Freight Enterprise on British Railways.

Apart from the introduction of containers, the Home railways are leaving no stone unturned in their efforts to keep freight business moving. New goods stations and marshalling yards are being constructed in many parts of the country, and in these new works the most modern equipment is being installed.

By the London and North-Eastern line there is being laid out what will rank as the largest marshalling yard in Britain. This is situated at March, near Cambridge, the key-point for all traffic from the coal-producing and industrial districts of the North and Midlands to the Eastern Counties. The new yard will cost approximately £300,000, and it will contain ten reception sidings and forty sorting tracks with accommodation for 4000 wagons. Following investigations conducted in America and Germany, an elaborate system of electro-mechanical wagon retarders is being introduced, on the lines of what has recently been done in the enormous Markham Yard of the Illinois Central line in Chicago, while there is also to be flood lighting of the most modern type. This is the first Home railway marshalling yard to employ wagon retarders, and their utilisation will probably shortly be extended to cover other busy classification yards.