The railway schemes for the accomplishment of such delicate operations would emanate from the Council of the Engineer and Railway Staff Corps.... During peace the railway branch of this body is employed in working out hypothetical plans of campaign, in the development of which they manipulate in theory the entire rolling-stock and railway resources of the country, elaborated by special time-tables and technical reports. The share taken by the civil engineers is not confined to providing merely for the class of railway works contingent on war, whether of construction, demolition, or of reconstruction, but in supplying the military engineers with information, advice and labour. No one, for example, can be more familiar with the features and character of a district than the engineer who has constructed a line of railway through it. No one is so well able to point out the results of _letting in_ that which he had been so often employed in _keeping out_, viz., the inundations of the sea. None better acquainted with the existing distribution of labour power throughout the country, and of the means by which it could be concentrated upon given points, for the construction of works of defence. All these elements, in short, by which the gigantic resources of our country may be safely wielded for her defence, are now being silently considered and woven into strategical schemes of operations by these eminent and patriotic men, the value of whose voluntary services will not be fully comprehended or appreciated till the day comes when the discomfiture of the invader shall be accomplished through their instrumentality. The same distinguished authority wrote concerning the Engineer and Railway Volunteer Staff Corps in an article on "Volunteers" which he contributed to the "Encyclopædia Britannica" (ninth edition):-- The ready labour power of this useful Corps is estimated at from 12,000 to 20,000 navvies, with tools, barrows and commissariat complete. It has already performed important service in tabulating, and printing at great private cost, complete time-tables and special reports for six general concentrations against possible invasion. A special return was also prepared by the Corps (the first of its kind) of the entire rolling stock of all the railways in Great Britain. This important work--which is corrected and republished annually--shows where the requisite number of carriages of every description can be obtained for the composition of troop trains.