Accrington on Rails - The Tramways: A Complete History - Robert Kenyon

April A letter was received from the Tramway Company stating that the nuisance caused by water dripping out of their engines was “receiving their utmost attention”. The Committee heard a letter from the Tramway Company ( dated the 5 th ) in reply to the one from the Town Clerk on the 4 th . It was resolved this Committee could not see their way to recommending the Council undertake the work of relaying the Church section under the terms set forth in this correspondence. 1. This was primarily due to the fact that it did not contain a full and detailed description of the specifications of the method they proposed to adopt as had been stipulated in the letter of the 4 th . This prevented them from recommending it to the Council, as they required the work to be done with the whole length of the Church section laid on a continuous bed of concrete at the same width as the existing trackbed. 2. Whilst the Committee was disposed to recommend the Council pay ‘reasonable compensation to the Tramway Company, at present they had no particulars from the Company to guide them as to what amount this should be in consideration of the revenue lost whilst the cars were stopped, during the relaying of this section of the Tramway. With regard to the relaying of the Church section, it was resolved the Town Clerk, Borough Surveyor and the Mayor head a deputation to meet again with the Directors of the Tramway Company to discuss the project. This deputation would have full powers to agree as to how this could be satisfactorily achieved. A letter was received from Mr William Jeffs, acting on behalf of the Tramway Company, it read - Dear Sirs, with regard to your letter of the 10 th of April last, together with a copy of the resolutions of your General Works Committee were duly considered by my Board on Tuesday last, and I was directed to reply thereto as follows - From a perusal of these resolutions, my Directors believe at least one of your resolutions may be tentative – the one wherein your Corporation insist upon the whole of the Church section being laid upon a continuous bed of concrete, and as for the others possibly you will give them further consideration. My Directors are not anxious to keep anything away from you, but will give you all the information and grant you every reasonable facility for coming to a proper determination upon the letter we last sent you. Enclosed you have a specification with detailed particulars of the method we propose in the relaying of this length of track. The particulars with regard to the amount we estimate to lose by a total stoppage of traffic, were given to you in our last letter, and were based on a reasonably low estimate. (The profits of this mile of our lines arrived at by a division of the total profits of the whole of our lines, according to our balance sheet for 1892, a year in which we did no relaying and consequently had no expenses under that heading.) The Church Section is our most profitable one, so we added what we considered to be a ‘fair and reasonable’ amount to this division of profits on that account. My Directors are still convinced that, irrespective of price, relaying by use of sleepers is the best method of constructing a tramroad. We have gone to the trouble of obtaining from a number of authorities corroborating statements to confirm this view. I enclose copies of these statements.

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