Although railways must necessarily have done much to promote the
prosperity of Ireland, it is very doubtful whether the general
passenger public were not better served by the cars of Bianconi
than by the railways which superseded them. Bianconi's cars were
on the whole cheaper, and were always run en correspondence, so
as to meet each other; whereas many of the railway trains in the
south of Ireland, under the competitive system existing between
the several companies, are often run so as to miss each other.
The present working of the Irish railway traffic provokes
perpetual irritation amongst the Irish people, and sufficiently
accounts for the frequent petitions presented to Parliament that
they should be taken in hand and worked by the State.
Bianconi continued to superintend his great car establishment
until within the last few years. He had a constitution of iron,
which he expended in active daily work. He liked to have a dozen
irons in the fire, all red-hot at once. At the age of seventy he
was still a man in his prime; and he might be seen at Clonmel
helping, at busy times, to load the cars, unpacking and
unstrapping the luggage where it seemed to be inconveniently
placed; for he was a man who could never stand by and see others
working without having a hand in it himself. Even when well on
to eighty, he still continued to grapple with the immense
business involved in working a traffic extending over two
thousand five hundred miles of road.
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