The next branch of the transit by land appertains to the conveyance of
persons and goods per rail. The railways of the United Kingdom open,
in course of construction, or authorised to be constructed, extend
over upwards of 12,000 miles, or four times the distance across the
Atlantic. The following is the latest return on the subject, in a
Report printed by order of the House of Commons, the 22nd of March
last:--
| | |Persons
|Miles. |Chains. |employed.
| | |
Total length of railway open on June 30, 1849, | | |
and persons employed thereon | 5447 |10-3/4 | 55,968
| | |
Total length of railway in course of construction | | |
on June 30, 1849, and persons employed thereon | 1504 |20-1/2 }|
| | }| 103,846
| | }|
Total length of railway neither open nor in | | }|
course of construction on June 30, 1849 | 5132 |38-3/4 }|
| | |
Total length of railway authorised to be used for |------ |------ | -------
the conveyance of passengers on June 30, 1849, | | |
and the total number of persons employed thereon|12,083 |70 | 159,784
There are now upwards of 6000 miles of railroad open for traffic in
the three kingdoms, 549 miles having been opened in the course of the
half-year following the date of the above return. At that date 111
miles of railroad were open for traffic, irrespective of their several
branches. 266 railways, including branches, were authorised to be
constructed, but had not been commenced.
The growth of railways was slow, and not gradual. They were unknown
as modes of public conveyance before the present century, but roads
on a similar principle, irrespective of steam, were in use in the
Northumberland and Durham collieries, somewhere about the year 1700.
The rails were not made of iron but of wood, and, with a facility
previously unknown, a small cart, or a series of small carts, was
dragged along them by a pony or a horse, to any given point where
the coal had to be deposited. In the lead mines of the North Riding
of Yorkshire the same system was adopted, the more rapidly and with
the less fatigue, to convey the ore to the mouth of the mine. Some of
these “tramways,” as they are called, were and are a mile and more in
length; and visitors who penetrate into the very bowels of the mine are
conveyed along those tramways in carts, drawn generally by a pony, and
driven by a boy (who has to duck his head every here and there to avoid
collision) into the galleries and open spaces where the miners are at
work.
In the year 1801, the first Act of Parliament authorising the
construction of a railway was passed. This was the Surrey, between
Wandsworth and Croydon, nine miles in length, and constructed at a
cost, in round numbers, of 60,000_l._ In the following twenty years,
sixteen such Acts were passed, authorising the construction of 124-3/4
miles of railway, the cost of which was 971,232_l._, or upwards of
7500_l._ a-mile. In 1822 no such Act was passed. In 1823, Parliament
authorised the construction of the Stockton and Darlington; and on that
short railway, originated and completed in a great measure through the
exertions of the wealthy Quakers of the neighbourhood, and opened on
the 27th of December, 1825, steam-power was first used as a means of
propulsion and locomotion on a railway. It was some little time before
this that grave senators and learned journalists laughed to scorn Mr.
Stephenson’s assertion, that steam “could be made to do twenty miles
an hour on a railway.” In the following ten years, thirty railway
bills were passed by the legislature; and among these, in 1826, was
the Liverpool and Manchester, which was opened on the 16th September,
1830--an opening rendered as lamentable as it is memorable by the
death of Mr. Huskisson. In 1834, seven railway bills were passed;
ten in 1835; twenty-six in 1836; eleven in 1837; one in 1838; three
in 1839; none again till 1843, and then only one--the Northampton
and Peterborough, which extends along 44-1/2 miles, and which cost
429,409_l._ The mass of the other railways have been constructed, or
authorised, and the Acts of Parliament authorising their construction
shelved, since the close of 1843. I find no official returns of the
dates of the several enactments.
The following statement, in averages of four years, shows the amount
of the sums which Parliament authorised the various companies to raise
from 1822 to 1845. Upwards of one-half of the amount of the aggregate
sum expended in 1822-6 was spent on the Manchester and Liverpool
Railway, 1,832,375_l._ The cost of the Stockton and Darlington,
(450,000_l._), is also included:
From 1822 to 1825 inclusive £451,465
„ 1826 „ 1829 „ 816,846
„ 1830 „ 1833 „ 2,157,136
„ 1834 „ 1837 „ 10,880,431
„ 1838 „ 1841 „ 3,614,428
„ 1842 „ 1845 „ 20,895,128
Of these years, 1845 presents the era when the rage for railway
speculation was most strongly manifested, as in that year the
legislature sanctioned the raising, by new railway companies, of
no less than 59,613,536_l._ more than the imperial taxes levied
in the United Kingdom, while in 1844 the amount so sanctioned was
14,793,994_l._ The total sum to be raised for railway purposes for
the last twenty years of the above dates was 153,455,837_l._, with a
yearly average of 7,672,792_l._ For the four years preceding the yearly
average was but 112,866_l._
The parliamentary expenses attending the incorporation of sixteen of
the principal railway companies were 683,498_l._, or an average per
railway of 42,718_l._ It will be seen from the following table, that
the greatest amount thus expended was on the incorporation of the Great
Western. On that undertaking an outlay not much short of 90,000_l._
was incurred, before a foot of sod could be raised by the spade of the
“navvy.”
Birmingham and Gloucester £22,618
Bristol and Gloucester 25,589
Bristol and Exeter 18,592
Eastern Counties 39,171
Great Western 89,197
Great North of England 20,526
Grand Junction 22,757
Glasgow, Paisley, and Greenock 23,481
London and Birmingham 72,868
London and South-Western 41,467
Manchester and Leeds 49,166
Midland Counties 28,776
North Midland 41,349
Northern and Eastern 74,166
Sheffield, Ashton, and Manchester 31,473
South-Eastern 82,292
It must be borne in mind that these large sums were all for
parliamentary expenses alone, and were merely the disbursements of the
railway proprietors, whose applications to Parliament were successful.
Probably as large an amount was expended in opposition to the several
bills, and in the fruitless advocacy of rival companies. Thus above a
million and a-quarter of pounds sterling was spent as a preliminary
outlay.
Of the railway lines, the construction of the Great Western, 117-1/2
miles in length, was the most costly, entailing an expenditure of
nearly eight millions; the London and Birmingham, 112-1/2 miles,
cost 6,073,114_l._; the South-Eastern, 66 miles, 4,306,478_l._; the
Manchester and Leeds, 53 miles, 3,372,240_l._; the Eastern Counties,
51 miles, 2,821,790_l._; the Glasgow, Paisley, Kilmarnock, and Ayr,
57-1/2 miles, 1,071,263_l._; an amount which was exceeded by the
outlay on only the 3-1/2 miles of the London and Blackwall, first
opened, which cost 1,078,851_l._ I ought to mention, that the lengths
in miles are those of the portions first opened to the public in the
respective lines, and first authorised by parliamentary enactments.
“Junctions,” “continuations,” and the blending of companies, have been
subsequent measures, entailing, of course, proportionate outlay. The
length of line of the Great Western, for instance, with its immediate
branches, opened on the 30th of June, 1849, was 225 miles; that of the
South-Eastern, 144 miles; and that of the Eastern Counties, 309 miles.
It is stated in Mr. Knight’s “British Almanac” for the current year,
that the “London and North-Western is almost the only company which has
maintained in 1849 the same dividend even as in the preceding year,
viz. seven per cent. The Great Western, the Midland, the Lancashire
and Yorkshire, the York and Newcastle, the York and North Midland, the
Eastern Counties, the South-Eastern, the South-Western, Brighton, the
Manchester and Lincolnshire, all have suffered a decided diminution
of dividend. These ten great companies, whose works up to the present
time have cost over one hundred millions sterling, have on an average
declared for the half year ending in the summer of 1849, a dividend on
the regular non-guaranteed shares of between three and four per cent
per annum. The remaining companies, about sixty in number, can hardly
have reached an average of two per cent per annum in the same half
year.”
The following Table gives the latest returns of railway traffic
from 1845. Previous to that date no such returns were published in
parliamentary papers:--
COMPARATIVE STATEMENT OF THE TRAFFIC ON ALL THE RAILWAYS IN THE UNITED
KINGDOM FOR THE FIVE YEARS ENDING JUNE 30, 1845, 1846, 1847, 1848,
1849, TOGETHER WITH THE LENGTH OF RAILWAY OPEN ON DECEMBER 31 AND JUNE
30 IN EACH YEAR.
-------------------------------------------------------------
| Length | | |
| open on | Total | |
| June 30 | Number of | Total Receipts from |
| in each | Passengers.| Passengers. |
| year. | | |
--------------|---------|------------|----------------------|
Year ending | Miles. | | £ _s._ _d._ |
June 30, 1845 | 2343 | 33,791,253 | 3,976,341 0 0 |
„ 1846 | 2765 | 43,790,983 | 4,725,215 11 8-1/2 |
„ 1847 | 3603 | 51,352,163 | 5,148,002 5 0-1/2 |
„ 1848 | 4478 | 57,965,070 | 5,720,382 9 1-3/4 |
„ 1849 | 5447 | 60,398,159 | 6,105,975 7 7-3/4 |
-------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------
| |
| Receipts from Goods, |
| Cattle, Parcels, | TOTAL RECEIPTS.
| Mails, &c. |
| |
|----------------------|----------------------
| £ _s._ _d._ | £ _s._ _d._
| 2,233,373 0 0 | 6,209,714 0 0
| 2,840,353 16 6-1/4 | 7,565,569 8 2-3/4
| 3,362,883 19 6-3/4 | 1,510,886 4 7-1/4
| 4,213,169 14 5-1/2 | 9,933,552 3 7-1/4
| 5,094,025 18 11 | 11,200,901 6 6-3/4
----------------------------------------------
This official table shows a conveyance for the year ending June,
1849, of 60,398,159 passengers. It may be as well to mention that
every distinct trip is reckoned. Thus a gentleman travelling from and
returning to Greenwich daily, figures in the return as 730 passengers.
Of the number of individuals who travel in the United Kingdom I have
no information. Thousands of the labouring classes travel very rarely,
perhaps not more than once on some holiday trip in the course of a
twelvemonth. But assuming every one to travel, and the population to
be thirty millions, then we have two railway trips made by every man,
woman, and child in the kingdom every year.
There are no data from which to deduce a precisely accurate calculation
of the number of miles travelled by the 60,398,159 passengers who
availed themselves of railway facilities in the year cited. Official
lists show that seventy-eight railways comprise the extent of mileage
given, but these railways vary in extent. The shortest of them open
for the conveyance of passengers is the Belfast and County Down, which
is only 4 miles 35 chains in length, and the number of passengers
travelling on it 81,441. The Midland and the London and North-Western,
on the other hand, are respectively 465 and 477 miles in length,
and their complement of passengers is respectively 2,252,984 and
2,750,541-1/2. The average length of the 78 railways is 70 miles,
but as the stream of travel flows more from intermediate station to
station along the course of the line, than from one extremity to the
other, it may be reasonable to compute that each individual passenger
has travelled one-fourth of the entire distance, or 17-1/2 miles--a
calculation confirmed by the amount paid by each individual, which is
something short of 2_s._, or rather more than 1-1/4_d._ per mile.
Thus we may conclude that each passenger has journeyed 17-1/2 miles,
and that the grand aggregate of travel by all the railway passengers of
the kingdom will be 1,052,327,632-1/2 miles, or nearly eleven times the
distance between the earth and the sun every year.
The Government returns present some curious results. The passengers
by the second-class carriages have been more numerous every year than
those by any other class, and for the year last returned were more
than three times the number of those who indulged in the comforts of
first-class vehicles. Notwithstanding nearly 1000 new miles of railway
were opened for the public transit and traffic between June 1848-9,
still the number of first-class passengers decreased no fewer than
112,000 and odd, while those who resorted to the humbler accommodation
of the second class increased upwards of 170,000. The numerical
majority of the second-class passengers over the first was:--
Year ending June, 1845 8,851,662
„ „ 1846 10,770,712
„ „ 1847 12,126,574
„ „ 1848 14,499,730
„ „ 1849 16,313,760
These figures afford some criterion as to the class or character of the
travelling millions who are the supporters of the railways.
The official table presents another curious characteristic. The
originators of railways, prior to the era of the opening of the
Manchester and Liverpool, depended for their dividends far more upon
the profits they might receive in the capacity of common carriers,
upon the conveyance of manufactured goods, minerals, or merchandise,
than upon the transit of passengers. It was the property in canals and
in heavy carriage that would be depreciated, it was believed, rather
than that in the stage-coaches. Even on the Manchester and Liverpool,
the projectors did not expect to realise more than 20,000_l._ a-year
by the conveyance of passengers. The result shows the fallacy of these
computations, as the receipts for passengers for the year ending June,
1849, exceeded the receipts from “cattle, goods, parcels, and mails,”
by 1,011,050_l._ In districts, however, which are at once agricultural
and mineral, the amount realised from passengers falls short of that
derived from other sources. Two instances will suffice to show this:
The Stockton and Darlington is in immediate connexion with the district
where the famous short-horn cattle were first bred by Mr. Collins, and
where they are still bred in high perfection by eminent agriculturists.
It is in connexion, moreover, with the coal and lead-mining districts
of South Durham and North Yorkshire, the produce being conveyed to
Stockton to be shipped. For the last year, the receipts from passengers
were 8000_l._ and odd, while for the conveyance of cattle, coal, &c.,
no less than 62,000_l._ was paid. From their passengers the Taff Vale,
including the Aberdale Railway Company, derived, for the same period,
in round numbers, an increase of 6500_l._, and from their “goods”
conveyance, 45,941_l._ In neither instance did the passengers pay
one-seventh as much as the “goods.”
I now present the reader with two “summaries” from returns made to
Parliament. The first relates to the number and description of persons
employed on railways in the United Kingdom, and the second to the
number and character of railway accidents.
Concerning the individuals employed upon the railways, the Table on the
opposite page contains the latest official information.
Of the railways in full operation, the London and North-Western employs
the greatest number of persons, in its long and branching extent of 477
miles, 35-1/4 chains, with 153 stations. The total number employed is
6194, and they are thus classified:--
Secretaries or managers 8
Engineers 5
Superintendents 40
Storekeepers 8
Accountants or cashiers 4
Inspectors or timekeepers 83
Draughtsmen 11
Clerks 775
Foremen 130
Engine-drivers 334
Assistant-drivers or firemen 318
Guards or breaksmen 207
Artificers 1891
Switchmen 363
Gatekeepers 76
Policemen or watchmen 241
Porters or messengers 1456
Platelayers 14
Labourers 30
On the Midland there were employed 4898 persons; on the Lancashire
and Yorkshire, 3971; Great Western, 2997; Eastern Counties, 2939;
Caledonian, 2409; York, Newcastle, and Berwick, 2731; London and
South-Western, 2118; London, Brighton, and South-Coast, 2053; York and
North Midland, 1614; North British, 1535; and South-Eastern, 1527. Thus
the twelve leading companies retain permanently in their service 35,735
men, supplying the means of maintenance, (reckoning that a family
of three is supported by each man employed) to 122,940 individuals.
Pursuing the same calculation, as 159,784 men were employed on all the
railways “open and unopen,” we may conclude that 739,136 individuals
were dependent, more or less, upon railway traffic for their
subsistence.