230 History of Inland Transport 



sideration. It was evidently Thomas Gray whom the " Quar- 

 terly Review " had in mind when it said, in March, 1825 : 

 " As to those persons who speculate on making railways 

 general throughout the Kingdom, and superseding all the 

 canals, all the waggons, mail and stage-coaches, post-chaises, 

 and, in short, every other mode of conveyance by land and 

 water, we deem them and their visionary schemes unworthy 

 of notice." 



In the result Gray was left to spend the last years of his 

 life in obscurity and poverty, and the further development 

 of the railway system of the country was proceeded with on 

 lines altogether different from, and far less efficient, than 

 those he had recommended. 



The greatest impetus to the movement was now to come, 

 not from any individual pioneer, but from the Liverpool and 

 Manchester Railway ; and this line, in turn, was due far 

 more to purely local conditions and circumstances than to 

 any idea of encouraging the creation of a network of railways 

 on some approach, however remote, to a national or " general " 

 system. The original cause of the Liverpool and Manchester 

 line being undertaken was, in fact, nothing less than extreme 

 dissatisfaction among the traders both of Liverpool and of 

 Manchester with the then existing transport arrangements 

 between these two places. 



Just as the Duke of Bridgewater had drawn his strongest 

 arguments in favour of a canal from the shortcomings of the 

 Irwell and Mersey navigation, so now did the traders base 

 their case for a railway mainly on the deficiencies and short- 

 comings alike of the river navigation and of the canal by 

 which the rivers had been supplemented. 



There were, in the first place, physical difficulties. By 

 whichever of the two water routes goods were sent from 

 Liverpool to Manchester, the barges had first to go about 

 eighteen miles along the Mersey to Runcorn, being thus 

 exposed for that distance to the possibly adverse winds and 

 strong tides of an open estuary. The boats often got aground, 

 and many wrecks occurred during stormy weather. On the 

 canal itself the boats could often go with only half loads in 

 the summer, and they were liable to be stopped by frost in 

 winter, while the canal was closed altogether for ten days 

 every year for repairs. 



