The Railways

  The first thing that strikes the Railway Children as they watch a train passing their new home is how tall it is in the unfamiliar view from ground level, where it is no longer ‘cut in half by platforms’. Railway track, too, seems different when encountered close to. It can be seen by how much the rails stand higher than the sleepers, and how the running surfaces are worn smooth and mirror-bright, making it hard to accept that each dull-sided rail can have been forged from a single ferrous substance. If the line is on a bend adapted for fast running – as the tracks next to station platforms rarely are – the extent of canting inwards against the curve can also be appreciated. Or if the route is straight, flat and long, the tracks may call to mind the definition of parallel lines as those which may be projected infinitely without ever meeting. At close hand the railway appears as it truly is: a linear machine, set apart in its own world and achieving completion only with the passage of a train. Where the tracks are caged within the masts and humming wires of overhead electrification, this sense of latent power is more forceful still. Even when the tracks are visibly clear for miles in either direction, the zone between the rails is still an unsettling place to linger, just as an unloaded gun is an unnerving presence on a table top.

  All this may be experienced without any act of trespass, simply by traversing a stile or kissing gate on to one of the hundreds of unstaffed pedestrian crossings up and down the network. Here is the paradox of railway security: the network is at once strictly out of bounds and hopelessly porous. At these crossings the only restraints against turning improperly right or left rather than pressing straight ahead are prudence, common sense and (often) an easily foiled installation of triangular-section timber slats laid down alongside the boardwalk across the tracks, on the principle of a cattle grid. These slats may also be seen at so-called occupation and accommodation crossings, which are gated openings that allow farm traffic to cross the line.

  For those not travelling by rail, however, the most familiar way of traversing a railway line is via a level crossing, on the pneumatic tyres of a motor vehicle. In these places it is the railway that is primarily responsible for safety. Here and there, the motorist may even encounter gates that are still swung manually across the road by a crossing-keeper, whose only job is to open and shut them as each train passes. Especially on wider roads, this ritual can be a trial for the impatient: two gates on each side, four separate sorties for the fluorescent-coated keeper before the way is clear. The red warning discs fixed to these gates are incidentally one of the longest-lasting visual conventions on the railway, dating from an order of 1858 (likewise the red lamp displayed on the gates at night).

  Other gates may be operated from an adjacent signal box. This type now generally takes the form of electrically operated lifting barriers, painted with the familiar white and red stripes, and with flashing lights and sirens for accompaniment. Already well established on the Continent, the automated version was introduced to Britain in 1952 at an undistinguished station with an ugly name: Warthill, on the line from York to Hull. Crossings of this kind can be operated remotely – helped by the later introduction of closed-circuit TV monitors for surveillance – thus dispensing with a crossing-keeper. They are also much quicker to reopen after a train has passed, sometimes jerking upwards only a few seconds after the last railway vehicle has flashed by.

  Lesser roads are often protected by automatic half-barrier crossings. Britain’s first example of this Continental invention came into use on 5 February 1961 at Spath near Uttoxeter in Staffordshire. This type blocks the left-hand lane only, by means of stubby barriers without protective skirtings. At these crossings responsibility for safety is effectively divided, in that motorists and pedestrians are trusted not to try anything stupid. Nor do their barriers interlock with the railway’s own signals: like the miniature versions supplied by Hornby, their descent is triggered simply by the approach of a train.

  British Railways’ first automatic half-barrier crossing, at Spath in Staffordshire, 1961

  The investment in the Warthill crossing did nothing to secure the future of the line in question, which closed in 1965 after having been singled out as a loss-making case study in Dr Beeching’s report The Reshaping of British Railways (1963). Beeching killed off the passenger service on the line through Spath too, and in the same year. But lifting barriers of both types have come to prevail elsewhere, and it is now easy to forget how common the manually operated kind used to be, especially in flat landscapes. On lightly used lines they were sometimes worked by the train crew themselves: the Dornoch branch in Sutherland had six such crossings in a length of less than eight miles, and the guard was allowed three minutes to shepherd his train across each one. This was no way to run a speedy railway. Yet as long as labour was cheap, it often suited a railway company to provide a cottage for a crossing-keeper, like a lodge at the gates of a gentleman’s park (though rarely so ornate), rather than sinking capital into the construction of a bridge.

  Like signalmen, the lives of these crossing-keepers were ruled by the railway timetable, and their movements regulated by the telegraph bell. From an early date they included women, among the first to take a direct part in the operational side of the railway. Some were widows who had taken over the roles of deceased husbands, in which case they were expected to do the same work for less money. The work was not arduous, but the hours were often long. Jane Emerson, who carried on her late husband’s duties at a crossing on the outskirts of Carlisle, was released from her duties only at 10.30 p.m. Her working day ended by closing the gates behind the last train, and taking the two gate-lamps into the house for safe keeping. We know these details because they featured in evidence in 1861, when she was found dead after a break-in: another instance of how court cases can preserve glimpses of long-lost working routines.

  Even automated level crossings are becoming rarer in our own century. To minimise accidents to road vehicles and pedestrians, Network Rail is replacing crossings of every type by bridges or footbridges where possible, or introducing diversions, or closing pedestrian routes altogether. In 2014 it was reported that 750 crossings of all types had been eliminated over the previous four years alone, equivalent to about 10 per cent of the total. Closed-circuit filming ensures a national audience for some of the narrow escapes and idiotic dashes on the crossings that remain. A mere thirty-eight of these were replaced by new footbridges, some rising incongruously amid lonely fields.

  The accommodation crossings that allow farmers to cross the tracks are a reminder of the primal act of invasion committed by the railways. Dead straight or gently curving, their alignments cut across the patchwork of countless fields and estate boundaries. A consortium of Northamptonshire landowners, meeting in 1830 to formulate a response to the impending London & Birmingham Railway, concluded that it would harm their property thus:

  By destroying the privacy and unity of the farms and cutting off part thereof from the homesteads.

  By dividing into separate ill-shaped fragments closes which are now convenient in their form, size and quality.

  By occasioning deep cuttings across the slopes of the hills, and thereby intercepting the supply of water to the wells and grounds below them.

  By occasioning large embankments across the low lands, and thereby intercepting the natural drainage of the parts above them.

  By requiring in numerous cases so great a width for slopes in addition to that of the railway itself as to render any communication between the lands separated by it extremely difficult and inconvenient.

  All of which was correct on every point – to say nothing of the turmoil during construction, nor of the pollution, noise and visual intrusion that the completed railway might bring. Any or all of these permanent changes might serve to pump up the final sum obtained from the company in exchange for land required. Besides the obvious payments for the change of ownership, these included allowances for ‘severance’, when the division of fields left pieces that were difficult of access, and often o
f odd triangular shapes that were harder to plough (the reason fields are normally rectangular). Other losses could follow, for which owners could not always obtain compensation. For instance, property values in coaching towns such as Towcester, where the Northamptonshire elite conferred in 1830, often declined sharply as trade melted away to the railways.

  Land in 1830 was still the pre-eminent source of wealth and status, and the ownership of broad acres conveyed powers that would now be considered both corrupt and despotic. A great landowner could expect to play his part in Parliament, as a member of the Lords or by election to the Commons. In the latter case his tenants were expected to vote for him, sometimes on pain of eviction. Or he might control borough seats of the ‘rotten’ kind, in which a small electorate would reliably vote for the master’s candidate. Members of county families also served in a judicial capacity as magistrates, and the counties themselves were administered by their magistrates by means of quarter sessions. On his own terrain the landowner was free to farm as he wished, without interference on matters ranging from his choice of crops to the living conditions and working hours of his labourers. He was the legal owner of his wife’s belongings, and enjoyed dictatorial powers over his children until they came of age. Yet his rights of possession could now be challenged by bands of railway speculators, operating through companies that might have no interest in the life of the parishes through which they hoped to pass.

  The land itself might be subject to trespass too, as furtive surveyors sought to determine intended routes. Here it is important to distinguish the outline survey, which had to be accurate enough to satisfy scrutiny in Parliament of a line’s stated capital requirements, from the much closer survey that followed a successful enactment. There was no point in trying to stop a railway that had effectively passed into law, but that did not mean that every landlord proved to be a pushover when the companies first set out to map their intentions. The hardest fights usually concerned access to the private parks of great estates. George Stephenson discovered as much when the Liverpool & Manchester route was in gestation: ‘Bradshaw fires guns through his ground in the course of the night to prevent the surveyors coming on in the dark.’ No relation of the Quaker publisher, this was Mr Robert Bradshaw of Worsley Hall: a man with a major interest in the Bridgewater Canal, whose traffic was threatened by the cheaper rates of carriage intended by the railway. Stephenson’s answering ruse was to let off some shots in the darkness well away from the intended route, leaving the surveyors to slip in and continue their work after Bradshaw’s gamekeepers had gone off to investigate. Another dodge used to expedite the survey involved circulating a false document among Lord Sefton’s tenants to say that he had granted permission for the survey (he had not).

  Plenty of similar engagements followed, not always so peaceful. Sometimes the surveyors came with navvies for back-up, and the game-keepers with estate workers, and noses were bloodied and theodolites smashed. Firearms might even be drawn, as at Lord Harborough’s estate at Stapleford Park in Leicestershire in 1845. In this instance the pistol-packing surveyor responsible was lucky to spend no more than a weekend in the cells. Lord Harborough won out and the line was routed around his park, but such incidents showed that land ownership no longer meant all that it had done before the railway age.

  The surveyor who mapped the railway route and the engineer who subsequently oversaw its design and construction were often united in one individual. This was Brunel’s way when determining the Great Western’s course from London to Bristol. In person, he entered the domains of landowners along the way and did his best to charm them into consent (Brunel was expected to write all the letters arising from the survey himself). Travelling had to be done on horseback or by means of public stagecoaches, at least until Brunel commissioned a four-horse carriage to his own design. This civilian version of a general’s field headquarters was furnished with a drawing board, built-in cupboards for drawings, equipment and cigars, and a seat that could be extended as a couch, for snatching some sleep. It was an exhausting routine: during his visit to South Wales in 1834 to advance the cause of the Taff Vale Railway, Brunel was discovered one morning asleep in his chair, fully clothed, with the ash of a complete cigar fallen on his chest.

  Professional roles were transformed by the surge in railway work. There were simply not enough of the right sort of men to go round. Robert Stephenson received cheques in the post from promoters of shaky railway companies, hoping to bribe him to lend his name to their prospectuses and thus inspire enough subscriptions to get things moving. Stephenson chose instead to expand his practice by recruiting trusted but essentially self-employed associates, rather like a barrister’s chambers. Each newly accepted company was assigned to one of these associates, who were expected to consult with the chief on details and difficulties. For a competent surveyor – especially one with the right combination of physical stamina and finesse in negotiation – the 1840s were a golden age. The young Alfred Russel Wallace and his less fortunate brother (on whom see Chapter 3), drawn into railway surveying in the early 1840s, are representative figures from this time. But as engineers increasingly took over the central task of determining the route, surveyors retreated from their traditional land-measuring roles in order to concentrate on new challenges of valuation and arbitration, often railway-related.

  Inevitably, the boom also drew in the incompetent and the unscrupulous. It was alleged in 1846 that some railway surveyors were buying standard Ordnance Survey maps, making minor changes based on their own observations and charging their employers between 60 and 160 times the purchase price for the result. A few get-rich-quick merchants even set up as tutors in railway surveying, raking in fees for dubious crash courses before quietly disappearing.

  Sharp practices of this kind were a spur to the honest majority, encouraging self-regulation and specialisation. The railway companies were thus increasingly able to depend on a group of surveyors who knew how to acquire property smoothly and without over-payment. When the Institution of Surveyors was set up in 1868, no fewer than fifteen of its twenty founding members were specialists of this kind.

  The broadcloth-suited eminences of the Institution of Surveyors are not among the most memorable Victorians. Even surveyors themselves would probably be hard-pressed to name any of them today. Railway engineers do rather better: wonderful Brunel with his panache and his cigars, and the steadier but more influential figure of Robert Stephenson and his self-taught father, followed by a few less vivid figures, such as the immensely able Joseph Locke. Then there are the great contractors who marshalled the labour, materials and resources to build the lines, men such as the ex-navvy Joseph Firbank (1819–86) and the admirable Thomas Brassey (1805–70). An ambitious young surveyor from Birkenhead with sidelines in road-making and property development, Brassey took a momentous step in 1835, when he tendered successfully to construct one of the viaducts and ten miles of the route of the Grand Junction Railway. The historical moment was significant. George Stephenson had built the Liverpool & Manchester by means of labour directly employed and supervised by his own team of engineers, but the future lay with the contract system. Each major contractor would usually sub-contract shares of the work in turn, and the sub-contractors commonly appointed gangers who each had the control, and sometimes the direct hire, of the labourers themselves. With variations, this was the method by which most of Britain’s railways were built.

  Recognising Brassey’s qualities, the Grand Junction Railway’s engineer Joseph Locke engaged him on his next big project, the London & Southampton. The original chief engineer had just resigned, having entrusted the works to lots of small and under-capitalised contractors – the bane of much early railway building – who were struggling to cope. Locke and Brassey between them did much to turn things round, and their relationship endured. Soon they were collaborating on the first major railway in France, between Paris and Rouen. At home and abroad, working with Locke or without him, Brassey steadily clocked up an astounding 6
,500 route-miles of railway. His personal total was equivalent to one-sixth of the British network and one-twentieth of all the lines around the world, including lines on every continent. This one-man multinational kept 100,000 men busy at the peak of his activities. In order to sustain a healthy flow of work he even began to turn his capital over by taking shares in new railway projects himself, like several other big contractors during the busiest railway-building decades. Exceptionally, Brassey entered the business of railway operation too, leasing some self-built lines on completion – the London, Tilbury & Southend was one – and running them at a good profit. At his death, Brassey’s British estate alone amounted to £3.2 million: a fortune of ducal proportions.

  All this was not achieved merely by shrewd delegation. For relentless hard work and monomaniacal attention to detail, Brassey was your man. His memory and his powers of mental arithmetic were prodigious. He had no time for secretaries, and undertook all correspondence and working records himself. A bag containing letters and writing materials went everywhere with him, even on what were nominally holiday visits to Mr Locke’s Scottish grouse moor. In waiting rooms at railway junctions, Brassey would sit writing; in hotels too, into the small hours. His friend Dr Burnett, travelling with Brassey in Italy, once retired at 9 p.m. and came down the following morning to find thirty-one letters written by the contractor and ready for the post. If a reply had taken more than one day to compose, Brassey was known to commence his letter with an apology for his slowness. He also shared the Victorian aptitude for walking long distances very quickly: his brother-in-law recalled how a regular sixteen-mile trudge between Rugby and Nuneaton became part of Brassey’s to-and-fro journeyings between his various works in progress, which also included projects in France, the Trent Valley and between Lancaster and Carlisle. His was a very personal business, and – like those of other early railway contractors – it effectively died with its founder.