Comparisons were then made with railway conditions in Continental countries, and various tables of comparative rates were published from time to time, in support of railway nationalisation theories or otherwise. But many of these comparisons have been wholly untrustworthy because, once more, they have not compared traffic carried under the same or similar circumstances. Exceptional rates granted, say, by the Prussian Government in the special interests of their commercial policy, but (1) applying to large consignments sent to a port for shipment, the rates being substantially higher when the commodities do not go further than the port, (2) granted in competition with routes passing through adjoining countries, and (3) being simply haulage rates, which include no additional services whatever, have been compared with English "domestic" rates for smaller quantities of traffic, or, it may be, with "paper" rates for traffic that is practically non-existent, and, therefore, has not called for special rates, while the English rates may also include a variety of supplementary services by the railway company (loading, unloading, collection, delivery, warehousing, etc.), which the Continental trader would either have to perform himself or pay for as extras.
The comparisons may thus be wholly misleading; but, assuming that complete equality of conditions could be assured, or allowed for, and assuming that the Continental rates were then found to be lower than the really corresponding English ones, it would still be necessary to remember that in this country there have been, from the earliest period of railway development, many circumstances and conditions, due to State policy or to other causes, which have tended to swell to abnormal proportions the capital expenditure that the revenue based on rates and charges must needs cover if any reasonable return at all is to be made to the investors. There would, in fact, be no cause for surprise if rates and charges on British railways could be proved to be higher than those in force on the Continent, where the conditions attendant on railway construction and operation have differed so materially from our own. The wonder is, rather, in view of all that I have said as to the past history of our railway system, that British railway rates and charges should, generally speaking, be as low as they are.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE RAILWAY SYSTEM TO-DAY
Whatever the difficulties which have attended the development of British railways, the lines themselves have been spread throughout the three kingdoms to such an extent that there are now very few districts not within easy reach of a railway; while though the different lines are still owned by, altogether, a considerable number of companies, the physical connections between them and the arrangements of the leading companies, not only for through bookings but for through trains, supplemented by the operations of the Railway Clearing House, have brought about as close an approach to a really national network of railways, connecting all the different sections of the country one with another, as could well be expected in view of the lack of co-ordination when the lines were first called into being.
At the end of 1910, according to the Railway Returns issued by the Board of Trade, the "length of line" of the railways in the United Kingdom was 23,387 miles. By itself, however, this figure does not give an adequate idea of the extent of the railway system. This is better realised by taking the figures for track mileage and sidings. A far greater proportion of the railways in England and Wales than in any other country consists of double, treble or other multiple track, so that for one mile in length of line there may be two, three or more miles of separate pairs of rails, increasing the transport facilities in proportion. The percentage of single track to total length of line in various countries is shown by the following figures:—
| COUNTRY. | PER CENTAGE OF SINGLE TRACK. |
| England and Wales | 33.0 |
| Scotland | 59.0 |
| Ireland | 80.2 |
| United Kingdom | 44.2 |
| Prussian State railways | 57.3 |
| Germany (the entire system) | 61.7 |
| France (main line system) | 57.0 |
"Track mileage" in the United Kingdom is shown in the Board of Trade Returns for 1910 as under:—
| TRACK. | MILES. | TRACK. | MILES. |
| First | 23,389 | Ninth | 24 |
| Second | 13,189 | Tenth | 14 |
| Third | 1,517 | Eleventh | 10 |
| Fourth | 1,192 | Twelfth | 7 |
| Fifth | 236 | Thirteenth | 5 |
| Sixth | 143 | Fourteenth | 4 |
| Seventh | 70 | Fifteenth | 3 |
| Eighth | 44 | Sixteenth—nineteenth | 1 each |
Corresponding figures for the United States of America, taken from an abstract issued in July, 1911, by the Interstate Commerce Commission, give the following classification of track mileage, excluding yard track and sidings:—