£2,000 as its share of the cost of the upgrade, and it quickly agreed, as it had anticipated that it might be obliged to pay the entire cost of the altered arrangements. Colonel Yorke for the Board of Trade inspected the line on 3 July 1900, and he remarked that the railway was not laid out according to the plans. He was not impressed with the bridge over the Merchants' Incline; this was an original structure of the Admiralty railway which had carried only freight traffic. Accordingly Yorke declined to give permission to open the line to passenger traffic; however goods traffic did not require his sanction and was allowed. Opening, at last The public goods service started on 1 October 1900. The directors were surprised to find that the stone traffic business did not pick up in the early period of operation as they had hoped. It was established that the loading depots were too far from the source of traffic, and that the goods rates were too high. In addition since the Merchants' Railway had been opened many of the quarries had established routes by which their product was taken by traction engines to a loading point on that line. The Easton and Church Hope line had arrived too late to secure this kind of traffic. The Admiralty ended its agreement for maintenance of their own line as they had no further use for it and the Easton company had to apply to Parliament for powers to carry out that work itself. The necessary Act was obtained on 9 August 1901. During May 1901 it was established that the company had exhausted all of its financial resources. Lieut Colonel Yorke visited the Admiralty section of the line on 19 March 1902, and he was dismayed to find that the train staff could be withdrawn from the ground frame lock at Castletown with the points set for the sidings, completely contrary to proper interlocking arrangements; there was no locking whatsoever on the section of line into Portland station. He once again declined to give authority for opening the line. At Portland work started on erecting a temporary wooden platform on the five chain (100m) radius curve between Portland station and Castletown road bridge. The platform was connected to the original Portland station by a footpath and was completed by 19 July. It was inspected by Colonel Yorke on 14