Page:Fred Arthur McKenzie - British Railways and the War (1917).djvu/17

 first three weeks of the war, we handled during a period of fourteen hours no fewer than 73 of these trains, including the running of them to the boat side and the unloading of the full equipment of guns, ammunition, and horses.

"The trains arrived at intervals averaging twelve minutes. It was a matter of special pride to all the railway men concerned-and we general managers give credit for the feat to the efficiency of our disciplined staffs—that practically every train without exception came in to scheduled time. Some of them came from remote parts of the kingdom—Wales and the North of Scotland."

Among the audience on that occasion was Mr. (afterwards Lieut.-Colonel) H. W. Thornton, general manager of the Great Eastern Railway, a distinguished American railway organiser, who had come to England from the United States. He said that so far as his knowledge of great transportation achievements went, there was no event in railway history to compare with what the British lines had accomplished in that month of August, 1914. Certainly in America, the land of "big stunts," there had never been anything like it. It may be added that this rapid transportation of the troops to Southampton was only possible because the docks there had been carefully planned by the railway company for the handling of large masses of men and quantities of material. The trains conveying the troops and freight were run right down to one of the berthing stations; they were emptied there with the