sion of the Northern and Eastern Railway for about 10 miles, from Bishop's Stortford to Newport; a short branch, of about a mile and three-quarters, from the Croydon Railway to a point near the Bricklayers' Arms, where an extensive station is to be constructed for the joint use of the South-Eastern and Croydon Companies; a line of six miles and a half from Liskeard to Caradon, in Cornwall, with a branch to the Cheese-wring, of two miles and a quarter, the whole intended chiefly for the carriage of minerals and agricultural produce; and a line of about a mile and three-quarters, called the Drumpeller Railway, to connect some coal-fields with the Monkland canal, in Scotland.

The Third Annual Report of the officers of the Railway Department of the Board of Trade, dated February 28, 1843, presents much reason for congratulation in the diminished number of accidents, especially of a serious character, and such as affect the safety of passengers by railway trains. During the last five months of 1840, being the period embraced in the first annual report from this department, returns were made of 28 accidents, by which 22 deaths, and upwards of 131 cases of personal injury, were occasioned. In the whole of the next year the number of accidents of the like description was only 29, involving 24 deaths and 71 cases of injury; but during the year 1842 a still more striking improvement is observable; the number of accidents being only 10, the number of deaths 5, of which the report states that only one occurred to a passenger while travelling by the train, and observing the proper degree of caution, and the cases of personal injury 14. The above numbers do not include accidents which happened to individuals solely through their own inadvertence and misconduct, or such as occurred to servants of the railway companies under circumstances involving no danger to passengers. Of the former class there were 47 accidents, involving 26 deaths and 22 cases of injury, and of the latter there were 77 accidents, by which 42 servants were killed, and 35 injured. The report also gives a table of 21 accidents by collision, running off the rails, fire, and similar casualties, by which no personal injury was occasioned. An examination of the tables in the report, which specify the nature of each accident, shows that the casualties not occasioned by culpable carelessness on the part of the persons injured are exceedingly rare. The report observes that "A comparison of the number of accidents attended with death or injury to passengers, with the number of passen

*This Act deserves special notice on account of the principle which, in a great measure, led to the introduction of the Bill, and to its success in the face of extraordinary opposition on the part of the Greenwich Railway Company, who had widened their line for the accommodation of the traffic of the Croydon, Brighton, and Dover Railways, but persisted in charging a rate of toll which utterly precluded those Companies, especially the first, from establishing a low scale of fares. It was repeatedly proved that the gross amount realized by the high toll was, owing to the comparatively small number of passengers who would pay it, less than might be obtained from a low rate of toll; but the Greenwich Company persisted in demanding their parliamentary maximum toll of 44d. per passenger, for a distance of 1 mile, and on this account, as well as on account of the insufficient extent of the London Bridge Station, the Bricklayers' Arms Branch was sanctioned. Any Company using it will pay a rate of toll proportionate to the fare they charge.

gers conveyed by railway during the same period, which, from the returns made to this department, appears to have been upwards of 18,000,000, would seem to indicate that the science of locomotion has, as far as the public safety is concerned, arrived at a very high degree of perfection; of more than 18,000,000 of passengers conveyed by railway in the course of the year 1842, only one having been killed while riding in the train, and observing the proper degree of caution." The officers of the railway department state, however, that while they are fully satisfied that a degree of security has been attained upon well-managed railways decidedly superior to that of any other mode of conveyance, the same extraordinary exemption from serious accidents cannot be expected in future, if there should be any relaxation of vigilance, or any diminution in the efficiency of the working establishments of railway companies, such as may be feared from the attempts which some companies have made to reduce their current expenditure by diminishing their staff, or lowering the wages of their servants. The statistical returns of traffic made to the Board of Trade by the several companies are not complete, but as far as they could be obtained they show, for the twelve months ending July 1, 1842, a gross number of 18,453,504 passengers, of whom 2,926,980 were first-class passengers, 7,611,966 second-class, 5,332,501 third-class, and 2,582,057 passengers whose class is not distinguished. Adding an assumed number for the railways whose returns were not obtained, the number of passengers for the above year is taken, in round numbers, at 19,000,000, of whom about 18 per cent. travelled by first-class carriages, 50 per cent. by second-class, and 32 per cent. by thirdclass. The gross receipts for the same period were 2,731,6871. for passengers, and 1,088,8357. for goods.

Owing to the previous completion of most of the important lines of railway which have received parliamentary sanction, the openings of the year 1843 have been far less numerous and extensive than those of any previous year, for a considerable time past. The aggregate length of new line brought into operation since the appearance of the Companion' for 1843 has been about 105 miles. The following is a classified statement of the openings, on the plan adopted in preceding papers of this series:

6

Lines completed since the appearance of our last volume, the first and third of which were partially opened before that time,

Lines partially opened before, and farther so since November

Taking the completed lines in the order of opening, as they are given in the preceding table, our descriptive notices commence with the

Eastern Counties Railway-Had this railway been made according to the Company's Act of incorporation, it would have been the longest integral line in Great Britain, its intended termini being London and Yarmouth, and its length 126 miles. The utter insufficiency of the original capital, and the difficulty of raising additional capital for an undertaking which had fallen somewhat into disfavour with the public, led the directors to determine upon limiting their operations, at least for the present, to that part of the railway which lies between London and Colchester, a distance of about 51 miles; and even for this greatly reduced line the original capital of the Company has proved insufficient. Some parties interested in the completion of the railway instituted legal proceedings to compel the directors to proceed with the whole line; but as such measures could not fill the coffers of the Company, they failed to produce any important practical result. The first partial opening of the railway, from a temporary station at the Mile-End Road, London, to Romford, is noticed in the Companion' for 1840 (pp. 86 and 87), where also the intended course of the line is stated; and in the next volume (p. 93), is recorded the extension of the line at the London end to the site of the permanent station in High-street, Shoreditch, and at the opposite end to Brentwood. No further partial opening took place, but the works on the remainder of the line were carried on so far simultaneously, that the engineer, John Braithwaite, Esq., had hoped to have the whole line ready for opening on the 1st of October, 1842. Unfavourable weather having retarded the completion of the works, the opening was put off from time to time, and did not actually take place till the 29th of March, 1843. In order to render the line fit for use even thus early. it was found necessary to erect temporary viaducts of timber across gaps in unfinished embankments at Shenfield and Mountnessing, and also on the site of an extensive slip at Lexden, where, owing to the exceedingly unsubstantial character of the soil, the engineer stated that 60,000 cubic yards of earth had been tipped in a space not much ex

This is the length of the line belonging exclusively to the South-Eastern Company, and the subsequent figures are computed in the same way. An explanation respecting the additional distance worked over by the Company is given in a subsequent page.

ceeding 40 feet by 30, without increasing the embankment a single yard in height or length. The timbering introduced at these points is of very substantial character, consisting of transverse frames or trusses, about 15 feet apart, which support massive longitudinal timbers upon which the rails are laid. Wedges are introduced beneath the longitudinal timbers to afford the means of adjusting the level in case of subsidence. At the time of opening there were several small portions of line laid with only a single track, and the second track was not completed throughout till the 9th of May. Since the opening, contracts have been entered into for filling up the timber viaducts with earth, the lower timbers being left imbedded in the embank

ment.

The gradients of the Eastern Counties Railway, from London to Colchester, are, with a few exceptions, very good. From London the line descends for rather more than 4 miles, principally with a slope of 1 in 352. It then begins to rise, with slopes nowhere exceeding 1 in 400, until arriving at a point about 15 miles from London, where the Brentwood inclined plane commences. This inclination rises at the rate of 1 in 100 for rather more than 2 miles, after which the line remains nearly level for a short distance, and then falls, at the rate of 1 in 132, for about a mile and a half. About 20 miles from London commences a long descending gradient of 1 in 400, which, shortly before arriving at Chelmsford, 28 or 29 miles from London, is reduced to a fall of 1 in 817. From Chelmsford to Colchester the railway undulates gently, with gradients never exceeding 1 in 400, and with a slight fall upon the whole. The summit level at Brentwood is about 216 feet above the London terminus; and the fall from it to Colchester is very nearly the same, the station at the latter place being a very little elevated above that at London. Of the works it is unnecessary to say much. The London end of the line is supported upon an extensive and handsome brick viaduct; and for several miles the number of bridges over and under the line is unusually great. The railway crosses the Stratford marshes by an embankment, which is deserving of notice more from a peculiarity in its construction than for anything remarkable in its size or extent. In order to facilitate the construction of the embankment by enabling the workmen to tip or empty more waggons than usual in a given time, Mr. Braithwaite constructed a kind of scaffolding or stage in advance of the end of the embankment; and by leaving some of the timber framework of this scaffolding in the earth of the embankment, it was so tied together and strengthened as to enable it to stand against the action of the heavy floods to which the valley of the Lea is subject, far better than an embankment constructed in the ordinary way. Between Brentwood and Colchester, a distance of about 334 miles, there are no less than sixty-four bridges and viaducts, thirty-seven culverts and drains, and eighteen level crossings; and Mr. Braithwaite stated, at a mee ting of the Company on the 28th of February last, that there

were on the whole line 365 bridges, arches, and culverts. Among these works may be mentioned as remarkable a bridge of seven arches at Shenfield Common, over a cutting or excavation 50 feet deep; the Cann viaduct, consisting of eighteen arches of 30 feet span, and 44 feet high; the Chelmsford viaduct, which is about 792 feet long, and is widened in one part to a breadth of 62 feet, to afford space for the station; the Chelmer river viaduct, of three arches of 45 feet span, and 38 feet high; the Hatfield Mill Head viaduct, of three arches of 40 feet span, and about the same height; the river Blackwater viaduct, of three arches of 42 feet span, in an embankment of about 20 feet; and the river Colne viaduct, of seven arches of 50 feet span, 53 feet in height, constructed upon very difficult foundations.

Mr. Braithwaite's revised estimate of the cost of the line from London to Colchester amounted to 2,300,000.; but, in a very detailed report made by him to the directors in August, 1842, he announced a probable excess of nearly 150,000. The last report of the directors shows that the actual expenditure to the 16th of August, 1843, was 2,748,9901. 15s. Cd., from which sum a deduction might be made of 48,8331. 8s. 2d., on account of surplus property sold by the company. To the former sum must be added 84,736., being the difference between the estimated liabilities of the Company at that date, and its assets in further surplus property. Of this expenditure nearly 1,000,0007. was required for land and compensation, parliamentary and law expenses, interest, and similar items, not included in the actual formation of the line.

In the last session of parliament a bill was brought in for the construction of a short branch-railway from the Eastern Counties line at Stratford to the Thames, but it was lost, the directors say through a misapprehension. It is proposed to renew the application in 1844, when, also, it is probable that parliamentary sanction will be applied for to a branch or extension line from Colchester to Harwich, which was projected several years since, and is, at the time we write, being brought forward again by two independent companies. As mentioned in last year's 'Companion,' an independent company has been formed for making a line from Yarmouth to Norwich; and among several similar projects is one for a new line from Colchester to Bury St. Edmund's and Thetford, with a branch to Ipswich, such line being intended to join, at Thetford, a branch from a projected extension of the Yarmouth and Norwich Railway from Norwich to Brandon. In order to avoid the risk of competing lines for the traffic of the Eastern Counties, it has been determined, since this article was written, to unite or amalgamate the companies to whom the Eastern Counties and Northern and Eastern Railways respectively belong. The terms of the arrangement, which now only awaits the formal sanction of Parliament, are, that the former Company shall take a lease of the Northern and Eastern line, in perpetuity, at a rental amounting to five per cent. upon