TRANSPORT AND ITS INDEBTEDNESS 
TO SCIENCE. 
ADDRESS TO SECTION G (ENGINEERING) BY 
Sin HENRY FOWLER, K.B.E., 
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 
I reeu that it is right that the Engineering Section of the Association 
here in, Liverpool should devote one of its sessions to the subject of 
traction. ‘There is no city in the Empire, or in the world, which is so 
dependent on traction in one way or the other as the one in which we 
are meeting to-day, and I can also say without fear of contradiction 
that there is no city in the world which has acted as so great a pioneer 
in traction development as this one on the Mersey. 
Its very birth was caused by the physical features it presented at a 
time when the estuary of the Dee was silting up, whilst whatever may 
be the derivation of the first portion of its name, there is no question 
but that the latter portion refers to the advantages it offered for water 
transport. 
It is not necessary, nor am I qualified, to speak of the development 
of the ‘ pool’ into the port which means so much to Liverpool at the 
present day, but there are other methods of transport in which it has 
played an important part that I should like to mention. 
As early as 1777 Liverpool realised the necessity and advantages of 
easy and cheap transport, and the canal from Liverpool to the Trent 
was constructed at that date, having a length of ninety-six miles. This 
joined the Trent at Shardlow, not far from ‘Nottingham, and it has 
recently been suggested the river should be canalised from there to the 
sea on the East Coast. 
More recently Liverpool has become connected with its sister city of 
Manchester by the Ship Canal, in the carrying out of which many 
interesting engineering problems were met and solved. 
The better-remembered event is, however, in connection with trans- 
port by rail. Tt was the construction of the Liverpool and Manchester 
Railway in 1829 and its immediate success that more than anything 
else impressed on the country the fact that a new system of traction 
was opening out unheard-of possibilities. It is not too much to say that 
the production of the ‘ Rocket’ for the trials at/Rainhill in October 1829 
marked the first step in the practical commercial success of railways. 
This, however, has not been the last association of the city in pioneer | 
work on the rail in this country. In 1904 the Liverpool and Southport 
section of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway was electrified, this 
being the first inter-urban electric line in this country. The change 
was due to the enterprise and foresight of Mr. (Sir) John A. F. Aspinall, 
