Evolution of the Railway 2 1 1 



and carts use them to get from the canal basin to the high 

 road, a few hundred yards away, the same rate of toll being 

 charged as on the canal. Mr Phillipps further says : " Our 

 Froghall tramway rises 400 feet from the level of the canal 

 to the quarry, passing by means of a tunnel through an 

 intermediate hill, and it is worked entirely by gravitation, 

 there being four inclined planes of various lengths and in- 

 clinations. The gauge is 3 feet 6 inches. It is practically 

 the same as when laid down over 100 years ago. We convey 

 over it nearly 500,000 tons of limestone annually, and I find 

 it a cheap and expeditious mode of conveyance." 



I would call special attention to these details because it 

 was, no doubt, the fact that ordinary road carts, with flat- 

 edged wheels, could be taken along the flanged plates of the 

 early railways, and were so taken under authority of the 

 Acts of Parliament here in question, that originally established 

 the idea both of a common user of the railways by traders em- 

 ploying their own vehicles upon them and of competition being 

 thus ensured between different carriers. The pioneer public 

 railways, provided as accessories to canal transport, were, 

 indeed, looked upon as simply a variation, in principle, of 

 the ordinary turnpike road. They were roads furnished with 

 rails, and available for use, on payment of the authorised 

 tolls, by anyone whose cart-wheels were the right distance 

 apart. 



The position in this respect was entirely changed when the 

 system of railway operation came to be definitely fixed on the 

 principle of edge-rails and flanged wheels, with locomotives 

 in place of horses ; yet the legislation immediately follow- 

 ing the spread of railways on this vastly different basis was 

 still determined, as regarded their use by the public, by the 

 precedent originally established under the conditions here 

 narrated. 



While thus operated on the toll principle of a turnpike 

 road the pioneer " railway stations " being themselves 

 simply the equivalent of toll-houses the early railways 

 were all associated with canal or river transport. Robert 

 Fulton says in his " Treatise on the Improvement of Canal 

 Navigation " (1796) that " Rail-roads have hitherto been 

 considered as a medium between lock-canals and cartage, 

 in consequence of the expence of extending the canal to the 



