We would have the public…somewhat more mindful of the benefits they
have already derived from the railways; it would improve their patience
under evils for the time unavoidable…They save the public two-thirds of
their time in transit, and two-thirds in fares and tills; they have
given us the penny post, which would not have existed without them; they
have intersected the country with telegraph wires employing 3000
persons, stretching a distance of 86,000 miles and flashing a million
messages a year, many of them to and from places hundreds of miles
apart; they have reduced the cost of many articles of general
consumption, and rendered others common where nature seemed to plant an
interdict against them…In 1854 they transported 111,000,000
passengers…in such safety that in the first half of the year but one
accident happened to every 7,195,341 passengers. In these journeys, each
passenger gains an hour in time, amounting in all to 38,000 years of
working life at eight hours a day. Supposing the day’s labour to be
worth three shillings, these deplorable railways save the nation
£2,000,000 a year in the item of time alone.
Chamber’s Journal (1856), 227
