Earning £70,000,000 a Year.

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 130, 28 November 1885, Page 5

Earning £70,000,000 a Year.

The enormous sum of £70,000 000 per annum represents the gross annual earnings of the railways of the United Kingdon t An amount considerably more than ha £ ihe governmental revenue; an amoui t which, in a baiter's dozen of years, eq»a 8 the national debr. There are eighty-i.ii c railways in the Briti-h Js?es, varying in length from thn-e and a half tni^a (Groendrmth Valley Kailways) to 2 286 (Ureab Woctern Railway). " There aie eighteen lines whore total length is tas than ten mile^each, and there ar« six which own more than 1,000 miles each. Next fo the Ureat We-to-rn. in length, comep the London and North-Western, with l,781f; the North Ka«tern,with 1.535!: the Midl^no l, with 1,270£;»he Noithßritu-h, wih 1,039 i; and the t»rear Eastern, with 1,045 mile*. With thece ' common carriers" nothing a roo insignificant to carry, and very few 'hing* aie too large. They «o*v«-y fi b t flesh, and fowl—alive or dead —minerals an d general goods produced in all parts of t e world. The sprat and the viha'e, tlo elephant and the Colorada bu*r, the lion ai d the cholera bacillus, the Queen and thecoi • vict — all gi to swell the enormoi a -cm earned yearly by the greafc conce n created by the genius of a Siephenon. If one could note, in a bird's eye view, the working of this enormous pyptem, one would see a network of lined, clustered more thickly round the more populous rnwns than elsewhere ; a continual ebb and Sow of trains to and from the Metropolis and great, commercial centres, while along the 18 000 mile* or co of metals are madly careering "Flying Scotchmen" and • Dutchmen," '* Wild Irishmen," and other expresses, overtaking flower pascenger trains, the la ter, in their turn, passing fast merchandise trains; while the slow roadside or "pick-up" trains diag along their snail wa>s not faster than a man can walk. . - . r

How the Wheels Ob Round. The number of engines owned by the Biitiph railway is 14,300, which:with • 4milar number of tenders, placed buffer to buffer, would stretch from London to B«t^, and the passenger carriages would,, in like manner, extend from the latter, city to the Land'.s End. The merchandise waggoi.s w<>uld occupy 1300 miles, and; the-who)© rol ing stock would take moro than tWnty • eleven hours to run past a given point jat the rate of t>ixty miles an hour, n The aoqu. 1 train mileage run in a year is 27" millions, or about-three iimeathe distance .bttween 'the earth and; the sun ;'while the^itotal number of wheel revolutions amounts tto moVetthan' 328 080,000,0U0,0001000h-. \* * ,

' ' Sixteen^ Bishops' ab.lthe. Sydoey^j?iSry v j>, „ji.,..; i •, ?;;;.{^ * =vS?&f.r . Tneppresent\»themosHuhhealth^BO j%|oaj