Report of the Railway Department of the Board of Trade on the London, Worcester, and Wolverhampton, | Page 3

by the offer made by the Railway Company to whose scheme we recommend that a preference should be given, to take upon themselves the burden of the guarantee to the extent of any loss sustained in consequence of the construction of the Railway, subject to any reasonable conditions and arrangements.
With regard to the remaining point, that of safety, it is admitted that portions of the soil being undermined, subsidences occasionally take place; but there appears no reason to apprehend any peculiar degree of danger to a Railway from this source, beyond what equally affects the Canals, Roads, Tramroads, Founderies, Mills, and other buildings of the district, and which has never been considered an impediment to the introduction of Railways in other mining districts. Some of the most eminent engineers of the day, among whom may be mentioned Sir J. Rennie, Mr. Brunel, and Mr. R. Stephenson, have proposed the lines which pass through the district in question, and are clearly of opinion that they may be worked without any unusual degree of danger.
We are of opinion, therefore, that some one line of Railway is required, and may be properly sanctioned, for the accommodation of the district in question, between Wolverhampton and Worcester. This being conceded, the sanction of a line in connexion with it, to connect Worcester more directly with London, and to give communication to the large intermediate district, appears to follow almost as a matter of course. The supply of coals to this district, where a great reduction of price will be effected, is alone an important object; and, on the other hand, an outlet will be afforded for agricultural produce. A population of about 128,000 between Worcester and Tring would be accommodated by the line in that direction; and on the whole, taken in connexion with the Worcester and Wolverhampton Junction, the traffic seems sufficient to justify a fair expectation of return on the capital to be invested, as also on the Rugby and Oxford portion of the line, which will complete a chain of direct Railway communication from the Northern and Midland to the Southern and South Western counties, and will afford to those counties a valuable supply of coal from the Derbyshire collieries.
We proceed, therefore, to investigate the subject, on the assumption that one or other of the competing schemes promoted by the London and Birmingham, and Great Western Companies, will be sanctioned, and that the question is reduced to one of preference between them.
In regard to distance, the two schemes are as nearly as possible equal, the distance from Worcester to London being 122 miles by the Tring line, and 119 by the Oxford line; the former, however, terminating at the Euston Square Station, and the latter at Paddington. The number of miles of new Railway to be constructed in either case is also nearly the same; nor does there appear to be anything in respect of gradients or engineering character calculated to give one scheme a decided preference over the other. The course of the Tring line accommodates a larger population between Worcester and London than the Oxford line; but the importance of the districts traversed by either line, and left out by its competitor, is hardly sufficient to give a decided superiority on a question of such magnitude.
A far more important feature of comparison is derived from a consideration of the question of gauge.
The Great Western scheme is proposed to be constructed on the wide gauge of seven feet, used upon the different Railways of the Great Western system; while the scheme of the London and Birmingham Company is proposed to be constructed on the narrow gauge of 4 feet 8.5 inches, common to all the other Railways of the kingdom.
In order to estimate fully the importance of this question, it must be borne in mind that the Bristol and Gloucester Railway is on the wide, while the Birmingham and Gloucester is on the narrow gauge, and that the inconvenience resulting from the break of the two gauges at Gloucester has been so great as to lead to an amalgamation of the two Companies, with a view to obviate it, by introducing uniformity of gauge throughout between Bristol and Birmingham. From the arrangements which have been made with this view, it is perfectly evident that upon the question of the Worcester lines depends whether this uniformity will be proposed to be attained, by the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway adopting the wide gauge, or the Bristol and Gloucester adopting the narrow.
The question, therefore, upon which we have had to form an opinion is, whether it is better for public interests that the wide gauge should come up to Birmingham and Rugby, or that the narrow gauge should go down to Bristol and Oxford?
It would be difficult to overrate the importance of this question