The Weir Committee We have not seen the report of
Lord Weir's committee on railway electrification, which is to be published this week. The forecast made in the TiMes, however, indi- cates that it will be sufficiently comprehensive. The estimate given for the total expenditure which will be necessary is £385,000,000, of which £260,000,000 would be spent by the railways on their main lines. The whole project would take from 15 to 20 years to complete, during which time employment would be found for 60,000 men on an average. At present only 1,300 miles out of our 51,000 have been electrified, and it has taken us forty years to do it. That pace can be mended, but since the life of a steam locomotive may be thirty or forty years any considerable speeding up will mean the writing off of large investments by the railways. A less frivolous objec- tion to some people is that it will mean the arbitrary sub- division of the hunting countries by the railways. A " live rail " is a death trap for hounds.
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