Report of the Railway Department of the Board of Trade on the London, Worcester, and Wolverhampton, | Page 6

published time-tables, and by official returns, is not so high as
upon some narrow-gauge Railways, and notwithstanding the excellence
of its gradients, very slightly higher than the average speed of other
great Railways on the narrow gauge. In respect of safety, it is manifest
that both gauges are alike unobjectionable, with due precaution and
proper management; and in respect of convenience and of economy,
including the cost both of construction and working, the opinion of a
great majority of the most eminent authorities is unfavourable to the
wide gauge.
Without wishing to express any positive opinion ourselves upon the
point, it is enough for us to say that we think there is nothing in the
relative merits of the two gauges in themselves materially to affect the
question between them, which turns upon commercial considerations.
In this point of view the question is, as we have already observed,
whether the points of junction between the wide and narrow gauge
should be at Rugby, Birmingham and Wolverhampton, or at Oxford
and Bristol. In support of the first view, it is contended that the
principle which should regulate the choice of the points of junction
ought to be to fix them at great foci of traffic, and centres of converging
Railways, where delay must take place and large establishments be
maintained at any rate; while on the other hand it is contended that such
points are the worst possible to select, and that the opposite principle
should be adopted, of confining an inevitable inconvenience within the
narrowest possible limits, by fixing the points of junction where there is
least through-traffic.
The correctness of the latter proposition seems perfectly obvious upon
general considerations; but the question is one of such great
commercial importance, that we have thought it right to inquire fully
and in detail into the practical effects that would result to the principal
interests concerned from an interruption of the gauge, on the one hand,
at Birmingham and Rugby, and on the other at Bristol and Oxford.

By either combination the traffic of places intermediate between
Birmingham and Bristol with each other, and with London, would not
be affected; uniformity of gauge being secured equally in the one case
by the wide, in the other by the narrow gauge. By either combination
the traffic between places north and east of the line of the London and
Birmingham Railway and places south of the line of the Great Western
Railway would not be affected, interruption of gauge having equally to
be encountered in the one case at Bristol and Oxford, in the other at
Birmingham and Rugby.
By the former or wide-gauge combination, the traffic between
Devonshire, Cornwall and all places south of the line of the Great
Western Railway, and Birmingham, and all places between
Birmingham and Bristol, would gain, i.e. would escape an interruption
of gauge; also such of the traffic of South Wales, to Birmingham, and
places short of Birmingham, as in the event of the South Wales
Railway being sanctioned, would take the circuitous route by that
Railway to the north of Gloucester.
On the other hand by the narrow-gauge combination, a break is avoided
in the whole of the traffic between Manchester, Liverpool, Hull, and
the Northern, Eastern, and Midland portions of the kingdom, and
Bristol, Gloucester, Worcester, and the whole district intermediate
between the London and Birmingham and Great Western Railways.
The paramount importance of this consideration has been strongly
urged upon us by parties practically acquainted with the traffic, and by
the principal interests affected by the question.
In the memorial already referred to, signed by the representatives of 46
iron-works, 57 furnaces, and 98 collieries, in the Staffordshire mineral
district, in favour of the London and Birmingham line, and
narrow-gauge system, it is stated that, of the total export of the district,
only eight per cent. is sent in the direction of Bristol, of which by far
the greater quantity is shipped from that port, and would therefore be
unaffected by a break of gauge there; while 37 per cent. is sent to
Liverpool and the north and north-west of the kingdom, and 13 per cent.
to Hull and the east, all of which would consequently suffer by a break

at Birmingham.
The wool trade between Bristol, where wool fairs are held annually,
and Leicester and the West Riding of Yorkshire, is very considerable,
all of which would escape a break of gauge by the narrow-gauge
combination.
The export of salt from Droitwich, both to Gloucester and Bristol, and
to Hull and other parts of the kingdom, is already large, and likely to
receive very great increase, if an unbroken Railway communication is
afforded, which can only be done by the narrow-gauge combination.
The same combination affords the important advantage of an unbroken
communication to the