THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



53 



The great weight of locomotives is a positive evil. It is so, because they 

 have to be caviled about for nothing. It is so, because tliey do more harm to 

 tlie road than anything else, and a railway is to be made stronger and more 

 costly on account of thein. But, to a certain extent, it is a necessary evil; 

 butimly toa certain extent. And if the weight be increased beyond this 

 limit, it will be so much thrown away. 



The weight of the engine should be determined by the average load be taken, 

 and the nature of the gradients. 



Moreover, the engines will work economically, or otherwise, in proportion 

 as their power appro.ximates to their loads. 



The average of your passenger trains cannot be expected to be greater or 

 heavier than on the Grand Junction Railway. Supposing tlieni to be the 

 same, as to weight ; from your flatter gralients, engines of little more than 

 two-thirds the power of those on the Grand Junction, and therefore of con- 

 siderably less weight, would be sufficient for you to travel at equal velocities. 

 If you wish to travel at double the velocity, of course you must have more 

 powerful engines ; but it should not be forgotten, that you can only travel at 

 double the velocity, Ijy pretty nearly doubling the cost. 



Finally, I should say of your line, that the country is favourable, and the 

 gradients good ; naturally so, or in so far as they are dependent on the un- 

 dulations of the country. 



Further, with such a traffic as you may expect, and such a country, your 

 line holds out great inducements for the investment of capital. 



But the advantages of country will be lost sight of and nullified, if for the 

 sake of a system, the cost of the road be greatly increased; and even the 

 good gradients will be rendered of non-etfect as to eccmomy, if the speed be 

 greatly increased ; for greater speed will entail greater cost and will be tanta- 

 mount to steep gradients. 



And though the same results may perhaps be obtained on railways of better 

 gradients, with more dead weight than on railways of bad gradients, yet this 

 seems to be merely bringing down the good line to the standard of the bad. 

 I am. Gentlemen, your very obedient servant, 

 (Signed) JOHN HAV/KSHAW. 



Manchester, 4th October, 1838. 



REPORT OF I. K. BRUNEL, Esq. 



TO THE DIHECTOUS OF THE GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY COMPANY. 

 Gentlemen, — In compliance with your request, 1 beg to submit to you the 

 following observations upon the only report which you have laid before me ; 

 that expected from Mr. Nicholas Wood not having yet arrived. 



Knowing that I should be called upon to express an opinion upon the sub- 

 ject of these two reports, and that the time idlowcd me would necessarily be 

 very short, I had proposed to class, as far as posaible, their contents under two 

 heads, — \\z., &rst, /litis, including under this head the statement of actual 

 results ascertained upon the Great Western or other lines, and general prin- 

 ciples, or rules, laid down and assumed as axioms, whether of mechanics, ma- 

 thematics, or of the practical working oi' economy of railways ; and, secondly, 

 of the ari/miieiils founded upon these facts or axioms, including the inferences 

 drawn from them and the opinions expressed. 



I proposed, in the next place, to consider how far the former were appli- 

 cable to the case, and, what is of great importance, how far they constituted nil 

 the facts that it was necessary to state for the purpose of arriving at a fair 

 conclusion. I intended then to have discussed the correctness of the latter, 

 and thus to have arrived, by a clear and satisfactory process, at the object I 

 had in view, which was, to give ray opinions and my views on the same subject 

 as that of the reports ; to compare them with those of the writers ; to show 

 wherein I agreed with them and where I differed, together with the reasons 

 and grounds for the differences between us. 



This would, I think, have laid before you a business-like view of the case, 

 and such as I should have wished to have submitted to you. I regret that 

 the peculiar nature of the only report yet received puts it out of my power to 

 pursue this course ; for having carefully read it, Ifound, that by confining myself 

 to the division or classification which I had proposed, I should have passed 

 over in silence a very great portion of its contents, unless I funned a third 

 division, including neither such facts or arguments as I have described, hut 

 consisting of general remarks and hypothetical cases, and even the opinions of 

 others founded upon hypothetical cases. It is true, there are many remarks 

 and comparisons made which are not applied directly to the Great Western 

 railway, nor are they in terms stated to be strictly relevant ; neither are the 

 cases hypothetically put afterwards proved to have any practical existence, 

 or made to throw light upon any of the existing circumstances of the railway ; 

 but being interwoven with a report, specially made, upon the Great Western 

 railway, they are calculated, however inadvertently, to mislead, unless their 

 irrelevancy is pointed out. 



I regret very ranch the necessity of considering these portions of the report, 

 as it involves the tedious process of referring almost to each page, and of I're- 

 (\uently entering into long explanations to remove a misapprehension, pro- 

 duced, perhaps, only by a single word ; but no alternative is left to me. The 

 utmost extent to which I can venture to depart from the line pursued by the 

 report which 1 have before me, will be to consider the subject, in the 6rst 

 place, in what appears to me the engineering and business-like view, and then, 

 subsequently and separately, to consider the particular manner in which the 

 writer has treated the question. 



The report, after a few preliminary remarks, is divided under the the fol- 

 lowing heads, and they are considered in the order stated, — namely, the objects 

 to be attained in the construction of a railway, or what are very properly called, 



"the conditions of the qiestion ;" the comparative advantages of good gra- 

 dients; the width of gauge; Maidenhead bridge; the construction of the 

 permanent way ; and the locomotive power. I shall now consider the subjects 

 in the same order, and, for the sake of P' rfect accuracy, refer to the pages and 

 paragraphs of the printed copy before me. As the opinions expressed, and 

 the conclusion arrived at, in this report, are generally, if not wholly, diame- 

 trically opposed to those which 1 am known to entertain, and which I am now 

 quite prepared to support, it is hut just to slate, at the outset, that I dilTor 

 altogether from the general principles laid down, which appear to mc to be 

 unsound, and, indeed, to be iiicorrcclly and insufficiently expressed ; and 1 

 must say, that I consider the reasoning fallacious and defective, and that many 

 of the calculations are incorrect or errontous from the omission of quantities 

 or conditions which must afreet the results. 



In the report (p. 48), the conditions of the question are stated to be, that 

 "there is to ho the fullest regard to the wants and conveniences of the public, 

 hut also a constant regard to the prospects and expectations of the share- 

 holders," in wliich I concur. But the observations which follow I entirely 

 dissent from, for which I will shortly state my reasons. It is said that the 

 " profits of a railway are determined by the ratio of the proceeds to the cost ; 

 if the latter be greatly increased, it becomes almost imperative on the pro- 

 pietary to increase the former, cither by curtailing the accommodation or by 

 iincreasing the charge to the public.'' 



In noticin"- this paragraph, I wish to premise that I deprecate, as much as 

 any one, all useless espenditurc, every increase of the capital of any company 

 not justified by a fair probability of return, either by economy in the manage- 

 ment or in the maintenance of the work, or by increase in the income to bo 

 derived from traffic : — and I must distinctly say, that no departure from a sound 

 and wise economy would ever receive ray sanction. Having said this, I now, 

 in answer to the observation I have quoted, would beg to remark, that at what- 

 ever cost a railway may have been constructed, the only way to increase its 

 proceeds is the same in all cases : you can only induce the public to Iravil upon 

 a railway, by holding out better accommodation or lower charges, or both, than 

 they can find elsewhere, — by, in fact, rfrersinr/ the means recommended — by 

 increasin" the accommodation or curtailing the charges. Expedition, com. 

 fort, and"cheapness, are the temptations to railroad travelling, and, according 

 to the degree in which they exist are made manifest, will the public use tha 

 railway. " The object is, to get the largest income by these means, — the in- 

 come must depend upon the facilities afforded. Lot the railroad cost what it 

 may, it is by no such process as that recommonJed that " proceeds " can be 

 increased, but by one just the reverse, which is and must be the common 

 object of all companies, — viz., to obtain the mazimum ef traffic and income: 

 and no curtailing of the accommodation, no increase of charge to the public, 

 can do this. 



It is stated in the succeeding paragraph (p. 48), that " the cost at which a 

 party can be conveyed will be .as the interest on the capital expended, added 

 to the cost of working the road ;'' and inversely, as the number carried, should 

 have been added. But this important condition, which totally alters the 

 arithmetical result of the cost of transport, is altogether omitted. Again, in 

 what immediately follows it is said, that if " capital be increased without 

 effecting any material reduction in the cost of working, the consequence will 

 be, that to increase proceeds the rates must be raised. May not the number of 

 passengers and the traffic be increased by such additional outlay, and thereby 

 the proceeds also ? 



Such are the principles of railway economy which are laid down. I might 

 perhaps avoid the necessity of further discussing them, by dropping them as 

 suddenly and as completely as they are dropped after this last.quoted paragraph 

 in the report, but as an impression is produced (although no direct inference is 

 drawn) by their assertion, I will examine what I conceive to be the views of 

 the writer on their intrinsic mcri 1 3. 



The theory of trade advanceu in this part of the report may be stated thus ; 

 that the only mode of increasing the gross profits is to increase the profit upon 

 each article by raising the price or by reducing the original outlay. No doubt 

 this is one method, if it can be effected ; but I believe it would be difficult to 

 point out any one great branch of trade which has thriven in this country by 

 such a course. But, on the contrary, in every branch of manufacture, each 

 year the necessary machinery and plant become more costly, the price of the 

 articles manufactured is reduced, and the profits upon any given quantity 

 diminished ; but the gross profits are at the same time maintained and increased 

 by the great incicase of consumption consequent upon diminished prices or 

 improved quality. . . , 



In railways, the same principle applies, and, if possible, in a still greater 

 decree • yet in the report it is assumed throughout that the consumption, or, 

 in the case of railways, the number of passengers and the traffic, is a constant 

 quantity which, on the one hand, is secured to the railway whatever may be its 

 comparative inconveniences or defects, and, on the other hand, cannot be 

 increased by any additional accommodation, or by any other inducement held 



out to the public. ,,,.,. <■ , .■ 



It is upon these views that all the arguments adduced in favour ot reduction 

 , first cost arc founded in this report ; in no single instance is any allusion 

 lade to the possibility of increasing the number of passengers by improving 

 the means of conveyance. The great argument of all the promoters of rail- 

 ways, the striking results of experience in every railway— namely, the increased 

 number of travellers consequent upon the increased facilities of conveyance, is 



totally lost sight of. , . . .• , i i 



It is unnecessary to dwell any longer on tins point, more particularly as 1 

 shall have occasion to refer to it heaeafter ; but it appears to mc clear that no 

 owiclusion founded upon this reasoning can be safely relied upon. 



of fir: 



