Country Lorry Service.

Goods traffic handled by the Home railways continues to expand, and the fullest use is being made of the elaborate road collection and delivery services, of which the four group lines were world pioneers. At the present moment, the stock of motor vehicles in service on the Home railways stands at about 9,200, while there are also employed—mainly for city collections and deliveries—about 13,000 horse-drawn vehicles. A relatively new development is the country lorry service. This links up railheads with outlying farms and villages. Shippers dispatch in bulk to the country lorry depot their commodities for farmers, and there they are split up for delivery by the railway motor lorries. At many railheads, manufacturers of farm needs hold permanent stocks from which the railways make regular lorry deliveries to order. Country lorry services, operated in conjunction with railway goods trains, also form a coordinated road and rail service of particular value to farmers and others engaged in agriculture, as they facilitate the rapid marketing of produce. In this manner, areas more or less remote from the railway are provided with transport facilities equal to those enjoyed by the industrial centres.