Rambles on Railways

by Sir Cusack P. Roney

The Report gives a list of railways and branches, twenty-five in number, to which Post Office rates of from 2s. to 4s. 6d. a mile are paid. The list commences with the line from Chester to Birkenhead, and concludes with that of the Limerick Junction to Limerick. Only two of the lines in this list are railways running out of London, and the payments to those lines are made under very special circumstances, one of them being for the Foreign Mail. The rest are all small cross lines, such as the Leeds and Selby, Perth and Dundee, Peterborough and Grimsby, and Dundalk and Castle Blayney, upon many of which the mail train is a special train, put on in the middle of the night, exclusively for the purpose of carrying a small quantity of letters. Wherever there is the least service performed, it is obvious that the proportionate rate of charge must be the highest; and in each of these petty cases, the arbitrators, no doubt, found some good reason why rates above the average should be paid. Upon cross roads, wherever a mail cart had formerly to be used, the Post Office was obliged to pay its whole expenses. And upon cross lines of railway, in the same manner, it is to be expected that the whole expenses of a special train will have to be borne by those who use it.

“The Post Office department,” says the Report, “would be well satisfied if the mails, the hours of which are absolutely fixed by notice, were conveyed at rates based on Mr. Stephenson’s estimate of the actual running cost, making some allowance, on the one hand, for the benefit derived by the company, from the train, and adding, on the other hand, compensation for any special extra expenses to which the company may be subjected, by the requirements of the Post Office, together with a full allowance for profit.”

If by the “benefits derived by the company from a train,” the Report means the amount received for passengers and parcels by a mail train, I agree with those who think that the conveyance of passengers and parcels, by such a train, may be of no benefit to a company. If those passengers and parcels did not go by the mail train, they would go by some other train, probably at a more convenient time to the company, and nothing is gained by sending them by the mail. But, apart from this, I should imagine, that the railway companies will, one and all, willingly accept any proposal from the Post Office to convey the mails, based on my “estimate of the actual running cost, with the addition of compensation for any special extra expenses to which the company may be subjected by Post Office requirements, together with a full allowance for profit.”

I am informed, that the claims of the Post Office upon the railway companies are continually increasing. The old mail coach carried only one Post Office officer, the guard, who also assisted in the performance of the duties of the coach. But the Post Office claims of the railway companies, under penalty, to carry, free of charge, all guards, clerks, and officers of the Post Office, “when employed in fetching the bags, or in returning back from carrying the same, and the inspectors of mails and such other officers and servants of the Post Office as the Postmaster-General shall from time to time require.” Thus an unlimited number of free passengers may be conveyed at the Postmaster-General’s discretion, and however unreasonable the number may be, the company have no redress. It is to be observed also, that instead of assisting the train, these passengers require assistance from the officers of the company. The Post Office insists that the porters of a railway are bound to place their bags in their vans and remove them from their stations.

The nonpayment of fares for these officials is not the only objection to their conveyance. Although deriving no profit from their carriage, the companies, under a recent decision, are declared to be liable to make them compensation for any accident, or injury they may sustain whilst travelling; and recently on the North-Western line, a sum of £1,200 had to be paid to an officer of the Post Office who was accidentally hurt. Was this the case with the old mail coaches?

“It constantly happens,” says the Report, “that the department is prevented from increasing postal facilities by the refusal of companies to accept rates equal to, and often exceeding, the charges made to the public for the transmission of a corresponding weight of such ordinary light goods as are frequently sent by passenger trains.”

The Report cites no one instance in support of the case which, it is said, so “constantly happens.” In the absence of such evidence I may be permitted to doubt whether the Post Office has been well informed. If such cases have occurred, it must be under extraordinary circumstances, for the Post Office itself has power to prevent such occurrences. There is nothing to prevent their sending their mail bags, as a parcel, by any train they like. They may have them carried, if they please, by a goods train, at 6d. per ton per mile; and that goods train will travel at least as fast as the old mail coach. A mail guard, with his bag of letters, may take his second-class ticket and walk into the railway carriage, with his bag, like any other passenger. On most of the lines on which it is complained that the railway rates are so heavy, the correspondence must be comparatively trifling. For instance, between Dundalk and Castle Blayney, the distance is 18½ miles. The Post Office rate paid, according to the Report, is 3s. 2d. a mile, or £2. 18s. 7d. for the whole distance; but the railway fare is only 2s. 7d. for the distance. If the Post Office insist on a special train and a travelling mail to carry a few letters, it is clear that they must pay in proportion, however minute may be the service rendered.

The Report complains, that whilst the gross weight of passengers conveyed by railway, during a year, is 8 millions of tons, the gross weight of mails (including guards, clerks, &c.), is under 20,000 tons,[149] so that “the Post Office contributes less than 1/400 part to the total weight, whilst it contributes 1/23 part to the total earnings of the railways.” But this is a fallacy. The mails are not to be estimated by their weight. The tables in the Report show, that the very cases, in which the Post Office carries the smallest weight, are those in which they are obliged to make the largest mileage payments.

The Report states, “the total payments to the companies for the year 1854, were £392,600, which, it may be observed, exceeds by £83,000 the 5 per cent. passenger tax for the same period.”

It would therefore appear, that what the Government really pays for all the postal service of the kingdom, even on this showing of the Postmaster-General, is £83,000 a year. For this they carried Four Hundred and Fifty-six Million of letters, without reckoning newspapers and parcels.