A

PRACTICAL TREATISE

ON

RAIL-ROADS,

AND INTERIOR COMMUNICATION IN GENERAL.

CONTAINING

NUMEROUS EXPERIMENTS ON THE POWERS OF

THE IMPROVED LOCOMOTIVE ENGINES:

AND

TABLES OF THE COMPARATIVE COST OF CONVEYANCE ON CANALS,
RAILWAYS, AND TURNPIKE ROADS.

THIRD EDITION, WITH ADDITIONS.

Illustrated by several New Engravings.

BY NICHOLAS WOOD,

COLLIERY VIEWER, MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTION OF CIVIL
ENGINEERS, ETC.

"Should we live to see fully developed all the powers and energies of this system,
we have no doubt we shall also live to see it recognised, as one of the very greatest
benefits which either philosophy or art has ever conferred on mankind."— Quarterly
Review.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR

LONGMAN, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, & LONGMANS,

PATERNOSTER-ROW.

DEDICATED, BY PERMISSION,

TO

THE RIGHT HONORABLE LORD RAVENSWORTH,

THE

RIGHT HONORABLE LORD WHARNCLIFFE,

AND

JOHN BOWES, Esq., M.P.

BY

THEIR MUCH OBLIGED AND HUMBLE SERVANT,

NICHOLAS WOOD.

INTRODUCTION

TO THE

FIRST EDITION.

IN offering these pages to the Public, little explanation is, perhaps, necessary; the acknowledged importance of Railroad conveyance, and the intense anxiety existing in the public mind, respecting the relative value of Canals and Railroads, as species of internal communication, render any information concerning them of interest; and, if that information is founded on the result of experiments performed on a working scale, it is conceived that, whether they tend towards establishing the one system or the other, they will be equally entitled to attention.

The want of practical information, on the subject of Railroads, has been much lamented; detached observations and opinions have at times been circulated, but little has been done towards the exhibition of the sub

ject in a systematic manner. The want of experiments on the friction of carriages,—the want of detailed obser