Page:Report from the Select Committee on Steam Carriages.pdf/84



John Farey, Esq. 10 August, 1831. country, without horses, at a speed of eight or ten miles an hour. The Steam Coaches I have tried, have made very good progress along the road, but have been very deficient in strength, and consequently in permanency of keeping in repair, also in accommodation for passengers and for luggage; for which reasons they are none of them models to proceed upon to build Coaches as matter of business, From the complexity of their structures and the multiplicity of pieces of which they are composed, it is impracticable to give them the requisite strength by mere addition of materials, because they would then be too heavy to carry profitable loads as stage coaches. I do not consider That it is now a question of theory, for the practicability I conceive to be proved; but many details of execution, which are necessary to a successful practice, are yet in a very imperfect state. My view of the subject will be best understood by stating, that I believe an efficient Steam Carriage might now be made merely to carry despatches, by following the general plan of the best Steam Coach which has yet been produced, improving the proportions wherever experience has shown them to be faulty, using the very best workmanship and materials, and giving a judicious increase of strength to the various parts which require it, allowing all the weight of a load of passengers and luggage, and of the accommodations for them, in additional strength of materials, so that the total weight of the Coach, without any passengers or goods (beyond the people and stores necessary for its own use and one courier), should be as much as the weight of the previous model containing a full load of passengers and luggage If three such Coaches were constructed, one of them might start every morning at each end of any fair line of road 100 or 120 miles long, and one would arrive every evening at each end of that line in less time than a common stage coach; and I should expect that, after twelve months' perseverance, and after making all the improvements and alterations in the machinery which so much experience would suggest, the double passage ought to be made with as much safety and punctuality, and with much