A striking suggestion of the extension of railway communication into a "system," as connecting lines are now called, will be found in Sir Richard Phillips's Morning's Walk from London to Kew, published in 1813. On reaching the Surrey Iron Railway at Wandsworth, Sir Richard records: "I found renewed delight on witnessing, at this place, the economy of horse labour on the Iron Railway. Yet a heavy sigh escaped me, as I thought of the inconceivable millions which have been spent about Malta, four or five of which might have been the means of extending double lines of iron railway from London to Edinburgh, Glasgow, Holyhead, Milford, Falmouth, Yarmouth, Dover, and Portsmouth! A reward of a single thousand would have supplied coaches and other vehicles, of various degrees of speed, with the best tackle for readily turning out; and we might, ere this, have witnessed our mail coaches running at the rate of 10 miles an hour, drawn by a single horse, or impelled 15 miles an hour by Blenkinsop's steam-engine. Such would have been a legitimate motive for overstepping the income of a nation; and the completion of so great and useful a work would have afforded rational ground for public triumph in general jubilees!"

The writer of these penetrative remarks lived until 1840, so that he had the gratification of witnessing a triumph akin to his long-cherished hope.