Railway Clearing-House.
It is a curious fact that human ignorance, and especially good honest homespun English ignorance, often produces important and highly beneficial results. “If I had but known what I have had to contend with I would never have undertaken the job,” is a remark which many a poor emigrant, many a weary traveller, many a journeyman labourer in every department of life, has fervently muttered to himself. The ejaculation is particularly applicable to the original projectors of our railways, who, had they but known the hydra-headed difficulties which, one after another, they would have to encounter, would most surely have kept their money in their pockets, or, in the phraseology of the vulgar, “would never have undertaken the job.”
Besides the difficulty of raising money, which during the railway mania certainly amounted to nil, there were parliamentary difficulties, engineering difficulties, difficulties of management of various descriptions; and yet, when all these were overcome, when each railway, with its beautiful system of committee-men, secretaries, engineers, surveyors, station-masters, engine-drivers, stokers, pokers, guards, police, superintendents, artificers, labourers, &c., was fully organised and completed, and every line competent along the whole or any portion of its length to convey with safety and due attention every description of traffic, there suddenly appeared a new difficulty, which not only most seriously embarrassed, but which threatened almost to prevent, the combined action of the vertebral railways which at such trouble and cost had just been created. The difficulty alluded to was what is now commonly called “the through traffic.”
Even before the railway system came into full operation, it was soon found, that to conciliate, or rather to satisfy the just claims of the passenger public, it would be necessary not to harass warm “through” travellers by forcing them to migrate to cold carriages as often as, asleep or awake, dozing or dreaming, they reached each terminus of the various railway companies who, in enmity rather than in partnership, were the proprietors of the consecutive portions of the thoroughfare line.
Again, it was soon found that our merchants and manufacturers as justly insisted rather than requested that their goods and merchandise should go “through” to their destinations without being subjected to the delay and serious injury which were unavoidable in repeatedly unpacking and repacking them into fresh waggons. Lastly, it was found that, for cattle and horses, changes of carriages were equally objectionable. The will of the people becoming, therefore, in these instances, the law of the rails, passengers, parcels, goods, horses, and cattle, were, generally speaking, carried “through” without change of carriage.
But though the traveller, the receiver of the parcel, of the package, of the horse, dog, bullock, sheep, or pig, after paying for the fare, of course cared not the hundred-thousandth part of a farthing what was done with the money, yet it will be self-evident that he left behind him sources of endless vexation and almost unpreventible disputes; for not only was the paltry fare he had paid for his own conveyance, or that which he might have paid for the conveyance of a lean pig, to be divided among the proprietors of two, three, four, five, six, or seven different companies, but of these companies all excepting one would have not only to remunerate by a mileage allowance the company in whose carriage or waggon, for the benefit of all parties, the traveller, or his parcel, or his goods, or his cow, calf, horse, dog, sheep, or sow, had been carried “through,” but an extra charge for demurrage was evidently due to the said company for every day that its carriage or waggon had been detained by the companies to whom it did not belong. The railway companies between London and York first saw the absolute necessity of their endeavouring by some arrangement to settle accounts of this description, which daily and hourly were growing up between them; but inasmuch as each company, from feelings of jealous independence, kept their books in a different form, dissensions arose, angry correspondence followed, until the settlement of their joint accounts was impeded by the most vexatious delays. The virulence of the disorder, however, was the means of its cure. Mr. Morison, the present very able manager and sole organiser of the new system, conceived the formation of a central office, and the idea was no sooner suggested to Mr. Glyn, the chairman of the London and North-Western Railway, than, seeing at a glance its practical bearing, he gave it the whole weight of his well-earned influence, and was mainly instrumental in the establishment of the astonishing system of minute detail which we will now endeavour very briefly to describe.
The Railway Clearing-House, which adjoins the right-hand side of the entrance-gate from Seymour Street to the Euston Station, is under the control of a committee composed of the chairmen of all the railway companies who are parties to the clearing arrangements; the expense of maintaining the establishment being divided rateably among the companies in proportion to the extent of business transacted by it for each.
On opening a street door, which a brass plate beamingly announces to be that of the “Railway Clearing-House,” the stranger sees before him a long passage, on both sides of which are hanging, as if for sale, a variety of very decent-looking hats, cloaks, and coats, which he has no sooner passed than he finds himself in a spacious hall or office 78 feet long, 20 wide, and 26 feet high, in which, at one glance, he sees seated or standing before him, at 13 parallel desks, upwards of a hundred well-dressed clerks, each silently occupied either in writing or in apparently carefully investigating that which others have written. The stillness of the scene, to which the public have no admittance, is very remarkable; and before we enter on the subject of the avocation of those before us, we cannot help observing that, to any one who has lately had an opportunity of seeing the number of half-starved men in Paris who, with interminable mustachios and noble bushy beards, are, with depressed heads, intently engaged in a variety of occupations, down to that of—say—painting a tiny brooch to ornament the bosom of a lady’s gown—it is amusing to contrast a body of such fierce-looking warriors “à demi-solde” with the plain, clean, close-shorn men of business, who throughout the United Kingdom are, week after week, month after month, and year after year, unassumingly labouring in behalf of that which republicans only talk of instead of attain—a commonwealth.
The business of the Railway Clearing-House is transacted by one manager and 110 clerks. The system comprehends 47 railway companies: in short, it extends to all railways north of the Thames—from Bristol, London, and Harwich, to Aberdeen; and it contains no less than 648 clearing-house stations, by the correspondence of which with the London clearing-office the accounts of the “through” traffic of all the companies is adjudged and settled.
The aforesaid business is divided into four departments:—
First, and most important, the goods and live-stock traffic.
Second, the coaching traffic.
Third, the mileage of carriages and waggons, as also the mileage of tarpaulins for covering waggons.
Fourth, lost luggage.
Goods.—From each of the 684 Railway Clearing-House Stations which we have enumerated, there is forwarded to the London office a “daily abstract of goods” (printed in black ink), containing the invoice, the amount carted, the sums paid or the sums to pay, the undercharge, the overcharge, and the description of the traffic “forwarded” each day from each station to each of the other stations enumerated in the return. Of these goods the gross total is composed of a number of articles, each of which, from the station from which it is forwarded, is charged according to the established rate agreed on by the companies for “through” goods. Some of these weights are only 14 lbs., in which case they, as well as every package below 56 lbs. (termed “a small”), are charged at a higher rate.
2. From each railway clearing station there is forwarded daily to the London office a return similar to the above (but for distinction printed in red ink), of the description, weight, &c. &c., of goods received at each station, and thus from two opposite points a detailed return of the amount of goods conveyed between them is declared.
3. As soon as these two returns (black and red) are received at the London office, they are carefully examined, to ascertain if the articles returned in each are correct—that is, if the declaration of the goods despatched corresponds with the return of the same goods from the point at which they should have been received. About 30 per cent., however, of the number of items in these returns do not correspond, the difference being sometimes a few pounds, sometimes a few pence. Ten clerks are constantly occupied in checking these two sets of returns.
4. As fast as these errors are detected, a “statement of omissions and inaccuracies” (in one month 7000 of these statements have been transmitted) are sent from the London office to both parties for explanation, and, when returned by each with “remarks,” the errors are corrected according to their replies.
5. From the above accounts a division of the receipts of the goods traffic is made monthly; and as there are 4500 of these settlements (each on an average wanting 2½ copies), about 11,000 copies per month are required. These abstracts are for the following object:—All “through” goods arriving in London are by agreement charged with certain terminal expenses for carterage and porterage, which are about double those charged in the country. This monthly settlement, therefore, shows to every company concerned what each is entitled by mileage to receive from one or more companies,—what actually has been received by each,—and consequently the balance due from the one to the other. Hull alone, from its numerous connexions with other stations, receives on an average 200 of these monthly abstracts. Twenty-four clerks are constantly occupied in preparing them.
6. The next operation is, by a consideration of all these balances, to determine what the clearing-house, as the representative of all the creditor companies, is entitled to receive from the debtor companies. The final result of all these operations is exemplified by a monthly return forwarded by the office to each of the forty-seven companies, showing separately to each, for each of its stations, the weights, the mileage proportions, the terminal expenses, and, lastly, the balances, whether due to it or by it, on the traffic from each of its stations to all other clearing-house stations to which goods had been sent, or from which received. The number of entries in these monthly summaries averages 11,186.
The above closes the account of the goods traffic. Any omission or errors in these accounts are corrected in those of the subsequent month, the balances being, in the first instance, always paid as declared by the London railway clearing-house.
When the balances are finally struck, a letter is addressed from the office to each company, advising it of the amount due to or by it on the traffic of the month; and, unless these balances are paid by each company within twenty-one days, interest at 6 per cent. is charged, and credited to the companies to whom the clearing-house is nominally indebted.
For the convenience of the companies a weekly notice is sent by the London office to each, informing each of the amounts of the receipts of the through goods traffic to which it is respectively entitled. This single operation, which enables the companies to publish their weekly receipts, employs nine clerks.
Passengers.—All tickets collected at all the clearing-house stations from through passengers are transmitted daily to the London clearing-house, from whence, after being examined and compared with the returns of the tickets issued, they are sent back to the respective companies. From Euston, as well as from all other stations, passenger tickets for every station are each numbered separately from 1 to 10,000, and are issued consecutively, not only for each station, but for each class of passengers. In examining these collected tickets, which on an average amount to 9000 per day,—in comparing them with the consecutive numbers as entered in the daily Returns received from the various stations,—and in checking the consecutive numbers themselves, five clerks are employed. The railway clearing-office thus receives—
1. Return from Euston booking-office, as also from all clearing-house passenger stations, stating the number of passengers of each class booked for all clearing stations, the portions of fares paid by each passenger and due to “foreign” companies.
2. From this account the London clearing-house prepares and forwards daily to each company a return, showing the portion of the fares received at Euston due to each respectively. The above returns are despatched on the evening of the second day.
3. The London clearing-house receives daily from every clearing station a similar return.
4. From these two sets of returns the debtor and creditor account of each company is made up, and kept separate in a book, from which a statement of balances is prepared and forwarded weekly to each company, showing the amount received on its account by the other companies, as also on account of the other companies by it, the balances due to it or by it, and the weekly balance due to or by the clearing-house on behalf of the companies. We may here observe that by the foregoing arrangements, without which the through passenger traffic could not possibly be practically carried out, 2,700,000 persons are annually saved the inconvenience of changing their carriage during their journey.
5. The same minute process is pursued with horses, carriages, and dogs, the tickets for which are numbered consecutively, and checked as for passengers. In this duty thirteen clerks are employed.
Parcels.—The daily returns of the number of parcels despatched and received are checked, and the balance of receipts divided, precisely as the goods, with this addition, that a “waybill” is sent by each train with the parcels for each station, showing the number of the parcel, the weight, address, and charge; similar bills being also sent from the receiving station to the clearing-house, thus constituting an additional check. For small parcels carried by the passenger-trains from London to Edinburgh the gross charge of 4s. is divided among four companies; small charges are often divided among seven companies; and in some cases a charge of 6d. is divided among two companies. In this duty eight clerks are employed.
At the end of the London Clearing-House three clerks are employed for the live-stock traffic, principally composed of lean stock going to be fattened, of fat cattle, pigs, sheep, and calves going to market. The rates for live stock, like those for goods, are agreed on by all the joint companies, and the returns are sent weekly to the clearing-house. The gross receipts, after deducting a small sum, per waggon, for terminal expenses, are divided, by mileage, among the companies (frequently six in number) concerned.
We have now to endeavour to explain a new branch of the department, termed “Mileage Branch.”
In 1848 no less than 443,604 loaded waggons were by various companies (averaging three in number) sent “through” besides 267,228 sent back empty. The course of each of these waggons the clearing-house had to trace, in order to ascertain the exact time each was detained on each railway.
The number of miles for which the companies received, through the London clearing-house, payment from each other, amounted to 45,580,384.
The manner in which these extraordinary results are effected is as follows:—
At every junction of railways there are stationed men in the pay of the London Clearing-House, to take the number of all passenger-carriages and goods-waggons, as also of all tarpaulins or sheets covering waggons. These men make to the clearing-office daily a detailed statement of the same.
Returns are also sent daily from all the clearing-house stations on all the lines of railway, by the servants of the respective companies, of all foreign carriages arriving and departing from each of the said stations. From these returns the London Clearing-House is enabled to trace the course of all waggons and passenger-carriages travelling on what are termed “foreign” lines, and to debit and credit every company with the sums it has respectively incurred for mileage, as also what is due from and to the respective companies for demurrage per day of waggons or of passenger-carriages.
These accounts are transmitted to each company monthly.
Sheets covering waggons are in like manner all checked at the junctions by the men placed there by the London Clearing-House, as also by returns forwarded to the office from the various stations at which the waggon stops to be loaded or unloaded; and thus the charge of one-tenth of a penny per mile for the use of each of these tarred coverings is divided according to its proper proportion among the respective companies over whose lines it has travelled! For a waggon or carriage from Edinburgh to London, mileage and also demurrage accounts are sent to four companies, and from Arbroath to London to seven companies.
Fourteen clerks are required to keep the mileage and demurrage accounts of carriages and waggons, and eight clerks to keep those of the tarpaulins or sheets,
The Accountant.—Lastly, in the corner of the London office, in a small elevated compartment, about four feet square, sits “the Accountant,” who keeps—
1. An account for each separate company (forty-seven in number), showing briefly the sums at their debits and credits, and the balance due to or by each.
2. An interest ledger, showing the amount of interest accruing on balances in arrear, which interest is received by the clearing-house from the Dr. company, and paid to the Cr. company.
3. By the Act of Parliament, every railway company is bound to pay to Government a duty on all sums received by it from passengers, whether on its own account or for other companies. The consequence of this is, that one company is continually obliged to pay duty for another, thus creating a debtor and creditor account for duties, which account the Clearing-House also settles monthly.
Lost Luggage.—The Clearing-House, from its connexion with almost every railway in the kingdom, undertakes the duty of corresponding with all the clearing-house stations from which it receives daily returns respecting any unclaimed luggage left on the rails.
At the entrance of the Clearing-Office, in the corner, there is a small post-office of compartments for the letters and returns daily transmitted by the manager to each company.
The office usually receives and despatches 4500 communications per day, employing five lads to open, endorse, and arrange them.
The office is open daily from 9 A.M. till 5 P.M.
With a deep sigh we can truly say that we have now concluded a sketch of the Railway Clearing-House, which, as it gave us one headache to investigate, and another to endeavour to explain, will probably be equally afflicting to our readers.
In justice, however, to the system, we must confess that it is impossible to convey in writing an adequate conception of the infinity of details with which it has to grapple.
The number of items which in the course of a year, by the London office, are examined, traced through many returns, checked, and transferred from one account to another, exceeds rather than falls short of (50,000,000) fifty millions!
It must be obvious to any person conversant with the working of railways, that, without a centralised system of this description, so constituted as to command the confidence of the railway companies, the railway system generally would not only soon become clogged, but constant squabbles and disagreements between the various companies would ensue, to the detriment of their interests, as well as to the discomfort and inconvenience of the public.
The true object, therefore, of the London Railway Clearing-House is to enable the railway companies of the United Kingdom who are parties thereto, to work that enormous traffic, in which they have a common interest, with as much security to themselves, and with as little inconvenience to the public, as if all the associated companies were ONE; and it is evident that in no way could this important object have been effected, except by the establishment of an office which, based on principles of complete centralisation, should be—as the London Clearing-House really is—independent of each company, but under the common control of ALL.