wand, are raised from the low value of heavy, miry, cross country roads, on which no greater velocity than that of a carrier’s waggon could be attained, to the high value, not merely of the best turnpike-roads, on which the conveyance of persons, at mail-coach and post-chaise rates, can be effected, but also of routes on which two horses can (and daily do) draw one hundred people as fast and (I understand) _more_ easily than four draw sixteen persons on our best mail-coach roads, with less than one-twentieth the wear and tear to the vehicles than takes place as to coaches on roads: on advantage, the money value of which will be inadequately expressed by saying, that as it would cost above thirty thousand pounds per mile to give us roads on which the same power could do the same work, with the same small expense of wear, tear, and current expenses, the simple thought of a private gentleman, whom the engineers of the day would have pronounced a “nobody” in point of scientific authority, has possessed the nation of what it would have cost above one hundred millions sterling to purchase, had said engineers been employed to procure an equal amount of roads, of equally easy draught, and little “wear and tear” for us.

Yet are these gentlemen looked up to as infallible; and allowed to fulminate their anathemas with respect to what they please to pronounce “impossible” as if they were omniscient.

The actual charges the passenger-boats, which now run daily (at the rate of ten miles an hour) between Johnstone and Glasgow, are, one penny per head per mile in the first cabin, and three farthings per head per mile in the second cabin.

How much less these charges are than turnpike-road fares, need not be pointed out: my object being to submit, that equally as our canals having for these three-quarters of a century remained only routes for goods at carriers’-waggon rates, when they might, all along, have been routes for passengers at the highest rates whereat it is possible for horses to go, proves that the engineers of the day knew nothing whatever of a subject which they professed _fully and entirely_ to understand—so may they be equally ignorant of the merits of the proposition which they have so ridiculed and condemned me for presuming to bring forward; and which is, as exactly what _they_ term it, as they _demonstrated_ it to be “impossible” to be conveyed at mail-coach and posting-rates along canals.

Now, great as is the honour due to the engineers of the present day, for thus permitting the accidental thought of a private gentleman to possess the nation (as it were by the stroke of a wand) of 3000 miles of liquid way, over which conveyance may take place at rates of from 10 to 15 miles an hour, for one-tenth the expense, and less than one-tenth of the wear and tear that takes place on roads, after they had _demonstrated_ that no greater rate than two or three miles an hour could be attained on said routes; and, greatly as the canal interest must be indebted to them, for suffering them (the canal interest), in consequence of said _demonstration_, to lose the millions upon millions they might have received of the public, for conveyance at these rates of 10 or 15 miles an hour, during the three-quarters of a century canals have been in operation among us—equally as the engineers _thus_ deserve public gratitude, do they also deserve it for the manner in which they have suffered the law of motion, by means of which the stage-coachman “swings” his vehicle up the first part of a hill, to remain useless with respect to that improvement of our turnpike-roads which it admits of; and which, though not equal in money-value to the “idea” of Mr. Houston, which has just been described, is yet highly important.

The law itself is “old as the hills;” and, notwithstanding that the advantage taken of it by stage-coachmen when coming to the bottom of a rise, is not _quite_ of such long standing, yet is it old enough to have pointed out an advantageous alteration in the arrangement of all our turnpike roads, had the engineers under whose direction said roads were laid out, but availed themselves of it.

By the table given on page 33 it appears, that if a vehicle be moving on a level with a velocity of 2¾ miles an hour, its momentum will (under the circumstances there stated) carry it up a rise to three inches of perpendicular height: while, if the rate of motion be twice, and four times 2¾ miles an hour—i.e. 5½ and 11 miles—the momentum will carry it up heights of one foot and four feet respectively: and the following table gives the altitudes due to every intermediate mile of rate: