Railway and Canal Traffic Act 1854

The Railway and Canal Traffic Act 1854, also known as Cardwell's Act, was an Act of the United Kingdom Parliament regulating the operation of railways. It designated the railway companies as common carriers transporting goods and persons for the public benefit. Each railway company was now required to take all trade offered and to set and publish the same levels of fares to all in respect of any particular service.

The Act marked a milestone in English law and has also served as the foundation of similar legislation in the United States.

It is one of the Railway and Canal Traffic Acts 1854 to 1894.

Read more about Railway And Canal Traffic Act 1854:  Historical Context, Legacy, Repeal

Famous quotes containing the words railway, canal, traffic and/or act:

    Her personality had an architectonic quality; I think of her when I see some of the great London railway termini, especially St. Pancras, with its soot and turrets, and she overshadowed her own daughters, whom she did not understand—my mother, who liked things to be nice; my dotty aunt. But my mother had not the strength to put even some physical distance between them, let alone keep the old monster at emotional arm’s length.
    Angela Carter (1940–1992)

    My impression about the Panama Canal is that the great revolution it is going to introduce in the trade of the world is in the trade between the east and the west coast of the United States.
    William Howard Taft (1857–1930)

    Poems stirred
    into paper coffee-cups, eaten
    with petals on rye in the
    sun—the cold shadows in back,
    and the traffic grinding the
    borders of spring ...
    Denise Levertov (b. 1923)

    Dangerous conceits are in their natures poisons,
    Which at the first are scarce found to distaste,
    But with a little act upon the blood
    Burn like the mines of sulphur.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)