Much of this smoothness of working was due to the fact that the War Office had, in accordance with the principle adopted on the appointment of the War Railway Council, stationed at Southampton a Railway Transport Officer who was to act as a connecting link, or intermediary, between the railway, the docks, the military and the Admiralty authorities, co-ordinating their requirements, superintending the arrivals by train, arranging for and directing the embarkation of the troops and their equipment in the transports allotted to them, and preventing any of that confusion which otherwise might well have arisen. Similar officers had also been stationed by the War Office at leading railway stations throughout the country to ensure co-operation between the military and the railway staffs and, while avoiding the possibility of friction or complications, facilitate the handling of the military traffic.
In the account to be given in Chapter XVI. of "Railways in the Boer War," it will be shown that a like course was pursued in South Africa for the duration of the campaign.
Army Manœuvres of 1912
Further evidence as to what the British railways were capable of accomplishing was afforded by the Army Manœuvres in East Anglia in 1912. This event also constituted a much more severe test than the Volunteer reviews of former days, since it meant not only the assembling, in the manœuvre area, of four divisions of the Army and some thousands of Territorials, but the transport, at short notice, and within a limited period, of many horses, guns, transport wagons, etc., together with considerable quantities of stores. Certain sections of the traffic were dealt with by the Great Northern and the London and North-Western Companies; but the bulk of it was handled by the Great Eastern and was carried in nearly 200 troop trains, consisting in all of about 4,000 vehicles. Of these trains 50 per cent. started before or exactly to time, while the others were only a few minutes late in leaving the station. Such was the regularity and general efficiency with which the work of transportation was carried out that in the course of an address to the Generals, at Cambridge, his Majesty the King referred to the rapid concentration of troops by rail, without dislocating the ordinary civilian traffic, as one of the special features of the manœuvres. The dispersal of the forces on the conclusion of the manœuvres was effected in a little over two days, and constituted another smart piece of work.[34]
A Railways Executive Committee
In view of all such testimony and of all such actual achievements, there was no reason to doubt that the railway companies, with their great resources in material and personnel, and with the excellence of their own organisation, would themselves be able to respond promptly and effectively to such demands as might be made upon them in a time of national emergency.
There still remained, however, the singular fact that although, so far back as 1871, the Government had acquired power of control over the railways, in the event of an emergency arising, a period of forty years had elapsed without any action being taken to create, even as a precautionary measure, the administrative machinery by which that control would be exercised by the State. Such machinery had been perfected in Germany, France, and other countries, but in England it had still to be provided. Not only had section 16 of the Act of 1871 remained practically a dead letter, but even the fact that it existed did not seem to be known to so prominent a railway manager as Sir George Findlay when he wrote "Working and Management of an English Railway" and the article he contributed to the United Service Magazine of April, 1892, his assumption that the State would control the railways in time of war being based, not on the Act of 1871—which he failed to mention—but on the Act of 1888, which simply gives a right of priority to military traffic, under certain conditions.
Notwithstanding, too, the draft scheme spoken of by Sir George Findlay, under which the operation of the railways was to be entrusted, in case of emergency, to the Engineer and Railway Staff Corps, that body and, also, the War Railway Council, continued to occupy a purely advisory position.
So it was clearly desirable to supplement the recognized efficiency of the railways themselves by the creation of a central executive body which, whenever the State assumed control of the railways, under the Act of 1871, would (1) secure the necessary co-operation between Government departments and the railway managements; (2) ensure the working of the various railway systems on a national basis; and (3) co-ordinate such various needs as naval and military movements to or from all parts of the Kingdom; coal supply for the Fleet; transport of munitions; the requirements of the civil population, etc.