Victoria—both of the stations that rest side by side and share the name in common—seemingly is no larger than the Broad Street or Market Street Station in Philadelphia. The combined station certainly is not as large as Broad Street, barely larger than Market Street. Yet in each business day more trains arrive and depart from its train-sheds than either at Broad Street or at Market Street.
How is this done? In the beginning the British railway man does not feel that when he builds a railway terminal he has to provide a great congregation place for the people. There is of course at great interchange points in the heart of this country—such as Kansas City or Atlanta or Cincinnati or Omaha or St. Paul—a real need for abundant waiting-room capacity where through travelers may be properly housed between their trains—for a number of hours, if need be. At more strictly terminal or near-terminal points such as Philadelphia or New York or Boston this necessity largely disappears, and the space that is taken by huge waiting-rooms can better be used by more essential station facilities.
Victoria Station does not exceed ten platform-tracks in width. To handle more than 300 trains a day within this limited capacity means the very highest efficiency in train handling. Not only does it mean the maximum of promptitude in loading and unloading the trains but an adaptation of their schedules wherever possible so that an incoming train bringing passengers into the station is used for a regular run taking other passengers out again, and so the necessity of an “empty movement” into the storage-yards and back again is avoided. Moreover the very arrangement of the tracks and platforms themselves leads to efficiency in these things.
When but a few years ago it became necessary to enlarge radically the capacity of the side of Victoria Station belonging to the London, Brighton, and South Coast railway the engineers found that they would have to think twice before they accomplished their purpose. The station was but six tracks in width, divided into two groups of three tracks each—two of these alongside the platforms, with a middle one reserved for the switching of the locomotives backwards and forwards. It was not possible to increase this limited width. Upon the one side stood an important through street of London—Buckingham Palace Road—and upon the other the equally immovable twin-station of the Southeastern and Chatham railway. Therefore the engineers did the one thing possible, short of the enormously expensive job of double-decking the station—they lengthened it, and at a comparatively low cost doubled its capacity.
To-day two long trains, standing one behind the other upon the same track, may load and unload their passengers at the same time, and without the slightest confusion or difficulty. The high-level platform (the station-platform at the same height as the floor of the train), which Parliament forced upon the British railways many years ago, is a tremendous help to quick entraining and detraining. Why it has not been more universally adopted in this country it is hard to understand. It is in successful use both in the Grand Central and the Pennsylvania Stations in New York, but at very few other points. And this despite the fact that in order to serve these two highly important stations virtually all the Pullman equipment in the country now has been adapted to high-level platform use. Yet only the Pennsylvania has had the courage and the vision to adapt this very sensible form of platform to its intermediate stations. It already has become a standard upon that great railroad.
That the adoption of a regional railroad system for this country would bring this and a hundred other needed improvements—both greater as well as smaller than these of the economical passenger terminal—I am not attempting to argue. But I do believe that the regional railroad system, with its setting of the competitive phase in its proper position in relation to the conduct of our roads, would be a powerful factor in bettering present conditions, and in a way that would bring wholesale operating economies all the way across the land. This, in turn, should be translated most promptly to the public in two ways—lowered rates and bettered service. Here then is always the nub of the situation; railroad efficiency accomplished through operating efficiency, not necessarily wage reduction but reduction in other costs as well, as long as they may be accomplished without detriment to the service. The service upon our American railroads has long since been reduced to a point where their actual efficiency and value as public servants have begun to be impaired. From this time forward we must begin to puzzle out how their service may be bettered, and there is no better way for this than that which lies within a real correlation of their activities.
CHAPTER XVI
THE UNITED STATES RAILROAD