Rambles on Railways

by Sir Cusack P. Roney

The twin sisters of progress in our day, are free trade and the railway. Both are universal as regards application; both are expansive and ever expanding. They always advance, they never recede. Free Trade, however, is, so to speak, national, or of the nation as an abstract. It requires for its world-spread development no more than that trade shall avail itself of the advantages which unfettered intercourse between nations imparts. The railway is the commercial reality of everyday life. Its existence cannot be started without aggregated capital. It then becomes the earnest, visible, and ever-working bee in the hive, and by the means which it places at the disposal of all, not only are intercourse and interchange facilitated between nations, but among ourselves movement is giant-like and unceasing, not only for ourselves actually, but for everything that pertains to us in our wants and necessities, no matter under what classification they may be placed. A grand prosperity has been achieved for the nation, but the gold to which much of its accomplishment is due has proved unfruitful. The fact, undoubted, need only thus be recorded. Others can say of it what they please as a grievance.

It may be said, and no doubt it is said, that want of success in railway investments has arisen from extravagance and mismanagement. Undoubtedly the assertion is in part correct as regards both the origination and the construction of most of our railways, but the incompetence of Parliament, its unfitness as a tribunal (notably so in the case of Lord Libeller), and the false system it has fostered, have contributed a much larger share than the other two elements to the present ill-favoured and unsatisfactory position of railways.

“Ah! but the working of railways! There, at all events, we have you.” “See how defective it is. See the innumerable complaints constantly appearing in the papers about want of punctuality. See the frightful accidents that are occurring.” “Yes; it is quite true that delays occur to trains. Nay, more, let it be granted that they are frequent—but frequent in proportion to what?—to the number of trains that are running night and day throughout every part of the kingdom?” “Yes.” But the answer to that is—in 1865 3,448,509 passenger trains ran in the United Kingdom, which is at the rate of 10,387 trains each week day, and half that number is assumed as the number on Sundays, and on Christmas Day and Good Friday. Fewer long trains travel on Sundays than on week days, but on short urban and suburban railways the trains are, except during the hours of divine service, as numerous as on week days. Besides the passenger trains there were, in 1865, 2,108,198 goods trains, heavily laden with merchandise and minerals, or at the rate of 6,060 trains on each week day, and half that number on Sundays, Christmas Day and Good Friday, making a total each day of 16,447. At the end of 1865 there were, as has been frequently stated in these pages, 13,289 miles of railway open for traffic; at present (October, 1867) the number of miles is fully 14,300, and there cannot be less than 13,000 passenger trains a day. The proportion of trains arriving late to trains arriving to time is not three per cent. throughout the whole kingdom, and of those, nine-tenths are not more than fifteen minutes behind time. The average number of persons travelling each week day throughout the year is nearly 800,000; of these the very utmost that are detained beyond fifteen minutes is 3,000; so that for every 300 persons who travel per diem one must expect, on the doctrine of averages, to be over fifteen minutes late, and one out of every thirty-four passengers may be a few minutes over time. Judging by the tone and the language of many of the letters of complaint which appear in newspapers, if we could suppose such a person as one utterly ignorant of everything relating to railways, he would believe that the officials experience a special pleasure and enjoyment when trains are irregular. Let us, in reply, assure that excellent and ignorant person that there is nothing more abhorrent (with only one exception, to which we shall refer immediately) to railway nature than want of regularity and precision. They are to him precisely as the vacuum abhorendum of Nature, Pan-Anglican and Pan-Mundal.[62] In everyday life, if things go punctually and precisely with us, the whole of our machinery, both corporeal and physical, works pleasantly, without trouble and without difficulty. And so it is on the railways—as long as there are punctuality and regularity all goes right. It is, therefore, the fact that the unceasing efforts of the staff of every railway company in the kingdom are unremittingly directed to ensuring punctuality to trains, as far as human nature can ensure it. It is the interest of the officials of every grade to have everything on the line working with the precision and fidelity of clockwork. The slightest irregularity at any part of a line at once brings an accession of labour and of responsibility upon the shoulders of every official, be he high or low, connected with it. But happily Englishmen, among whom, of course, we include Scotchmen and Irishmen, placed in positions of trust and responsibility have always acted, and always will act, as Englishmen ought to act—from a consideration that influences them above all other considerations, a sense of duty. Hence no effort that railway officials can make is wanting when irregularities occur. But human means and human appliances break down at the moment least expected; no ingenuity, no foresight can prevent them. The weather, a slight shower of rain, which renders rails slippery at starting; a heated axle, caused by a few particles of grit getting into an axle box, notwithstanding the minute precautions taken to prevent such an incident; the delays, confusion, and blunders of passengers themselves,—an old lady insisting vehemently that she gave her little box with “my best bonnet in it,” to the guard, whilst she had taken it into the compartment, and in her flurry, agitation, or absence of mind[63] at the prospect of her coming to her station, had forgotten that she had at starting placed it on the seat beside her; at ticket collecting and ticket examining platform—for, alas! the prevalence of fraud and dishonesty among—we regret to say, and the remark only applies to a very few as compared with the general mass of travellers—all classes of ticket holders—renders occasional examination of them necessary;[64] but, of course, the most frequent cause of delay on railways proceeds from—without which the railway would he nothing at all—the engines. As is well known, all engines are made of the best materials of every description; but it is not so generally known that—according to the testimony of Sir Francis Head in 1849, and of the late Mr. Robert Stephenson, M.P., in 1866—a locomotive consists of 5,416 pieces, all of which, although indebted to machinery for a large portion of the work of their construction, have, nevertheless, each and every one of them, to pass through human hands, and they have to be fitted and put together as carefully as the machinery of a first-class watch. From the moment that a locomotive commences duty she is examined daily by competent and skilled men, whose object is to detect, not only the slightest flaw, but the slightest indication that may lead to one; and if either be detected, to substitute another locomotive which has successfully gone through the ordeal of rigid examination. The engine-driver and firemen are also on the alert, for they know what the consequences may be to them if a break down or accident take place. Yet, in spite of unceasing watchfulness, portions of the machinery of an engine will give way, at places, too, never expected. An engine may apparently be doing her duty admirably, when all of a sudden a tube—a great artery of her internal organisation—bursts. With us weak mortals an internal artery bursting lays us low for ever; and, although so dire a fate does not attend the engine, she is, for all the purposes that she was engaged upon at the moment of her disaster, as practically dead as if she had never been gifted with motive power. No human foresight can prevent these and similar, although minor, accidents to engines, no more than we can tell whether the apparently healthy and vigorous man of the morning may not be the cold and lifeless corpse of the afternoon.

Yes, as long as we are human, and must depend upon human means (no matter how apparently complete and perfect they may be) for the fulfilment of our purposes, unrehearsed and unexpected incidents, leading to disappointment, annoyance, and vexation, are alike inevitable and unceasing. And so it is we have not, and never can have, Perfection on railways; but we have the nearest possible approach to it in all that relates to their working. This is a sentence that may possibly—nay, more probably will—excite the terrible susceptibility of the genus which, without being “of the poets,” is, nevertheless, vastly irritable—the great and magnificent British public. Why, the very losses of temper we display whilst we exact perfection in others, is proof that we are a long way from possessing it ourselves. Should we not remember one of the earliest lessons taught us by our Saviour, from whom nothing but goodness and wisdom could ever flow?—“He that is without sin among you let him first cast a stone.” Cast the stone when you yourselves are perfect; without sin of thought or sin of action. But do we not witness daily, hourly, at each instant, that perfection does not belong to any of us? But let all men be assured of this—not on the testimony of quacks and nostrum-mongers, but on the undoubted evidence of fact—fact which is truth, pure, consistent, and unadulterated—that there does not exist in any one of the innumerable organisations, ramifications, aggregations, or embodiments throughout the empire a class of men that is more earnestly devoted to produce that near approach to perfection just referred to than among the well, yet often unjustly, abused humble servants of the railway community; for it is upon these men, in its last resource, that the public must depend for everything. At the stations of large towns and cities their individuality is naturally not so much noticed—or it might perhaps be more correctly stated, not so much known—as at smaller stations, being more completely mixed up in the immense human leaven of great populations. Still those of the public who frequent large stations know some of the men—inspectors, guards, and porters. They respect them; and if inquiry be made of the minister of the faith to which each man belongs, he will be able to assert of more than nine-tenths of them, that each carries the moral discipline which he has learned on the railway into the transactions of his inner life. Besides attending at his place of worship, his little home is clean and respectable; his children are brought up—as they should be brought up—with respect for religion, with steady attendance at the school; and when the hours of play come round they are not the less ready, on occasion, to give or to receive the pummelling which every real English boy is ready to give or to receive, and is all the better therefor into the bargain.

Go to country stations; but before going there let one fact be stated, that the process of “winnowing” on railways, or separating the grist of the staff from the chaff, is always going on; that is, the men who do not come up to the standard—not of height, for on many railways this qualification is not regarded—but of moral and physical quality, are unceasingly being got rid of, or leaving the railway by discharging themselves.

At the country station is there a man of the district, of his sphere of life, that is more respected, or that enlists a larger amount of sympathy among all classes, than the station master? Cordial good feeling and considerate kindness are extended to every one of the persons that are subordinate to him. Why? There is not a man or woman of the land, high or low, rich or poor, “gentle or simple,” who has either visited or who resides adjacent to a country station, that cannot answer the question, in language of the heart, much warmer than any that it would be right for us to make use of.

But accidents? Yes, and let it here be stated broadly that when they do occur, they are, of course, harrowing to the minds of the public, but, it must be added, they are infinitely more so to railway officials. They are of a fearful character when they do happen, but, happily, they are not very frequent.

We proceed to give an account of them for the years from 1861 to 1865, both inclusive.

In the first-named year there were (including the estimation of 100 journeys as taken by each periodical ticket-holder, and they are included in this proportion in the calculation for the subsequent years) 178,929,039[65] passengers, of whom 46, or one in every three and three-quarter millions carried, were killed, and 781, or one in every quarter of a million, were injured from causes beyond their own control; 33, or one for every five millions and a half carried, were killed from their own misconduct or want of caution.