96 CANALS. 



Accompanying this decrease (outside of this country) in rates for goods 

 there has been, needless to say, a wonderful increase in the goods traffic in 

 comparison with the passenger traffic. In fact, it is this very increase of 

 freight traffic — which is obtaining a greater and greater preponderance in 

 the entire traffic of the railroad — which has again brought prominently for- 

 romnarativp Cost ^'^^^'^ ^^e question of waterway transit. Heavy goods 

 ^ traffic is the least profitable traffic for a railway to 



ot Railroad and handle, and the provision for it in the matter of 

 Water Haulage. sidings, double and even (as on the English trunk 

 Imes) quadruple lines, reduces the small margin of profit, where there is any 

 serious competition, to a still lower figure. It has been estimated* that a 

 gross income of more than ;£"30,000 a mile is earned in England off a single 

 pair of tracks by a traffic exclusively in passengers or goods carried at pas- 

 senger speed. About ;i^8,ooo per mile is said to be the largest revenue 

 earned by any line of mixed traffic, and ;^6,200 a mile has been earned on 

 mineral lines proper. On the other hand, a moderate estimate of the cost 

 of carriage of heavy materials by canal places it at less than a third of the 

 corresponding cost by railway. The late Mr. Francis R. Corder, C.E., who 

 gave important evidence before the Select Committee on Canals, 1883, put 

 m, inter alia, an interesting document (which will be found, p. 234 of the 

 Report [C. 252 — 1883] of that Committee) dealing with the comparative 

 costs of Railway and Canal transport. Mr. Corder was certainly an enthu- 

 siast for inland navigation, and, possibly, tended to an optimistic view of the 

 possibilities of canal traffic, but his main contentions are unquestionably 

 sound, and his statement of the case, though worked out nearly twenty 

 years ago, still deserves study. I accordingly quote the following extract : — 



"The main causes which render transport by canal cheaper than transport 

 by railway are (writes Mr. Corder) the following : — 



" (i.) In canal transport there is no item of cost corresponding to the 

 wear and tear of rails, sleepers, and fittings, or to the replacement and 

 maintenance of permanent way. These items form 13 per cent, of the 

 working expenditure of the railways of the United Kingdom.! 



" (2.) A corresponding saving, which there are reasons for estimating as 

 equal to the former, is made in the repairs of vehicles and locomotives, 

 due to the damage caused by the reaction of the rigid way. 



" (3.) The maintenance of the works on a canal is on the average much 

 less costly than the corresponding outlay on a railway; not only from the 

 absence of vibration, but from the much smaller magnitude of the works 

 themselves. The average cost of the railways of England and Wales is 

 _;z{J'46,ooo a inile. That ot the canals, as far as it has been ascertained, is 

 not more than ;^3,35o per mile. The average cost of 18 of the principal 

 English canals was under _;^io,ooo a mile; that of the Birmingham Canal, 

 of which, in 1865 the original ;^i,ooo shares were each worth more than 

 ^^30,000 in the market, J was ;/5"i5,ooo a mile. The cost of the Man- 

 chester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire, and of the Lancashire and Yorkshire 

 Railways, which offer the best parallel to the Birmingham Canal, aver- 

 aged ;^65,7oo per mile. Thus for equal volumes of traffic, the cost of 

 the maintenance of works on a canal will be less than one-fourth of that 

 on a railway. The cost of thi.s item on the railways of the United Kingdom 



* See "Index to our Railway System," by William Fleming, No. III., 47. 

 t Vide " Index to our Railway System,'' No. III., p. 24. 



1 Vide " Du Regime des travaux publics en Angleterre.' Par Ch. De Franqueville. 

 Paris, 1875. Vol. II., p. 301. 



