But, although the passengers by the Express train are, in every respect, a contrast to those by the Parliamentary, the universal and levelling tendency of the railway system is not less plainly exhibited.
The earl or duke, whose dignity formerly compelled him to post in a coupé and four, at a cost of some five or six shillings a mile, and an immense consumption of horse-flesh, wax-lights, and landladies’ curtsies on the road, now takes his place unnoticed in a first-class carriage next to a gentleman who travels for a great claret and champagne house, and opposite another going down express to report a railway meeting at Birmingham for a morning paper. If you see a lady carefully and courteously escorted to a carriage marked “engaged,” on a blackboard, it is probably not a countess but the wife of one of the principal officers of the company. A bishop in a greatcoat creates no sensation; but a tremendous rush of porters and superintendents towards one carriage, announces that a director or well-known engineer is about to take his seat. In fact, civility to all, gentle and simple, is the rule introduced by the English railway system; every porter with a number on his coat is, for the time, the passenger’s servant. Special attention is bestowed on those who are personally known, and no one can grumble at that. Some people, who have never visited the continent, or only visited it for pleasure, travelling at their leisure, make comparisons with the railways of France and Germany, unfavourable to the English system. Our railways are dearer than the foreign, so is our government,—we make both ourselves; but compare the military system of the continental railways; the quarter of an hour for admission before the starting of the train, during which, if too early or too late, you are locked out; the weighing of every piece of baggage; the lordly commanding airs of all the officials if any relaxation of rules be required; the insouciance with which the few porters move about, leaving ladies and gentlemen to drag their own luggage;—compare all this with the rapid manner in which the loads of half-a-dozen cabs, driving up from some other railway at the last moment, are transferred to the departing Express; compare the speed, the universal civility, attention, and honesty, that distinguish our railway travelling, and you cannot fail to come to the conclusion that for a commercial people to whom time is of value, ours is the best article, and if we had not been a lawyer-ridden people we might also have had the cheapest article.
Before starting the Express train, we must not fail to note one new class of passengers, recruited by the speed of railways, viz., the number of gentlemen in breeches, boots, and spurs, with their pinks just peeping from under their rough jackets, who, during the season, get down to Aylesbury, Bletchley, and even Wolverton, to hunt, and back home again to dinner. But the signal sounds. The express train moves off; two gentlemen at the last moment are, in vain, crying out for Punch and the Times, while an unheeded hammering at the closed door of the booking-office announces that somebody is too late. There is always some one too late. On this occasion it was a young gentleman in a pair of light top-boots, and a mamma and papa with half-a-dozen children and two nursery-maids in a slow capacious fly.
We cannot bestow unqualified praise upon the station arrangements at Euston. Comfort has been sacrificed to magnificence. The platform arrangements for departing and arriving trains are good, simple, and comprehensive; but the waiting-rooms, refreshment stand, and other conveniences are as ill-contrived as possible; while a vast hall with magnificent roof and scagliola pillars, appears to have swallowed up all the money and all the light of the establishment.
The first-class waiting-room is dull to a fearful degree, and furnished in the dowdiest style of economy. The second-class room is a dark cavern, with nothing better than a borrowed light.
The refreshment counters are enclosed in a sort of circular glazed pew, open to all the drafts of a grand, cold, uncomfortable hall, into which few ladies will venture.
A refreshment-room should be the ante-room to the waiting-room, and the two should be so arranged with reference to the booking-office and cloak-rooms, that strangers find their way without asking a dozen questions from busy porters and musing policemen.
Euston Station reminds us of an architect’s house, where a magnificent portico and hall leads to dungeon-like dining-room, and mean drawing-room. Why are our architects so inferior to our engineers?
On the platform is the door of the telegraph office, which also has offices for receiving and transmitting messages at all the principal stations.