Railway mania was the term given to the speculative frenzy in Britain in the 1840s. It followed a common pattern: as the price of railway shares increased, more and more money was poured in by speculators, until the inevitable collapse.
Unlike some stock market bubbles, however, there was actually a net tangible result from all the investment: a vast expansion of the British railway system, though perhaps at an inflated cost.
The line in Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark, "They threatened its life with a railway share" [1] (http://www.underthesun.cc/Classics/Carroll/snark/snark6.html), is a reference to the railway mania and those who lost money investing in it.
Railway mania can be compared with the similar craze in the 1990s, where a vast amount of fibre-optic telecommunications infrastructure was installed.
Railwaymania was the term given to the speculative frenzy in Britain in the 1840s.
The line in Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark, "They threatened its life with a railway share" [1] (http://www.underthesun.cc/Classics/Carroll/snark/snark6.html), is a reference to the railwaymania and those who lost money investing in it.
Railwaymania can be compared with the similar craze in the 1990s, where a vast amount of fibre-optic telecommunications infrastructure was installed.
UK railways are run at arm's length from the government, through two government organisations, both of which have statutory powers under various Acts of Parliament (such as the Railways Act 1993, the Competition Act 1998 and the Transport Act 2000), and both of which receive Directions and Guidance from the Secretaries of State for Transport.
Most UK railway stations date from the Victorian era and are located on the edge of town centres.
Under the Railways Act 1921 the majority of the railway companies in Great Britain (and few in Northern Ireland) were grouped into four main companies, often termed the Big Four: the grouping took effect from 1 January 1923.
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