The railway that in mileage comes next in succession, is the Orleans Company. Its length is 2,052 miles. The last of the four railway giants, is our own English giant, the London and North-Western. Now, although the length of our countryman is the least of all—only 1,320 miles—it will nevertheless be seen hereafter, that in its other dimensions it is in most respects superior, in none inferior, to its continental brethren, just as the late Mr. Thomas Sayers was less in height and length of arm than Heenan, nevertheless, in the long run, he managed to beat him.
The two extreme western points of the mighty system of the South Austrian and Alta Italia are at Susa, at the foot of the Mont Cenis Pass of the Alps, and Cuneo at the foot of that of the Col di Tenda. Its two eastern are Vienna, and still farther (by means of its Hungarian net-work to the southward of Vienna), Pesth. Its northern is Kutzen, about a hundred miles to the south-east of Munich. Its southern, Pistoja, is twenty-two miles to the north-east of Florence. It possesses railways across two of the passes of the Alps, the Sœmmering and the Brenner. Its stations are at Genoa, Turin, Milan, Innspruch, capital of the Tyrol, Verona and Venice, Trieste, Vienna, and Pesth. It is equally fitted (as it has proved itself to be) for a great military railway, and for one to be devoted only to commercial and industrial development, but it has its skeleton in its closet,—it is _not_ at Florence, capital of United Italy, nor is there prospect of its being there, except by a combination which shall unite with it the whole of the _Strade Ferrate Romane_, of which some particulars will be given hereafter.
The course and direction of the Paris, Lyons, and Mediterranean, of the Orleans, and of the London and North-Western Companies, are, as there can be no doubt, sufficiently known to our readers to render description of them unnecessary. The great port of the Paris, Lyons, and Mediterranean is Marseilles, the Liverpool of the Mediterranean, 537 miles from Paris, and 833 from London. The chief port of the Orleans Company is Bordeaux, 366 miles from Paris, 662 from London.
Before proceeding farther, let us refer, very briefly, to the early history of railways in France.