In the 1833 Journal of Agriculture, previously quoted there is a series of calculations on the weight of crops, etc. which might be expected to be transported our of the Vale of Strathmore. There is also the following section which estimated the costs of running steam locomotives on the lines rather than using horses.
The level part of the railway has hitherto been served by horse power; and at the outset of such a work as this, when the business upon it had to be acquired, and no certain anticipations of great immediate traffic could be depended on, it was highly expedient not incur the expense of locomotive steam-engines. As the strength of the rails is only 28 lb per yard, it is very questionable whether that strength could have borne the locomotive engines which were first used, especially such as those used on the Liverpool and Manchester railway, which weigh from 6 to 8 tons each, and are borne on a rail of the strength of 36 lb per yard. Under these circumstances, Mr Nicholas Wood, the eminent colliery surveyor at Kilingworth, recommended the weight of carriages with the goods not to exceed 3 tons each, and that they should be propelled by horse-power. In this manner the business of the railway has gone on hitherto very smoothly, one horse dragging along four loaded waggons of 3 tons each, at the rate of perhaps more than three miles per hour. The rate of freight is 4d per mile per ton. Now, however, that locomotive engines are improved in their construction, and the economy in their consumption of fuel seems to be brought down to the minimum point, it is worthy of immediate consideration, whether they should not be employed on this railway in preference to horses. The two level plains would require an engine each. The light engines of Mr Gurney's construction could work upon them with great advantage. But as example is better that precept at all times, and particularly in matters of experiment, we shall state what one of Mr Gurney's locomotive engines performs on a railroad in Wales. Mr Crawshay of the Cyfarthfa iron-works in Glamorganshire, South Wales, states in a letter to Sir Charles Dance in February 1832, that the engine which he got from Mr Gurney for his railway at Hirwain, did not weigh above 35 cwt, including water and fuel, and every other thing in a working state; that this engine conveyed, between 1 January 1831 and 1 January 1832, of coal, ironstone and iron, from 20 to 30 tons at a time as suited convenience, exclusive of the weight of the carriages on which they were drawn, 42,300 tons a distance of 2 1/2 miles; that during that time the engine was half idle, though it was kept "working idle", as he expresses it, in order to keep the boiler full; that the quantity of coals consumed in that time was 299 tons at 3 s per ton, L 44,17 s that the wages of the engineer was L 52, and those of a boy L 15,12 s; and that with oil and other trifling matters the whole expense amounted to L 112,9 s, or less than one farthing per ton per mile for the goods conveyed; and that from his long experience of horse power on railroads, he conceives that steam power is cheaper than it, in the proportion of 1 to 20 or 30. He concludes by earnestly recommending the cheaper power of steam, wherever practicable, for that of horses, and says there are "many other valuable considerations in favour of that of steam, known only to those who have large and expensive stable".
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June 2019