Summer Time-tables.

Summer-time approaches in Britain, and the new season's passenger train time-tables show additional and accelerated services all over the country. Actually, to cater for the growing holiday business, the four group lines are running trains with seating accommodation for 2,500,000 passengers simultaneously. They are operating some 773 restaurant and buffet cars; 21,500 motive power units—steam locomotives, electric motors, and oil railcars; and 130 steamships with an aggregate of 176,145 gross registered tons. Fifty-three large railway hotels are at the disposal of tourists, and greatly reduced fares of all kinds are available to meet every need.

Let us take a peep at the new passenger time-table of one line—the London, Midland & Scottish—as typifying the general enterprise of our railways. The L.M. & S. are now speeding-up all main-line services, and there are no fewer than 66 express-trains on this system timed at start-to-stop speeds of 60 m.p.h. or over, representing a daily aggregate of nearly 7,000 miles. Altogether, 482 trains have been accelerated, representing a daily total saving of 1,276 minutes. A notable feature is the acceleration of the north-bound “Royal Scot” to cover the 299.1 miles from Euston to Carlisle non-stop in 299 minutes, the winter time of 7 hours 20 minutes from London to Glasgow being reduced to 7 hours. In the reverse direction, the Glasgow-London “Royal Scot” runs through without a passenger stop, only a brief halt being made outside Carlisle to change enginemen. In this case the overall journey time of 7 hours shows a saving of 25 minutes over the winter schedule. Sunday service improvements are a feature on all the Home lines. On the L.M. & S. a noteworthy step is the betterment of Sunday rail services north of the Border, the two Glasgow stations, Buchanan Street and St. Enoch, being specially opened for this purpose. This month, too, sees great activity among the steamship fleets of the L.M. & S. Regular sailings are being resumed on Lake Windermere, in the beautiful English Lake District; while steamship trips commence on the Clyde Coast, and on the charming Scottish Lochs—Lomond, Tay and Awe.