On Mon, 8 Feb 2021 21:44:54 -0000 (UTC)
Recliner wrote:
Jeremy Double wrote:
Thinking about their predecessors, the canals, at one point in the 19th
century, the annual dividend on a £100 Birmingham Canal share was £200. If

you were lucky enough to have invested early in the BCN then you were quids
in.

Similarly the original main lines serving the obvious major traffic flows
were very profitable, which led to railway mania, which caused many
marginal or basket case lines to be built. Essentially, main lines built by
about 1860 were very profitable, but most later ones weren't, or not for
long. The GCR was notoriously unprofitable from the beginning, as it was an
expensive way of duplicating the Midland Railway.

Though arguably a faster and more direct route, until it got past nottingham
anyway.