The steam engine familiarly explained and illustrated; with an historical sketch of its invention and progressive improvement; its applications to navigation and railways; with plain maxims for railway speculators. By the Rev. Dionysius Lardner ... With additions and notes by James Renwick ...

LOCOMOTIVE ENGINES ON RAILWAYS. 211
ning between Liverpool and Manchester. If we assume
these coaches on the average to take ten persons at each trip,
it will follow that the number of persons passing daily between these towns was about 500. Let us, then, assume
that 3000 persons passed weekly. This gives in six months
78,000. In the six months which terminated on the 31st of
December, 1831, the number of passengers between the same
towns, exclusive of any taken up on the road, was 256,321;
and if some allowance be made for those taken up on the
road, the number may be fairly stated at 300,000. At present there is but one coach on the road between Liverpool
and Manchester; and it follows, therefore, that, besides taking the monopoly of the transit in travellers, the actual
number has been already increased in a fourfold proportion.
The monopoly of the transit of passengers thus secured to
the line of communication by railroad will always yield so
large a profit as to enable merchandise to be carried at a
comparatively low rate.
In light goods, which requires despatch, it is obvious that
the railroad will always command the preference; and the
question between that mode of communication and canals is
circumscribed to the transit of those classes of heavy goods
in which even a small saving in the cost of transport is a
greater object than despatch.
(103.) The first effect which the Liverpool railroad produced on the Liverpool and Manchester canals was a fall in
the price of transport; and at this time, I believe, the cost
of transport per ton on the railroads and on the canals is the
same. It will, therefore, be naturally asked, this being the
case, why the greater speed and certainty of the railroad
does not in every instance give it the preference, and altogether deprive the canals of transport? This effect, however, is prevented by several local and accidental causes, as
well as by direct influence and individual interest. A large
portion of the commercial and manufacturing population of
Liverpool and Manchester have property invested in the