The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-04-16 00:00:00

THE EASTERN UNION RAILWAY.

ANSWER TO AN ARTICLE IN THE IMPARTIAL " RAIL-
WAY TIMES," OF Cnit APRIL, 1144.

OUR Readers will perceive that we' have copied an
article from the Railway Times, of Saturday last,
having reference to the Eastern Union Railway. as con-
trasted with the proposed East and West Suffolk Railway.
We have preferred giving the whole of this precious docu-
ment, containing, as it does, mis-statements and false,
reasoning in abundance, that we may show " how plain a
tale shall put him down."

Let us premise, however, that in quoting the Railway
Times our readers must bear in mind that they must con-
sider the parties speaking to be Messrs. J. Duncan. the
Law Clerk of the Eastern Counties' Railyvay Company,
and John Braithwaite, their Engineer, these gentlemen
having such a property or connection with the Railway
Times that it may be taken as their organ ; they are also
the active promoters of the East and West Suffolk Rail-
way.

But let us analyse their attack upon the Eastern Union
line, which they say is the most " absurd imaginable."
Whence the absurdity ? we would ask. The only differ-
ence between it and the original line of the Eastern Coun-
ties' Railway consists in taking rather a shorter line
between Colchester and Ipswich, and avoiding the most
expensive and absurd works projected by the very gentle-
men who now call that an absurd line which unites the
same two towns at much less than half the cost of their
own bantling.
We can imagine both lawyers and engineers thinking
this a very absurd mode of proceeding, but the public
will hardly sympathise with them. But, say these same
absurdity-mongers, any goods or traffic on the Eastern
Unicn line must come out of the pockets of the ship-
owners of Ipswich. How affectionately careful of the
interests of the Ipswich shipowners, for which we hope
they willbe duly grateful; but it so happens that the good
advice is grievously thrown away, for it appears that the
Provisional Directors of the Eastern Union line number
amongst their most active men those who are most deeply
interested in the Ipswich shipping, and who certainly re-
quire no assistance from either lawyers or engineers to
teach them how to take care of their own interest. But
then, says the article, the Directors do not intend to pro-
ceed a yard beyond Ipswich, hoping the Suffolk people
will drag their carts and wagons to Ipswich from this time
forth, &c. What may be the intention of the Directors
we cannot say ; but this we know, that if one thing be
more generally desired by the inhabitants of this town
than another, it is that the railway should communicate
with Bury St. Edmund's, which is manifestly for the in-
terest of both parties, should it be done; and knowing the
respectability of the Directors of the Eastern Union line,
we have no doubt it will be accomplished.
Let us now examine the two lines as proposed. The
East and West Suffolk is a perfect misnomer. The
course is from Colchester to Hadleigh, and thence west-
ward to Bury St. Edmund's and Cambridge, with a
branch to Ipswich, and this may be said to go from east
to west in Suffolk ; but what accommodation does it afford
to that which is truly the district named East Suffolk—
the important and populous towns of Woodbridge, Stow-
market, Needhammarket, Debenharn, Stradbroke, Fram-
lingham, Saxmundharn, Bungay, Harleston, Beccles,
Halesworth, and a host of others. These are all to be
taken of no account, from which we would almost infer
that the writer of the article knows nothing of the county,
did we not know also that other reasons exist for the state-
ment. The Eastern Union line, on the other hand, takes
a course that, whilst it does all that the other professes,
adds much more by running through central Suffolk, and
gives facilities infinitely beyond the other to a very large
population. It is true that the Bill now in Parliament
embraces only the line from Colchester to Ipswich. We
can readily imagine that the Directors of the Union Line
considered it much better to apply for power for a portion
of the whole line and complete that first, rather than to
procure an Act for a long line and then stop short of half
way.

The writer has attempted a little bit of facetiousness in
proposing to change -the name of the Eastern Union to
that of the Ipswich Selfish Railway. We would suggest
to our Bury friends to call the East and West Suffolk the
Duncan and Braithwaite Railway, because, if it is given
up, there will not seem to be the abandonment of the
public interest. It may not perhaps be known to the
West Suffolk public that a few weeks since an offer was
made by the same parties to support the Eastern Union,
on condition that it took the old line of the Eastern
Counties' Railway, as far as it ran towards Harwich,
in which case Western Suffolk would have been
told of the immense advantages of the Eastern Union
over going by Hadleigh. The Directors, however, pre-
ferred an engineer who has executed large works within
the estimates to one whose calculations have been so ex-
travagantly exceeded. The public ought to bear in mind
that the cost of 51 miles to Colchester ►s nearly three mil-
lions, or about £60,000 per mile, whereas Mr. Locke's
estimate for the Eastern Union is not a third of that sum.

.Our distant readers will be surprised to find a writer
committing so great an absurdity as to s'ate that the
Eastern Union line runs by the side of the Orwell, when
it is upon the map almost exactly at a right angle thereto
—the meeting point being Ipswich.--Essex and Suffolk
Mercury,7th April, 1844.