A horse for every mile of road was the allowance made by the best
coachmasters on the great routes. On the corresponding portions of the
railway system the great companies have put a locomotive engine per mile.
If a horse earned a hundred guineas a year, out of which his cost had to
be defrayed, he did well. A single locomotive on the Great Northern
Railway (and that company has 611 engines for 659 miles of line) was
stated by John Robinson, in 1873, to perform the work of 678 horses—work,
that is, as measured by resistance overcome; for the horses, whatever
their number, could not have reached the speed of fifty miles an hour, at
which the engines in questions whirled along a train of sixteen
carriages, weighing in all 225 tons. There are now upwards of 13,000
locomotives at work in the United Kingdom, each of them earning on the
average, £4,750 per annum. But we have at the same time more horses
employed for the conveyance of passengers than we had in 1835. In
omnibus and station work—waiting upon the steam horse—there is more
demand for horseflesh than was made by our entire coaching system in
1835.