Changed Attitude to Rail Transport.

“From considering the problem of large-capacity wagons I was set to deal with the problem of how longer train-loads could be obtained. That meant larger locomotives, and the use of larger locomotives meant re-building the bridges and re-aligning a great deal of the track. Altogether, it speedily came to involve such a large programme of work that it, obviously, had to be abandoned. Again, if in those days boards of directors had been induced to have those larger locomotives and to carry out the requisite widening works, the results might have been even worse than they are to-day, because the capital of the railways would have been considerably increased, without, presumably, a corresponding increase in their efficiency to-day. The whole attitude in regard to railway transport has, in fact, been reversed during the past thirty years. The effort at the present time is directed to keeping on the railways any sort of consignment, regardless of size, and for that purpose to give a service of quite a different class from that which was contemplated when 40-ton wagons were suggested.