Libraries and the Student of Railways

THE ACCUMULATED MASS OF RAILWAY LITERATURE in the form of books, periodicals, papers to learned Institutions, Parliamentary papers, and so on, has grown to gigantic proportions in recent years, and today as our own British railway system is shrinking the volume of that literature is increasing in inverse proportion to the shrinkage. That is only reasonable because much of the history of railways, not only of this country but of the world, has not yet been adequately documented, and if the railway is, as well it might, almost wholly surpassed by road and air transport, the omission must be repaired as soon as possible, if only to leave for posterity a record of a phase in the life of Man: and it must be done before any more valuable material is disposed of as salvage.