"PTEW ENGL-AN© FAHMEK. 



Published by John B. Russeli, at JVb. 52 J^orth Market Street, (at the Agricultural Warehouse). — Thomas G. Fessenden Editor. 



VOL. YII. 



BOSTON, FRIDAY, JANUARY 23, 1829. 



No. 27. 



INTERIVAL IMPROVEMENT. 



RAILWAYS. 



(Bylh'jEililor.) 

 (Continued from page 202J 



In order to form a correct opinion of the prac- 

 licability and expediency of making railways in 

 the United States, it may be well to take a con- 

 cise view of the subject as exemplified by the 

 practice of Great Britain. Having ascertained 

 what has been done, and made a correct allow- 

 ance for varying circimistances, we may be the 

 better able to form an estimate of what may and 

 ought to be accomplished with regard to contem- 

 jilated improvements. 



The Edinburgh Encyclopedia asserts that rail- 

 ways are so numerous that it would be difficult 

 even to enumerate the various works of this des- 

 cription, which have been executed throughout 

 ■the United Kingdom, as railways are universally 

 .employed at all the principal coal and iron works, 

 -in situations altogether inaccessible to a commu- 

 nication by water. In not a few instances they 

 have been constructed by jomt stock companies, 

 and sometimes by individuals as public thorough- 

 fares. 



The only public railway of extent, in Scotland, 

 is that between the manufacturing town of Kil- 

 marnack and the harbor of Troon ; which, agree- 

 ably to act of Parliament is open to all upon pay- 

 ment of a certain toll. This extensive work, i:''"| 

 those of the Duke of Bridgewater's in Englc*^'"' 

 was e.fecuted at the solo expense of the Duk!?,'bl 

 Portland, for the improvement of his Ayrshire es- 

 tates. The Troon railway is about ten miles in 

 length, and is laid down with two sets of cast 

 iron tracks, of the description technically termed 

 plate-rails. It crosses the river Irvine by a stone 

 bridge of four arches, each of forty feet s|)an, and 

 the whole line forms an inclined plane falling to- 

 wards the shipping port at the rate of about one 

 sixteenth of an inch perpendicular in one yard 

 horizontal. In its track it encounters a difficult 

 pass through .Shaulton moss ; and towards the 

 harbor the uniform line of draught is preserved by 

 an embankment of about two miles in length. — 

 This work with the great pier fouuded in about 

 eighteen feet water in the lowest tides, together 

 with the graving docks and whole establishment 

 at Troon, we're executed agreeably to a design of 

 the late Mr Jessop's, and with the coal fillings, in 

 the neighborhood, are understood to have cost 

 about £150,000. The other railways in ScotlantI, 

 which may be mentioned as of extent or interest 

 are those of the Carron Company, the- establish- 

 ment of which is understood to have reduced the 

 average monthly expenditure for carriage from 

 £1200 to £300 ; the coal works of the Earls of 

 Elgin and Mar, in Fife and Ciackmannanshircs ; 

 Sir John Hope, of Penkie ; Mr Wauchope, of F.d- 

 monstone, and Mr Cadcll, of Cockenzie, in Mid 

 Lothian ; Mr Dickson and others in Lanarkshire ; 

 and Mr Taylor and others in Ayrshire. These 

 are edge-railways, and such of them as have late- 

 ly been laid, arc chiefly of malleable iron. 



In England at all the coal and manufacturing 

 districts, vailways are employed for facilitating 

 and econoinising the operations. In tlie counties 



of Northumberland and Durham alone, the coal 

 workings and railways require a separate map to 

 show their position. Here the system of imty- 

 leave was first introduced, a source of revenue in 

 the form of a tonnage, paid to landed proprietors, 

 for liberty to pass through their grounds with a 

 line of railway to the shipping port. In Cumber- 

 land, perhaps, the most interesting railways are 

 those of the under-ground works of Lord Lons- 

 dale, at Whitehaven. In the. great manufactur- 

 ing and commercial county of Lancashire, rail- 

 ways are very numerous. A highly interesting 

 work also occurs at the Duke of Bridgewater's 

 under-ground works at Worseley, about seven 

 miles from Manchester. In Darby, Stafford, and 

 Warwickshires, railways are numerous, some of 

 which are connected with inclined planes, and are 

 works of considerable extent, as those of little 

 ! Eaton and Butterly. At Mansfield in Notting- 

 I ham there is a public railway nine miles in length, 

 which was designed and executed by Mr Josias 

 Jessop. In Shropshire, and indeed along the 

 whole course of the Severn, railways have been 

 introduced with the best effect. Those of Coal- 

 brookdale, and its neighborhood, where Reynolds, 

 the famous iron master,first introduced the use pf 

 cast iron for railways and bridges, are highly in- 

 teresting. At Chaltenham in Gloucestershire, 

 Loughborough in Leicestershire, and Wandsworth 

 in Surry, and other situations there are public 

 wfievay.s varying in extent, from seven to twenty- 

 yot-mJles, and differing in their line of draughts, 

 ^according to the situation of the country. 



South Wales, perhaps, more than any other 

 country of similar extent abounds with valuable 

 minerals, which from the inaccessible nature of 

 the country must have been in a great nieasm-e, 

 shut up, but for the introduction of the railway 

 system. Here a large uninhabited district of ster- 

 ile mountains may be said all at once to have be- 

 come the seat of populous towns and villages. — 

 Such for example is Blerthyr-tydvill, of which the 

 Marquis of Bute is Lord of the Manor. When 

 the late Mr Crashey, the great Iron master of this 

 district, established himself here about the year 

 1765, the parish of Merthyr-tydvill contained a 

 very scanty pojiulation ; but at the census of 1811, 

 it had increased to 11,104 inhabitants ; and in 

 that of 1S21 it mounted uj) to 17,404. The rail- 

 ways of this district are numerous, and many of 

 them extensive, particularly in Glamorgan, Mon- 

 mouth, Caermarthen, and Brecknockshires. — 

 Among these may be mentioned the Sirhowy rail- 

 way, which, with its branches and collateral 

 lines, extends upwards of thirty-five miles. It 

 crosses the Ebbwy by a bridge of 15 arches ; ibrnis 

 a connexion with the Wye, and has had the ef- 

 fect of reducing the price of coals throughout the 

 higher parts of Radnor and Herefordshire. The 

 Cardiff and Blerthyr-tydvill railway is about 27 

 miles in length ; and it is worthy of remark, that 

 both a common road and a navigable canal are 

 estabUshed between these places. At the great 

 iron works of Merthyr-tydvill, Dowlais, Penydur- 

 ran, and others in that neighborhood, much use is 

 made of railways. Here wagons, loaded with 

 minerals are transported upon an inclined plane, 

 upon a horizontal platform by steam, in a very 



simple and expeditious manner. Connected with 

 the Neath canal there are several railways with 

 inclined planes of considerable magnitude, and at 

 Swansea, one is laid to the village of Oystermouth, 

 a distance of seven miles. On this line a stago 

 coach plies daily with passengers, which indeed 

 appears to be its chief trade. In Caermarthen- 

 shiro there is a railway to the harbor of Lanelly, 

 which extends about fifteen miles into the interior 

 coal country. 



In the mineral districts of North Wales, con- 

 nected with the shires of Caernarvon, Denbigh, 

 and Merioneth there are several extensive rail- 

 way works. That belonging to the slate quarries 

 at Pennrhyn is about six miles in extent, and is laid 

 out in four successive horizontal tracks which 

 conmiunicate with each other by means of three 

 inclined planes, varying in length from 130 to 300 

 yards. On thes»e the work is so arranged, that in 

 passing down the loaded wagon.'*, the empty ones 

 are taken up by a track rope, which winds round 

 the axle of a brake wheel. On the more level parts 



of the road the wagons are drawn by horses 



The Pennrhyn railway may now be considered as 

 a pretty old establishment ; and its good condi- 

 tion affords an example of the stabihty of the 

 edge-railway, having been in (1824) use for sev- 

 enteen or eighteen years. 



In Ireland there are yet but few railways, ex- 

 cepting lliose of the Harbor-works of Dublin, and 

 at quarries and other works of that description, 

 which from their temporary nature are not gen- 

 erally calculated to afford good specimens of the 

 art ; but in the progress of improvement in that 

 fine country we may look forward to the period 

 when such works will bo more generally estab- 

 lished. 



In connexion with the railways mentioned 

 above, we may mention several extensive surveys, 

 which have been made for works of this descrip- 

 tion. One of these by Mr Telford, extends across 

 the country from Glusgow to Berwick upon Tweed, 

 a distaiice of 125 miles, with a rise of 636 feet to 

 the water-shade in the i)arish of Dolphingstown. 

 The survey from Berwick to Kelso, by the late 

 eminent Mr Rennic, has been farther continued 

 up Gala Water to Dalkeith, Edinburgh, and Leith, 

 by ]\Ir Stevenson, who has also made a survey 

 upon the opposite side of the Frith of Forth, on an 

 uninterrupted level from the river Tay through 

 the great valley of Strathmore to Aberdeen, with 

 branch lines to the ports of Stonehaven, Montrose, 

 Arbreath, Dundee, and Perth, comprising upwards 

 of one hundred miles of level road. A collateral 

 line has likewise been traced by the same engin- 

 eer from the confluence of the rivers Earn and 

 Tay, through the county of Fife to the westward 

 of Duniferline, with various branch lines commu- 

 iiicating with the Frith of Forth. An extensive 

 road is now making oC 36 miles iu length, and 4 

 sets of tracks, connecting Liverpool with Man- 

 chester by a railway, notwithstanding the water 

 communicalions already established hetween these 

 places by the river Mersey and the Ineell canal. It 

 may further be mentioned, that after looking for- 

 ward for many years for a canal across the coun- 

 try between the Tyue and the Solvvay, (a track of 

 all others the most desirable for such a work,) a 



