RAILWAY ECONOMY.
Sin—Supposing that at some future time the Legislature should determine that it is impracticable to run fast trains on lines clogged with frequent slow trains, with any regard to human safety, the Companies will have to determine to which class they will belong, the fast or the slow; or whether they will take to the other alternative of being both fast and slow, by dupli- cating their lines of rails. This other alternative is easy to state in words, but presents many difficulties in practice. First, The land has to be purchased, and that has already acquired a con- siderably increased value by the fact of the railway passing by it. Secondly, The whole of the railway buildings, and wharves, stations, along the line, as well as private buildings, would have to be removed, unless the two new lines be made to pass in their rear, leaving the stations like is- lands, with bridges to communicate over the external lines. Thirdly, The whole of the tunnels, bridges, and viaducts, must be dupli- cated or widened, the level crossings rendered more dangerous, and the over- bridges lengthened. The existing lines must be the middle or passenger lines; the new or ex- ternal lines the goods lines. This arrangement is absolutely needful for space; and it leaves the present lines with all their disadvantages of want of sufficient space for passenger vehicles. In short, to duplicate the lines would be in cost similar to the process of making railways through towns. And after all, it would be an imperfect makeshift, interfering greatly with local traffic.
Nor would four tracks of rail side by side so well subserve the public want of opening up the whole country as would tracks in pairs made with a con- siderable interval of distance between them.
The existing lines have for the most part been made under considerable disadvantages. They have paid black mail for land, law, and legislation, and in numerous other ways not necessary to specify. It is a trite remark that the value of a thing is what it will bring in the market. Judging thus, our lines of railway have cost from one-half to one-third more than they are worth. Improvements have made materials cheap ; and if labour has risen in value, the amount of it has been much economized by many pro- cesses. If new lines can be divested of their extraneous sources of cost, the capital invested in them may be considerably lessened. But will new pas- senger lines be desired at the highest practicable rates of speed ? 'Will capitalists be found to make them, and passengers be found to use them ? To the capitalist it is simply a question of cost and profit. To the pas- senger a question between cost of time and cost of money.. To pay the capitalist, the passengers must be sufficiently numerous or suf- ficiently wealthy.
Between London and Birmingham, they are both numerous and wealthy, with a distance, as the crow flies, of little more than 100 miles. Between London and Liverpool, they are wealthy and sufficiently nu- merous, with a distance of 180 miles. Between London and Chester, as the highway to Ireland, they are wealthy if not numerous, and the distance is 170 miles. Between London and Manchester, they are both wealthy and numerous, and the distance is 160 miles.
Between London and Glasgow, they are wealthy if not numerous, and the distance is 350 miles.
Examples exist of English railways made prior to the year 1840 with double lines of rail, through populous districts, not exceeding 26,000/. per mile run, with a station every two miles, two bridges per mile, of brick, stone, or iron, and expensive workshops, tools, and warehouses. Out of this sum, 15,380/. was expended on earth-works, bridges, land, warehouses, and law and Parliamentary expenses. Now, supposing light trains working on gradients, say similar to the Brighton line,—land at its agricultural value, earth-works and other works moderate, law and Parliamentary expenses at a minimum, the stations of the simplest kind, and the carriages and engines light and adapted for speed,— there is little doubt that a double line could be made at the cost of about 15,000/. per mile, or 1,500,000/. for one hundred miles, on which trains might run without risk at fifty miles per hour. On this cost 75,000/. per annum would pay interest, and 35,0001. the working expenses. Four express-trains per diem each way, with ninety passengers each at 1/. per head, or about lid. per mile for two hundred miles going and returning, would pay this. But inasmuch as light trains might start every half or quarter of an hour, and the cost of the train for the two hundred miles would not exceed 151., eight trains per diem, with ninety passengers each, at ten shillings per head, or less than three-farthings per mile, would pay equally well. But eight trains per diem would be only one every hour and a hall; so that the inter- vals would serve for stopping trains. Inflexible rails and light engines and vehicles would minimize the amount of steam power required, and materially reduce it as compared with the pre- sent demand, while risk and maintenance would almost disappear. Light trains would be easily started and easily stopped. The gauge might be in- creased to the desired width ; the carriages might have their retarding Power minimized ; arrangements might be made for the gregarious as well as the exclusive passenger, and provision for the passage of the guard through the whole interior to communicate with the driver. Moreover, in addition to efficient ventilation, the carriages might be thoroughly warmed in the winter, by plans more efficient than those used on the Continent. These accommodations are supposed with a view to a distance similar to that between London and Birmingham, in which to and fro might be ac- complished twice a day if required. Liverpool or Chester would be a dis- tance for going and returning in the same day, leaving four hours interval for business. Trains on such lines might conveniently furnish breakfast, lunch, or an evening meal, with other requisites; and the unwholesome practice of shovelling hot liquids and unmasticated food down the throat might be avoided. Glasgow might thus be conveniently reached in eight hours.
The proprietors of existing lines would object to any such arrangements as an unjust interference with what they are apt to regard as a vested right virtually conceded to them by Parliament, and they would bestir them- selves and waste money in useless opposition. The Eastern Counties and North-western opposed the Great Northern, and forced them to expend 600,000/. in getting Parliamentary permission to make a lie at what expense to themselves few probably know ; and possibly all three would join to pre- vent a direct line from connecting London, Nottingham, and Sheffield. The proprietors or directors would consider that any new passenger line would be robbing them of their legitimate profits ; yet in truth the proprietors of Strand omnibuses might as reasonably complain of Holborn for taking away their legitimate profits. The railways must eventually be of two kinds—those directly connecting distant towns and cities, and those supplying local wants. There wants little evidence to show that the long lines cannot possibly be so profitable, directly and indirectly, as the local lines; yet it is worthy of remark, that Parliamentary struggles have mostly been an apparent desire for distant passengers. The fast line rely be made to pay quite a sufficient dividend, but it will not afford the outlay of money in machinery that local lines effi- ciently developed could afford. The existing business lines forming portions of long lines with express- trains are not developed locally. The local traffic is sacrificed in order to prevent accidents or retardations with the through trains. It is within a twelvemonth's memory that the only practicable way into London by rail from Birmingham, was over the London and North-western line, the old "London and Birmingham," which once paid nine per cent dividend, and now pays five. When the Great Western, incessantly active under the cleverest if not the wisest of railway management, at last picked a hole in the exclusive privilege, it was deemed essential to tempt the public with speed—to run to Birmingham in two hours, with a new and improved class of engines, to heat the Great Western in time and distance. This kind of rivalry if persevered in would preclude all paying local traffic. The Great Western, with its comparatively small goods traffic, can accomplish what the North-western cannot even by a sacrifice, while the Great Western has no sacrifice to make. Now, supposing this illusory imagination of flying train treasure to be "conjured into the Red Sea," what are the real elements to develop a thorough local traffic ?
First, To lower all expenses in working. Secondly, To have none but efficient and well-paid servants. Thirdly, To keep &mu the rate of charges to a very moderate di- vidend.
Fourthly, To make it a fixed rule to take no advantage of the public or of individuals, whatever may be the apparent means of squeezing the public ; because an injustice will rankle, and means will, sooner or later, be found to overpower it, without causing it to be for- gotten.
The object to aim at is to convert the railway as far as possible to the con- dition of a street, or a very populous road of farms and factories and dwell- ings, along n hich the occupants may freely circulate by ordinary convey- ances, or by the rail at moderate speeds; to which rail they may carry their persons or goods in large or small numbers at every station, instead of gathering them in huge heaps at depots. In front of the buildings should be the road, and in a parallel line with the road the double line of railway. This arrangement would make people independent of the rail if the prices were too high. Along the road would lie the lines of water-pipe, gas-pipe, and sewage-pipe ; the factory would work into the farm and the farm into the factory, and the railway would simply be the connecting link.
We have no railways yet that fulfil these conditions ; but when the spirit of mere stage-coach rivalry shall subside, the proprietors of almost the whole of the existing lines, and many parallel ones yet to make, will perceive that' their true interest lies in this direction. And it would be a wise policy on the part of the State to leave it to the discretion of shareholders to pur- chase land along their own borders for the purpose of speculative improve- ment ; laying out whole districts upon an economic and rational system, instead of leaving huge tracts with only here and there the isolated efforta of individuals of insufficient means.
In the essential condition to population of abundant water-supply along the line, the railways would find a material diminution of their own ex- penditure by watering their lines, as is done on highways ; not merely for the sake of passengers, but for the purpose of keeping the material of the road in that condition, neither wet nor dry, which is most conducive to its solidity. The clouds of dust which choke passengers on a railway in dry weather are raised at a heavy expense to the shareholders. If their eyes be opened, so far from viewing the division of lines into "fast and slow," and the creation of fast passenger-lines, as an infringement of their revenue, shareholders would behold in such a system the commence- ment of a new Dere of extinguished rivalry and certain dividends, as certain as those of the canals of the olden time, when the possession of water-courses was the practical monopoly of heavy transit.
In speaking of the damage done to lines by " express " trains, there may arise a misunderstanding. The damage is done by heavy badly-constructed trains, and the greater the speed the more the damage. But a so-called "express" may chance to do less damage than a stopping train, by being lighter, and because, not losing time in stoppages, it may travel less fast through the whole distance. A heavy stopping train does immense damage by the breaks and sledging along the rails; and to make up for lost time it travels frequently faster between stations than the express.
With regard to the connexion of agriculture with railways, there is yet much to work out. I will in a future letter endeavour to indicate some of the more important points.
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