The Sun.
London, England, 1864-06-21 00:00:00

GREAT EASTERN.

The directors of this company have issued a statement to
the shareholders respecting recent proceedings before a
committee of the House of Commons on the Great Eastern
Northern Junction Bill. The proposed line was intended
to start from the Great Eastern line near Cambridge in a
northern direction, passing near Peterborough, Bourn, Slea-
ford, Lincoln, Gainsborough, and Doncaster to Askem,
where it would form junctions with the Lancashire and
Yorkshire Railway, the North-Eastern system, with the
South Yorkshire coalfields, and with the new line from Don-
caster to Hull. It would also Join the Midland Railway at
Peterborough, and the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincoln
system at Lincoln, thus forming the most direct access to
the Eastern Counties, as well as a large and populous dis-
trict in the eastern part of the metropolis. The proposed
main File and branches were 134 miles in length, and the
total cost was estimated at £1,500,000, or less than £12,000
per mile. The gradients throughout were only lin 400,
being so favourable as to enable an engine to draw nearly
double the load that could be carried over the existing Great
Northern Railway between Doncaster and London-400
tons and upwards against 240 tons. It was proposed that
the new line should carry the '4OO tons at a farthing per ton
per mile, while the rate on the Great Northern for a load of
240 tons was a farthing and a half per ton per mile. The
proposed line would therefore earn 10d per mile at the re-
duced rate, or £6 lis 8d per train on a distance of 176 miles,
more than would be earned by carrying only 240 tons in a
train at three-eighths of a penny per ton per mile. This
proposal would have reduced the cost of carriage upon coal
by is 4d per ton between Doncaster and the eastern part of
London, which was a wholly distinct district of the metro-
polis:from that which was reached by the Great Northern
at King's-cross, so that thorn could be no competition for
this traffic, as it would cost 2s per ton to bring the coal from
the Great Eastern district to that served by the Great
Northern, and vice versa. The advantage of cheap fuel
would therefore be entirely confined to the large district
served by the Great Eastern, effecting a reduction in the
price of coals to the consumer of 3s 4el per ton as com-
pared with the cost of being compelled to receive their coals
from King's-cross. The population of the eastern dis-
trict was estimated at 600,000 persons, and the probable
annual supply of coal by the Great Eastern at 1,000,000 tons.
The saving on this commodity alone would have been
£166,600 as compared with the same amount of coal carried
to the same district by the Great Northern route. The
statement also referred to the great advantages that would
be derived from the proposed direct communication between
the Great Eastern agricultural district, served by 600 wiles
of railway, and the great railways in the manufacturing and
mining districts,

The scheme of the Great Northern consisted of a connec-
tion between their loop line at Gainsborough with Doncas-
ter, so as to establish the route from Doncaster to Peter-
borough by the circuitous line via Lincoln, Boston, and
Spalding; and, secondly, by a system of single disjointed
loop lines, ostensibly destined for local accommodation, but
really devised in order to block up the district and prevent
the establishment of a superior direct through route. Taking
Cambridge as the common point of concentration to and
from the Great Eastern district, the distance to Doncaster
by the Great Northern loop line was 17 miles greater than
by the proposed line.

It was urged that the new line would tend greatly to in-
crease the profit on the capital of £20,000,000 already ex-
pended upon the Great Eastern system. It appeared that
the committee did not consider it fair towards the Great
Northern for the proposed line to a have a maximum fare of
one farthing per ton per mile, while the Great Northern
required a farthing and a half per ton per mile to pay them.
It the Great Northern had the same gradients, well and
good ; but as they had not got them and could not get them,
except at a very large expense, the committee thought it
right to reject the Great Eastern Northern Junction Bill.
But, at the same time, the committee inserted facility clauses
in the Great Northern Bills with a view a view to enable
Great Eastern Company to run over the lines of the
Great Northern Railway to Dancaster, if they thought pro-
per to do so. The directors state that no amount of facilities
could ever give to the Eastern Counties district the advan-
tages of a line 17 miles shorter, with flat gradients, neither
could any amount of facilities give to Central Lincolnshire
the advantage of having their district served by a grea
through line of railway. They also state that every one con-
versant with the working of railway traffic was well aware
that those facility clauses under such circumstances were
neither more nor less than "a mockery, a delusion, and a
snare." The directors could not believe that Parliament
Ad finally refuse to sanction a scheme which offered to
wot..
the pubh,
, the advantage of the best and cheapest trunk line
which had yet Veen devised between the North of England
on the one hand anu .
'he Eastern Counties and eastern dis-
tricts of the metropolis on other.