Excerpt from The Official Guide to the Great Western Railway: The Express Route to the West of England, Wales, Ireland, and the Channel Islands

IF our British or American readers can call to mind the distances covered by the Atlantic liners in their voyages from Liverpool to New York or to Boston, they may gain a general idea of the total mileage owned by the Great W esteem Railway. But here ceases the analogy between the journey by land and the passage by sea for instead of a continuous course, over Which the ocean greyhounds have simply to steam ahead, the vast railway system emanating from Paddington towards the west, the south, and the north, comprises six main lines of communi cation, has no fewer than eight hundred and fifty stations, and owns working connections throughout the United Kingdom. Such a network of iron highways naturally demands a clearly defined and carefully-administered plan of traffic, which, while affording express facilities for the larger cities, likewise pro Vides ample travelling accommodation for the smaller towns and villages. A glance through the Oficial Time Tables of the Great Western Railway Will show how fully such needs have been supplied. But, seeing that this useful pub lication is unavoidably confined to a crowded compilation of numerical details, it appears to call for some such elucidation as it is hoped may be supplied by its companion work, the Oflicial Guide to the Great Western Railway. For further particulars of its contents we must refer our readers to sub sequent pages; but we may here remark that the Oficial Guide has been written with a view to provide a practical handbook of condensed information for the use of actual or prospective travellers.

The Guide was originally issued some years ago, but the continued extension of the Great Western territory, and the numerous developments of its express services, have demanded so many eliminations of the less important details, so much amplification of existing paragraphs, and such a large amount of additional matter, that the present revised and enlarged publication is virtually a new book. The principal additions to the work are an Introduction, descriptive of the territorial and traffic arrangements of the Great Western Railway.

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