While working on the permanent-way, sidings, 14.
An engine coupled to a batch of wagons runs one or more of them down one siding, leaves them there, then returns back with the remainder clear of the points where the sidings diverge, runs one or more others down another siding, and so on till they are all disposed of.
Table Viii.-Paid-Up Capital, 1908 The table excludes sidings, because they cannot fairly be compared with running tracks, mile for mile.
Yet the mileage of sidings in the United Kingdom amounted to 14,353 in 1908, and the cost of constructing them was probably not far from £60,000,000.
At stations the points that give access to sidings are generally arranged as trailing points with respect to the direction of traffic on the main lines; that is, trains cannot pass direct into sidings, but have to stop and then run backwards into them.