The very existence of such large concerns, with all their human and financial convolutions, was itself a novelty; only the army, the Royal Navy and (while it lasted) the East India Company could compare. The industry thus became a kind of forcing house for new methods of management and control, serving in turn as the model for how other large corporations were run. In that sense, every large commercial organisation – and not just those in Britain – is a descendant of the railways.
