in 1877 an Act was obtained, commonly called the "Consolidation Act," the effect of which was to weld all these separate companies into one homogeneous undertaking, the London and North-Western Railway, as it exists to-day, having a consolidated stock of upwards of £108,000,000, possessing more than 1,800 miles of railway, with nearly 650 stations, and employing a staff or an army, as it may be called, of 55,000 men.
It may here be stated that, although much of what follows may be taken as being more or less generally applicable to all the principal railways of the United Kingdom, yet the one, the working of which is more particularly described in the succeeding chapters, is the London and North- Western, with which the writer has been connected for a great number of years, and with which he naturally therefore possesses a more intimate acquaintance than with any other.
