The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-09-17 00:00:00

Caledonian will, from the moment it is opened, command
the following connections, in addition to its principal
Termini, in Edinburgh and Glasgow :
. By the Scottish Central Railway,with Stirling, Perth,
Dundee, and the North of Scotland generally.
2. By the Edinbnrgh and Glasgow Railway, eastward,
with Falkirk, Linlithgow, and the important districts of
which these towns form the centres.

3. By the same Railway, westward, with Kirkintilloch,
Kilsyth, and other towns and villages in that quarter.
4. By the Forth and Clyde Navigation, with Grange-
mouth and the Firth of Forth. . _

5. By the Clydesdale Junction, with Paisley, Greenock,
and Port-Glasgow ' • and
6. By the Clyde Navigation, with the Firth of Clyde.
Your Committe have likewise carried out the original
views of the promoters, by ordering a survey and plans
of a Branch to Dumfries, and these are now in course of
execution.
These various ramifications must always give the Cale-
donian Company the command of the railway traffic be-
tween Scotland and England.
This leads your Committee to the only other subject to
which they thick it necessary to allude before concluding
this Report, and that is, the competition of other Lines.
Your Committee are cif opinion, that much more impor-
tance has been attempted to be attached to that compe-
tition than it deserves. They say this without the slighest
disposition to underrate any real or well-founded danger
from such a cause, but they look upon the danger in this
case as neither iminent in its circumstances nor serious in
its consequences.
The routes alleged to be Lines competing with the
Caledonian are the projectad Railwys from Newcastle to
Edinburgh, by Berwick, and from Carlisle to Glasgow, by
Dumfries.
With regard to the first of these routes, your committee
do not regard it as a competing Line at all. It was de-
cided not to be so by the Select Committee on competing
Railways appointed last session, by the House of Com-
mons ; and a statement to the same effect was made, in
Parliament; by the President of the Board of Trade.
The Caledonian Line must always be the shortest and
cheapest route from Edinburgh to three fourths, at least,
of all England. Any one examining a map may ascer-
tain that Berwick, while it is 57 miles distant from Edin-
burgh, it is only 14 miles to the southward of it. The
distance from Edinburgh to Liverpool, by the Caledonian
Line, will be 226 miles, whereas, by the route to Berwick,
•it would be 304 miles, making a difference in favour of the
• Caledonian of 78 miles.

Under such circumstances, your Committee are of
opinion, that the Caledonian Company has nothing to fear,
in any event, from Railway communication along the east
coast.

vv
The other projected Line is a proposed continuation of
the Glasgow and Kilmarnock Railway, by way of Dum-
fries, to Carlisle. If that project were to be sanctioned
by Parliament, it might, to a limited extent, compete with
the Caledonian in the wear of Scotland traffic. It has
not, and never can have, any direct communication with
the Northern and Eastern Railways. The navigable river
of Clyde, and the city of Glasgow form insuperable bar-
riers to such a connexion. Beyond the western traffic,
therefore, the competition could not be extended ; and in
regard to it, it would be conducted by the rival Company
under the d'sadvantage of a great excess of distance. For
instance, between Glasgow and Carlisle the excess is 24
miles. Between Edinburgh and Carlisle, besides the in-
terruption at Glasgow, the excess of distance, by the Avr
and Dumfries route, is not less than 70 miles. Competi-
tion on such terms would be so hopeless or ruinous that
your Committee cannot suppose that any influence which
the Glasgow and Ayr railway Company possess will be
sufficient to induce Parliament to sanction such an under-
taking.
On the subject of the merits of the Kilmarnock and
Dumfries Line, as compared vbith the Caledonian, the
Government Commissioners are very Explicit. "It is
true," says their Report, " that, as each of the three
(Nithsdale) routes is intended to form a Junction with
the Ayrshire Railway, or its branch to Kilmarnock, there
would be a shorter length of new Line to construct ; * *
but this is rather to be considered as an advantage to the
proprietors of that Line than to the public, whose fares
would be in proportion to the distance travelled over,
whether on the old or new Line ; * * and it would be
very unjust, for their exclave advantage, to tax passen-
gers between Carlisle and Edinburgh and Glasgow, both
in time and expense, to the extent it would be requisite
in this instance. Viewing the matter in this Ught, it is
conceived that neither of the three Nithsdale Lines can be
recommended as a Main Trunk Line of communication
between England and Scotland." .

In conclusion, your committee have to state, that vigor-
ous measures have been commenced to obtain the Act for
the formation of the Caledonian Line. Your committee
anticipate that the Act will be passed and the Works
commenced early next summer ; but as there is already a
large sum of money in hand, a second call on the capital
will not be required b: fore the month of July, 1845.
By Order of the Committee,

21st August, 18-T4. BE,LHAVEN, Chairman.
tW Holders of Scrip in this undertaking will receive
copies of the Report and relative Map of the Railway,
upon applying to Messrs. FORSYTH and PRITCHARD,
Shareholders, Exchange-street, Liverpool.