Rambles on Railways

by Sir Cusack P. Roney

Adding the 604,000 passengers of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the proportion of land travellers to the whole population of the kingdom, in 1837, was not quite a sixth. The passengers who travelled on only thirty-one miles of railway were nearly one-sixth of all that travelled by all the mail coaches, stage coaches, post cars, post chaises, private carriages with post horses, waggons, and canal boats, over all the high roads, post roads, and the canals of the United Kingdom.

Observe the onward progress of land passenger development. No railways of the slightest importance were finished between 1830 and 1837, but by the year 1843—two years and a-half after the Great Western line had been completed between London and Bristol—1,902 miles of railway had been opened for traffic, and in the year terminating at that date, 23,466,896 passengers were carried by railway. These were, of course, exclusive of those conveyed by mail and stage coaches, and other conveyances. Their numbers could not have diminished, on the contrary, they must have increased, seeing that these conveyances then began to be used in subordination, as it were, to railways, and not as the arterial and leading means of passenger communication. Travellers went shorter distances by them—nevertheless what used to be called the “post horse duty,” that is the tax levied upon public conveyances and horses employed in passenger traffic, never diminished—on the contrary, it increased slightly during several years. For some time past it has been modified in many of its features, so that a comparison between its amount, and what it was in 1837, cannot be instituted. But the fact is notorious, that even now, with upwards of 14,000 miles of railway open throughout the kingdom, many more horses are employed in connection with passenger traffic than there were in 1837.

The number of persons who travelled by railway in the year ending 30th June, 1843, was 23,466,896: the number estimated by road, 3,359,825, total 26,826,721.

As the estimated population of the United Kingdom in June, 1843, was 27,033,692, it follows that it and the number of persons who had travelled in the previous twelve months, both by rail and by road, were not far from equal. In fact the number of persons who travelled by railway may be considered to represent the excess of travelling in 1843 over that in 1837. Let it here be noted, that in 1843, the third class passengers formed not more than a fourth of the total number carried, they being 6,891,844. We shall see presently how marvellously these numbers have progressed, not only absolutely, but in comparison with the travellers of the two other classes.

Twelve months more, on the 30th of June, 1844, with 2,050 miles open, the railway passengers exceeded the total population of the kingdom by 407,799; the numbers being respectively 27,763,602, and 27,355,803, and third class passengers had risen to be almost exactly one-third of the whole. We exclude travellers by road, not because they were less numerous than previously, but because their numbers become every year less important in comparison with the total passenger movement of the empire. For any purposes of computation that may result from these statements, they may fairly be taken for what they were in 1837, 3,359,825.

It was in 1848 that the greatest number of miles in any one year were opened for traffic,—1,191; the nearest approach to it was in the previous year,—780. In 1863, the number was 771. The smallest number was in 1843,—91 miles. The following year, 196; and in 1855, 236. The average from 1837 to 1866, both included, has been 690.

In the twelve months ending the 30th June, 1848, with an estimated population of 28,015,685, the number of persons travelling by railway had increased to double that of the population, 57,965,071, of whom 29,083,782 were third class,—1,068,097 more than the population, and a few more than one-half of the whole number carried.

“The cause of this augmentation of third class passengers is,” says the late Dr. Lardner, in his treatise upon Railway Economy, edition of 1850, “easily explained. Previous to 1846, the carriages provided for third class passengers were frequently without roofs or windows. The third class trains were started at inconvenient hours, and were transported at a comparatively slow rate. In fact, the companies appeared to study the means which were most likely to discourage the use of these cheap trains, prompted, apparently, by the apprehension that the more affluent classes[22] resorting to them, the revenue and profits from the other trains would be diminished.” By these means the humbler classes were, no doubt, deprived in a great measure of the benefit of railway transport. An Act, however, was passed in 1845 for the establishment of at least one third class train a day in each direction, in accordance with a time bill to be previously approved by the Board of Trade, the speed to be not less than twelve miles an hour, and the fare for conveyance—in carriages, the dimensions, seating accommodation, and size of windows of which must be sanctioned by the Board of Trade—not to exceed a penny a mile. Without such approval and sanction, a train is not considered, what is known in railway language, as a “parliamentary train” within the meaning of the Act. The company offending, therefore, is not allowed a remission of the duty on the passengers conveyed by such train, to which it would be otherwise entitled under the certificate of the Board of Trade, and it is liable to penalties for non-fulfilment of the terms of the Act. In two or three cases these penalties have been enforced and recovered by decisions obtained in the courts of law.

The very great development of third class traffic, by means of cheap parliamentary trains, has produced a marked change in the feelings of railway managers upon this subject in the last few years. Now, almost all the time tables show, specifically, the trains by which they can be conveyed, and by reference, among others, to the most recent monthly guide book of the London and North-Western Company, it will be seen that third class passengers are now conveyed from London to Liverpool by one particular train in six hours and a-half; to Manchester in five hours and twenty minutes. At the institution of parliamentary trains the time by them from London to both those cities was fifteen hours. But this was just half the time that the coaches took in the olden time between London and Liverpool, and it was also at just half the cost as regards fare, irrespective of the fees to guard and coachman.