A Letter to the Kensington Canal Company on the Substitution of the Pneumatic Railway for the Common Railway by Which They Contemplate Extending Their Line of Conveyance

THE contemplated addition of a railway to your line of conveyance, induces me to solicit the honour of your attention to a method of effecting your object, which may, perhaps, prove the cheapest and best you can adopt.

From the statements of the gentlemen who gave explanations on the subject at the meeting, your object appears to be, to effect some method of communication between your basin at Kensington, and some point of the Grand Junction Canal, and the proposed London and Birmingham Railway, which may enable you, either to take advantage of the Grand Junction Canal as a channel to convey and receive goods to and from, or of the proposed railway to Birmingham; so that you may be able to convey passengers to and from that railway, and to and from the western parts of town, should it be put into operation.

Your present line being a water line, I should, were it not for the intervention of the high ground which is between your basin and the Grand Junction Canal, recommend the extension of this water line; because an additional expenditure of 900_l._ or 1000_l._, to provide a couple of the gigs by which passengers are now conveyed at the rate of ten or twelve miles an hour along the Paisley and Ardrossan Canal, would then enable you to carry any number of passengers to and from the Birmingham Railway considerably faster, and many times cheaper, than omnibuses, &c. &c. would convey them to and from the town end of that railway.

But as the numerous locks, which the height of that ground renders necessary, would occasion the loss of all the time which the newly-discovered method of rapid conveyance on canals might save, the extension of your present line appears to be incompatible with your object of rendering such extension adapted to the rapid conveyance of passengers, as well as goods at the usual rate.

This impediment is not, however, the only circumstance which would make me pause in recommending the extension of your canal. It is publicly stated that the estimated expense of extending your canal the two and a half miles you contemplated was 150,000_l._; while this would not be the sole expense attending it.

Owing to there being no water to supply the waste of the numerous locks which you must construct, to raise barges to the height you wish to surmount, you would have, in addition to extending your canal, to be also at the expense of laying down large water-pipes all along it; and of erecting steam-engines, and pumps, to raise up from the Thames, every drop of the water you would require to lower your barges down to it. The first cost of doing this would be very considerable: since, in addition to the steam-engines, pumps, and two and a half miles of large pipe which you must lay down, you must also be at the expense of purchasing ground at the end of your proposed extension, for the site of, and excavating the earth to form, a large reservoir, for the water to be pumped up into to supply the locks.

Great, however, as would be the first cost of thus providing water to work the proposed extension of your canal, yet would this first cost be less important than the current expenses of it; since for every barge that passed through your canal, you would have to pump above two hundred tons of water, nearly 100 feet high: than which, nothing can be conceived more contrary to principles of economy; it being tantamount to having to lift a whole hundred weight up, every time you extended your hand to put a quarter of a hundred weight down. Were it necessary that those two hundred tons of water should be pumped only when you raised a barge up with (or by means of) them, it would not be so vexatious.

But to be forced to pump two hundred tons up, in order to float the smallest load a barge carries {4a} down your canal, would be so contrary to all principles of economical conveyance, as well as costly, that it becomes unavoidable to seek for some other means of transmission.

That which first struck you as applicable to your object, was a rail-way; since, by means of it, passengers may be conveyed as well as goods; so that, should any circumstance connected with the London and Birmingham Railway ever render it desirable, you might, then, convey passengers along your line. But though this could certainly be done, yet would the attainment of that certainty be attended with an expense, which might prove greater than the value of the purchase.

The avoidance of ascents which are at all abrupt, is now stated to be of such consequence as relates to the diminution of the daily expenses of railways, and so important with respect to what locomotive engines can do upon them, that it is current as the dictum of the principal engineer of the London and Birmingham Railway, that it is better to lay down six miles of railway to avoid (by going round it) a rise of 174 feet in one mile (an ascent of about an inch in a yard, that is) than to carry one mile of railway over said rise. And the junior engineer to that railway stated before the Lords’ Committee, that for a locomotive engine to get over a rise of fifty feet in height, was “nearly equal to going four miles round.”

The fuel consumed being the principal item of expense in locomotive engines, and the price of fuel with you being nearly ten times greater than on the Liverpool and Manchester line, {4b} the attainment of the desideratum of as regular an ascent as can be procured, becomes, according to this doctrine, more important as relates to your line, than it would be where fuel was cheaper, in proportion to the dearness of that fuel. A regular plane of ascent may, therefore, be considered indispensable to the proper operation of any railway you might lay down

Were you to do the utmost that could be done towards obtaining this regular plane of ascent, between your proposed points of departure and arrival, by cutting and embanking so as to make your line one continuous inclined plane, it would still be so remote from a level, as to rise at the rate of one foot of perpendicular height for 154 feet of horizontal distance; which would make the power required to draw any load along your line nearly twice as great as that which would be requisite to draw the same load on a level; while it would also present a sharper rise than some railways where stationary engines are the only moving power employed, owing to locomotives being considered unfit for railways so inclined.

Supposing your line, which must have the same number of rails that the Birmingham Railroad is to have (two lines of way that is) to be no wider than that railway is to be in the narrowest part, the amount of embanking necessary to render your plane of ascent regular to this degree would not be so little as one million of cubic yards.

In the evidence before the Lords’ Committee on the London and Birmingham Railway it is stated, that on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway there are about three millions of cubic yards of cuttings and embankments. It being known that the money paid by that Company for this purpose has exceeded two hundred thousand pounds, it may be presumed that the expense of one third of that amount of cutting and embanking on your line would not be less than about 70,000_l._; while, as the nature of the ground your line must pass through, would render the proportion of embankments much greater than that of excavations, this amount of 70,000_l._ would be added to, by your being actually compelled to purchase the earth itself which would be required for those embankments, as well as to pay for the labour of digging and conveying it to where you wanted it.

Long lines of work being done for much less expense per mile than short ones; the London and Birmingham Railway being a very long line (112½ miles); the engineers of that railway having the very highest reputation as railway engineers; and the estimates laid before Parliament by those gentlemen for that railway, being the best authority it is possible to refer to as relates to the probable cost of a railway—I shall, for these reasons, and in order to prevent your supposing that my own opinion affects my statement, advert to the anticipated expense of that railway per mile as a measure of the cost of yours.

Deducting the estimated expense of cutting and embanking, from the general estimate of the London and Birmingham Railway, the average estimated expense of the other work of the two lines of way now proposed for that road (instead of the four lines of which it was to consist) is 20,631_l._ per mile. {5}

And as it is not evident why your short line should be done for less comparative expense than this long one (while it is to be presumed that it would cost much more), it may be assumed that the actual expense of attempting to make a railway, on which the tractive force required for any load would be nearly twice as great as on a level, along the line you propose, would not be so little as 100,000_l._

And, supposing that you should be willing to adopt the less favourable method of railway transmission—i.e. levels and steep inclined planes, with fixed engines on the summits—still might not expense be very greatly reduced?

The original estimate of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was 400,000_l._, about 12,000_l._ per mile that is; with respect to which the Quarterly Review for March 1825 says: “The estimate for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway we have understood to be taken at 12,000_l._ per mile. But that road is meant to be executed on a magnificent scale; to be sixty-six feet wide; {6} the rails to be laid down in the best possible manner; and the purchase of land at the extremities must be paid for at an enormous price. This estimate also includes the cost of engines, waggons, and warehouses.”

Most unwisely, however, as well as untruly, the advocates of railways attempt to deny, that the original estimate for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was so low as this, or that it included the “cost of engines, waggons, and warehouses;” in order to show that the actual cost of the railways now contemplated will not exceed their estimated expense, as the actual cost of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway has exceeded that estimate. For the facts of the case I appeal to the original prospectus of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, dated October 29, 1824; the 5th paragraph of which document is as follows:—

“The ground has been surveyed by eminent engineers, and the estimated expense of a railroad upon the most improved construction, including the charge for locomotive engines to be employed upon the line, and other contingencies, is 400,000_l._ which sum it is proposed to raise in 4000 shares of 100_l._ each.”

It cannot, therefore, but be contrary to good sense as well as fact, for the advocates of railways to attempt to deny evidence of this nature.

The first line of the credit side of the account given in to the Lords’ Committee on the proposed London and Birmingham Railway, by the Treasurer of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, on the 24th June last, stands thus: “By amount expended (up to the 31st December, 1831) in completion of the ways and works, 992,054_l._ 3_s._ 6_d._”: while the same document says, “By the additional number of locomotive engines and carriages that will be required for the increased number of departures, and especially by the outlay of capital for the construction of the new tunnel, and the unavoidable cost of warming, lighting, and working the same, the Company will incur an increased annual expenditure, which will be very inadequately compensated by the saving of the charge for omnibuses.” Now, as exclusive of this “additional number of locomotive engines and carriages that will be required,” the expense of making this tunnel is estimated at 130,000_l._—while, if the degree to which the actual cost of the railway itself exceeded its estimated expense, be taken as a rule, the actual cost of this tunnel may be nearer 400,000_l._ than 130,000_l._—and, as the following extract from the pamphlet entitled “Remarks on the Birmingham and London Railroad, by Investigator,” shews that an important item has been omitted, the whole expense of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, up to the 31st December, 1831, will, it appears, exceed 1,200,000_l._ which is above 40,000_l._ per mile.