Library "A NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL REAL ESTATE SERVICE TO MANUFACTURERS" 270 Madison Ave., at 39th St., N.Y. CROSS & BROWN COMPANY Essex Bldg., Newark, N. J. Caledonia 7000 INDUSTRIAL DEPARTMENT Market 3008 TRANSMARINE LINES Port Newark (New York Harbor) Weekly Sailings to the Pacific Coast Every Tuesday Intercoastal - Every Teri Days A Transmarine Line ship leaves Port Newark for the Pacific Coast Ports of Los Angeles, San Francisco and Oakland. No intermediate stops are made on the Atlantic Coast. Gulf - Tri-monthly A Transmarine Line ship leaves Port Newark VOL. 4 No. 11, Whole Number 47 AND SHIP NEWS NOVEMBER, 1925 Twenty-five Cents a Copy The London Midland and Scottish R. R. of Great Britain A Vast Commercial Enterprise I By Alexander R. Smith N the United States the average citizen, when thinking of railroads and the speed of their passenger trains, usually thinks of some American railroad as being the greatest or the largest of its kind in the whole world. When one thinks of the growth of the American railroads in the past fifty years, and the great part that they have played in the development of the middle and far western sections of the United States, it is most natural to be impressed with the magnitude of these railroad systems. It will, therefore, come somewhat in the nature of a surprise to our many readers to learn that in Great Britain, there has recently come into existence a road that The Territory Served by the London Midland and It is perhaps startling to think of such an immense railroad within such a comparatively small area. The longest run is from London, in the south, to Lybster, in the extreme north of Scotland, a distance of only 742 miles. The longest run from West to East is from Holyhead to Hull--a distance of 210 miles. It must not be forgotten however, that within this area is a population of 43,000,000 people, equal to approximately one third of the total population of the United States; also that the territory traversed is the greatest concentrated industrial area in the world. The "Royal Mail" London- Glasgow-Edinburg Express. rivals, in size and scope, some of our greatest American How the London Midland and Scottish Railway In 1921, after six years of Government control, Parliament ordered the merger of some 120 separately owned and managed railway systems in Great Britain, into four large groups. The Government put forward recommendations as to the territorial arrangement of these groups, and it was then left to the railway companies within them to come to a voluntary argreement, within a specified time, as to the exchange of securities and the organization of new administrations. On Jan. 1st, 1923, the London Midland and Scottish Railway was finally formed and took its place among the great railroad systems of the world. A glance at the map of Great Britain will show that the London Midland and Scottish Railway forms the industrial backbone of the country; it serves London, Birmingham, Leicester, Nottingham, Sheffield, Leeds, Bradford, and the Lancashire textile area: The Midland, South Yorkshire and the South Wales coal fields and the Great Scottish industrial areas around Sterling, Kilmarnock, Motherwell, Dundee and Aberdeen. Further it gives direct access between these dense manufacturing areas and the great ports of Liverpool, Manchester, Hull, London, Bristol, Avonmouth, Cardiff, Swansea, Glasgow, Leith and Aberdeen, which are the gateways through which flows the huge import and export trade of Great Britain. The Services the London Midland and Scotttish AND SHIP NEWS points of similarity between what the London Midland and Scottish Railway has to offer, and the services rendered by most American railroads, but there are also a number of points of difference. As regards passenger L. M. S. Sleeping Car services, the traveller on the London Midland and Scottish Railway finds the same conveniences as on any of the great American railroads. Excellent express trains, dining cars, sleeping cars, and on trains running between industrial cities, stenographic service and other facilities for the transacting of business. The screw coupled cars swing smoothly and evenly. along a track on hand picked ballast at speeds varying from 60 to 80 miles an hour, and everywhere the scrupulous attention to detail which makes for the comfort and convenience of passengers, and the uniform courtesy of the staff, rivals that of our best American roads. In connection with merchandise however, the L. M. S. gives some service to the public which the American railroads do not, in general, offer. With the exception of a small percentage, all general merchandise, whether carried by express passenger, parcel, or freight train, is col 1924 lected from the shipper and delivered to the consignee at their respective store doors. As it is estimated that this type of traffic averages not far from 1,000,000 tons a week, the immensity of the task can readily be imagined. The work is performed by the company with its own operatives at the terminals and by their own truckage equipment consisiting of 1,300 motor trucks and 10,000 team trucks, which are kept continuously employed at a cost of over $15,000,000 per annum. It is interesting to note that the L. M. S. have 1,000 trucks constantly on the streets of London alone. Another feature which is unique is that the London Midland and Scottish Railway own and operate for the convenience of shippers, 350 storage warehouses, giving upwards of 100,000,000 cubic feet of storage space. These warehouses have been built alongside the company's freight terminals at convenient centers in practically all of the most densely populated areas, and as they are directly connected with the railroad tracks on one side and the company's trucking equipment on the other, they afford facilities for one of the simplest and least expensive methods of spot stock distribution that could be devised. Some Figures Relating to The London Midland and Scottish Railway Side by Side With Those of Representative American Roads For the benefit of those who are interested, we publish below a few, statistics relating to the L. M. S. side by side with those of some of the larger American railroads-the figures in the former case having been extracted from the Railway Year Book, London, for 1924, and in the latter from the Interstate Commerce Commission Statistics of Railways in the United States for 1923. There are, of course, elements which render the figures in varying degree out of relation to one another and therefore they should be taken only as the broadest of comparisons: 1923 Auxiliary Undertakings of the London Midland and Scottish Railway The Company owns a fleet of 88 steamships and operate 14 regular daily services between England, Scotland, Ireland and the Continent, serving ports of Dublin, Kingstown, Drogheda, Belfast, Larne, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Ghent, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Rotterdam, Delfziel, Zeebrugge and Dunkirk. These steamship run an aggregate of about one million nautical miles a year. The company owns and operates thirty-two first class hotels in England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland, notable examples of which are the famous Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland; the Adelphi, the Northwestern, and the Exchange in Liverpool; the Midland-Grand in Manchester, and the Euston and the St. Pancras-Grand in London. The company has thirty-one spearate dock undertakings, mainly for coastal and continental trade, with a total berthage of length of 101,293 feet. Contrary to general railroad practice in most parts of L. M. S. Dining Car AND SHIP NEWS the world, the London Midland and Scottish Railway also build in their own shops the great majority of their locomotives and passenger and freight cars, as well as their road vehicles, with the exception of the motor truck chassis. They have eight main locomotive erecting shops with a total area of 110 acres, and about an equivalent number of passenger and freight car building shops. They have also several extensive plants for steel making, railrolling, drop forging, and foundry work. They roll their own rails in their own steel mills, about 70,000 tons per annum being required for track renewal purposes. To show the extent of the work that goes on in the erecting plants, it may be said that during the past two year, as a part of the post war reconstruction scheme, orders have been placed for 485 new locomotives, 2,300 passenger coaches and 45,000 freight cars, of which a large number will be built in the Company's own shops During 1924, the company built 121 new locomotives, and carried out 4,600 heavy repairs in their own shops. They also built 529 new passenger cars and 13,423 new freight cars. A Vast Enterprise It must be admitted that here is an undertaking which ranks among the world's greatest commercial enterprises. Not only is the great railroad itself impressive with its gross earning capacity of about $400,000,000 a year, but its auxiliary undertakings are each large businesses in themselves. In addition to the Railway revenues, the Hotel and Restaurant business has gross earnings amounting to over $15,000.000 per annum, the Steamship business over $6,000.000, and the Dock Estates and Canals $4,000.000. The operation of their road transport fleet of over 11,000 trucks, horse and motor, costs approximately $15,000,000., a year, and is probably the largest truckage plant in existence under one management. The operation of the locomotive and car building shops costs over $40,000,000., per annum. The whole undertaking-Railroad and auxiliary enterprises-is managed as a single unit, by a staff of Executive Officers working under a Board of Directors of whom the Chairman is Sir Wm. Guy Granet, G. B. E. Sir Guy Granet will be remembered in the United States as a member of the British Mission which visited here in 1918. The President of the Executive, as from January 1st, 1926, is Sir Joseph Stamp, G. B. E., the eminent British economist who represented Great Britain on the Dawes Reparations Committee. The General Manager is the Rt. Hon. H. G. Burgess, Privy Councillor and Senator of the Irish Free State. The L. M. S. and the American Export Trade Great Britain is by far the largest individual customer for American goods-purchasing over two thousand million dollars worth of merchandise here every year. Realizing the need for closer contact with the origins of this huge volume of freight, a large proportion of which finds its way to the interior of Great Britain, the London Midland & Scottish Railway decided a short time ago to establish an active organi The L. M. S. Has 350 of These Warehouses, Located at Strategic Distribution Centers Throughout Great Britain, Giving Over 100,000,000 Cubic Feet of Storage Space. |