Page:The Working and Management of an English Railway.djvu/23

 character compared with those of a later date. As first projected, the railway terminated, at the Liverpool end, at Crown street, near Edge Hill, and omnibuses were employed for conveying the passengers to and from the City; but this was soon found to be a great hindrance to the development of the traffic, and in the session of 1832 powers were obtained for the construction of the tunnel under the City to Lime Street, which was completed and opened for traffic in August, 1836. Despite all its shortcomings, however, the undertaking was, from the very outset, a much greater success than even its authors had ever ventured to predict, and indeed their anticipations proved to have fallen almost ludicrously short of the results actually realised. They had expected to earn £10,000 a year from passenger traffic, whereas in the first year after the opening the receipts from that source were £101,829. They had estimated the gross receipts from merchandise at £50,000 per annum, but in 1833 the actual amount received was £80,000. From the very commencement, the shareholders obtained a dividend at the rate of 8 per cent, per annum, afterwards rising to 9 and 10 per cent, and remaining at the latter figure for some years.

The great success of the Liverpool and Manchester railway, as might naturally have been expected, let loose a flood of railway enterprise all over the country. Lines were soon projected between all the towns of any importance in the kingdom and even between remote; villages. One enthusiast went so far as to propose a railway under the sea between Dover and Calais, and was no doubt looked upon by his contemporaries as a fitting candidate for a lunatic asylum, but probably the distinguished promoter of the Channel Tunnel scheme