ABSTRACT
The development of the steam railways followed a half-century which saw 'no fundamental revolution in transport technology [for] what essentially prevailed was a constant process of adjustment and improvement to pre-existing transport technologies'.1 'Road water and waggonway transport appear to have been servicing the needs of the industrialising economy without undue difficulty' and the steam locomotive's transformation of railway potentials must certainly have seemed most bothersome to those who were satisfied with a steady pace of innovation that would not disturb the established order.2 Vested interests in other sectors of the transport business were particularly troubled and none more so than the turnpike trusts and road users. Although there were experiments with the steam coach on the roads (notably by Walter Hancock in 1833), hostility from the Turnpike Trusts imposing heavy tolls helped to ensure that it would be kept off the highways, 'confined to its own particular right of way, properly fenced in, though it was not until 1835 that parliament dealt with this matter in the Highways Act of that year'.3 While it must remain doubtful whether a more accommodating attitude by the Turnpike Trusts could have brought steam traction on to the roads to the mutual advantage of the operators and road managers, there is no doubt that railways quickly eliminated competition from horse-drawn coaches and wagons. They were displaced to the feeder routes on which the country carrier continued to flourish for the rest of the century, acting as 'a kind of primitive country bus, often a mere cart, conveying the village folk (especially women and children) to the local town on market day'.4
