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Talk:Construction of the Severn Valley Railway

1,206 bytes added, 16:09, 11 February 2021
Further thoughts
--[[User:Robin|Robin]] ([[User talk:Robin|talk]]) 17:07, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
===Additional information: ===Services began on 1 February 1862. Marshall also notes "''At the half-yearly meeting on 15 March'' (1862) ''it was stated that the total receipts of the company amounted to £523,366 and the total expenditure £521,098 leaving a balance of £2,298.''" It doesn't say at what date those figures were calculated in order to be reported at the meeting, but it could well have been 31 December 1861, at which point 34 payments had been made to the Contractors. The 35th payment and the final certificate payment totalling £35,198 were made some months later, which would increase the total from £521k to £556k. Those 'total expenditure' figures presumably include sundry company start up and operating costs as well as construction costs, which I think adds weight to the actual construction cost being in the £540k to £550k range.--[[User:Robin|Robin]] ([[User talk:Robin|talk]]) 15:25, 11 February 2021 (UTC) ===Contemporary newspaper report===From the [https://forum.svr-online.org.uk/viewtopic.php?t=4280&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0 Early history of the SVR on the British Newspaper Archive thread] on SVR-Online Forum. A [https://postimg.cc/bdxknCy8 contemporary newspaper report] in the Salopian Journal on the opening of the railway included a paragraph ''As originally laid out, the cost of the line with its branches was estimated at £600,000; but owing to the very heavy landslips which have taken place the original estimate has doubtless been greatly exceeded, especially when it was considered that chiefly in consequence of these slips the opening has had to be postponed from the 1st of May, 1861, to the present time.'' The original £600,000 estimate from 1853 had of course been reduced to £480,000 in 1855 by abandoning the proposing Horsehay and Madeley branches and making a changes to the route. There was thus no reason for the Salopian Journal to think that the cost would have exceeded the original estimate of £600,000, but present day newspapers have no monopoly on sloppy journalism it seems. --[[User:Robin|Robin]] ([[User talk:Robin|talk]]) 16:09, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
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