A Journey of a Jayhawker

by W. Y. Morgan

RAILROADS IN EUROPE.

Liverpool, Aug. 24, 1905.

A railroad is a railroad anywhere in the world, only it is sometimes different. Every country has its own peculiarity in railroads as well as in everything else. The first European train we saw was at Queenstown, Ireland, and we laughed. It looked like a toy, small engine, small coaches and strange in appearance. I decided to wait until I had more observations on the subject before putting my ideas into a letter, and since then have gone from one country to another in Europe, traveling first, second and third class, on main lines and branch roads, on through trains and accommodation trains, and gaining all the knowledge possible for an American traveler who gets his information from experience. While each country has its peculiarities, there are certain ways in common.

In the first place the European idea of a passenger car is taken directly from the old stage-coach. It is composed of from three to six compartments, like that many stages fastened together. In each compartment there are two seats running across the car, facing each other, and holding eight or ten passengers. As a rule there is no communication between the compartments. You get in the little room, the door is shut and locked, and there you stay until you get to the next stop, when the door is opened if anyone wants to come in or go out. There is no toilet-room, and no way to go to the smoking compartment unless you are in one, and no way to get out if you are in. I think all third-class cars are of this pattern. On the main lines, on a few trains and in some cars, there is a corridor running along the side, making it possible to go from one compartment to another, and sometimes there is a toilet-room. This pattern of cars is often called “American,” and usually there are extra charges. The cars are short and light, with two wheels under each end like wagon-wheels, and not the double trucks of our cars. There is very seldom any ventilation at the top, and as the rule is that the passenger next to the window can regulate its opening, the other passengers can freeze or roast as the case may be. In Germany the cars have appliances for steam heat, but they do not seem to usually have them in England or elsewhere on the continent. Travelers carry rugs, blankets and footstones in cold weather.

And right here let me explain a difference in traveling that accounts for much of the seeming shortcomings of European cars. The people in Europe hardly ever take long journeys. Sleeping-cars are rarities and only carried on a few trains. A European who takes a twenty-mile railroad trip thinks he is a “traveler.” They do not have our magnificent distances and long journeys, and therefore do not expect the comforts and luxuries which we consider necessities. Almost the only people who make what are called “long trips” in Europe, that is, ten or twelve hours, are American and English tourists, and they are given a shadow of American comfort on certain first-class trains, for which they pay right well. For example, Mrs. Morgan and I wanted to take the night train from Paris to Marseilles, twelve hours’ ride. One train carried a sleeping-car. It left Paris at 9 o’clock at night and reached Marseilles at 9 o’clock the next morning. Only passengers with first-class tickets can ride on it. I bought my first-class tickets (nearly twice the second-class, which is the usual way), and then asked how much the sleeper would be. “Twenty dollars!” In America we would have paid $2.50. And this in a land where we were told everything was cheap! I have often been heard to rail at the high rates charged by Mr. Pullman, but I will be slow to do so again. I lifted up my voice to the French agent on the extortion of charging twenty dollars for one night, and he shrugged his shoulders and said we could go on the day train,—that Frenchmen never used the sleeping-cars, and that if the rich Americans wanted them they could pay the price. We did not buy that sleeping-car, but a few days later, when it became very important to hurry to Rome, we gave up eight dollars for a sleeper from Genoa to the city of the Cæsars. A berth in a European sleeping-car is a little compartment with two beds, one above the other, about the size of pantry shelves. Two people cannot comfortably stand in the compartment, and when one is dressing the other has to stay on his shelf or go out in the corridor which runs along the side. There is no ventilation, and the toilet-room, about as big as a barrel, is for both sexes. As some American said, there is one good thing about a European sleeping-car, and only one: you do not mind having to get off at an early hour.

The railroad language is different in England. When I bought a ticket in London I went to the “booking office,” and “booked for Liverpool.” There is no conductor, but a “guard,” who is conductor, brakeman and porter combined. Freight trains are “goods trains.” The engineer is a “driver.” Baggage is “luggage.” A grip is a “bag,” a trunk is a “box,” and anything is a “parcel.” Nobody calls the stations. When you reach your destination you get off, and if you are a stranger you are always in trouble wondering whether or not you have gone past. I have never learned the theory of their tickets. When I “book” I get a ticket about like ours. Often no one looks at it or takes it up until I leave the station at the end of the trip. We rode one day in Italy nearly all day before anybody looked at our tickets, although usually it is necessary to show them to get on the station platform. It would seem as if such carelessness would be taken advantage of, but it does not seem to be. One reason probably is that in every country it is a crime to ride on a railroad train without a ticket. In America if the conductor catches you riding without a ticket he collects the fare. In Europe he can send you to jail, and I don’t doubt but he would. In America it is not considered even bad morals to beat a railroad. In Europe it is a felony.

I had been told that railroad traveling is cheaper in Europe than in America, but it is not. To understand railroad rates you must remember that population is very dense and traffic heavy, much like suburban travel around New York or Chicago. England is not near as large as Kansas, but it has twenty times our population. Practically all of the travel is short-distance. The same conditions prevail on the continent. You can ride third-class, second-class, or first-class. In most countries third-class is a good deal like riding in American box-cars fitted up with seats. That costs about two cents a mile. Second-class means cars such as I have described with upholstered seats, and the price is close to three cents a mile. First-class means plush or leather and a guarantee that your traveling companions will be nobility or Americans or fools. The first-class rate is about four cents. In most European countries no baggage is carried free. You pay extra for fast trains, “corridor trains,” and for the use of toilet-rooms. In order to travel in clean company and in ordinary decent style, after you count in your “extras,” the railroad fare is just about the same in Europe as in America, and not as cheap as it is on similar trains in the populous sections of our country. In the stations there are separate waiting-rooms and separate lunch-counters for first, second and third-class passengers. The high-class European can eat his lunch with the happy thought that no rude third-class citizen is on the next stool.

But if the European railroads do not do much for the comfort and pleasure of the passengers, they are away ahead of our railroads when it comes to providing for their safety. Accidents are not unknown, but they are rare, especially in comparison with the frightful wrecks which take place in the United States. Nearly every railroad is double-tracked or has three or four tracks. The roadbeds are near to perfection. Bridges are of stone. Rails are not so heavy, but are stronger when the light cars are considered. And every mile of European track is patrolled day and night. They use a half-dozen section-men and track-walkers where we would have one or two, and they pay the half-dozen wages that aggregate about as much as the one or two. In Italy the track-walkers are usually women, and it was a funny sight to see the Dago lady stand with a red flag at “present arms” when the train passed. Most crossings are overhead or under, very rarely on grade. Embankments are built of stone instead of mud, and the roadbeds are constructed for centuries, instead of being just sufficient to “earn the bonds.” I was in England when an accident occurred on a railroad, and the next day the matter was brought up in parliament and the government was asked what it was doing to prevent a recurrence of such a thing. Just as the government protects the railroads from beats it regulates their conduct for the safety of the traveler. In some European countries, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and Italy, the government owns the important railroads, but in all of them it exercises a strong control. If a European railroad would attempt to operate a line like some of the jerkwater branches in Kansas, the directors would be in jail. The result is that many of the conveniences are sacrificed to rigid rules and the lives and limbs of the passengers are not in near as much danger as in the United States, where competition has gone in for comfortable cars and often neglected the track. While the Europeans might copy some of our methods, our railroad officials could get some information in the Old World that would save them lots of wrecks and make their passengers more secure in their life and health while traveling in the palatial cars.