ABSTRACT
The new economic history of railways observed that estimate of social savings are based upon the actual transport, and growth of national output including most of the gains to the economies of America, Russia and Britain that emanated from expenditures by railway companies. Instead new economic historians concentrates upon analysing the impact of railway expenditures upon trends and fluctuations in national income. Fishlow traces interconnections between 'volatile' changes in railway investment and fluctuations in national income. Fogel and Hawke point out that the long-term growth of national income, accompanied by rising levels of expenditure upon output of iron and steel industry, that have produced nearly all the favourable linkages that accrued from railways. Hawke calculates that in 1840's railways used about one third of the output of Britain's brick fields. Perhaps impact upon the British coal industry also awaits attention because it shows that by 1860's railways absorbed a higher share of coal output than any other single industry.
