Page:The Working and Management of an English Railway.djvu/172

 CHAPTER IX.

to the year 1881, the railway companies, generally speaking, only provided waggons for the conveyance of ordinary merchandise, and coal and coke, lime, salt, and some other commodities were carried in waggons belonging to the colliery proprietors and other traders, the companies making an allowance off their authorised tolls, for the use of the vehicles, and the owners performing all the services of loading and unloading. To a very considerable extent, this state of things still prevails, but in the year previously mentioned (1881) the Midland Company decided upon the new policy of becoming the owners of nearly the whole of the waggons running upon their railway. They accordingly obtained Parliamentary powers to raise a large sum of money for the purpose of buying up waggons from private owners, and building others for the conveyance of coal, and other traffic, and they now possess nearly 38,000 coal and coke trucks of their own.

The London and North- Western Company have also provided waggons for coal traffic, but not to so large an extent, as at the present time they have only some 6,000 coal waggons (including nearly 3,000 which are used for the conveyance of their own coal for locomotive purposes), and the bulk of the coal traffic upon their