The railways of the United States aggregate 193,000 miles--nearly one-half the total mileage of the world. Over this enormous trackage 38,000 locomotives and 1,400,000 coaches and cars carry yearly 600,000,000 passengers and 1,000,000,000 tons of freight. They represent an outlay of about $5,000,000,000. Owing to the absence of the international problems that have greatly interfered with the organization of European railways, the roads of the United States have developed "trunk-system" features to a higher degree than is found elsewhere. In the United States and Canada the farms of the great central plain, together with the coal-mines, are the great centres of production, while the seaports of the two coasts form great centres of distribution. Most of the trunk lines, therefore, extend east and west; of the north and south lines only two are important. The reason for the east-west direction of the great trunk lines is obvious; the great markets of North America, Europe, and Asia lie respectively to the east and the west. [Illustration: THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE RAILWAYS OF THE UNITED STATES THEIR POSITION DEPENDS ON THE PRODUCTION OF THE LAND] =Railway Ownership.=--The ownership of railways is vested either in national governments or else in corporate companies; in only a few instances are roads held individually by private owners, and these are mainly lumber or plantation roads. Thus, the railways of Prussia are owned by the state; most of those of the smaller German states are owned either by the state or by the empire; still others are owned by corporate companies and managed by the imperial government. In their management military use is considered as first in importance. In France governmental ownership and management have been less successful. Plans for an elaborate system of state railways failed, and the state now owns and operates only 1,700 miles, mainly, in the southwest. Belgium controls and operates all her lines, but as the latter are short and the area of the state small, there are no difficulties in the way of excellent management. In Great Britain all the railways are owned and controlled by corporate companies. The great transcontinental line of the Russian Empire was built by the government, but the latter does not own it. In the United States the railways are now owned by corporate companies. Some of the western roads were built by Government subsidies;[21] other roads were built by the aid of States, counties, or cities, which afterward sold them to corporate companies. The first transcontinental railways required Government assistance, and could not have been built without it; nowadays, however, corporate companies find no difficulty in providing the capital for any railway that is needed.