VII. Other Productive Departments:--
Lamps and Fittings for Lighting Purposes 150,000
Saddlery and Harness 32,000
Tarpaulins, Waggon Covers, &c. 345,000
Clothing 19,000
Printing 69,000
Hoists and Cranes (if not previously returned under
Head I.): Construction and Repairs 303,000
Gas manufactured for Companies' use (not included
under other Heads) 286,000
Electricity for Stations, &c. 128,000
Telegraphs and Telephones 481,000
Buildings (not returned under other Heads): New {410}
Works, Repairs, and Maintenance 92,000
Provender 308,000
Iron and Steel Manufactures 178,000
Grease 115,000
Trucks, Barrows, &c. 39,000
Other Manufactures and Work Done 454,000
----------
Total--Other Productive Departments 2,999,000
----------
Grand Total--Goods Made and Work Done 34,703,000
The cost of the materials used was £17,600,000. Deducting this amount from
the total of the foregoing table, there is left a net sum of £17,103,000 to
represent wages and establishment charges; though it may fairly be assumed
that a good deal even of the £17,600,000 which stands for cost of materials
was on account of wages previously paid for the procuring or the
preparation of those materials by other than non-railway servants.
The total number of persons employed by the railway companies in the
manufacture of the goods or in the execution of the work comprised in the
statement was 241,526, in the proportion of 232,736 wage-earners and 8790
salaried persons. This figure of 241,526, however, is not necessarily to be
added to the 608,750 previously given as the number of railway servants
connected with the working of railways. There is nothing to show to what
extent the two tables overlap, though overlapping there obviously is, since
the first table includes 66,305 permanent-way men, while the second table
evidently includes the persons employed on permanent-way work, since the
value of that work is put down at £9,346,000. On the other hand, some
classes of servants included in the Census of Production returns are
excluded from the Railway Accidents return, so that although the exact
number of persons directly employed by the railway companies of the United
Kingdom cannot be stated, it must be somewhere between 608,750, the total
of the one return, and 850,276, the sum of the totals for both returns.
All the figures thus far given relate to work done by persons directly
employed by the railway companies themselves; but there is, in addition, a
vast amount of work done for the {411}railways by independent companies or
manufacturers. Taking, for instance, railway-carriage and waggon-building
factories in the United Kingdom, providing for the wants of the smaller
companies at home or for railway companies in the colonies or abroad, I
find from the Census of Production that this particular phase of "the
railway industry" (for it must needs be regarded as included therein,
notwithstanding the fact that a few of the items relate to tramcars, horse
vehicles, etc.), led in 1907 to an output of goods made or of work done
valued at £9,609,000. The items are:--
£
Railway carriages for passengers, and parts thereof 1,676,000
Railway waggons, trucks, etc. 5,340,000
Parts and accessories of railway carriages and waggons,
not distinguished 129,000
Railway wheels and axles complete 771,000
Tramcars and parts thereof 572,000
Vehicles for goods, horse-drawn 75,000
Machinery and accessories 135,000
Iron and steel manufactures and structural work 174,000
Other products 93,000
----------
Total value of goods made 8,965,000
Repair work (including repairing contracts) 644,000
----------
Total value of goods made and work done 9,609,000
The number of persons engaged in these railway-carriage and waggon-building
factories when the census in question was taken was 28,193, namely, 26,492
wage-earners, and 1701 salaried staff.
When one tries to form some idea of the further volume of employment that
results from the supply of the thousand and one necessaries which even the
most enterprising and independent of railway companies must still procure
from outside manufacturers, makers, growers or providers, it is obvious
that the railways, both as an industry in themselves and in their
dependence, in endless ramifications, on other industries concerned wholly
or in part in supplying railway wants, must provide more or less employment
for an army of workers vastly in excess even of the aforesaid 600,000 or
800,000.
In many respects the railway service proper--that is to say, the particular
branches thereof which deal with actual {412}transport, as distinct from
construction and manufacture--offers features that are unique in their way,
even if they do not, also, bring about types of workers of a class distinct
from those to be found in the majority of other industries.
In the latter dependence is being placed more and more on the efficiency of
the machinery employed, and the person of greatest importance to them is
the machinery-inventor or the machinery-improver. The one who works the
machine may require to have a certain degree of skill or dexterity in
carrying on the necessary process, but the more nearly he can approach the
perfection of his machine and become, as it were, part and parcel of it,
the greater will often be his degree of success as a worker. In his case
the personal equation hardly counts. He is merely the penny put into the
slot in order that the figures may work, and any other man, or any other
penny, that fulfilled the requisite conditions might be expected to produce
the same results.
In railway operation great importance must certainly be attached to the
efficiency of the machinery, or of the system; but final success may depend
to a very material extent on the efficiency of the unit. Everything that
human foresight and railway experience can suggest may be done--both in the
provision of complex machinery and in the drawing-up of the most perfect
rules and regulations--to ensure safe working; yet the ultimate factor in
grave issues on which safety or disaster will depend may be a worker who
has either risen to, or has failed to meet, a sudden emergency. In this
way, not only does the individual unit count, but the individual unit in
railway operation may be the Atlas upon whose shoulders the railway world
does, in a sense, rest. A blunder in an ordinary factory or workshop may
involve no more than the spoiling of a machine or the waste of so much
material. A blunder on the railway may involve a terrible loss of human
life.
Railway operation is thus calculated to give to the workers engaged in
transport a keener sense of responsibility, and to develop therewith a
greater individuality, than any other of our national industries. The
railway man concerned in operation requires to be capable both of foresight
and of initiative. It is said of a certain railway in India that a
telegraphic message was one day received at head-quarters from {413}a
station down the line to the following effect: "Tiger on platform. Send
instructions." In England there is no probability of railway-station
platforms being taken possession of by wandering tigers; but if anything
equivalent thereto, in the form of a sudden and dangerous emergency not
provided for by rules and regulations did arise, the officials on duty
would be expected to show alike resource and energy in meeting the
circumstances promptly and efficiently, so far as they could, instead of
waiting to ask the district superintendent or the superintendent of the
line for instructions.
Independently of the ever-present dangers of actual operation, to which I
shall revert later on, the fact of having to deal with such varied types of
humanity as are met with on the platforms of a busy railway station, under
conditions ranging between the extremes of amiability and irritability,
must also tend to sharpen the wits of the average railway worker, and make
a different man of him than he would be if he were to spend his working
days in feeding a machine in a factory with bits of tin or leather to be
shaped into a particular form. Nor, whether the railway man be concerned in
passenger traffic, in goods transport, or in checking claims and accounts
in the general offices, must he fail to be ever on the look-out for those
who, though they may be the most honest of men in the ordinary affairs of
life, never scruple to defraud a railway company when they can.
Another factor tending to differentiate the railwayman from the ordinary
industrial worker is the sense of discipline--and the consequent
subordination of each unit to an official superior--which must needs
prevail if a great organisation is to be conducted, not simply with success
for the shareholders, but with safety for the public. The maintenance of
effective discipline is obviously essential to the safety of railway
operation, just as it does, undoubtedly, further help to form the special
type of the railway servant.
The development of the same type is being fostered to an ever-increasing
degree by the special training which junior workers undergo with a view to
making them, not only better fitted for the particular post they already
occupy, but qualified to succeed to higher positions as opportunities for
their advancement may arise.
A railway manager is not alone concerned in the working {414}of his line,
and in the doings of his staff, day by day. He looks forward to the
requirements of the line and to the constitution of the staff at least five
or ten years hence, and he wants to make sure that, as the experienced men
around him are lost to the service, others will be at hand equally, or even
still better, qualified to take their place. He further realises that in an
undertaking in which, notwithstanding its magnitude, so much depends on the
unit, that unit should be encouraged, and enabled, to attain to the highest
practicable stage of efficiency.
This tendency is leading to results that are likely to be both far-reaching
and wide-spreading. It is a matter not only of giving to railway workers,
and especially to those in the clerical and operative departments, a higher
degree of technical knowledge, but, also, of rendering them equal to
responsibility, of fostering their efficiency still further through their
social, physical and material well-being, and of retaining them for the
railway service notwithstanding (in the case of the clerical staff) the
allurements of traders who look upon well-trained goods clerks, especially,
as desirable assistants in the counting-house, and seek to attract them
with the offer of a somewhat better wage.
The training and the higher education of railway workers have undergone
important developments alike in the United Kingdom, in the United States,
in Germany, in France, and elsewhere.
In the early days of the railway the most eligible person for the position
of general manager was thought to be some retired naval or military
officer, accustomed to controlling large bodies of men; and the first
appointments were based on this principle. But experience soon showed that
in undertakings where technical, commercial and economic considerations
were all-important, the real recommendations for leading positions were to
be found, rather, in proved capacity and in thorough knowledge of railway
operation and management.
Under the company system, as it prevails in the United Kingdom and the
United States, railwaymen, of whatever class, are now generally taken on as
boys, are trained for the position to which they are found to be adapted,
and rise to higher posts according to capacity _and_ opportunity--for these
must needs go together. In this way it is not unusual for the general
{415}manager on an English railway to have started as an office boy. Many a
head of department to-day entered the service as junior clerk, and worked
his way up to his present position; there are station-masters who began as
ticket clerks; there are guards who gained their first knowledge of railway
work as station porters, while engine-drivers are recruited from firemen,
and firemen from engine-cleaners.
For details as to what the American railway companies are doing in the
matter of "Education for Efficiency in Railroad Service" I must refer the
reader to a bulletin written by J. Shirley Eaton and published, under this
title, by the United States Bureau of Education. Here I can do no more than
reproduce the following extract, giving in brief Mr Eaton's view on the
general situation as he finds it on the other side of the Atlantic:--
"Railroads, as a whole, through a representative body such as the American
Railway Association, should in a comprehensive way take up the matter of
the education of railway employees. As they now have committees devoted to
standards of construction, maintenance, and operating practice, they should
also have a standing committee, of a character to command confidence, who
should sedulously foster a closer relation between the railroad and
educational agencies. This could be done by roughly grouping railroad
service into classes according to the requirements of service, indicating
the efficiency required in a broad way, and studying the curricula and
course of experience leading up to such efficiency. Such a body should
officially gather all railroad literature and accumulate the nucleus of a
railroad museum. In various ways the teaching force of educational
agencies, training toward railroad employ, could be drawn into study and
discussion of the practical everyday problems of railroad work. The large
public policies involved in railroad operation are to-day left to the
doctrinaire or accidental publicist, when they should be a subject of study
and effective presentation by the highest grade of trained experts which
the associate railroads could draw into their service. On the other hand,
such a standing committee could stimulate and guide the practice of
railroads in their methods of handling and instructing apprentices. Between
the instruction and practice in the service on the one side, and the
instruction outside {416}the service on the other side, they could foster a
closer relation, making them mutually supplementary. In developing approved
plans for recruiting the service they would necessarily indicate the lines
of a more direct access than now exists from the various schools to
apprenticeships in the service, and suggest the best methods by which such
apprenticeships would be gradually merged into the full status of regular
employ at the point of special fitness."
On this side of the Atlantic the railway servants' education movement has
assumed two phases--(1) secondary or technical education of junior members
of railway staffs in mechanics' institutions or kindred organisations,
created or materially supported by the railway companies, and already
carried on during a period of, in some instances, over sixty years; and (2)
a "higher education" movement, of a much more advanced type, developed
since about 1903, and conducted either in special classes held at the
railway offices or in connection with a University, a mechanics'
institution, a local educational body, or otherwise.
It is impossible in the space at my command to give a detailed account of
what every railway company in the United Kingdom is doing in these
directions. Some typical examples must suffice.
To begin with mechanics' institutions and other kindred bodies, these are
by no means purely educational in their scheme of operations. They include
many social and recreative features which, in effect, should play a no less
important part than educational efforts in promoting the general efficiency
of the railway worker by helping to give him a sound body, a contented
mind, and a cheerful disposition as well as more skilful fingers or a
better-cultivated brain. In the United States, judging from what Mr Eaton
says on the subject, all such "welfare" work as this, though carefully
fostered, is regarded by the railroad companies as a purely business
proposition; and he does not attempt to credit them with any higher motive
than regard for the almighty dollar. Here, however, while there has been
full recognition of the financial value of increased efficiency, the
companies have, also, not failed to realise their moral obligations towards
their staffs. Hence in seeking to promote the welfare of their employees
they have been inspired by motives of humanity, {417}goodwill and
honourable feeling in addition to, or even as distinct from, any pecuniary
advantage the shareholders themselves might eventually gain therefrom.
Crewe Mechanics' Institution dates back to 1844, when the Grand Junction
Railway Company provided a library and reading-room, and, also, gave a
donation for the purchase of books for the men employed in the railway
works then being set up in what was, at that time, a purely agricultural
district. In the following year this library and reading-room developed
into a Mechanics' Institution, the primary object of the railway company
being to afford to the younger members of their staff at Crewe greater
facilities for acquiring theory in classes at the Institution to supplement
the practical knowledge they were acquiring in the works, though the
benefits of the Institution were also to be open to residents of Crewe who
were not in the company's employ. The management was vested in a council
elected annually by the directors and the members conjointly; and this
arrangement has continued ever since.
Larger premises were provided in 1846, in which year the Grand Junction
combined with the London and Birmingham and Manchester and Birmingham
Companies to form the London and North-Western Railway Company. The classes
were added to from time to time until they covered the whole range of
subjects likely to be of service to the students. Beginning, however, with
the 1910-11 session, the art, literary and commercial classes which had
been held at the Institute for sixty-four years were transferred to the
local education authority, the Institute retaining the scientific and
technological subjects. In addition to the ordinary work of the classes,
the more recent developments of the "higher education" movement have led to
systematic courses of instruction--extending over four-year periods--in (1)
pure science, (2) mechanical engineering, (3) electrical engineering and
(4) building construction. An Institution diploma is given to each student
who completes a course satisfactorily. Visits are, also, paid to
engineering works, electrical generating stations, etc. Most of the
teachers are engaged at the Crewe works, and the instruction given is thus
of the most practical kind.
One feature of the Institution is the electrical engineering laboratory,
provided by the directors of the London and {418}North-Western Railway, who
have further arranged for a number of apprentices to attend at the
laboratory one afternoon every week to receive instruction, their wages
being paid to them as though they were still on duty in the works. There
is, also, a mechanics' shop, with lathes, drilling machines, etc.,
electrically driven.
Since 1855 the directors of the London and North-Western have given an
annual donation of £20 for books to be awarded as prizes to successful
students employed in their locomotive department and various other prizes
and scholarships, including Whitworth scholarships, are also awarded. The
Institution is affiliated with the Union of Lancashire and Cheshire
Institutes, the City and Guilds of London Institute and the Board of
Education, each of which bodies holds examinations and awards prizes and
certificates. The library has now over 12,000 volumes.
In addition to the reading-room the Institution has coffee, smoking and
recreation-rooms. Special attention is being paid to the social side of the
Institution's work through the appointment of a "Teachers' Committee for
Social and Recreative Development," the particular purpose of this
committee being to organise sports and entertainments and to secure the
formation of a literary society.
At Wolverton there is a Science and Art Institute at which many classes are
held, and, although none of these are directly under the management of the
London and North-Western Company, as at Crewe, the very successful and
numerous courses in engineering subjects and railway-carriage building
conducted by the committee of management, working in connection with the
Bucks County Council, receive the active support and encouragement of the
company's directors.
Science, commercial, art and domestic economy classes are also held at the
L. & N.-W. Institute at Earlstown, where definite courses of instruction,
in groups of subjects, and extending over at least two years, are given.
The Great Eastern Railway Mechanics' Institution, established in 1851 at
Stratford New Town, has made generous provision for the education,
recreation and social life of employees of that company resident in London,
East. The Institution comprises a library of 9000 volumes; reading-room;
baths (patronised by 10,000 bathers in the course of {419}the year); a
large hall for lectures, entertainments, balls or concerts; and a
billiard-room, three quoit pitches and a rifle range, the last-mentioned
being the gift of the Great Eastern directors. Science, art, technological,
commercial and other evening classes to the number of over forty were held
in the Institution during the Session of 1910-11. Among the subjects taught
were: machine construction, applied mechanics, mathematics, electrical
engineering, heat-engines, motor-car engineering, rail-carriage building,
drawing, book-keeping, shorthand, physical culture, the mandoline and the
violin; while still other classes included an orchestral class and ladies'
classes in "first aid" and "home nursing."
A series of practical classes, in connection with the same Institution, is
also held during working hours in the Great Eastern Railway Company's works
at Stratford. Arrangements are further made to extend the usefulness of
these classes by visits to engineering works and electrical generating
stations. Examinations are conducted in connection with the Board of
Education, the City and Guilds of London Institute and the Society of Arts,
and prizes, certificates and scholarships are awarded to successful
students. The total number of students attending the various classes in
1910-11 was 958. The Institution at the end of 1910 had 1471 members, of
whom all but 79 were in the employ of the railway company.
In 1903 the directors of the Great Eastern Railway Company gave a further
proof of their appreciation of the educational work thus being carried on
by granting to employee-students in the locomotive, carriage and waggon
department who could fulfil certain conditions leave of absence with full
pay for one or more winter sessions of about six months each, in order to
afford them increased facilities for taking up the higher branches of
technical study. Opportunities are also given to such students for visits
to manufactories, works in progress, etc. Of the twenty-one students who
had taken advantage of the arrangements in question down to the end of
1910, four had obtained the University degree of B.Sc. (Faculty of
Engineering); four had passed the intermediate examination for the same
degree; two had obtained Whitworth scholarships, and five had been awarded
Whitworth exhibitions.
{420}Clubs formed in connection with the Institution include an athletic
club, a rifle club, a quoit club, a cricket club and a football club.
Concerts, illustrated lectures and various entertainments are given in the
Institution during the course of each session.
The Midland Railway Institute at Derby, also going back to 1851, had a
membership in 1910 of 2621. Classes in French and shorthand are held, but
technical subjects are not taught, special facilities in this respect for
the company's staff being provided by a large municipal technical college
in the town. The Institute has a library of over 17,000 volumes, a
well-stocked reading-room, a dining hall, a restaurant (for the salaried
staff), a café (for the wages staff), committee rooms and a billiard-room;
while the various associations include an engineering club (which holds
fortnightly meetings during the winter months for the reading and the
discussion of papers, and, also, pays visits to engineering works), a
natural history society (which holds indoor meetings and organises Saturday
rambles), a dramatic society, a fishing club, a photographic society and a
whist and billiard club.
A Mechanics' Institute and Technical School opened at Horwich in 1888 was
mainly due to a grant of £5000 by the directors of the Lancashire and
Yorkshire Railway Company and to the gift of the "Samuel Fielden" wing by
the widow of that gentleman, for many years a director of the company. In
October, 1910, there were 2224 members, of whom all but 53 were in the
employ of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company. The leading
features of the Institute include a dining hall, reading, magazine and
smoke-rooms, a library of about 13,000 volumes, a lecture hall with seating
accommodation for 900 persons, the Fielden gymnasium, a miniature
rifle-range, class-rooms, and chemical and mechanical laboratories.
Science, art, technical, commercial and preparatory classes are conducted
at the Institute in connection with the Board of Education, London, and the
instruction given includes a continuous course of study designed to enable
engineering students to make the best use of classes of direct service to
them. The special arrangements thus made comprise a preliminary technical
course (extended over two years), a mechanical engineering course (five
years) and an electrical {421}engineering course (four years). The classes
of the Institute (exclusive of those for ambulance work) were attended in
1910-11 by over 500 students. Examinations are conducted by the Union of
Lancashire and Cheshire Institutes, the Royal Society of Arts, the City and
Guilds of London Institute, and the Board of Education, and numerous prizes
and exhibitions are awarded.
Useful service from an educational standpoint is also rendered by the
Institution's engineering and scientific club, at whose meetings the papers
read and discussed have been on such subjects as "Prevention of Waste in
Engineering," "Evaporation and Latent Heat," "Electric Motor-cars and their
Repairs," etc. Other affiliated societies or clubs include a photographic
society, an ambulance corps and a miniature rifle club (also affiliated to
the National Rifle Association and the Society of Miniature Rifle Clubs).
Popular lectures are given on six Saturday evenings during the winter
session.
Other railway institutes are to be found at Swindon (Great Western
Railway), at Vauxhall and Eastleigh (London and South-Western Railway), at
York and various other centres on the North-Eastern Railway, and elsewhere.
I pass on to deal with recent developments of the higher education movement
in the railway service as operated (1) by the companies themselves, or (2)
by the companies in combination with outside educational authorities.
The Great Western Railway Company, on the recommendation of their general
manager, Sir James C. Inglis, inaugurated at Paddington station in 1903 a
school of railway signalling, designed to offer to the employees of the
company a definite means by which they could acquire technical knowledge of
railway working and management. The classes are conducted by the company's
signalling expert, and the instruction given is based on the object lessons
afforded by a model railway junction, furnished with a complete set of
signalling appliances on the standard lines as laid down by the Board of
Trade requirements. The experiment was so complete a success that similar
schools, provided with similar models, have since been set up at various
centres throughout the company's system.
In the "Great Western Railway Magazine" for November, 1911, it was
announced that a revised circular dealing with {422}these classes was then
in course of preparation, and that it would include the following clause,
setting out an important amendment of the scheme:--
"In order to maintain the value of the certificates awarded and the
standard of efficiency of certificate holders, each holder will in future
be invited to sit for re-examination before the expiry of five years from
the date of his certificate. Endorsement certificates will be awarded to
candidates who successfully pass the second and subsequent examinations.
This step is felt to be desirable having regard to changing conditions and
developments in connection with modern railway working. The date of the
last certificate will be taken into account in connection with
appointments, promotions, etc."
Other classes at Paddington, controlled by the chief goods manager, afford
instruction in railway accounts, and enable the clerical staff to gain a
better insight into matters connected with the receipt, transport and
delivery of goods, and, also, the preparation of accounts and statistics
both for the Railway Clearing House and for the company's audit office.
Shorthand classes are also held.
Annual examinations take place in connection with all these various
classes, and the students passing them receive certificates which are
naturally taken into account when questions as to advancement arise. On the
occasion of the distribution of certificates on January 14, 1910, the chief
goods manager, Mr T. H. Rendell, said that facilities for gaining
information on railway subjects were far more numerous to-day than they
were forty years ago, when he joined the service. "Continuation classes of
any kind," he proceeded, "were then conspicuous by their absence, and
practically the only classes of this kind were those held at the Birkbeck
Institute, which he attended, though he had to pay a substantial fee in
respect to each subject taken. Formerly there was no organised method of
acquiring knowledge of railway working, and they learnt to do right chiefly
by being blamed for doing wrong."
The London and North-Western Railway Company established block telegraph
signalling classes in 1910, the instruction given being facilitated by a
complete working model of a double-line junction, fitted with signals and
{423}interlocking; a set of standard block instruments and bells; an
electric train staff apparatus for single line working, and various
diagrams. The lectures, given in the shareholders' meeting-room at Euston
by the company's expert in signalling, were attended by students
representing nearly all the different departments on the station, and the
results of the examinations subsequently held were so satisfactory that the
company have since established similar classes at various other centres, in
addition.
To ensure the general efficiency of their clerical staff the London and
North-Western Company hold (1) an educational examination which a boy must
pass before he enters the service; (2) a further examination, at the end of
two years, to test the clerk's knowledge of shorthand, railway geography
and the railway work on which he has been engaged; and (3) an examination
before the clerk's salary is advanced beyond £50 per annum, it being
necessary for him to show a thorough knowledge of shorthand, and to write a
paper on such subjects as block working, train working or development of
traffic.
The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company have also established, at
their head offices in Manchester, a School for Signalling, the complete
equipment with which it is furnished including a full-sized lever frame.
Instruction is given free both to the head office staff and to the staff at
the stations within a radius of twelve miles. Special lectures, also, have
occasionally been given to the staff in the chief engineer's department by
that officer's assistants. Another feature of the educational work of the
Lancashire and Yorkshire is the sending round to the various locomotive
sheds of what is known as an instruction van. A full description of this
van will be found in the "Railway Gazette" for January 22, 1909.
The Great Central Railway Company, to meet their requirements more
particularly at the head offices and in connection with their Continental
business, adopted in 1908 a scheme designed to enable them to secure the
services of a certain number of young men with higher educational
qualifications than were usually possessed by those who previously
presented themselves for junior clerkships. The company accordingly offer
six positions annually to members of the existing staff, under twenty-five
years of age, who display the highest standard of knowledge and ability in
a competitive {424}examination, the successful candidates in each year
being promoted to an advanced scale of pay, and taking a "higher grade
course of training," which, it is thought, should fit them to hold
positions of responsibility in the future.
This higher grade course consists of periods of work, varying from three to
twelve months, in eight of the principal departments, viz. the engineering,
locomotive-running, goods, traffic, rolling stock, stores, marine and
general manager's departments. The entire course covers a period of four
years. During his stay in each of these departments the student is required
to pursue a course of reading in the theory of the work in which he is
engaged in that particular section; he is given an opportunity to acquire
practical knowledge of the work; he must report at the end of every month
to the head of the department on the progress he has made, and, on leaving
any one section, he is to send an essay to the general manager, showing the
knowledge he has gained. Heads of departments or sections are also required
to submit confidential reports to the general manager on the ability
displayed by the student while under their supervision.
The North-Eastern Railway Company have an elaborate educational system
which resolves itself into (1) preliminary tests; (2) Part I., and (3) Part
II., of a secondary examination. The subjects for examination in Part I. of
the secondary examination are--(i) Regulations for train signalling by
block telegraph and general rules and regulations; (ii) goods station
accounts; (iii) passenger station accounts; (iv) shorthand and typewriting
or practical telegraphy. Those in Part II. are--Railway subjects: (i)
Railway operating; (ii) railway economics (general); (iii) railway and
commercial geography of the United Kingdom; (iv) law relating to the
conveyance of goods and passengers by railway. Other subjects: (v)
Mathematics; (vi) commercial arithmetic and book-keeping; (vii) methods
employed in import and export trade of Great Britain; (viii) French; (ix)
German. Instead of examining candidates in Nos. v, vi, vii, viii and ix the
company will, as a general rule, accept certificates of proficiency in
these subjects of recent date obtained at various specified examinations
elsewhere. Each candidate is required to pass in railway operating and
three other subjects, one of which must be (ii), (iii) or (iv) of the
railway subjects.
{425}It will be seen that while the subjects for Part I. cover the
practical work at a station, those for Part II. deal more with the
principles of railway operation. To assist clerks in preparing for these
tests the company have issued several brief textbooks; they have arranged
for the delivery of series of lectures; they are utilising railway
institutes for the purpose of instruction, and they offer facilities for
the circulation of standard works on railway subjects. The company also
conduct at various centres railway block-telegraph signalling instruction
classes fully provided with the necessary apparatus, examinations being
held and certificates awarded.
Coming next to what is being done by educational bodies working in
connection with railway companies, reference should first be made to the
London School of Economics and Political Science.
Railway transport is a subject in which the authorities of the school have
always taken great interest, and in the session of 1896-7 a course of
lectures on railway economics was given at the school by Mr W. M. Acworth.
On this occasion the Great Western Railway Company paid the fees for
members of their staff to attend the course. When Mr Acworth gave a further
series of lectures in 1897-8, the Great Eastern Railway Company also paid
the fees for members of their staff who desired to attend. In 1904 seven of
the leading railway companies gave a definite guarantee which allowed of a
more elaborate system of railway instruction being organised at the school
(now one of the schools of the University of London, as reconstructed in
1900). Under the scheme in question a complete course of instruction is
given in the "History, Theory and Present Organisation of Transport,"
leading up, if desired, to the degree of B.Sc. (Econ.), with honours in
transport. The course is under the general supervision of a "Committee of
Governors on Railway Subjects," consisting of five prominent members of the
railway world. The lectures are as follows:--
(A) Courses on railway subjects:--
1. Railway economics: operating (20 lectures).
2. Railway economics: commercial (20).
3. Economics of railway construction and locomotive operation (20).
4. The law of carriage by railways (20).
5. The consolidation of English railways (4). {426}
(B) Courses on subjects useful to railway students:--
1. Accounting and business methods. Part I. (30).
2. Accounting and business methods. Part II. (30).
3. Methods and applications of statistics (15).
4. Mathematical methods of statistics: elementary (15).
Examinations are held, and certificates and medals are awarded to
successful students.
The School of Economics has, also, in its library, a collection of works on
transport questions which it believes to be the best of the kind in
existence. It comprises no fewer than 12,000 books, pamphlets, plans,
reports, etc., and, as over 5000 of these were presented by Mr Acworth, the
name of the "Acworth Collection on Transport" has been given to this unique
and invaluable mine of information on everything appertaining to railways
and transport at home or abroad.
With the University of Manchester the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway
Company (in addition to what they have done in other directions, as already
mentioned) made arrangements in 1903 for evening classes on railway
economics in the interests of their staff, and these classes have been
continued ever since. They are in three-year cycles, and students who go
through a complete course have the advantage of receiving, from thoroughly
qualified teachers, instruction in the following subjects: Railway
geography and railway history of the United Kingdom and of other leading
countries; economic analysis of the railway business in relation to other
businesses; motor power and rolling stock; goods traffic; passenger
traffic; theory of freight rates; accounts; Government in relation to
railways; and railway law.
The directors of the Lancashire and Yorkshire pay the fees for any members
of their clerical staff within a radius of twelve miles of Manchester who
desire to attend these classes, and at the close of each session they grant
to three of the most promising of the railway students scholarships which
are tenable at the University for a further three years, and allow of
attendance during the daytime at the classes in political economy,
organisation of industry and commerce and accounting.
It was in connection with the scheme here in question that {427}Mr H.
Marriott, now chief goods manager of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway,
delivered the excellent course of lectures which, republished by "The
Railway Gazette," under the title of "The Fixing of Rates and Fares," has
become a recognised textbook on that subject.
In 1907 the directors of the same company arranged with the Victoria
University, Manchester, for the delivery of a series of University
Extension Lectures on railway economics at the Burnley Grammar School,
paying the fees of any member of their clerical staff within a radius of
twelve miles of Burnley who wished to attend. The subjects chosen were
"Organisation of a Railway," "Goods Traffic," "Passenger Traffic" and
"Economics," and each subject extended over three lectures.
In the autumn of 1911 arrangements were concluded between the North-Eastern
Railway Company, the University of Leeds and the Armstrong (Newcastle)
University for the giving at those Universities of courses of evening
lectures on a variety of railway subjects, the company undertaking to pay
half the fee for all members of their staff who might wish to attend.
Finally I would mention, in this connection, that, by arrangement between
the Midland Railway Company and the University of Sheffield, a course of 40
lectures on economics, to extend over two years, was begun at the Midland
Railway Institute, Derby, on October 11, 1911, by Mr Douglas Knopp, the
special purpose of the course being to afford to members of the Midland
Railway staff an opportunity of studying, free of expense to themselves,
the economic features of modern industrial and commercial problems,
including transportation.
Literary societies and lecture and debating societies, formed by various
railway staffs, are another outcome of the aspirations of railwaymen for
wider knowledge and increased efficiency. The Great Western Railway
Literary Society, established in 1852, is one of the oldest institutions at
Paddington. It has a library of 10,000 volumes and various social
off-shoots. Another typical institution, the Great Western Railway (London)
Lecture and Debating Society, founded in 1904, serves a useful function in
affording opportunities for the reading of papers by heads of departments
or other {428}qualified persons on subjects likely to be of practical
service to members of the staff. It was before this society that the paper
on "The Government in Relation to the Railways of the Country," referred to
on page 352, was read by Mr F. Potter, chief assistant to the general
manager of the Great Western Railway.
Apart from the educational, literary or social organisations directly
associated with particular railway companies, there are other bodies formed
mainly by experts or workers in particular departments of railway
construction, maintenance or operation who, whatever their position or
attainments, find they are not yet too old to learn, that in the railway
world there is always something new, and that advantages are to be gained
by themselves from an exchange of views, opinions and experiences, apart
from the benefits they may confer on juniors in helping them to advance
their knowledge on technical questions. These associations are certainly to
be classed among those which promote the "higher education" of the
railwayman, though they may also serve various other purposes, social,
provident, etc.
Among organisations of this type the Permanent Way Institution, established
in 1884, and incorporated in 1908, occupies a leading position. It seeks to
promote among inspectors of way and works a more thorough knowledge of all
technical details connected with the discharge of their duties, and it
publishes for the use of members, and persons qualified to be members,
"information which may be likely to encourage and exert interchange of
thought, especially with a view to create a friendly and sympathetic
feeling between members and such other persons in their duties and labours,
and for mutual help of members in the discharge of the same." Sections are
formed in important centres throughout the United Kingdom, and the reading
and discussion at the meetings of the sections of short practical papers by
members, dealing mainly with matters appertaining to their employment, is
regarded by the Institution as an important phase of its system of
technical education. The sections are kept well supplied with literature,
reports, and communications affording good material for discussion at their
meetings, "and much benefit," says a prospectus issued by the Institution,
"has been derived for the members from this interchange of ideas {429}with
men in similar capacities in other parts of the world, whereas the former
isolation and rare opportunities for intercourse frequently caused
narrow-mindedness, prejudice, reservation of manner, and the natural loss
of much useful information and experience to both employer and employed."
Summer meetings, held in a centre where there are features of special
interest to railwaymen, are another valuable means for the exchange of
ideas between members of the Institution, for enabling them to gain fresh
experiences, and for promoting social intercourse. These summer meetings
have developed into "conventions" lasting a week each, and they are spoken
of as having been "of untold benefit to those participating in them." The
Institution has, also, various beneficent funds.
The Association of Railway Locomotive Engineers of Great Britain and
Ireland is a body whose members have, for a number of years, held two
meetings annually--in London in winter, and in the country in summer--for
the discussion of matters of interest to railway engineers and to railway
companies generally.
The Institution of Signal Engineers (Incorporated) includes in its objects
"the advancement of the science and practice of signalling by discussion,
enquiry, research, experiment and other means; the diffusion of knowledge
regarding signalling by means of lectures, publications, the exchange of
information and otherwise; and the improvement of the status of the
signalling profession". Only railway signal or telegraph engineers,
superintendents in charge of railway signalling, telegraph or kindred work,
and qualified engineers in Government service are eligible for full
membership; but other officers engaged in technical work in engineering
departments are eligible for associate membership, while in the autumn of
1911 the Institution was considering a scheme for student membership and
the offering of annual prizes to members of the student class for papers
and essays on technical subjects.
The Association of Railway Companies' Signal Superintendents and Signal
Engineers was formed in 1891 with the object of affording facilities for
the discussion of signalling questions by the chiefs of signalling
departments on the railways of the United Kingdom. Two meetings are held
each year at the Railway Clearing House.
A very useful purpose in developing the higher education, {430}not alone of
railway workers but of the ever-widening circle of those who are interested
in railway work, is being served by the Railway Club, which is established
at 92, Victoria Street, London, S.W., and has, also, various provincial
centres, with district representatives in Birmingham, Huddersfield,
Lancaster, Glasgow and Newhaven. Founded in 1899, the club is designed to
afford opportunities for bringing together all who are concerned in railway
questions in general; though some of the members specialise in locomotive
problems, others in traffic problems, and so on. At the London
head-quarters there is a club room well stocked with railway papers, and
here, also, the members can find a comprehensive library. In the same
building monthly meetings are held for the reading and discussion of
papers. Some of these are of a technical character, appealing only to
experts; but subjects of more general interest are also dealt with, the
programme for the 1910-11 session including papers by the Rev. W. J. Scott
(president) on "Railway History: 1860-80," and by Mr E. J. Miller (hon.
secretary) on "Belgian State Railways." Meetings are also held in the
provincial centres, and visits are paid both there and in London to railway
works, running sheds and other places of interest. The utility of the Club
is greatly enhanced by the publication of its excellent little organ, "The
Railway Club Journal."
From the details here given it will be seen, not only that the movement for
increasing the efficiency of the railway worker, by furthering his training
in railway and cognate subjects, has undergone great and varied expansion,
but that railway operation and management are coming more and more to be
regarded as a science, and one that, with its many problems and
complexities, calls for prolonged study, effort and experience on the part
of those who would attain to perfection, or even to exceptional knowledge
and skill, therein.
Nor should the said details fail to excite a more sympathetic feeling on
the part of the trading and travelling public towards railway workers who
find they can attain to greater proficiency, and acquit themselves better
of their responsibilities to the public, as well as to their company, by
undergoing as much of this training, or by securing as much of this
advancement in the technicalities of railway work, as their powers may
warrant or their opportunities allow.
{431}One may further anticipate that, as the various tendencies here in
question are developed, there will, not only inside but outside the
service, be a greater disposition to adopt the view of the American
authority already quoted in his suggestion that "the large public policies
involved in railroad operation are to-day left to the doctrinaire or
accidental publicist when they should be the subject of study and effective
presentation by the highest grade of trained experts which the associate
railroads could draw into their service." When this latter result is
brought about, whether through the higher education movement or otherwise,
not only will the railway service be rendered still more efficient, and not
only will even greater advantages be conferred on the country, but the
position of the railway interests themselves should be strengthened on
questions of State control in regard either to the principles of railway
policy or to the details of railway operation.
Recreation and physical culture, as part of the general scheme which aims
at promoting the efficiency and the personal well-being of railwaymen, are
fostered in the railway world by the athletic clubs formed by the staffs of
the various companies, with more or less official countenance and support,
and whether in connection with mechanics' institutes or otherwise. These
clubs favour, not only athletics proper but cricket, football, tennis,
hockey, bowls, harriers, swimming, angling, etc. They are supplemented by a
London Railways Athletic Association, which brings together the members of
the different clubs in friendly rivalry, while the various gatherings and
competitions have an excellent result--apart from the other advantages they
confer--in fostering that social life of the railway service which tends so
much to its widespread popularity.
Mention should, also, be made of the musical societies, the horticultural
societies, the rifle clubs, the chess clubs and other organisations. The
staff or society dinners, the outings, the smoking concerts and the
presentations to retiring colleagues help still further to promote feelings
of comradeship, mutual sympathy and goodwill not always to be found to
anything like the same extent in commercial undertakings of other types.
Such sentiments as these continue to be fostered, indeed, after the service
has been left, the Retired Railway Officers' Society having been formed,
{432}in 1901, "for the purpose of bringing together those who in past years
have held executive positions in the railway service of Great Britain, the
Colonies or India, and for the renewal and keeping up of former friendships
on the part of gentlemen once associated, in official relations, either on
the same or on different railways." The objects of the society are
exclusively social and friendly.
Sobriety being a virtue especially desirable on the part of those to whom
so vast a number of the British public daily entrust their lives or limbs,
temperance is encouraged in the railway service by the formation of Railway
Temperance Unions for all the leading lines. Each union has numerous
branches, and the various unions constitute, in turn, a federation known as
the United Kingdom Railway Temperance Union. This movement receives much
practical encouragement from railway directors and chief officers, and an
active propaganda is carried on. In some places the local Temperance Union
provides a Temperance Institute where the men employed at a station or in a
goods yard can take their meals in comfort or spend their leisure time.
The present membership (1911) of the Temperance Union in connection with
the London and North-Western Railway Company is 22,172, spread over 19
districts. The members of the same union in 1905 numbered only 4777.
Thrift in the railway service is facilitated by means of savings banks. One
of these, the Great Western Railway Savings Bank, states in its nineteenth
annual report that in 1910 it had 6385 depositors, who paid in a total of
£109,166, drew out £69,828 and had £495,504 to their credit at the end of
the year. The bank pays 3½ per cent on deposits up to £1000.
Nor are still higher things overlooked. For over forty years it has been
customary for workers in the Midland Railway locomotive department at Derby
to meet in one of their mess-rooms at breakfast-time, and, while having
their meal, take part in a short religious service conducted by one of
their number, a harmonium being provided as an accompaniment to the
singing. On the day preceding the Christmas holidays the service is devoted
entirely to Christmas carols or appropriate anthems.
A distinct advantage offered by the railway service is that, {433}subject
to the ability and good conduct of the individual, employment once obtained
with a railway company offers a tolerable assurance of permanent and
regular work. Railway companies do not run the same risk of becoming
bankrupt, and of having to wind up their business, that ordinary commercial
companies do, and though slackness of work may, indeed, lead to unavoidable
reductions of staff, or to reduced time, in the locomotive and carriage
works, the full staff will be required on the railway itself to keep it
going, whatever the amount of traffic. Should the traffic fall off, and
become non-remunerative, it is the shareholders who will suffer rather than
the railway servants engaged in the running of trains.
This fact is of the greater importance because there may be in the railway
service certain actual disadvantages, thus referred to in the "Report of
the Departmental Committee on Railway Agreements and Amalgamations," issued
in May, 1911:--
"The contention of the railway servants as to the specialisation of their
industry and the peculiar difficulty they find in changing their employment
has a substantial foundation as regards many classes of railway servants.
Men leaving one railway can seldom rely upon obtaining employment on
another, except in the lower grades, as the companies usually have their
own men waiting promotion. The value of a railway servant often consists
largely in a special skill which is of no worth in other employments."
On the other hand, the Departmental Committee recognise that "one of the
main inducements to compete for admission to the railway services is the
strong presumption of the permanence of employment during good behaviour";
and they further say that "while it would seem that the rates of pay to all
ranks in the railway service do not compare unfavourably with those given
in other commercial and industrial occupations, the railway companies
undoubtedly profit in the quality of their services by the large range of
selection they enjoy owing to the competition for situations under them."
On the subject of railwaymen's wages, various considerations arise which
tend to make any general assertions, or even carefully prepared "averages"
in respect thereto, of little real value.
{434}The range of employment, from unskilled to highly skilled, is so great
in the railway world that to lump together all the different grades, and
then strike a so-called "average," which gives too high a figure for one
large body of men and too low a figure for another, must needs be far from
satisfactory.
General averages are further reduced by the inclusion therein of a large
number of boys. The table given on pages 405-6 shows that the total number
of railway servants employed on December 31, 1910, was 608,750; but in this
total there are no fewer than 43,584 boys (including signal-box lads), and
their wages, as boys, must needs reduce the average of the wages paid to
the adults. If, for example, we add together the six shillings a week paid
to a boy of fourteen or fifteen employed as engine-cleaner and the thirty
shillings a week paid to a certain grade of signalmen, we get an "average"
of eighteen shillings a week for the two; but no one could argue that this
result would give a real idea of actual conditions.
Then the average for the United Kingdom is below the average for England
and Wales because of the inclusion in the former of the wages paid in
Ireland, where the scale is distinctly lower than is the case of England
and Wales; whilst the inclusion in the figures for England and Wales of the
wages for numerous small and none too prosperous lines gives a general
average below what would be the actual average on the lines of the leading
English companies.
Subject to these considerations, I reproduce from the Board of Trade
"Report on Changes in Rates and Wages and Hours of Labour in the United
Kingdom, in 1910," two tables which give the average weekly earnings of
railwaymen in (1) the United Kingdom, and (2) various parts of the United
Kingdom separately. The figures are based on information supplied by
twenty-seven railway companies, employing over 90 per cent of the total
number of railway servants in the United Kingdom; they relate to workpeople
employed in the coaching, goods, locomotive and engineers' departments,
exclusive of clerical staff and salaried officers; and they refer to actual
earnings (including overtime), and not simply to rates of wages. The tables
are as follows:--