180 



A RAILROAD PROJECTED. 



CHAP. X. 



I Liverpool merchant, was amongst the first to broach 

 the subject. He himself had suffered in his business, in 

 common with so many others, from the insufficiency of 

 the existing modes of communication, and was ready to 

 give due consideration to any plan presenting elements 

 of practical efficiency which proposed a remedy for the 

 generally admitted grievance. Having caused inquiry 

 to be made as to the success which had attended the 

 haulage of heavy coal-trains by locomotive power on 

 the northern railways, he was led to form the opinion 

 that the same means might be equally efficient in con- 

 ducting the increasing traffic in merchandise between 

 Liverpool and Manchester. He ventilated the subject 

 amongst his friends, and about the beginning of 1821 a 



(committee was formed for the purpose of bringing the 

 scheme of a railroad before the public. 

 | The novel project having become noised abroad, 

 (attracted the attention of the friends of railways in 

 I other quarters. Tramroads were by no means new 

 expedients for the transit of heavy articles. The Croy- 

 don and Wandsworth Railway, laid down by William 

 Jessop as early as the year 1801, had been regularly 

 used for the conveyance of lime and stone in waggons 

 hauled by mules or donkeys from Merstham to London. 1 

 The sight of this humble railroad in 1813 led Sir 

 Richard Phillips to throw out the following thoughtful 

 observations in his ' Morning Walk to Kew ': " I found 

 delight," said he, " in witnessing at Wandsworth the 



1 This line was purchased by the 

 London and Brighton Railway Com- 

 pany, and has long since been disused, 

 though the traveller to Brighton can 

 still discern the marks of the old tram- 

 road along the hill-side, a little to the 

 south of Croydon. " The genius loci," 

 says Charles Knight, " must look with 

 wonder on the gigantic offspring of the 

 little railway, which has swallowed up 

 its own sire. Lean mules no longer 

 crawl leisurely along the little rails 

 with trucks of stone through Croydon, 



once perchance during the day, but the 

 whistle and the rush of the locomotive 

 are now heard all day long. Not a 

 few loads of lime, but all London and 

 its contents, by comparison men, 

 women, children, horses, dogs, oxen, 

 sheep, pigs, carriages, merchandise, 

 food would seem to be now-a-days 

 passing Croydon; for day after day, 

 more than 100 journeys are made by 

 the great railroads which pass the 

 place." 



