MODERN RAILWAYS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 65, 14 September 1925, Page 16

MODERN RAILWAYS

PROGRESS IN A HUNDRED

YEARS

EFFECT QN NATIONAL LIFE.

. Thoughts on travel and transport by railways and roads arei suggested to Mr. Humphrey Baker by a railway centenary. The importance of the opening ceremoDy of the Stockton and Darlington railway on 27th September, 1825, says Mr. Baker in. the '.'Nineteenth Century," lies in the fact that never before had members of the public been hauled along a railway by a steam ■locomotive. It is, perhaps, curious, seeing what an established network of roads . th,e country already possessed, that the development of mechanical traction did not take place upon, the roads instead of upon railways. Inveutors were busily engaged in devising steam road carriages, some of _ which appear •■ to, have made - considerable journeys; and bad though many of the roads were, they were rapidly being improved. Their routes correspond with the location of the population,;; while railways were non-existent, very costly to' build, and much more limited in their direction by the configuration of the • ground, especially in those early days.. Then the ■ locomotive engine was thought incapable of climbing gradients •of any- '■ severity; 1 and such hilly routes as the Midland or ; Great Central main lines into London would have been ruled. out as impossibly steep. Even now, after a hundred years of railway building, .Great' Britain and Ireland contain 'only 24,000 miles ■. of railway, against 240,000 of • public road. The first attempts to produce steam carriages for use on ordinary roads were certainly not very successful; but neither were the first railway locomotives. . It is possible that one of the causes which deflected the,current of enterprise towards -the railways was the.very magnitude of the. proposals • for: them. 'In the great outburst of, industrialism which was then taking place there, was a good.deal of' uncritical enthusiasm on' the part of the public for anything on the grand scale. ; The. habit of railway travel, with' its ■ advantages and disadvantages, is: very closely bound up with the character of the national life in general. If road; transport had won the day; the distribution of the population aad its manner of. living might well! have been very different. As: it is ■we suffer' from excessive urbanisation. It is riot really necessary for production on the grand scale that most of us should'spend the private portion of our lives among miles.of mean streets' without a* tree; but /the industrial 'system; working along the line of least resistance,has produced this're- ; suit, and the 1 railways have both follow-; ed and fostered the tendency; 'Almost all the early: railroad schemes were for connections - between great centres of population—London ' and Birmingham, Birmingham and Liverpool, London ahd Bristol, London and Southampton,' Edinburgh and Glasgow, Leeds; arid Hull— with, the eiffect of making •' them still greater." . . -' "•. -y ■"■,:':■[.':■':■ j : Railways make decentralisation possible, but .only along their own routes; they- tend to .localise . the population within certain 1 narrow areas. If the policy, of constructing light railways ■; as feeders or of pushing- out (lines into the country with the object of development 1 had:been followed in England to a"greater extent than it has-been the wider distribution of the population with the help of the ..motor, might ■:•'■ have taken place under the guidance of the railways. As it is, railways have reinforced that defect -of our times, submergence, of the individual in mass, by the mere size of' the unit; jfhich the railways handle and by their limitation to definite and narrow routes.

The fact that with the wayside panorama sliding past • the window all thewhile it should be considered a* attraction for;a train to be provided with ft picture, theatre or ■■■ equipment*' for '" ■ listening in " show's that- : the . railways have reached the stage .-'.at: ■which; the commodity which they .provide can hal'dly be called'''''travelling''*' at all, but, rather the abolition ;of travelling by making it possible to bo transferred from, place : to! place : with ■ practically 'no ■ interruption. to Ithe 1 occupations :ii of ■.. the, town.'■'-•As. a "mere matter of- quantity, the conveyance of some 940,000,000 passengers in' a year is more than/ the imagination can grasp;- yet^this is a practical problem .which, the, railways have actually to- solve, and' constant exertions have' to be made, to., increase the carrying capacity "of lines and coaches and the hauling power of: locomotives. The headway trains moving in. the same 1 direction has hid to" be reduced,their speed increased,.brakes arid signals improved, lines doubled,'^quadrupled,"or even' more generally; increased, coaches widened and lengthened, junctions relaid to avoid the crossing of^two "roads" oh the level, andiriumberless expedients adopted, and' still the'problem grows as Vfast as the solution. ." ' : :'

■Whether.- railways will survive another hundred years no one can say'; but even, if they do ( . not they will (have left a: permanent-mart upon the social history of our times as uponthe land. If ever' our civilisation becomes dereliot, .and human life shifts,, to some other part of the. globe, the earthworks.of ■■'the Great Western at Westbury ;night become as deserted as those of. Brat ton Castle high above them, where' the --White Horse stands,, and .scientific..expeditions from tho- great nations of •'the!.world!■'might excavate,the lonely foundations of Doncaster or Crewe,. and", collect in jnuseums the fragments of machine' tools or valve gear ; f but of. all :the.- scratches made by the human race upon the surface of the earth few are '■ likely ■ to be more endur'Sng than, those connected'; with the railways.;.. ,' .':\ r ', ■ '„ -.'■•■ , ■ > ;■ '.