224 History of Inland Transport 



This was, however, in point of fact, only a further develop- 

 ment of the still earlier railway legislation (see page 210), 

 which required the proprietors of lines laid down for general 

 traffic to allow anyone who pleased to run his own vehicles 

 thereon, subject to certain regulations and to the payment 

 of specified tolls. 



The Surrey Iron Rail-way was also a landmark in railway 

 history because, although in itself of very small extent, it 

 was originally designed to serve as the first section of a rail- 

 way which, made by different companies, as capital could 

 be raised, would eventually have extended from the Thames 

 to Portsmouth. 1 The second section was the Croydon, 

 Merstham and Godstone Iron Railway, which Parliament 

 sanctioned in 1803. From Croydon this further railway was 

 to carry the lines on to Reigate, with a branch from Merstham 

 to Godstone Green, a total distance of sixteen miles in 

 addition, that is, to the nine and a half miles of the Surrey 

 Iron Rail-way. Both companies, however, drifted into 

 financial difficulties, and had to apply to Parliament again, 

 in 1806, for fresh powers, while the lines of the second com- 

 pany never got beyond the chalk quarries at Merstham. 



In the absence of the through traffic it had been hoped 

 eventually to secure, the local business alone available was 

 evidently inadequate to meet the charges on a capital outlay 

 which, at that time, may have been regarded as not incon- 

 siderable, inasmuch as the Surrey Iron Rail-way attained 

 to a good elevation at its southern end, while the Croydon, 

 Merstham and Godstone line went through a cutting thirty 

 feet deep, and crossed a valley by an embankment twenty 

 feet high. After a chequered career, the Merstham line was 

 acquired by the Brighton Railway Company in 1838 and 

 closed, being then no longer required. The Surrey line 

 lingered on till 1846, when, with the sanction of Parliament, 

 its operation was discontinued, the rails being taken up and 

 sold by auction. 



1 My authority for this statement is a newspaper article, headed "Cen- 

 tenary of the First Railway Act," written in 1901 by W. P. Paley, and to 

 be found in a collection of railway pamphlets in the British Museum 

 (08235 i 36). The name of the journal is not stated ; but the writer of the 

 article gives such precise details concerning the line in question that his 

 information is evidently authentic. 



