Dialogue between an unidentified member of the committee and Colonel John Fox Burgoyne at a hearing of the Select Committee appointed to inquire into the amount of advances made by the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland on 1 June 1835:
1899 Are you aware that locomotive engines have gone at a speed of from 15 to 20 miles an hour on common roads? — I think I have gone at one at the rate of 20 miles an hour myself on a common road.
1900 Suppose those carriages were used upon a curb-stone and granite road, and not subject to the interruption of carts and carriages, which occur upon common roads, what speed do you suppose they might fairly be worked at? — Very nearly the speed they go on rail-roads.
1901 If it could be proved that granite or curb-stone roads could be constructed at the rate of from £2000 to £3000 a mile, would you, in the present state of the country, recommend an expense of a sum of six and seven times that amount for a railway? — I do not imagine there would be that difference of expense; the levels would be the same, and the stone-work would be the same; the only difference would be the application or not of the iron railway bars.
Locomotives on common roads? It’ll never work.
Irish waterways history 