PREFACE TO VOLUME LVII
The new edition of Bradshaw’s Railway Manual embodies, in several different ways, information which has not hitherto appeared. Since the first publication of the Manual as a thin crown-octavo volume, the railway interests of Great Britain have advanced with gigantic strides. English capital invested abroad in railway enterprises was at that time infinitesimal, now it reaches the huge total of several thousands of million pounds sterling. There were in existence in the United Kingdom in 1848 about two thousand miles of lines, which compare with 22,514 at the present day. It is not, therefore, a matter of surprise that it has been found an increasingly difficult task to bring together in one volume of reasonable size the mass of statistics and other data which concern the railways of the world. In view of the continued growth of the railways of the United States it became necessary, a few years ago, to delete a large proportion of the information which had previously been given respecting its railroads, except those undertakings in which the British investor was more especially interested. In the present volume the same course has been pursued, since it becomes more and more evident every year that in spite of the strenuous efforts of Wall Street operators the British investor is not taking the same keen interest in American Railways which he did during the American “boom” of 1885. The additional space thus gained has been devoted mainly to increasing the information and statistics respecting British-owned companies operating abroad. In this direction the greatest advance during the past year has taken place in the Argentine Republic of South America. Here the bulk of the railways have been constructed by British engineers; they are owned and directed by British capitalists, and we do not doubt that the introduction of additional information regarding railway enterprise in this and other South American countries will be appreciated. The information respecting State-owned railways in British colonies and foreign countries has been considerably modified, as the minor details regarding them are not of sufficient interest to the average investor, or railway man, more especially as each of the Colonial Governments publishes an annual report containing the fullest information.
