358 



LEASES CLAYCKOSS. 



'CHAP. XYTI. 



they have been able to do since they put on their fast 

 passenger trains, when everything must needs be run 

 faster, and a much larger proportion of the gross receipts 

 is absorbed by working expenses." 



In advocating these views, Mr. Stephenson was 

 considerably ahead of his time ; and although he did 

 not live to see his anticipations fully realised as to 

 the supply of the London coal-market, he was never- 

 theless the first to point out, and to some extent to 

 prove, the practicability of establishing a profitable coal 

 trade by railway between the northern counties and the 

 metropolis. So long, however, as the traffic was con- 

 ducted on main passenger lines at comparatively high 

 speeds, it was found that the expenditure on tear and 

 wear of road and locomotive power , not to mention the 

 increased risk of carrying on the first-class passenger 

 traffic with which it was mixed up, necessarily left a 

 very small margin of profit ; and hence Mr. Stephenson 

 was in the habit of urging the propriety of constructing 

 a railway which should be exclusively devoted to goods 

 and mineral traffic run at low speeds as the only condi- 

 tion on which a large railway traffic of that sort could 

 be profitably conducted. 1 



Having induced some of his Liverpool friends to join 

 him in a coal-mining adventure at Chesterfield, a lease 

 was taken of the Clay cross estate, then for sale, mid 

 operations were shortly after begun. At a subsequent 

 period Mr. Stephenson extended his coal -mining 

 operations in the same neighbourhood ; and in 1841 he 

 himself entered into a contract with owners of land in 

 the townships of Tapton, Brimington, and Newbold, for 

 the working of the coal thereunder ; and pits were 

 opened on the Tapton estate on an extensive scale. 



1 A railway of this description has 

 recently been projected from Askern, 

 in Yorkshire, to March, in Cambridge- 

 shire, where it falls into the Eastern 



Counties Railway, to be devoted 

 mainly to coal traffic, thus carrying out 

 to a great extent George Stephen son's 

 favourite idea. 



