justify a fair
expectation of return on the capital to be invested, as also on the Rugby
and Oxford portion of the line, which will complete a chain of direct
Railway communication from the Northern and Midland to the Southern and
South Western counties, and will afford to those counties a valuable
supply of coal from the Derbyshire collieries.

We proceed, therefore, to investigate the subject, on the assumption that
one or other of the competing schemes promoted by the London and
Birmingham, and Great Western Companies, will be sanctioned, and that the
question is reduced to one of preference between them.

In regard to distance, the two schemes are as nearly as possible equal,
the distance from Worcester to London being 122 miles by the Tring line,
and 119 by the Oxford line; the former, however, terminating at the
Euston Square Station, and the latter at Paddington. The number of miles
of new Railway to be constructed in either case is also nearly the same;
nor does there appear to be anything in respect of gradients or
engineering character calculated to give one scheme a decided preference
over the other. The course of the Tring line accommodates a larger
population between Worcester and London than the Oxford line; but the
importance of the districts traversed by either line, and left out by its
competitor, is hardly sufficient to give a decided superiority on a
question of such magnitude.

A far more important feature of comparison is derived from a
consideration of the question of gauge.

The Great Western scheme is proposed to be constructed on the wide gauge
of seven feet, used upon the different Railways of the Great Western
system; while the scheme of the London and Birmingham Company is proposed
to be constructed on the narrow gauge of 4 feet 8.5 inches, common to all
the other Railways of the kingdom.

In order to estimate fully the importance of this question, it must be
borne in mind that the Bristol and Gloucester Railway is on the wide,
while the Birmingham and Gloucester is on the narrow gauge, and that the
inconvenience resulting from the break of the two gauges at Gloucester
has been so great as to lead to an amalgamation of the two Companies,
with a view to obviate it, by introducing uniformity of gauge throughout
between Bristol and Birmingham. From the arrangements which have been
made with this view, it is perfectly evident that upon the question of
the Worcester lines depends whether