In making these various researches, Mr. Stevenson was enabled to suggest many proposals which can only be regarded as valuable for the period at which they were made, but he gave many opinions, which undoubtedly have come wonderfully true in the history of railway communication.
The Right Honourable Sir John Sinclair, Bart., proposed, in 1823, certain queries to Mr. Stevenson relative to a proposal for the construction of an iron railway between the cities of London and Edinburgh, and the following is an extract from his reply, showing, that while he fully appreciated the value of _ship-canals_, he entertained the conviction that “iron railways” would become, as I have already said, the highway of the future.
“Regarding the practicability of such a scheme, it may be noticed that the late eminent James Watt entertained an idea of the eligibility and great advantage which might accrue to the public from the formation of a central and considerably elevated line of inland navigation constructed so as to ramify through the interior districts of England, and communicate with the principal manufacturing and populous towns in the kingdom.
“In any comprehensive view of a measure of this kind there can be no doubt that an iron railway would not only be much more practicable, but more commodious and useful for general intercourse than a canal. And the comparative expenses of the two operations would probably be in the ratio of about one to eight in favour of the railway. Again, if the advantages of carriage by the railway and the _common road_ be compared, it will be found that the proportion is at the rate of about one to seven, also in favour of the railway.
“The economy of carriage on the railway, when fully contrasted with that of the canal, is also much greater. It may now, indeed, be considered as a generally received opinion, that, unless for enabling sea-borne ships to pass from one side of the coast to another, so as to avoid a tedious or dangerous circumnavigation, the railway in every other case is preferable. It is at the same time to be noticed that when Mr. Watt suggested the idea of a central line of canal many years since, the railway system was then neither so well known nor so much acted upon as now.”