ABSTRACT
The decision arrived at by the Grand Junction Railway Company was being reached by other railway companies also, as the only solution for the ills of the existing situation in regard to the goods traffic on railways. If the railway companies should become carriers, and the private carriers should be driven off the rails, the railways would then be in a position to combine with the canals and force the public to pay monopoly prices. In certain instances the canal companies, in their opposition to railways, and with the concurrence of their engineers, promoted Bills to convert their canals into railways, or to construct lines of railway parallel to or in connexion with their waterways. The impetus given to the amalgamation of railways and canals before the beginning of the railway mania continued in the following years, and in 1846 there were over 200 Bills presented to Parliament containing provisions for uniting canals with railways.
