The Sun.
London, England, 1841-07-09 00:00:00

Eastern Counties Railway.

The projectors of this Railway intended that it should commence
at the metropolis, and be carried through the counties of Essex,
Suffolk, and Norfolk, and terminate at Yarmouth ; and for this
purpose they obtained the permission of Parliament, by an Act
passed 4th July, 1836, to raise a capital of '2,133,333/. but :they
reckoned without their host, or rather without the lawyers, for
they, with the Act of Incorporation and preliminary ex-
penses, swallowed up one-tenth of the whole capital, and the
counties of Norfolk and Suffolk seem very likely to be de.
prived, at least for some time, of the advantages of the Railway,
unless the extension of the Northern and Eastern Railway to Nor-
wich, under the superintendence of Mr. Rastrick, be carried out.
This Railway although promising to be as profitable as any Rail.
way in the kingdom, and under the superintendence of Mr.
Braithwaite, an engineer of great talent, has spent the
greater portion of its funds, and up to July 1840, the outlay was
1,'234,958/. and the line completed only to Brentwood, a distance
of 18i miles. The Railway commences at High street, Shore-
ditch, passes through Spitalfields, Mile End-cross, Dog-row, and
Globe-lane; continues near to the East London Water-works, at
Old Ford, across the marshes to Stratford, and Ilford to Romford,
and runs alongside the turnpike road to Warley.lane, at Brent-
wood. The Railway commences at the metropolis, by a well built
viaduct, one mile and a quarter long, upon IGO arches built of
brickwork, Roman cement, will some of the arches are strong cast.
iron bridges. The gage of the Railway is five feet; the time oc-
cupied by the first class trains through from London to Brent.
wood is thirty-six minutes, and by those which stop at the inter.
mediate station% about fifty minutes.

STATIONS.
High-street, Shoreditch. Ilford.
Mile End. Romford.
Stratford. Warley-lane, Brentwood.

Edinburgh and Dalkeith Railway.

This Railway was projected in the year 1824, and on 26th May,
18.26, the first Act of Parliament was obtained. Two Acts were
subsequently obtained, on the 4th of July, 1829, and the 27th of
June, 1534. The sum empowered to be raised was 133,0531.
The gage is 4 feet 6 inches; the main line runs from Edinburgh to
South Esk, and it has three branches, one to Dalkeith, one to
Leith, and the other to Musselburgh. There is a tunnel upon
the Edinburgh inclined plane 1,716 feet long, lighted throughout
by gas lamps. Hitherto the carriages and waggons have been
drawn by horses, and this kind of traction, whatever may be its
other inconveniences, has this benefit, that passengers are allowed
to stop upon any part of the line. There is a great traffic in
coals; and upon the different parts of the line, and for different
services, there arc several clever mechanical contrivances, chiefly
for the safety of passengers on the inclined planes, of which there
are three, and with great success, as, although from 200,000 to
300,000 passengers are annually conveyed upon this Railway, no
accident has occurcd to any passenger. Eight trains pass daily
each way.

Edinburgh
Leith

STATIONS.
Dal keit It
Fisherrow

south Esk.
Niddric.

Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway.

. Whatever the Irish people may do or say about a repeal of the
Union, no well informed Scotchrnan ever wishes to recur to the
state of things that existed in his country before the union with
England. Scotland never succeeded when she had independent
jurisdiction, in establishing Colonies ; and since her unsuccessful
attempt to colonise the Isthmus of Darien, she has never repeated
the experiment. The Act of Union threw the English Colonies
open to her trade, and the Western and North Eastern districts, of
Scotland have grown rich by colonial commerce. No part of
the British empire has benefited so much as Glasgow and the
district for thirty miles around it, abounding in c•ral and iron
stone, by the improvements of the Clyde, enabled to bring her
" argosies" to the quays ofher manufactories, connected with the Ger-
man Ocean and the Ports of Northern Europe, by the ship canal to
Edinburgh. Glasgow did not require, like the English manufacturing
towns, railways to bring her the raw material, nor to convey to her mar.
kets the manufactured product. Nature, and the exercise of very lit.
tle art, supplied all her wants ; and hence, whilst railways stretched
over the surface of England, manufacturing Scotland has been
very slow to adopt this mode of transit. Edinburgh, the " modern
Athens," with its fine buildings, " and its depositories of learning,"
lies on the other side of the isthmus, but the traffic between the
two cities is principally passenger-traffic, and the saving of two or
three hours upon the road by a few of the travellers, did not seem
to justify an outlay of nearly a million ; but the increasing compe-
tition of manufactures in the North of Ireland, and the necessity
for a speedy and cheap communication with the metropolis of the
empire, compelled the inhabitants of the southern districts of
Scotland to take measures for making a railway between
Edinburgh and Glasgow, and the line, when completed,
will be attended by consequences as important as any line in the
British Empire. The original intention of the Edinburgh mid
Glasgow Canal was to give a speedy communication between the
two seas, but the nature of the ground necessitated the construc-
tion of a considerable number of locks, and so much time is con.
sumed in passing through them, that the original design is partially
frustrated, and the merchants now either send their goods for the
southern markets by sea through the St. George's and English
Channels or by steam to Liverpool, or from hence by Railway to
the south ; but when this Railway is completed, the goods will be
sent to Leith, and thence by steam-boats to the market, and the
conveyance will be as speedy as the present Railway route, and at
one-third the cost, as the price then charged will only be for
forty-six miles of Railway conveyance instead of nearly '2OO miles.
The Act of Parliament was obtained in 1838. The capital of
the Company is 900,0004, divided into 18,000 shares of 501.
each. An additional Act was obtained 23d July, 1840; the
length of the line is 46 miles; it course is for nearly one half
its length parallel to the Forth and Clyde Canal. The nature
of the country necessitates the construction of three tunnels, 64
bridges, and several viaducts. The Almond viaduct over the
Almond Water is a fine stone erection, 720 yards long, 28 feet 4
inches wide, and varying from 60 feet to 85 feet high; the gage of
the Railway 4 feet 8- inches. This Railway is now nearly com-
pleted.