ABSTRACT
The smaller companies are content to buy their rolling stock, and they mostly have repairing shops only; but the larger companies have their own locomotive, carriage and waggon works in which a very considerable volume of employment is afforded to mechanics and labourers who would hardly come under the ordinary designation of “ railwaymen ” proper; while in this respect the companies concerned may be regarded as not only providers of transport but as, also, in effect, engineers and manufacturers. The total number of persons employed by the railway companies in the manufacture of the goods or in the execution of the work comprised in the statement was 241,526, in the proportion of 232,736 wage-earners and 8790 salaried persons. In railway operation great importance must certainly be attached to the efficiency of the machinery, or of the system; but final success may depend to a very material extent on the efficiency of the unit.
