ter & Birmingham
lines).--Terminus and offices, Euston. Main line--Rugby, Crewe,
Warrington, Preston, Carlisle; forming, with the Caledonian system,
the "West Coast" route to Scotland. Serves also Manchester, Liverpool
and all parts of the north-west, North Wales, Birmingham and the
neighbouring midland towns, and by joint-lines, the South Welsh
coal-fields. Maintains docks at Garston on the Mersey, a steamship
traffic with Dublin and Greenore from Holyhead, and, jointly with the
Lancashire & Yorkshire Company, a service to Belfast, &c., from
Fleetwood.

_Great Central_ (1846; until 1897, when an extension to London was
undertaken, called the Manchester, Sheffield &
Lincolnshire).--Terminus, Marylebone; offices, Manchester. Main
line--Rugby, Nottingham, Leicester, Sheffield, Manchester. The former
main line runs from Manchester and Sheffield east to Retford, thence
serving Grimsby and Hull, with branches to Lincoln, &c. The main line
reached from London by joining the line of the Metropolitan railway
near Aylesbury and following it to Harrow. Subsequently an alternative
route out of London was constructed between Neasden and Northolt,
where it joins another line, of the Great Western railway, from Acton,
and continues as a line held jointly by the two companies through
Beaconsfield and High Wycombe. Here it absorbs the old Great Western
line as far as Prince's Risborough, and continues thence to Grendon
Underwood, effecting a junction with the original main line of the
Great Central system. This line was opened for passenger traffic in
April 1906. The Great Central company owns docks at Grimsby.

(b) EASTERN.

_Great Eastern_ (1862).--Terminus and offices, Liverpool Street.
Serving Essex, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk. Joint-line with Great
Northern from March to Lincoln and Doncaster. Passenger steamship
services from Harwich to the Hook of Holland, Antwerp, Rotterdam, &c.

_London, Tilbury & Southend_ (1852).--Terminus and offices, Fenchurch
Street. Serving places on the Essex shore of the Thames estuary,
terminating at Shoeburyness.

(c) WESTERN.

_Great Western_ (1835, London to Bristol).--Terminus and offices,
Paddington. Main line--Reading, Didcot, Swindon, Bath, Bristol,
Taunton, Exeter, Plymouth, Penzance. Numerous additional main
lines--Reading to Newbury, Weymouth and the west, a new line opened in
1906 between Castle Cary