158 Railways and their Future Development. [April, 



advantage, and one which is entirely lost if the stock has to 

 be increased in weight 6J times. 



It may easily be shown that on a gradient of 1 in 10, for 

 instance, taking the foregoing figures, that the advantages 

 of a steam-worked railway over a horse-worked road would 

 be a little more than one-fourth, if the stock on the former 

 be only 6|- times heavier in proportion than the latter would 

 require. Hence it follows that no railway having gradients of 



1 in 10 could be worth making (assuming such to be 

 possible) unless the stock upon it were assimilated to that 

 of the ordinary omnibus or stage coach-type. 



In former times calculations were made by Nicholas 

 Wood of the comparative costs of conveyance on ordinary 

 roads by horses ; he showed that on an average a stage 

 waggon could cany at the rate of 2J miles an hour profitably 

 at 8d. a ton per mile ; that a light van or cart at 4 miles 

 an hour could take for is. a mile a ton of goods. Passengers 

 in stage coaches were charged 3d. a mile each, or 3s. 6d. a 

 ton, at 9 miles an hour. Now let us consider what railways 

 actually do. At the present moment coals are conveyed at 

 5-8d. per ton per mile, at an average speed of 20 miles an 

 hour ; and this low rate actually leaves a profit. Excursion 

 trains take passengers at less than Jd. each per mile, at 

 20 miles an hour, or at yd. a ton a mile. 



Now, bearing in mind the relative proportions of paying 

 and non-paying loads involved in carrying passengers and 

 coals, a simple calculation will show that a ton of passengers 

 could be carried for something less than id. a mile, or — tb part 

 of a penny each. For, although passengers require station 

 accommodation, they unload themselves, which coals do not. 



In the autumn of 1869, the " Times " took up the railway 

 problem, and in a series of very able articles endeavoured 

 to show the errors of the present state of things. Although 

 advocated by so powerful a pen, the reforms still remain 

 unaccomplished — indeed, uncommenced. It was then shown 

 that in practice every passenger on a railway involved over 



2 tons — of iron and timber — to carry him. Or, according 

 to Mr. Haughton (late of the L. & N. W. Railway), no more 

 than 30 per cent of the load which is hauled by a goods 

 train represents paying weight, the remaining 70 per cent 

 being dead weight. This seems astonishing, truly, but it 

 is nothing to the passenger trains, where only 5 per cent, or 

 even less, of the load pays, the remaining 95 per cent being 

 made up of apparently dead and unprofitable material. It 

 is well to keep this clearly in view. In talking about a 

 passenger, with relation to a railway, one must not picture 



