Edwin A. Pratt

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In many respects the railway service proper—that is to say, the particular branches thereof which deal with actual 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. ”

“ 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 manager on an English railway to have started as an office boy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Workers in all of the many classes or grades "enter the service," as they are accustomed to say, when they are young, and they generally do so with the idea of spending their lives in it, and retiring on superannuation allowance or a pension in their old age.
Railway managers, too, want workers who come to stay. In the United States women typists are being gradually got rid of on the railway because they so often retire at the end of two or three years and get married, the experience of office work they have gained in that time being thus lost to the company. ”

“ A distinct advantage offered by the railway service is that, 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Attached to every house is a plot of ground where the tenant can grow his own vegetables, or cultivate his favourite flowers. The centre of social life in the village is the Railway Institute, a commodious building erected by the company, and still maintained to a certain extent at their cost. Administration of the affairs of this Institute is entrusted to a General Committee of thirty-two of the tenants, elected annually, and having different subcommittees, each of which takes charge of a particular phase of the work. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Whatever may be the final outcome of all these controversies, the position in regard to the troubles both of 1907 and 1911 has obviously been most materially, if not, indeed, mainly, influenced by questions of trade union recognition which do not necessarily cast any reflection on the railway service itself, or detract from it as being one of the most important, most popular and most sought after of our national industries. ”

“ Railwaymen have, again, exceptional opportunities for getting cheap holidays. In addition to the regular holidays given to members of the salaried staff, most of the grades of the wages staff who have a certain period of service to their credit get from three to six days' holiday a year, with pay. In some cases the railway company provide special trains enabling their employees in some railway colony—Swindon, for example—to take a holiday en masse, the said colony becoming, temporarily, a deserted village. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ A very useful purpose in developing the higher education, 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 ”

“ Instruction is given by qualified teachers; certificates, vouchers, medallions or labels are presented to those who pass the examinations held, and not only do competitions for money or other prizes take place between teams representing the various districts of a single company's system, but an Inter-Railway Challenge Shield is annually competed for by the picked experts of the various companies, the winning of this shield being regarded as conferring a great honour on those who achieve the victory for their company. ”

“ As regards long service, instances of from forty to fifty years' work for one and the same railway company are so common that they hardly call even for passing mention. More exceptional was the case of the worker on the Great Western whose father had served the company for forty-one years, and who himself retired at the end of forty-two years, leaving a son who had then been with the company twenty-three years—a total of 106 years for one family, during three generations. ”

“ 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 of his line, and in the doings of his staff, day by day. ”

“ Whatever the further variety in the particular occupations included under this head, it is certain that the railway service affords employment for a greater range and diversity of talent, skill, ability or effort than probably any other single industry or enterprise on the face of the earth. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ While not being, perhaps, actually an ideal industry—and there are very few workers, of any rank, who would be prepared to admit that their occupation in life was absolutely free from drawbacks—the railway service offers, as we have seen, many advantages. ”