No mode of transport could ignore London. The River Thames had ensured the capital’s value as a port, and while it might be an exaggeration to say that all roads led to London, it was nevertheless both the start and the end of a network of major highways. When the canals had arrived, and proved just as significant a step forward in reducing transport costs and improving communications as the railways were to be later, London was on the canal network. The most obvious of these was the Grand Union Canal, linking London with Birmingham, but there were others linking into the docks, then much further upstream than is the case today. For the canal users, the Regent’s Canal, completed as late as 1820 and curving around the northern and already heavily built-up suburbs, was a vital link around London, but for the railways, it was another obstacle to be overcome.
Yet, the earliest railways were built away from London and between pairs of towns with local trading interests. In the south of England, Canterbury needed to be linked with the nearby port of Whitstable, while the truly great early railways were in the north, with perhaps the most important being the Liverpool and Manchester. Nevertheless, it was inevitable that lines would be sent into London at an early date. London presented both opportunities and problems for those entrepreneurs anxious to develop the railways. The opportunities included its size and the congestion, the fact that it was a political, legal and financial capital, the largest port, and that it needed fresh food and coal brought to it in vast quantities; the problems were the congestion and the sheer impossibility of fitting anything easily into this dense mass of humanity, housing and industry, and the poor drainage, especially south of the River Thames.