2oo History of Inland Transport 



wheels for colliery rail-ways; and his letters show that in 

 and about the year 1745 the consignments were coming to 

 hand in " immense quantities." Scott seems to have had 

 great trouble in restraining the zeal of the southerners. He 

 tells one correspondent that " Wheels are at present a great 

 drug from so many yt. came last year. Rails will be wanted, 

 but the people pays so badly for them that wo d weary eny 

 body to serve them." To another he says : "I find the best 

 oak rails will scarcely give 6d. p yd this year." To corre- 

 spondents at Lyndhurst, New Forest, he writes : "I fancy 

 the dealers in wn. wheels will expect to have wheels soon 'em 

 given, if such great numbers continue coming." Mr West, 

 of Slyndon, near Arundel, Sussex, is told that not more than 

 five shillings can be got for the best wooden wheels, and that 

 " dealers are so full that they have not room for any wheels." 

 On March 27, 1747, Scott writes concerning wheels : "No 

 less than about 2000 com'd within these 14 days from Lynd- 

 hurst consign'd to different people " ; and two months later 

 he announces that he has resolved to receive " no more such 

 goods as wooden wheels, rails and such like from anybody." 



Most of the Tyne collieries were at a higher level than 

 the river, and in the construction of the rail-ways it was 

 sought to obtain a regular and easy descent, regardless of 

 route or distance, to the " staith," or shipping-stage, from 

 which the coal would be loaded either into the keels (barges) 

 employed to take it along the river to the colliers, or, in the 

 case of longer distance rail-ways, direct into the collier itself, 

 the bottom of the waggons being made after the fashion 

 of a trap-door to facilitate discharge. Gradual descent was 

 further aimed at because it allowed of the loaded waggons 

 moving along the rail-way by reason of their own weight. 



How this prototype both of the railway and of express 

 trains as known to us to-day was operated is well shown in 

 a " Description of a Coal- Waggon," with an accompanying 

 illustration, contributed to the " General Magazine of Arts 

 and Sciences " for June, 1764, by John Buddie, of Chester- 

 le-street, Durham, who subsequently became manager of the 

 Wallsend Colliery. In the illustration a horse is depicted 

 drawing, by means ~ of two ropes fastened to its collar, a 

 loaded *f our- wheeled^coal waggon along a rail-way preceded 

 by a man who, having a bundle of hay underneath one arm, 



