Britain's Railway-owned Docks.

Steamship and dock operation forms one of the most profitable side-lines of the Home railways. Around the coast of Britain stretches a great chain of railway-owned docks, the railways being, in fact, the largest dock-owners in the land. Practically the whole of the passenger-services to and from the Continent, Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the Channel page 39 Islands, are performed by railway-owned steamers, which provide fast and comfortable day and night services comparable with vessels many times their size. Steamers owned by the Home railways total about 170, and they convey about 8,000,000 people every year.

Railway-owned docks in Britain are not only the homes of railway steamers, however. They also accommodate those ocean giants whose names are household words. For example, Southampton is the terminal and principal calling place of the largest liners, for whose convenience the largest floating dock in the world has been provided, solely through the enterprise of the Southern Railway. The enormous scope of the Home railways' activities in this important phase of world transport also is illustrated by the Great Western Company's huge docks at Barry, Cardiff, Swansea and Newport; the L. and N.E. Company's docks at Hull, Grimsby, Immingham, Harwich, Tyne-side, etc.; and those of the L.M. and S. system at Garston, Fleetwood, Barrow and Grangemouth.