Railway Manufacturers and Ancillary Services.

Railways are not usually regarded as manufacturing undertakings. The modern railway, however, engages in a hundred-and-one manufacturing activities, and appreciation of the activities of the Home lines in this direction is afforded by the recently published fourteenth preliminary report of the Census of Production. During 1924, permanent way

Britain's Most Powerful Passenger Locomotive.
The “King George V.” 4–6–0 four-cylinder locomotive is the first of twenty new “King” class machines recently turned out of the Great Western Shops at Swindon.

page 20 equipment to the value of £1,600,000 was manufactured by the Home railways. In the same year there were built in the Home railway workshops no fewer than 223 main-line locomotives, 1,192 passenger carriages and 26,232 freight vehicles. Repair work to permanent way equipment cost £430,000, the cost of locomotive repairs totalled £11,468,000, carriage repairs £5,146,000, and repairs to freight rolling-stock £4,538,000. Some 249,425 workers were employed by the Home railways on manufacturing activities in the year 1924, among whom there were included 3,261 female workers.

How numerous are the side lines engaged in by the modern railway undertaking is rarely realised, even by the railway employee himself. The manufacture and sale of transportation calls for the conduct of many activities which at first sight appear far removed from railway working, but it is only by steadily building up these ancillary services that efficient rail transportation can be given the public.

Typical of the outside activities which bring grist to the railway mill are the hotels and refreshment rooms, dock systems and steamship services, road-carrying fleets, and similar subsidiary services of the Home lines. Taking a leaf out of Britain's book, there is now proceeding in Germany a marked move towards the development of a nation-wide railway hotels business, as part of the extensive improvement plan of the vast railway undertaking, conducted on commercial lines, which has been evolved out of the State Railways of Germany.