LONDON AND NORTH EASTERN RAILWAY COMPANY, THE. The London and North Eastern Railway Company, the second largest railway company in Great Britain, incorporates the former Great Central, Great Eastern, Great Northern, Hull and Barnsley, North Eastern, North British, and Great North of Scotland railway companies. With a total mileage of 6,7221 running lines the L.N.E.R. system covers the whole of eastern England and East and West Scotland between the Thames and the Moray Firth and also serves the port of Liverpool. South end, Skegness, Scarborough, Bridlington, and many other popular East Coast resorts are catered to by the L.N.E.R.
The Company employs approximately 200,000 people, owns 2,500 stations and goods depots, and is the largest dock-owning railway company in the world; its property includes docks at Hull, Grimsby, Immingham, Middlesbrough, Tyne Dock, the Hartlepools, Methil, Burntisland, Bo'ness and Silloth.
The Company's rolling stock includes 7,400 locomotives, 20,000 passenger vehicles and 280,000 goods and mineral wagons. Its annual traffic figures are 370,000,000 passengers ; 141,500,000 tons of merchandise and minerals; and 8,300,00o head of live stock.
Besides operating railway services and important docks the L.N.E.R. owns and operates steamship services between Harwich, Grimsby, Hull and the Continental ports of Antwerp, Zeebrugge, Hook of Holland, Rotterdam, and Hamburg; the Harwich-Flush ing and Harwich-Esbjerg services are also worked in close co operation with the L.N.E.R., whilst the train ferries plying be tween Harwich and Zeebrugge, though owned by a separate com pany, are worked entirely by the L.N.E.R.
Restaurant car expresses, including the "Flying Scotsman," are run between London (King's Cross) and the North of England and Scotland via the East Coast Route; London (Marylebone) and Liverpool and the Midlands; and London (Liverpool Street) and the Eastern Counties. (J. R. H.) LONDONDERRY, EARLS AND MARQUESSES OF. The 1st earl of Londonderry was Thomas Ridgeway (c. 1565 1631), a Devon man, who was treasurer in Ireland from i6o6 to 1616 and was engaged in the plantation of Ulster. Ridgeway was made a baronet in 1611, Baron Ridgeway in 1616 and earl of Londonderry in 1623. The Ridgeways held the earldom until March 1714, when Robert, the 4th earl, died without sons. In 1726 Robert's son-in-law, Thomas Pitt (c. 1688-1729), son of Thomas Pitt, "Diamond Pitt," governor at Madras and uncle of the great earl of Chatham, was created earl of Londonderry, the earldom again becoming extinct when his younger son Ridge way, the 3rd earl of this line, died unmarried in Jan. 1765. In 1796 Robert Stewart (1739-1821), of Mount Stewart, Co. Down, was made earl of Londonderry in the Irish peerage. He had been created Baron Londonderry in 1789 and Viscount Castlereagh in 1795; in 1816 he was advanced to the rank of marquess of Londonderry. The 3rd marquess married the heiress of the Vane Tempests and took the name of Vane instead of Stewart ; the 5th marquess called himself Vane-Tempest and the 6th marquess Vane-Tempest-Stewart.