CHAPTER VII.. Railway Progress

RAILWAY PROGRESS

Before entering upon any description of the new life that awaited me in Glasgow, I will briefly allude to the principal events connected with the Midland and with railways generally which took place during the first five years of my railway career.

Closely associated with many of these events was Mr. James Allport, the Midland general manager, one of the foremost and ablest of the early railway pioneers, regarding whom it is fit and proper a few words should be said. Strangely enough I never saw him until nearly two years after I entered the Midland service, and this was on the occasion of a visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales to Derby. We clerks were allowed good positions on the station platform to witness the arrival of their Royal Highnesses by their special train from London. Mr. Allport accompanied them along the platform to the carriages outside the station. Probably the chairman and directors of the company were also present, but our eyes were not for them. Directors were to us junior clerks, remote personalities, mythical beings dwelling on Olympian heights.

It was a great thing to see the future King and Queen of England, and our loyalty and enthusiasm knew no bounds. They were young and charming, and beloved by the people; but, hero worshipper as I was, our great general manager was to me even more than royalty. I little thought, as I looked on Mr. Allport then, that, twenty years later, I should appear before him to give evidence concerning Irish railways, when he was chairman of an important Royal Commission.

The great abilities which enable a man to win and hold such a position as his fired my fancy. I look at men and men's affairs with different eyes now; but Mr. Allport was a great personality, and youthful enthusiasm might well be excused for placing him on a high pedestal. He was tall and handsome, with well-shaped head, broad brow, large clear keen eyes, firm well-formed mouth, strong nose and chin, possessed of an abundant head of hair, not close cropped in the style of to-day, but full and wavy, and what one never sees now, a handsome natural curl along the centre of the head with a parting on each side. This suited him well, and added to his distinctive individuality. When I entered the Midland service he was fifty-six years of age and in the plenitude of his power, for those were days when the company was forcing its way north and south and widely extending its territory. He was the animating spirit of all the company's enterprises. No opposition, no difficulties ever daunted him. His nature was bold and fitted to command, and to him is due, in a large degree, the proud position the Midland holds to-day. It was not until late in life, 1884 I think, when he had reached the age of seventy- two, that his great qualities were accorded public recognition. He then received the honour of knighthood but had retired from active service and become a director of his company.

There was another personality that loomed large, in those years, on the Midland--Samuel Swarbrick, the accountant. His world was finance, and in it he was a master. So great was his skill that the Great Eastern Railway Company, which, financially, was in a parlous condition and their dividend nil, in 1866 took him from the Midland and made him their general manager, at, in those days, a princely salary. Their confidence was fully justified; his skill brought the company, if not to absolute prosperity, at least to a dividend-paying condition, and laid the foundation of the position that company now occupies.

His reputation as a man of figures stood as I have just said very high, but, whilst I was at Derby, and before he moved to the Great Eastern, he was prominent also as the happy possessor of the best coloured meerschaum pipes in the county, and this, in those days, was no small distinction. But a man does not achieve greatness by his own unaided efforts. Others, his subordinates, help him to climb the ladder. It was so with Mr. Swarbrick. There was a tall policeman in the service of the company, the possessor of a fine figure, and a splendid long sandy-coloured beard. His primary duty was to air himself at the front entrance of the station arrayed in a fine uniform and tall silk hat, and this duty he conscientiously performed. Secondarily, his occupation was to start the colouring of new meerschaums for Mr. Swarbrick. Non-meerschaum smokers may not know what a delicate task this is, but once well begun the rest is comparatively easy. The tall policeman was an artist at the work; but it nearly brought him to a tragic end, as I will relate.

Outside Derby station was a ticket platform at which all incoming trains stopped for the collection of tickets. This platform was on a bridge that crossed the river. One Saturday night our fine policeman was airing himself on this platform, colouring a handsome new meerschaum for Mr. Swarbrick. It was a windy night and a sudden gust blew his tall hat into the river, and after it unfortunately dropped the meerschaum. Hat and pipe both! Without a moment's hesitation in plunged the policeman to the rescue; but the river was deep and he an indifferent swimmer. The night was dark and he was not brought to land till life had nearly left him. He recovered, but lost his sight and became blind for the rest of his life. Mr. Swarbrick provided for him, I believe, by setting him up in a small public house, where, I am told, despite his loss of sight, he ended his days not unhappily.

In 1867, compared with 1851, the Midland had made giant strides. It worked a thousand miles of railway against five hundred; its capital had doubled and reached thirty-two millions, about one-fourth of what it is to-day; its revenue had risen from about a million to over a million and a half; and the dividend was five and a half compared with two and five- eighths per cent.

The opening of the Midland route to Saint Pancras; the projection of the Settle and Carlisle line; the introduction of Pullman cars, parlour saloons, sleeping and dining cars; the adoption of gas and electricity for the lighting of carriages; the running of third-class carriages by all trains; the abolition of second-class and reduction of first-class fares; and the establishment of superannuation funds were amongst the most striking events in the railway world during this period.

On the first day of October, 1868, the first passenger train ran into Saint Pancras station, and the Midland competition for London traffic now began in earnest, and from that time onward helped to develop those magnificent rival passenger train services between the Metropolis and England's busy centres and between England and Scotland and Ireland, which, for luxury, speed and comfort, stand pre-eminent. Prior to this, the Midland access to London had been by the exercise of running powers over the Great Northern Railway from Hitchin to King's Cross. The Great Northern, reluctant to lose the Midland, and fearing their rivalry, had, a few years previously, offered them running powers in perpetuity. "No," said Mr. Allport, "it is impossible that you can reconcile the interests of these two great companies on the same railway; we are always only second-best." Second-best certainly never suited the ambitious policy of the Midland, and so the offer was rejected, and their line to London made. It was at that time thought that the Midland headquarters would be removed from Derby to London, and I remember how excited the clerical staff and their wives and sweethearts were at the prospect. The idea was seriously considered but, for various reasons, abandoned.

The Settle and Carlisle line, perhaps the greatest achievement of the Midland, was not completed until sometime after I left their service. It was opened in the year 1875. In 1866 they obtained the Act for its construction. For some years their eyes had been as eagerly turned towards Scotland as the eyes of Scotchmen had ever been towards England, and for the same reason--the hope of gain. The Midland had hitherto been excluded from any proper share of the Scotch traffic, but now having secured the right to extend their system to Carlisle, they hoped to join forces with their allies, the Glasgow and South-Western, and secure a fair share of it. But "there's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip," and in 1869 in a fit of timidity--a weakness most unusual with them--they nearly lost this valuable right. The year 1867 was a time of great financial anxiety; the Midland was weighted with heavy expenditure on their London extension, the necessity for further capital became clamant, the shareholders were seized with alarm, and a shareholders' consultative committee was appointed, with the result that, in 1869, the company, badgered and worried beyond endurance, actually applied to Parliament for power to abandon the Settle and Carlisle line, and for authority to enter into an agreement with the London and North-Western for access over that company's railway to Carlisle. That power and authority, however, Parliament, in its wisdom, refused to give.

The financial clouds, as all clouds do, after a time dispersed; the outlook grew brighter, the Midland made the line, and it was opened, as I have said, throughout to Carlisle in 1875.

In the autumn of 1872 Mr. Allport visited the United States and was greatly impressed with the Pullman cars. On his return he introduced them on the Midland, both the parlour car and the sleeper. About the same time the London and North-Western also commenced the running of sleeping cars to Scotland and to Holyhead. To which company belongs the credit of being first in the field with this most desirable additional accommodation for the comfort of passengers I am not prepared to say; perhaps honors were easy.

But the greatest innovation of the time were the running by the Midland of third-class carriages by all trains; and the abolition of second-class carriages and fares, accompanied by a reduction of the first-class fares. The first event took place in 1872, but the latter not till 1875. The first was a democratic step indeed, and aroused great excitement. Williams, in his book The Midland Railway, wrote, "On the last day of March, 1872, we remarked to a friend: 'To-morrow morning the Midland will be the most popular railway in England.' Nor did we incur much risk by our prediction. For on that day the Board had decided that on and after the first of April, they would run third-class carriages by all trains; the wires had flashed the tidings to the newspapers, the bills were in the hands of the printers, and on the following morning the Directors woke to find themselves famous." At a later period, Mr. Allport said, if there was one part of his public life on which he looked back with more satisfaction than another it was the time when this boon was conferred on third-class passengers.

When we contemplate present conditions of third-class travel it is hard to realise what they were before this change took place; slow speed, delays and discomfort; bare boards; hard seats; shunting of third-class trains into sidings and waiting there for other trains, sometimes even goods trains, to pass. Mr. Allport might well be proud of the part he played.

Another matter which concerned, not so much the public as the welfare of the clerical staff of the railways, was the establishment of Superannuation Funds; yet the public was interested too, for the interests of the railway service and the general community are closely interwoven. Up till now station masters and clerks had struggled on without prospect of any provision for their old age. Their pay was barely sufficient to enable them to maintain a respectable position in life and afforded no margin for providing for the future.

At last, the principal railway companies, with the consent of their shareholders, and with Parliamentary sanction, established Superannuation Funds, which ever since have brought comfort and security to their officers and clerical staff, and have proved of benefit to the companies themselves. A pension encourages earlier retirement from work, quickens promotion, and vitalises the whole service. On nearly all railways retirement is optional at sixty and compulsory at sixty-five.

The London and North-Western was the first company to adopt the system of superannuation, the London and South-Western second, the Great Western came third, the Midland fourth, and other companies followed in their wake.

In 1873 the Railway Clearing House obtained Parliamentary power to form a fund for its staff, with permission to railway companies not large enough to successfully run funds of their own, and also to the Irish Railway Clearing House, to become partners in this fund. The Irish Clearing House took advantage of this, as also have many railway companies, and practically the whole of the clerical service throughout the United Kingdom can to-day look forward to the benefits of superannuation.