Nicholas Wilcox Cundy

“ But the peculiar nature of a railway, the magnitude and weight of the loads which may be transported on it, and the prodigious speed which may be attained, render the transport of cattle, meat or fish of every species, to almost any distance, both easy and cheap. In process of time, when the railway system becomes extended, the metropolis and populous towns will therefore become markets, not, as at present, to districts within limited distances of them, but to the whole country within 200 miles of the metropolis. ”

“ A road is a contrivance by which the resistance opposed to a body moving on the surface of the earth, arising from the inequalities of that surface, may be diminished; and as it diminishes that resistance, in the same proportion does it accomplish its object. The power of traction or impulsion is efficient in proportion to its intensity, and the rate at which it is capable of exerting that intensity in reference to time. On the intensity of the power depends the resistance it can overcome, and this intensity is therefore proportional to the load. ”

“ When it is considered that seven years have now elapsed since the practicability of propelling a carriage on a common road by steam was established by incontestible experiment, it will naturally be enquired, why in a nation celebrated over the world for its mechanical skill and commercial enterprise, and abounding in capital, the project has not yet attained a more advanced stage? ”

“ The concentration of mind and exertion which a great metropolis always exhibits, will be extended in a considerable degree to the whole realm. The same effect will be produced as if all distances were lessened in the proportion in which the speed and cheapness of transit are increased. Towns, at present removed some stages from the metropolis, will become its suburbs; others, now at a day's journey, will be removed to its immediate vicinity; business will be carried on with as much ease between them and the metropolis, as it is now between distant points of the metropolis itself. ”

“ The next step in the progressive improvement of the art of inland transit, is the adaptation of the steam-engine to propel carriages on common roads. The practicability and advantage of the same power on railroads leads necessarily to enquire, whether there is any and what difference in the quality of railroads and turnpike roads, which would render a power of traction so profitable on the one impracticable on the other. ”

“ The two advantages of increased cheapness and speed, besides extending the amount of existing traffic, call into existence new objects of commercial intercourse. For the same reason that the reduced cost of transport, as I have shown, calls new soils into cultivation, it also calls into existence new markets for manufactured and agricultural produce. The great speed of transit, which has been proved to be practicable, must open a commerce between distant points in various articles, the nature of which does not permit them to be preserved so as to be fit for use beyond a certain time. ”

“ The want of the same evenness on the surface of a turnpike road, the different states of repair in which different parts of it must necessarily be at any given time, but, above all, the fact that the rolling of the carriages themselves is the means by which the road is for the most part formed, consolidated and rendered smooth, make it necessary that any power of traction used upon it shall be susceptible, as occasion may require, of considerably varied energy. ”

“ It has been said that in Great Britain there are above a million of horses engaged in various ways in the transport of passengers and goods, and that to support each horse requires as much land as would upon an average support eight men. If this quantity of animal power were displaced by steam-engines, and the means of transport drawn from the bowels of the earth, instead of being raised upon its surface, then, supposing the above calculation correct, as much land would become available for the support of human beings as would suffice for an additional population of eight millions ”

“ If a body were sustained by a surface perfectly level and perfectly smooth, so as to oppose no resistance whatever to motion upon it, without friction, the body once put in motion by an impulse would continue to move for a considerable time, without the application of any further impulsion or traction. ”

“ In all cases where a horse is used as the means of transit, he must, besides the load which he bears, move the weight of his own body, and a great portion of his strength is thus employed. This portion is found to increase at a rapid rate with the velocity, so that as the speed of his motion increases, the quantity of power which he can spare to his load is as rapidly diminished. ”

“ Even if the resistance of a fluid were not increased, the effect of a horse's power, by the condition of his nature, would be materially reduced by every increase of speed; and, on the other hand, even were a horse capable of working with the same effect at an increased speed, the resistance of a fluid, increasing in a greater proportion than the square of the speed, would impair the total effect. ”

“ It is scarcely necessary to point out the impolicy and injustice of such conditions, when I consider the advantage possessed by one engineer, in having the exclusive experience of the road as his guide. It would perhaps have been not only a more liberal, but a more wise policy in the Directors, to have encouraged the inventive genius of the country, by affording it in some degree those opportunities and advantages which the possession of so grand an instrument as their railroad placed in their hands ”

“ I have explained that the effect of incurvations on a road will obstruct the speed, whether it be a railroad or a turnpike road, but that the increased resistance offered by them on turnpike roads, bears a much smaller proportion to the resistance on the level, than is the case in railroads. The increased power, therefore, required by them, is not so great proportionally on turnpike roads as on railways ”

“ The benefit of this will extend, not to the consumer only, but to the producer: by lowering the expense of transport of the produce, whether of the soil or of the loom, a less quantity of that produce will be spent in bringing the remainder to market, and, consequently, a greater surplus will reward the labour of the producer. The benefit of this will be felt even more by the agriculturist than by the manufacturer; because the proportional cost of transport of the produce of the soil is greater than that of manufactures. ”

“ But when a carriage is drawn or impelled along a hard and level road, the motion which it receives from the first impulse would continue undiminished for a short time, if the road and the faces of the wheels were perfectly smooth, and no resistance of the air. ”

“ Two or three accidents to passengers have occurred, but in every case they have been produced by the want of the most ordinary care on the part of the sufferer, and in only one instance have they been fatal, although nearly a million of passengers have travelled upon the road. If the number of accidents which have occurred be compared with those which occur upon a mail-coach road with the same number of passengers, the comparison will exhibit in a clear light the superior security for life and limb afforded by the substitution of steam-engines on railroads for horses. ”

“ Since the resistance of a given load to a propelling power is greater in a twelve-fold proportion than on a railroad, it follows, that with the same power the load drawn must be proportionally or twelve times less. But since a part of this load is the weight of the engine itself, and since this weight must bear some proportion to the entire load, it follows, that engines of equivalent power, to be adapted to common roads, must be lighter than those used on rail roads. ”

“ The continual power of traction necessary to sustain the motion of a body, therefore, arises from the resistance produced by the action of the body on the road; and it is only by investigating the nature of this resistance, and its law, that the necessary qualities in the drawing or impelling power can be fully understood. As the presence of resistance on the road does not supersede the necessity of the first impulse, it follows that every mass which is to be moved, requires a much greater exertion of power at starting than subsequently ”

“ On roads, the resistance is always in proportion to the weight; and by combining this circumstance with what has been already explained respecting the dependence of the resistance on the velocity, it will be easily perceived, that the most advantageous mode in which canals can be used is in the transport of very great weights at a very low speed. Indeed, independently of the limit of speed imposed by the law of resistance, there are other circumstances connected with canals which render any considerable rate of motion inapplicable to them ”

“ To render intelligible the advantages which attend the use of steam as a moving power in the transit of loads over land, whether by canals or roads, it will be necessary to premise a few observations respecting the steam-engine. It is a universal property of matter, that by the application of heat, so as to raise its temperature, it suffers an increase in its magnitude. ”

“ I may not be, perhaps, far from the truth in assuming that the average traction of level turnpike roads, in the summer or frosty season, is about twelve times that of railroads; and consequently that the same power acting on a railroad, will always draw or impel twelve times the load which it can transport on a common road. But I am decidedly of opinion that a steam coach or carriage cannot be used on turnpike roads in the winter season, more particularly after a sharp frost, on a new road ”

“ The same quantity of actual labour executed in a short space of time, requires a far greater expenditure of horse power than if it were performed at a slower rate; and hence it follows, in the comparison of the effects of steam power with that of horses, that the advantage of the former is slight, when slow rates of motion only are considered. To give the steam-engine its full advantage, if worked upon canals, it would, therefore, be necessary to propel the boat at a greater speed than 21⁄2 miles an hour,—the rate at which horses can work with the greatest effect. ”

“ That improvements in machinery, by which labour is superseded, sometimes excite to violence the lower classes of hand artisans, is a matter of just condemnation; but in this case also guilt has its palliation, in the difficulty which uneducated persons find in perceiving that the displacement of labour by machinery is only apparent, or at least temporary, and that the final and never-failing result is an increased demand for hands. The momentary distress which every great change in employment necessarily occasions in a manufacturing community is also a palliation which should not be overlooked ”

“ A boat moving in a canal at a higher rate than 3 miles an hour, is found to produce such a surge and motion of the water, as to injure or even destroy the embankments, unless in canals of considerable width, such as the great Caledonian Canal. Were the steam-engine, therefore, applied to propel boats upon any of the ordinary canals, it would be necessary to limit the speed to that rate at which the steam-engine competes with horses with the least advantage. It is probable that, even under these circumstances, in most situations, steam power would be found more economical than that of horses. ”

“ First, the tunnel must be many miles long, without light and air, except artificial air and light, perhaps gas lights. The want of atmospheric air, combined with the combustion of gas, smoke, and steam, will render the tunnel almost incapable of human existence. And, secondly, the condensed or compressed air in the tunnel, if it is only a mile long, will give a formidable resistance to the speed of the propelling engine and train of carriages, that would require more than double the power to propel them, compared with the power on the same level in the open air ”

“ That a railroad should be effective, it is therefore necessary that a propelling power should be used capable of great variation in its intensity, or that additional powers of traction should be provided at every inclination, or, finally, that, in the original construction of the road, a level be maintained as near as possible, and in no case should the inclination exceed 14 feet in a mile. ”

“ According to the law of railroads, as will be found in theory and practice, no railroad for despatch of business, speed, and safety, should rise more than from twelve to fourteen feet per mile. The law of gravity, propulsion, and speed, will be found to be obstructed about one hour in every two feet rise, in twenty miles; so that the speed of a steam engine that could perform thirty miles an hour on the level, will be reduced to less than five miles per hour, upon a rise of twenty feet per mile. ”

“ Railways are in progress between the points of great intercourse in the United Kingdoms, and travelling steam-engines are in preparation in every quarter for the common turnpike roads; the practicability and utility of that application of the steam-engine, having not only been established by experiment to the satisfaction of their projectors, but proved before the legislature so conclusively, as to be taken for the foundation of Parliamentary enactments, and upon which large capital may be safely invested. ”