582 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



venience in the shape of waiting and refreshment rooms, forming alto- 

 gether one of the most important, not to say intricate, railway-depots 

 in the United Kingdom. One arrives at a platform by a train belong- 

 ing to one company going in one direction, and by turning right 

 about, or walking three yards on the same platform, one may secure a 

 seat in another train belonging to an entirely different company going 

 no one knows whither. Once give way, or lose your head at this par- 

 ticular junction, and you may find yourself, should you happen to be 

 wanting to go to the west of England, suddenly whirled away to the 

 south, and vice versa. Even your traveling Londoner has an instinc- 

 tive dread of " the Junction," as he familiarly terms it. Should you 

 ever take up that indispensable requisite of English traveling, a Brad- 

 shaw, and stumble upon Clapham Junction in the list of stations your 

 train is timed to stop at, go no farther. Don't tempt Fate. Rather 

 court resignation. Throw yourself upon the cushions of your car- 

 riage, pitch Bradshaw out of the window, and in a moment of leisure 

 work out this sum : If upon the average eight hundred trains (to say 

 nothing of specials, excursions, and stray locomotives) pass through 

 Clapham Junction in the course of twenty-four hours, allowing just 

 about two minutes' interval of time between train A going out and 

 train B coming in, what should be the chances of train B dashing into 

 the tail of train A ? 



So remote as scarcely to be thought of, the reason being that 

 the "block" system is in full force. What is this " block " system ? 

 To endeavor to answer that inquiry is the very object of this article. 



To understand thoroughly what railway traveling in England 

 really means, one should bear in mind a few facts now given for the 

 purposes of this article, in the order of their importance. 



At the beginning of last year there were in the United Kingdom 

 about 15,500 miles of railway, distributed as follows: England and 

 Wales, 11,000 miles; Scotland, 2,500 miles; Ireland, 2,000 miles; and 

 290 companies shared these miles of railroad between them. The total 

 number of depots, or stations, as they are termed in England, includ- 

 ing junctions and sidings, is about 10,000 for the whole kingdom; of 

 these 6,000 are passenger-stations, giving approximately one station 

 to about every two miles of railway, but not in reality, because 

 there are no less than 150 stations in London and the suburbs alone. 

 As a matter of course the great centre of the railway system of the 

 United Kingdom is London. Every company which can by any pos- 

 sible means find a way to the capital does so, and strives to provide 

 the route which will be most attractive to the public. To do this the 

 majority of the companies must, of necessity, make use of the lines of 

 the great companies having their termini in London. Only imagine 

 the number of branch lines, junctions, and sidings, this must involve ; 

 what " shunting " of trains and adjusting of points there must be ; 

 what an efficient system of signaling must be required ; what care, 



