The Railway Era 229 



Darlington Railway had been thus seeking to establish them- 

 selves as public railways, there was no lack of advocates of 

 what were then called "general rail- ways," to be laid either 

 on the ordinary roads or on roads made for the purpose ; 

 and such general railways were especially advocated for 

 districts where canals could not be made available. 



Dr James Anderson, writing on " Cast Iron Rail- ways " 

 in the issue of his " Recreations in Agriculture, Natural 

 History," etc., for November, 1800, had already strongly 

 recommended them as " an eligible mode of conveyance where 

 canals cannot be conveniently adopted " ; and he especially 

 advised the construction of one railway in London, from 

 the new docks on the Isle of Dogs to Bishopsgate Street, 

 and another between London and Bath, " for the purpose of 

 conveying unsightly loads, leaving the roads, as at present, 

 open for coaches and light carriages." Such railways, he 

 argued, would render great service in relieving the ordinary 

 road of heavy traffic, and help to solve the road problem 

 of that day all the more acute because Me Adam had not 

 yet shown the country how roads could and should be made 

 or repaired. 



On February n, 1800, Mr Thomas, of Denton, read a 

 paper before the Newcastle Literary Society recommending 

 the introduction of railways, on the colliery principle, for 

 the general carriage of goods ; and R. L. Edgeworth urged, 

 in " Nicholson's Journal," in 1802, that for a distance of 

 ten miles or more one of the great roads out of London should 

 be provided with four tracks of railway operated by stationary 

 engines and circulating chains for fast and slow traffic in 

 each direction. 



But the most strenuous advocate of all was Thomas Gray. 

 Both before and subsequent to the publication, in 1820, of 

 the first edition of his " Observations on a General Rail- way," 

 he had been pressing his views, in the form of petitions, letters 

 or articles, on members of the Government, peers of the 

 realm, M.P.'s, corporations, capitalists, reviews and news- 

 papers. His idea was that there should be six trunk lines 

 of railway radiating from London, with branch lines linking 

 up towns and villages off these main routes ; but he was 

 looked upon as a visionary, if not as a crank and a bore whose 

 impracticable proposals were not deserving of serious con- 



