The Railway Era 227 



the stipulated tolls, and had the advantage of requiring to 

 use no more than a single horse for each coach. These horse 

 coaches for passengers seem to have run" in the intervals 

 when the lines were not occupied by the locomotive engaged 

 in drawing the coal waggons. 



In a letter published in the " Railway Herald " of April 27, 

 1889, John Wesley Hackworth, whose father, Timothy 

 Hackworth, was for some time engineer on the Stockton 

 and Darlington Railway, says that twenty miles of the line 

 were at first worked by horses and locomotive in competition, 

 and at the end of eighteen months it was found that horse 

 traction was costing only a little over one-third of the trac- 

 tion by locomotive. Meanwhile, also, the value of the ^100 

 shares had fallen to ^50. In view of these results the directors 

 had decided to abandon locomotive power, and depend 

 entirely on horses ; but Timothy Hackworth said to them, 

 " If you will allow me to construct an engine in my own 

 way I will engage it shall work cheaper than animal powerjl_ 

 He received the desired authority, and the " Royal George," 

 built by him, was put into operation in September, 1827. It 

 confirmed the assurance which had been given, and, says 

 Timothy Hackworth's son, " finally and for ever " settled 

 the question of the respective merits of horse and steam 

 traction on railways. 



Horse coaches still continued to run on the lines, however, 

 in addition to the mineral and goods trains, and in January, 

 1830, the company had to draw up a time-table fixing the 

 hours of departure for the coaches, thus ensuring a better 

 service for the public, and, also, protecting travellers against 

 any possible encounter with the locomotive as the horse 

 ambled along with them on the railway. 



By October, 1832, seven coaches, belonging to various 

 proprietors, were doing fifty journeys a week between different 

 places on the line ; so that thus far the original idea of Parlia- 

 ment, in enforcing against railways the principle of a common 

 user of their lines by the public, had appeared to be warranted. 

 A year later, however, the railway company, finding, as 

 Jeans tells us, that it would be more convenient and more 

 advantageous for them to take the whole carrying trade in 

 their own hands and supersede the horses by steam loco- 

 motives, bought out, on what were considered generous terms, 



