A Note on Railway Constructional Costs 1825-1850

capital accounts of to-day are heavily loaded with what some regard as the blackmails of the 'forties, and in international comparisons of costs Great Britain notoriously suffers through the heavy initial outlay in lands and parliamentary expenses to acquire them against bitter opposition . So wrote Sir Josiah Stamp in I928.2 'Blackmails 'is perhaps a strong word but a good case can be made for its use when the details of the difficulties that early railway companies had to overcome are considered. But although it can be shown that landowners were paid handsomely for land sold to the railways, it does not follow that this expense was of the order of magnitude that contemporaries and recent writers have suggested. The argument3 is that the opposition to railways in this country, the difficulties of obtaining Acts of Parliament, and the high prices paid for land, sometimes under duress, adversely affected the railways' capital accounts to a significant degree. In this note the statistics of capital expenditure of a number of railway companies will be examined to see what proportion of their expenditure went on obtaining Acts of Parliament and on purchasing land

Mathematics · Transport and Economic Policies