Note 30 — Chapter X · LOCOMOTIVE ENGINES ON RAILWAYS. (continued 2)

(97.) To obtain from the locomotive steam engines now used on the railway the most powerful effects, it is necessary that the load placed on each engine should be very considerable. It is not possible, with our present knowledge, to construct and work three locomotive engines of this kind, each drawing a load of 30 tons, at the same expense and with the same effect as one locomotive engine drawing 90 tons. Hence arises what must appear an inconvenience and difficulty in applying these engines to one of the most profitable species of transport—the transport of passengers. It is impracticable, even between places of the most considerable intercourse to obtain loads of passengers sufficiently great at each trip to maintain such an engine working on a railway.[30] The difficulty of collecting so considerable a number of persons, at any stated hour, to perform the journey, is obvious; and therefore, the only method of removing the inconvenience is to cause the same engine which transports passengers also to transport goods, so that the goods may make up the requisite supplement to the load of passengers. In this way, provided the traffic in goods be sufficient, such engines may start with their full complement of load, whatever be the number of passengers.