Page:Inland Transit - Cundy - 1834.djvu/173

 In conclusion, then, it may be taken from the foregoing facts and evidence, that railroads will prove a great national benefit; and that locomotive engines are and can now be constructed at about one-fourth of their former expense, and to travel on the levels of the Greenwich railroad to Dover, the Western railroad to Reading and Newbury, the projected grand Southern railroad to Portsmouth, Shoreham, and Brighton, and the grand Northern railroad to York, safely, at the average speed of twenty-five to thirty miles an hour, without tunnels or steep inclined planes. A single engine is capable of propelling on such levels from 60 to 100 tons of goods and merchandise at the speed of twenty miles per hour, as will appear by the fact, that the engine called the Fire Fly travelled on the Liverpool railroad 22,000 miles in successive days, 155 miles per day, at the expense in fuel of a half-penny per mile.

The steepest part of the Liverpool railroad is at Rain Hill, where it rises about eight feet per mile; and from all the experiments that have been hitherto tried, a railroad, whose inclined plane exceeds ten to twelve feet rise per mile, destroys the objects for which commercial railroads are designed; viz. speed of travelling, and the transit of large cargoes of goods, grain, and merchandise, at a small expense: therefore, I am of opinion that railroads will not do for hilly countries, or cross roads; and roads of small traffic will be found inconvenient and too expensive to afford a fair return for capital.

The science of constructing steam-engines is now brought to maturity, so that an engine can be