A History of Inland Transport and Communication in England

by Edwin A. Pratt

Parliament did not, at first, specify the amounts of the locomotive and conveyance tolls, but simply required that they should be "reasonable," the expectation at that time being that these tolls would be kept to reasonable limits by the competition of the outside carriers. When it was found that the outside carriers would not run their own locomotives on the railway, and that the railways would do their own carrying, the amounts which could be levied as locomotive and conveyance tolls were specified in the special Acts of the companies concerned.

At one time, therefore, the railway companies were authorised by their Acts to impose three separate charges, (1) road tolls, (2) locomotive tolls, and (3) conveyance tolls; but in 1845 a "maximum rates clause" was introduced which grouped these different tolls into a total charge something less than the aggregate of the three.

In proportion as the railway companies themselves performed the duties of carriers, instead of leaving this branch of the transport business to the outside carrying firms, it became necessary for them to provide goods depôts and warehouses, and to have a staff available for a variety of services—loading and unloading, covering and uncovering, etc.—which were necessary in the handling of the traffic. The companies then claimed that for these "station terminals" and "terminal services" they were entitled to make charges in addition to the maximum rates, whereas it was contended on the part of the traders that these services were included in the maximum rates, and that the companies had no right to charge for them separately. After prolonged controversy and much litigation, the dispute was eventually decided in favour of the companies; but Parliament required them to distinguish the charges for conveyance, terminals, and collection and delivery, and, finally, by the Charges Acts of 1891 and 1892, fixed the amounts of the maximum station and service terminals that each company might demand.

In the meantime much trouble had also arisen as the result of the haphazard fashion in which the railways of the country had been called into being.

The original classification of goods for transport was of the most primitive kind. In the canal companies Acts the authorised tolls and charges were generally specified in respect to only about a dozen different articles. The early railway Acts followed the canal precedent in so far that each of them contained a classification of the goods expected to go by rail, the main difference being that the list given in the railway Acts generally comprised from forty to sixty articles, divided into five or six groups.

As the railways extended, and began to deal with the great bulk of the commerce of the country, these original lists were found to be hopelessly crude and inadequate, and one of the duties undertaken by the Railway Clearing House, first set up in 1847 and incorporated by an Act of 1850, was the preparation of what became known as the Clearing House classification—a work required in the interests equally of the railways and of the traders. At the outset the Clearing House classification comprised about 300 articles. By 1852 the number had increased to 700, and in 1864 it had further expanded to 1300.

The Royal Commission of 1865 recommended that the new and improved classification thus compiled and put into operation by the companies themselves should be the basis of the classification imposed by the special railway Acts. The Committee pointed out that the rates authorised by Parliament were no longer necessarily an indication of the charges actually made in practice since these charges depended, not on the classifications in the companies' Acts, but on the Clearing House classification, by reason of which they were often lower than the statutory maxima. The Committee regarded the classification of the private Acts as defective and inharmonious, and they advised that the Clearing House classification should be enacted by some general Act which might be adopted in the private Acts by reference. The Joint Select Committee of 1872 also advised the adoption of a uniform classification; but it was not until the passing of the Railway and Canal Traffic Act of 1888 that the recommendation was carried out.

This Act of 1888 was, in part, the outcome of reasonable dissatisfaction among the traders.

In the absence, from the outset, of any real and effective system for the organisation of railways in accordance with well-defined general principles, based on the needs of the country as a whole, great uncertainty existed as to the rates and charges to be paid. There were then no fewer than 900 Acts of Parliament which dealt with the charging powers of 976 past or present railway companies, while the only uniform classification was that of the Railway Clearing House, which had almost entirely superseded the primitive classification in the railway companies' Acts but had not yet received legal sanction.

A recommendation to the effect "that one uniform classification be adopted over the whole railway system" had been made by a House of Commons Select Committee in 1882. They considered that the adoption of this course was necessary in view of the imperfection and want of uniformity in the special Act classifications and charges, in which they had failed to discover any general principle. "In some cases," they said, "reference must be had to more than fifty Acts to determine the various rates the company is authorised to charge."