Page:Inland Transit - Cundy - 1834.djvu/17

 and effect of his design: the design upon arches must be considered a very considerable additional expense, and this estimate cannot be taken as an average expense of railroad; the average expense of railroads is within 8000l, to 10,000l, per mile on the level. This line of railroad is intended to pass His Majesty's arsenal at Woolwich, and from thence to Gravesend, and to cross the river Medway below Chatham, and thence to Dover, with a branch by Eltham to the vale of the Medway, to Tunbridge and Maidstone, which can be constructed without a tunnel. I feel confident that the line over the river Medway below Chatham is objectionable, inasmuch as the Government will not consent to a bridge being; thrown across that river below Chatham. The line by Eltham, Riverhead, Maidstone, to Dover, is about seventy-nine miles in distance, and a much better line of country, and will prove a lasting benefit to the landowners, cultivators, farmers, and hop-growers of Kent: it will enable them and travellers to execute their respective interests, without any delay, at one half of their former expenses.

3d.—The railroad is designed by Francis Giles, Esq., civil engineer, from London to Southampton. Distance of this line is within eighty miles; and the engineer's estimate expense, 1,000,000l.; and the probable revenue is estimated, when completed, at 374,451l. 8s. 6d. per annum; and the annual expense of repairs for conducting the railroad at 56,000l. The line is from Lambeth, and to pass by Kingston, Weybridge, Basingstoke, and Winchester, to Southampton; the levels of that line of country are not favourable for a railroad; the summit level is 380 feet above London. This inclined plane rises twenty-two feet per mile, for about eleven miles on the line. I consider