London and South Western Railway

“ But then the South-Western has, for some reason or another, always been allowed to cut up and practically destroy the open spaces along its route, so that there is scarce a common in the south-western suburbs but that line has a cutting through or an embankment across it, with level crossings innumerable, at which those who use the roads must needs wait the pleasure of the railway, until the crowded traffic of passenger and goods trains has passed by! ”

“ South-Western Railway has its terminus in the Waterloo Road, which has been placed in connection with the London Bridge Station. The main lines of the company extend to Portsmouth in one direction, Dorchester in another, and Exeter in a third; while there is a multitude of branches—from Wimbledon to Croydon, from Wimbledon to Epsom and Leatherhead, from Wandsworth to Richmond and Windsor, from Barnes to Hounslow, from Staines to Reading, &c. There is no good hotel whatever near the Waterloo or Vauxhall Stations—a defect which seems to need a remedy. ”

“ Western. The terminus of the Great Western railway is Paddington (Praed Street) ; and that of the London & South-Western, Waterloo, south of the Thames in Lambeth. (3) Southern. The London, Brighton & South Coast railway has its western terminus at Victoria, and its central terminus at London Bridge, on the south side of the Thames. The South-Eastern & Chatham railway has four terminal stations, all on or close to the north bank of the river—Victoria, Charing Cross, [2] Holborn Viaduct and Cannon Street (City) . ”

“ Now this enormous population in very large numbers patronises London Bridge for many reasons—the principle argument with them in its favour undoubtedly is, that it is the shortest way from their homes to their places of business, or vice versâ. Last year, for instance, the North London Railway carried nearly six millions of passengers; the London and South Western more than four millions ”

“ That the City and South London Railway is most useful and popular is shown by the number of passengers it has carried—some ninety millions since its opening—the returns for last year showing about eighteen millions, over a total route of about seven miles. For the convenience of travellers, it eventually will have subways, connecting its Lombard Street Station with the Bank Station of the Central London Railway, and it already has them from its new London Bridge Station to the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway. ”

“ Besides these makers, the railway companies are themselves large constructors of locomotives. [192] The Crewe Works turns out 120 new engines yearly. The Great Western Company make large numbers of engines, both at Swindon and at Wolverhampton; the Midland Company produce many engines at Derby; the Brighton Company make locomotives at Brighton, as do also the South-Eastern at Ashford, the South-Western at Nine Elms, London, and the London, Chatham, and Dover at the Longhedge Works, Battersea. ”

“ Great Western railway 40 runs, the longest from Paddington to Plymouth (North Road) , 2253⁄4 m.; London & South-Western railway 4 runs, three of which were operated between Waterloo and Bournemouth (Central) , 108 m.; London & North-Western railway 74 runs, the longest being between Euston and Rhyl, 2091⁄4 m.; Midland railway 25 runs, the longest from St. Pancras to Shipley (a stop to change engines only, not advertised) 206 m.; North-Eastern railway 14 runs, all between Newcastle and Edinburgh, working through over N.B.R. north of Berwick, 1241⁄2 m. ”

“ The railway termini on the north side of London have been kept as remote as Eastry had kept the railway-station from Wimblehurst, they stop on the very outskirts of the estates, but from the south, the South Eastern railway had butted its great stupid rusty iron head of Charing Cross station, that great head that came smashing down in 1905—clean across the river, between Somerset House and Whitehall. The south side had no protecting estate. ”

“ So far from exercising any monopoly, the railways here are subjected, even among themselves, to a fierce competition. Parliament has sanctioned a second railway to Dover; there are already two lines to Hastings; two are completed to Portsmouth, and a third is making; the Government has insisted upon the South-Western making a second line to Exeter; there are already three lines to Birmingham; there are three lines to Derby, three to Peterborough, three to York, two to Cambridge, two to Oxford, two to Norwich, two to Lincoln, two to Liverpool ”

“ Nothing was left but to return, and so, through lofty cavernous regions beneath the terminus, over bridges, and down endless slopes of wood-paving, she managed to reach the up-platform.
Now came the rush of early City-bound men, season-ticket holders, who had travelled by the London and South Western line from all parts of Surrey served by it. They came pelting down the inclines as if their lives depended upon catching a particular train. ”

“ As the utility of railroads may be considered established by the one now in operation, it must be evident how desirable it is to connect Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham, and ultimately other towns in the North, with the Metropolis. Supposing a railroad connecting these important towns to exist, which might be considered as the chief line of communication from the North to the South, there is a reasonable hope, that shortly other roads would be proposed and executed, connecting the remaining influential towns. ”

“ They are all mounted on carriage springs, and have grease boxes, spring buffers, and every other device in use on the London and North-Western Railway—from which they have been copied, like everything else on this Liliputian line. The greatest railway in the world took a friendly interest in the smallest, and supplied it with the drawings and models from which it and its rolling stock have been imitated. ”

“ The atmospheric system of working railways found favour for a time, and was tried on the West London Railway, on the South Devon system, and in other parts of Great Britain, also in France, but nowhere was it permanently successful. ”

“ The very great development of third class traffic, by means of cheap parliamentary trains, has produced a marked change in the feelings of railway managers upon this subject in the last few years. Now, almost all the time tables show, specifically, the trains by which they can be conveyed, and by reference, among others, to the most recent monthly guide book of the London and North-Western Company, it will be seen that third class passengers are now conveyed from London to Liverpool by one particular train in six hours and a-half ”

“ And thus, when a train starts on a journey of it may be hundreds of miles, it is signaled on from station to station, and "lives along the line," until at length it reaches its destination, and the last signal of "train in" is given. By this means an immense number of trains can be worked with regularity and safety. On the Southeastern Railway, where the system has been brought to a state of high efficiency, it is no unusual thing during Easter week to send 570,000 passengers through the London Bridge Station alone; and on some days as many as 1200 trains a day. ”

“ Almost as the northeastern corner of England is the undisputed principality of a single system so does a single railway, the Great Western, stretch alone directly west from London and almost completely dominates its territory. To bring it into regional grouping with any of the other important British railway systems has been well-nigh impossible. After a number of futile attempts the professional and amateur railroaders who have been attempting the solution of the regional plan for Great Britain have given up the idea. ”

“ The accommodation of Herefordshire, Worcestershire, South Wales, and the important districts lying to the west of the present lines of Railway, will evidently, at no distant period, require not only a wide-gauge Railway along the Southern coast, to place them in communication with London, but also a narrow-gauge Railway to place them in direct and unbroken communication, through Birmingham, with the manufacturing districts and the great Railway system of the rest of the kingdom. ”

“ But when, in July, 1900, the Central London Railway, inaugurated by the Prince of Wales, was opened for traffic, and it was realised that the line was laid literally in the centre of London, beneath one of the greatest street routes in existence, viz. Cheapside, Newgate Street, Holborn, Oxford Street, Bayswater and Uxbridge roads, and was capable of dealing with a gigantic stream of passengers at a uniform fare for any distance, it arrested universal attention, and for a time nothing was talked about but the deep-level system for metropolitan railways ”

“ There are abundant service expresses running in an even four hours between that city and both Manchester, 184 miles, and Liverpool, 193 miles. Competition is supposed to have forced this service. Competition is forever supposed to be forcing service. Yet on the non-competitive Great Western railway I rode, but a few months ago, from London to Bath, 104 miles, in an even two hours, while across the Channel, I had ridden, but a few weeks before that, over the war-struck Eastern railway of France ninety miles from Paris to Rheims in just sixty seconds less than an even two hours. ”

“ Great Britain will never go back to her old extravagances of the days of unbridled transport competition. True it is that [Pg 284] since the signing of the Armistice her railway service, both passenger and freight, has been radically increased, but to nowhere near the point that it had reached in 1913. Fine frills, like the running of fast non-stop expresses between London and the ocean landing at Fishguard, in South Wales, to cite a single instance out of many, have been abandoned; never to be taken up again in your day or mine. ”

“ Can steam power, then, be used to produce this rapid motion? One hundred thousand persons that have passed from Liverpool to Manchester in less than two hours since September last, can answer this question in the affirmative.
Another great advantage of the railway over the common road is the much greater safety that it offers. The above number of passengers have been conveyed with scarcely an accident. Is there a line of turnpike-road in the kingdom that can make the same boast, where an equal number of passengers have travelled? ”

“ The true object, therefore, of the London Railway Clearing-House is to enable the railway companies of the United Kingdom who are parties thereto, to work that enormous traffic, in which they have a common interest, with as much security to themselves, and with as little inconvenience to the public, as if all the associated companies were ONE ”

“ Metropolitan Railway, from Finsbury to Paddington, is a very remarkable one, nearly all tunnel, and requiring the carriages to be constantly lighted with gas. It runs from Westminster Bridge, viâ Pimlico, Brompton, Kensington, Notting Hill, and Bayswater, to Paddington, where it joins the Great Western. It then goes under Praed Street and the New Road to King’s Cross. There it joins the Great Northern, and thence goes on to Holborn Bridge, Smithfield Dead Meat Market, and Moorgate Street. ”

“ 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. ”

“ How would London be supplied if it had to fall back upon turnpike roads and horse traffic? In short, England as it is could not exist without railways and locomotives; and it is only our familiarity with them that blunts our sense of their prodigious importance. As to the future effects of railways, it is easy to see that they are destined to diffuse industrial populations over those vast unoccupied areas of the globe that abound in natural resources, and only wait for facilities of access and transport to become available for the wants of man. ”

“ British railways, when the record of that marvel of transportation is compiled, will share the honors with the ironclads of Britain's navy and the liners of her mercantile marine. Southampton being the main port of departure, the performance of the London and Southwestern Railway, which has carried so many thousand Americans in pacific days from Waterloo Station to the ship's side, is a case in point. ”

“ The advantages of the rapid transportation of perishable freight by rail, especially in regard to food supplies for cities, were early recognized, and by 1854 the trains brought car-loads of country milk into London every day. Previous to this, the supply was obtained from cows kept in stables, which was an unsanitary and expensive plan. Another immediate result of railway service was that people began to live farther out of the towns, and then began the growth of the suburban residence districts, which are such a feature of modern cities and city life. ”

“ In proportion to the rapid extension of railways the demand for locomotives became very great. As our machine tools were peculiarly adapted for turning out a large amount of first-class work, we directed our attention to this class of business. In the course of about ten years after the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, we executed considerable orders for locomotives for the London and Southampton, the Manchester and Leeds, and the Gloucester railway companies. ”