In a single year, for stores, materials and fuel British Railways must spend one hundred and thirty million pounds. The purchasing, warehousing and distribution of stores on a gigantic scale, the manufacture of some items, the repair of others, the recovery of salvage and the sale of unwanted residues - this is the work of the railway stores department, whose task it is to provide whatever is needed both for maintenance work and for building programmes, and to provide it at the right time, wherever it may be wanted throughout the railway system.