A RAILWAY CENTENARY

Waikato Independent, Volume XXXIX, Issue 3550, 6 May 1939, Page 7

A RAILWAY CENTENARY

LONDON TO BIRMINGHAM HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY The London, Midland and Scottish Railway has recently celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of the opening of the London and Birmingham railway. There are four great railways which play the principal part in distributing throughout tbe Homeland produce from overseas, and which form the main arteries of the transport system which carries the visitor from overseas to the homes of his relatives and friends. They are the Great Western, the London, Midland and Scottish, the London and North Eastern, and the Southern^

The part which the London, Midland and Scottish Railway plays in the economic life of the United Kingdom may be realised by a glance at its activities. Last year it paid approximately 4i million

pounds in wages and salaries to its staff of 23,200 workers. Its 8945 locomotives and rail motor vehicles travelled, in all, some 235 million miles. Nearly <IOO milliora passengers travelled on the company's system last year, and over 140 million tons of merchandise were moved by it. Nor does this complete the outline of the pictures of the activities of this vast undertaking. It is, for example, one of the largest employers of labour in the engineering in'duslry, one of the largest owners of ships and of ports, and is a leader in the hotel and catering trades. The company's coal consumption in 1937 amounted to 5* million tons, representing constant employment for 18,000 miners.