Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

BRITAIN’S UNDERGROUND WEALTH. 29 haulage; but perhaps the greatest revolution with regard to the coal industry has been in the transit of the commodity itself. The transit of coal from the pit bank to house and distant market is practically a separate business from the industry of coal- getting. The cost of carriage nearly doubles the price of coal to the consumer; and there has, since the coaching days, been innumerable attempts made to reduce the outlay in transit. George Stevenson’s first engine, which heralded the development of the railway system, was constructed for the purpose of conveying coal from Killing- worth pit. Cart and waggon, the latter now drawn by traction engine, are still seen coal-laden on highway ; but, except for local delivery, the railway has become the great carrying agent of the coal-owner and the dealer. Now and again the demand for coal was so great that the railway was al- together unable to cope with it. The canal as a coal-carrier lapsed into disfavour with the impatient consumer, and fifty years ago there was a block of five miles of coal trains on the line between Rugby and London. The metropolis had overcome its prejudice against coal, and was clamouring at every terminus for fuel. Glasgow, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, and Birmingham are gigantic consumers ; but London is absolutely ravenous, and draws her huge supply from the gigantic coal sidings that spread fan- like on the borders of the great city, and are fed by the three or four trunk lines that are in touch, by numerous rail-tracks, with the pits of Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Lancashire, and other coal-pro- ducing districts. Every railway, wherever possible, has cultivated the coal-carrying trade, because it is profitable, especially on long-distance runs. The Midland, with its main line striking through the heart of the Derby- shire coalfield, and with tentacles all around, has the premier coal traffic, and needs thirty thousand waggons to handle it. But the North-Western, the Great Northern, the North-Eastern, and the Great Eastern do not lose a chance, and lately the Great Central, weary of acting simply as the cross-country jackal to the other companies, has forced COLLIER FLEET LOADING NEAR NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE.