Identifier: everyboysbookofr00prot (find matches)
Title: Every boy's book of railways and steamships
Year: 1911 (1910s)
Authors: Protheroe, Ernest
Subjects: Railroads Steamboats
Publisher: London : Religious Tract Society
Contributing Library: Boston College Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

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ith one locomotiveand two passenger carriages. If some dark nightone of our great companies lost 2^ miles of line, itwould be missed in the morning, probably earlier ;but it is very certain that one engine and a coupleof carriages might go astray and almost escapeattention until the annual stock-taking. Our British railway lines, all told, cost not apenny less than £1,000,000,000. Dealing onlyin round figures, of our twenty-three thousandmiles of line, more than a half is double-tracked ormore; quite a thousand miles have three or foursets of metals, and some shorter stretches of linehave six or seven. Upon the network of rails plythree-quarters of a million vehicles, of which some20,000 are locomotives, which each average about18,000 miles a year. In a year the British locomotives travel not lessthan 400,000,000 miles, or about fifty trains a dayover each mile of line. Every twenty-four hoursare carried more people than there are in Paris,together with about 13,000,000 tons of goods
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A GARLAND OF IRON RIBBONS 109 and minerals. The total income of the railwaycompanies for twelve months may be set down at£120,000,000, of which over 40 per cent, comesfrom the passenger traffic. The goods departments of all the lines usuallycarry about 100,000,000 tons of general merchan-dise and 380,000,000 tons of minerals, an enormousbusiness that is less in evidence than the passengertraffic, because a very great proportion of it iscarried during the night, when the rails are largelyfreed from passenger trains. We will now proceed to a consideration offour typical English railroads, each in its ownway prominent in the railway world. If we thenconclude with brief comments upon some of theremaining lines we ought to have gained agood working idea of the British railways as awhole. London and North-Western Railway The L. & N.W.R. was not born, but like Topsyin Uncle Toms Cabin, it * just growed. EobertStephenson was appointed engineer of the suggestedLondon to Birmingham line. T

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