His early researches on the subject of canals prepared him, about 1816, to extend the same reasoning to railways, which, with wonderful sagacity, he foresaw must become what he termed the “British highway” of the future. He found that his first idea of tracks of iron and stone to improve the draught on common roads was not destined to meet the requirements of the future; and when as yet nothing was known of railways beyond the tramways connected with coal-fields, and no proposal had been made to adapt them to passenger traffic, Mr. Stevenson was engaged tracing in all directions through Scotland lines of railway as a new mode of conveyance to supersede roads. Some of these early proposals, extending to about five hundred miles, are shown in hard lines on Fig. 15, and of all these railways he made surveys, estimates, and elaborate reports addressed to Committees of subscribers by whom the various schemes were supported.
It must be remembered that at that early period no other power than that of horses was contemplated for performing the haulage either on road, canal, or tramway, and Mr. Stevenson, true to his early views as to the disadvantage of lockage on canals, spent much time in experimenting on the prejudicial effect of steep inclines on horse railways, and in endeavouring, in his various surveys, to discover routes by which his lines of railway might be carried through, as much as possible, on one level, regarding a few miles additional length of line as quite unimportant compared to the disadvantage of a steep gradient,--a view which was more appreciated before the locomotive engine had taken upon itself the labour of the horse.
To show the state of railway matters at the period to which I refer, I think it may not be uninteresting to give, even at some length, extracts from Mr. Stevenson’s report on what was called the Edinburgh Railway. The report, which is dated 1818, was addressed to “His Grace the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry, and the other noblemen and gentlemen, subscribers for a survey of a railway from the coal field of Midlothian to the city of Edinburgh and port of Leith.”
“In the course of a report relative to a line of canal upon one level, or without lockage, between the cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, the reporter took occasion to state the practicability of a line of railway from the coal field of the vale of the Esk to the city of Edinburgh and the port of Leith, founded upon a communication which he had the honour to make to Sir William Rae, Baronet, and the Honourable Baron Clerk, so far back as the year 1812. This subject having since attracted the notice of Sir John Hope, Baronet, and several of the other landed proprietors of Midlothian, the reporter had consequently a correspondence with Messrs. Gibson and Oliphant, Writers to the Signet, on the part of the promoters of this measure.