ABSTRACT
For freight transport was growing in volume. The increasing volume of freight generally is indicated by the building of locks on the rivers to get a greater depth of water – as on the Thames near Oxford in the 1620s. The rivers could not take much more despite many improvements, and they were not always in the right place. For a long time before mechanical transport arrived in the form of railways there had been people, only too well aware of the deficiencies of horses, who sought to mechanize road transport. Road transport had to be provided; and so, when the smoke of the train had long since disappeared behind the hill, the station yard echoed to the cry of the carter, the stamping and whinnying of bewildered horses, the clatter of cart-wheels. In 1861 the Locomotive Act was passed, imposing restrictions on this growing form of transport.
