Report of the Railway Department of the Board of Trade on the London, Worcester, and Wolverhampton,

Report of the Railway
Department of the Board

of Trade on the London, Worcester, and Wolverhampton, and on the
Birmingham and Shrewsbury Districts, by Samuel Laing, et al
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Title: Report of the Railway Department of the Board of Trade on the
London, Worcester, and Wolverhampton, and on the Birmingham and
Shrewsbury Districts
Author: Samuel Laing

Release Date: January 16, 2007 [eBook #20388]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REPORT OF
THE RAILWAY DEPARTMENT ***

Transcribed by David Price, email [email protected]

RAILWAYS. REPORT of the RAILWAY DEPARTMENT of the
BOARD of TRADE on the London, Worcester, and Wolverhampton,
and on the Birmingham and Shrewsbury Districts.
(Presented to Parliament by Her Majesty's Command.)
Ordered, by The House of Commons, to be Printed, 28 February 1845.
83--2.
Under 2 oz.
Railway Department, Board of Trade, Whitehall, 28 February 1845.
The Board constituted by Minute of the Lords of the Committee of
Privy Council for Trade, for the transaction of Railway business,
having had under consideration the different schemes deposited with
the Railway Department for extending Railway communication
between London, Worcester, and Wolverhampton, and in the district
intermediate between the London and Birmingham and Great Western
Railways, and also, in connexion with the above, the schemes for
extending Railway communication between Birmingham and
Shrewsbury, have determined on submitting the following Report
thereon for the consideration of Parliament.
The object of the first class of schemes in question is to supply Railway
communication to the great mining district of Staffordshire, lying south
of Wolverhampton, to the towns of Kidderminster, Stourbridge,
Stourport, Worcester, &c., and to the district north of Oxford,
intermediate between the Great Western and London and Birmingham
Railways.
For this purpose two competing schemes are proposed; one, which is
promoted by the London and Birmingham Company, comprises a line
from Rugby to Oxford, and another from Wolverhampton, through
Worcester and Banbury, to join the London and Birmingham line at
Tring; the other scheme consists of a line from Oxford to Rugby, which

is proposed to be made by the Great Western Company; and of another
line from Oxford to Worcester and Wolverhampton, which is
undertaken by an independent Company, but in connexion with the
Great Western Company, and which must be considered as forming,
with the Oxford and Rugby line, one scheme, competing with the
former.
For the sake of brevity we shall distinguish these as the "London and
Birmingham or Tring Scheme," and the "Great Western or Oxford
Scheme." Their general direction will be easily understood by reference
to the accompanying map.
In their general features and objects the two schemes are so nearly
identical that the two manifestly cannot stand together. A further
scheme for the accommodation of the country between Worcester and
Wolverhampton, was proposed by the Birmingham and Gloucester
Company, but it is understood that arrangements have been made by
which this scheme is withdrawn in favour of the London and
Birmingham scheme, to which it was moreover inferior in several
important respects, so that we may consider the question as reduced to
one of competition between the schemes of the two great Companies.
The first point is, whether a sufficient public case can be established to
justify the construction of any Railway at all throughout the districts in
question. As regards the South Staffordshire district, this point has been
disputed by various Canal interests, who urge that the district is already
sufficiently well supplied by water communication, and that the
introduction of Railways, by destroying the resources and crippling the
efficiency of such water communications, will be productive of injury
rather than of benefit to the Public. Various special reasons have been
urged in support of this view, more especially with reference to the
mineral district of which Dudley may be considered as the centre. It is
said that the Birmingham Canal Company have, at a great expense,
created a very complete and efficient system of water communication
throughout this district; that a right is reserved of making branch
Canals to all mines and works within certain limits, which right would
be to a certain extent defeated by running a Railway parallel to the

existing Canal, to the injury both of the Canal Company, and of the
owners of the mines and works so cut off; that the management and
charges of the Canal Company have always been of the most liberal
description; and finally, that owing to the peculiar nature of the district,
in which great excavations have been made for mining purposes,
Railways cannot