In 1878 Mathieson and I took a short holiday together and crossed to
Ireland. It was our first visit to that unquiet but delightful country,
in which, little as I thought then, I was destined a few years later to
make my home.
It was in January, 1879, that the headquarters of the company were
removed from the old and narrow Bridge Street Station to the new palatial
St. Enoch, and there a splendid set of offices was provided. This was
another advantage much to my taste. St. Enoch was and is certainly a
most handsome and commodious terminus. Originally it had one great roof
of a single span, second only to that of St. Pancras Station. Other
spans, not so great, have since been added, for the business of St. Enoch
rapidly grew, and enlarged accommodation soon became necessary. In 1879
it had six long and spacious platforms, now it has twelve; then the
number of trains in and out was 43 daily, now it has reached 286; then
the mileage of the railway was 319, now it is 466; then the employees of
the company numbered 4,010 and now they are over 10,000. These figures
exemplify the material growth of industrial Scotland in the forty years
that have passed.
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