Will there ever be a case for opening up the British Inland waterways for the large scale…?
If my understanding is correct, the canals went into decline because they couldn’t compete with the railways, and the major advantage of the railways was speed. The trouble in this respect generally is not the urgency of the goods but the fact that goods in transit are not profitable. If goods take an extra week to arrive then it’s an extra week before the supplier gets paid and there’s an extra week’s production lying around earning nothing. So, speed counts whether the payload is newspapers and fish or sand and cement. Of course, in those days no one was particularly bothered about the cost of coal or the effect of burning fossil fuels (other than the fact that rail-side properties were less desirable because your washing would get filthy and your garden shed would go up in flames from time to time). However, I dare say that a week at four knots on the canals will use more fuel than four hours on the motorway at 60mph; not to mention the truck driver’s pay and the capital tied up in
