Over 100,000 tons of timber and sawdust were put on rail at Penrith by the Canadian Forestry Corps. Leeds, Huddersfield, and Manchester were responsible for the delivery of immense quantities of raw material, in addition to manufactured articles, such as army clothing and blankets, and other kinds of munitions. From Warrington were sent 323,188 miles of wire, barbed, telegraph, and telephone. Runcorn supplied 630,000 vessels containing poison and weeping gas; also 384,000 cylinders containing 150 million feet of compressed hydrogen gas, used both for the inflation of airships and for a new process of metal-plate cutting. At Liverpool, in addition to the traffic entailed by the arrival of American troops, and the receipt of railway material from America, there was the question of "the allocation of Military Meat Traffic," which during a period of nine months alone meant the ordering and disposal of 21,989 refrigerator cars. A Government factory near Chester, engaged in the manufacture of gun-cotton and T.N.T., handed over for transit a tonnage of 1,513,000 tons. At Crewe, a great part of the locomotive paint shop, and of the carriage sheds, devoted to the storing of shells, resulted in traffic being created to the extent of 330,000 tons, in addition to the output from the Works of the many mechanical contrivances previously mentioned. In the Birmingham district, one firm alone turned out 965 large tanks, each "over gauge" and approximately 30 tons in weight. Another firm being responsible for an output of about 1800 sea mines. Sheffield was busy with the supply--_inter alia_--of 2000 tons of knives, forks, and spoons. [Illustration: Naval Gun weighing 68 tons. A Typical Instance of War-time Traffic. [_To face p. 173._] The Coventry Ordnance Works dispatched 40,000 tons by the London and North-Western route, and the town of Coventry, being the centre of sixty-two Government owned and controlled establishments, sent out 300,000 tons of war munitions and Government stores. Northampton forwarded an aggregate of 11,641,920 pairs of boots, weighing 36,881 tons. In the London area "practically every firm of any size was engaged upon the manufacture of war stores of various descriptions, involving in most cases enlarged premises and increased output; and herein the North London Line--an offspring of the London and North-Western Railway--was destined to fulfil a _rôle_ of no mean importance"; it was, in fact, "throughout the whole of the war an exceptionally busy section of the railway systems of the country," being "the main artery between the northern trunk lines and the railway system south of the Thames, in addition to forming the connecting link between the Great Eastern and the Great Western Companies."