Farmers Pleased.

It is not always that farmers and Government Departments agree (says the Poverty Bay Herald), but apparently the Matawai settlers are quite satisfied with their railway facilities, or at least the local officials, for at a meeting of suppliers to the Kia Ora Co-operative Dairy Company at Matawai eulogistic remarks were made concerning the satisfactory treatment that had been meted out to the farmers by both the station staff and the train crews.

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Co-Operation and the Railways.

Speaking recently at the annual conference of the National Union of Railwaymen, Mr. J. H. Thomas, M.P. (Parliamentary General Secretary of the Union) said that the conference had been a remarkable and a good one. It had shown the desire of the organised railway workers of Britain for peace in the railway industry. The delegates, he said, were prepared to co-operate with the railway management in the carrying out of those essential matters which were as vital to the companies and the travelling public as they were to the men themselves. If that spirit of co-operation and goodwill manifested by the representatives of the men was reciprocated (as he felt sure it would be by the managers of the railway companies), then he saw no reason why the present relationship between employers and workers should not be placed on an even better footing than that on which it stood to-day.

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Some Interesting Railway Facts.

Facts are stranger than fiction—and more fascinating. If the pessimists who, on grounds of impracticability, vigorously opposed the construction of Britain's first railway could rise from their graves and read a little pamphlet “Some facts about British Railways” which has recently come into our hands, they would laugh at their former incredulity and no doubt agree with the dictum that prophecy (especially about the future of railways), unless the prophet knows, is not only a risky but a discomfiting thing—for the prophet.

The pamphlet referred to summarises a great deal of useful and illuminating information. For instance we learn that in 1925 (the last normal year) the income of the British railways was £218,000,000, a figure exceeded only by the revenue obtained from income tax; and their expenditure was £191,000,000 a sum second only to the amounts paid on the National Debt and for the administration of the Civil Services. It is interesting to observe also that no less a sum than £1,100,000,000 of capital is invested in the British railway industry.

The track, stations and rolling stock cost over £950,000,000, whilst £40,000,000 is the average annual expenditure for the maintenance and renewal of this equipment. The track itself would stretch twice round the world, and the number of passengers carried by the four main line groups each year is equivalent to twenty-seven journeys for every man, woman and child in the British Isles. The mileage run by passenger and freight trains annually is well over 370,000,000, or approximately equivalent to two journeys to the sun and back.

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Training the Railwayman for His Work.

According to a recent announcement in the London “Times” extensive arrangements for the education and training of the staff, in all grades, have again been made by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway Company for the 1927–28 season. Classes are to be held during the winter months at all the principal stations and depots. Instruction is to be given in goods and passenger station work (in all its phases), commercial English, railway geography, signalling, and other branches of railway work. Courses in railway law (inaugurated specially for the L.M.S. staff) are also being arranged for at certain universities, colleges, and commercial and technical institutes. In London and Derby complete commercial courses are provided in co-operation with local educational authorities.