A COLONIAL’S OBSERVATIONS IN THE OLD COUNTRY.

Evening Star, Issue 14688, 4 October 1911, Page 9

A COLONIAL’S OBSERVATIONS IN THE OLD COUNTRY.

No. XII. [By Odr Special Correspondent,] —English Railways.— In one vear tho railways of England derive a revenue of about £110,000,000, of which over £50,000,000 come from the passenger traffic. Although the third class are so much lees than the first and second class rates, yet the amount derived from the third class tickets is nearly six times as much as from tho other two classes combined. Within the last 10 years the number of season ticket-holders has largely increased, the third class returning over £2,000,000 against £1,000,000 10 years ago. Within the last decade there has also been a marked change an the attitude of railway companies towards each other, and it is said that the result of the co-operation between tho various companies and them, doing away with useless competition has, resulted in increased dividends for the shareholders, besides providing substantial advantages for tho public in the way of new through-trains, through-bookings, and interavailahility of tickets. There is no fourth class on the English railways such aa there is on the Continent, but there is a third class, which the colonies have not got. Most people, indeed, travel third, but more would probably take second class to avoid a crowded compartment if they could be sure of having a second class carriage on tho train. Jlhe Great Wet-tern Company last year

—Abolished the Second Claes Altogether.— and most of the other companies only provide accommodation of that class for shore ioumeys. There is some talk ampngst "?omo of them of doing away with the firmly class as well, bnt this is not likely to bs yet at any rate. Some,of the railway lines have been recently electrified, and as an instance of the popularity of such a move there was an increase of 1| million passengers in the first sis months on one line. I am not proposing to say anything in this presentchapter of the underground railways in London. They seem to me to deserve a place all by themselves, but I want to express my feelings on tho ordinary railways, which aro for the most part eo very like our own. —Comparisons Not Always Odious.— And first Jet mo say that you in tho colonies have very little to be carious of in this respect. Tno best trains are very

good, very fast, and meet comfortable, and run to schedule time—or so I am given to understand, for I have quite given up the attempt to worry my way through ‘ Bradshaw ’ of' 1,250 pages. And ‘ Bradshaw, 1 you must know, is tho great official timetable, which is so utterly incomprehensible to the lay mind. Bnt really I don’t know if, say, the Sydney to Melbourne Limited express isn’t as good as any of them, except that it isn’t quite so fact. You would find, however, that 60 miles an hour is as fast as it is really comfortable to travel; above that speed, and you wish tho train were carrying more "ballast,” and you begin to think that you won’t Like that sea trip that you had in your mind after all. But the recent hot weather has made me very vexed with their system of closed windows. While there is a great movement on foot to prevent the spread of consumption, the English people generally have, not seemed to me to be specially keen on fresh air. In every railway carriage I have seen tho only windows that aro made to open are these over tho doors. The side windows are fixtures. "If you were here in the winter,” people tell me, "you would sea the impossibility of having your sort of windows” —all this said a little disdainfully, for the old English hen doesn’t like to lie told by her silly young chickens what she ought to do. —Room for Improvement.—

But I really do think that they might do a little bettor in many places in the way of making clear the names of their stations. Sometimes yon see the names on the lamps, sometimes you don’t. Generally the name is painted on the seats, but as people are often using the seats for their natural purpose, tills doesn't count The bestmanaged stations display a big board, with the name painted in plain letters; the other j extreme is to leave it to your own intui- j tion absolutely to know where you arc. i And if you ask the people in your car- ■ riage if they can kindly tell you what this ; station is you will probably discover that j they are all strangers here. They know I exactly where they are going to them- j selves! but who you are or where you want to go to or what this station is they don't know m the least, and they don't want to know. I have more than once been struck by two points, about even the English policeman. One is the perfect knowledge he has of his own beat, and the other is the perfect ignorance that is .his with regard to all other beats. What between incomprehensible timetables and badly-named stations, and—may I say it—porters that have very often a hazy knowledge about the trains that will come or go, one’s railway travelling is not without anxiety. The London terminus stations, of which there arc several, are so immense that one needs help in finding one’s train and platform. The indicator boards for the most part are not up to the Sydney board, but I am ready to believe that with each a crowd of trains it would be difficult to givo a list of them all on one board. In some stations each platform gives a daily time-table of its own trains. The porters arc often by no means a.s well acquainted with the timetable as one would expect, but they will always do their best for you—for 2d. —Troubles of the Traveller.— Travelling on the main lines is all very well, but oh r. the branch lines of England ! One day some years ago I was between Bat hj and Wells waiting for a crosscountry train. For the first half-hour after the advertised time I was hopeful, though annoyed. At the end of an hour 1 sought the'station master again—he had previously told me that he thought “the train would lie along any time now.” Ho was astonished that it hadn't come yet, but “you see, sir, this is Saturday afternoon ; it's not over punctual on Saturday afternoons.” Finally it arrived an hour and a-half behind time. Another amusing experience I had the other day—again on a Saturday afternoon. It was on the outskirts of London, and I had changed from the Underground to get a cross-country electric connecting train. It was so late that we were shunted twice on to a siding to get out of the way of an express. Finally wo reached a station called Greendale, whore they wanted us. to get out. so that the train might go back to Paddington and so pick up her running time. Two of us, however, refused to leave till the train took us to Ealing, which she was advertised to do. Then began much collaboration between the porters and the station master and the guard and the engine driver, and much consultation of time tables. Finally it was decided that the train should take us as far as 'West Ealing. It was casual and frightfully behind time, but it was fanny. The notices in the trains are worth reading Here one is told not to throw bottles or other dangerous articles out of the windows for fear of hurting men on the line; then one is pleasantly invited to pull down the chain of the alarm signal, and warned that £5 is the penalty for improper mse of it. _ And everywhere are notices against spitting. These, in one form or another, are all over England. There is a vigorous —Crusade Against Consumption.—

In some of the railway carriages quite a full explanation is gone into for requesting you not to spit, in others the direction is very brief and to the point : “Do not spit. Penalty 455,” or “First offence £2, each subsequent offence £5.” One might lose quite a lot of money in half an hour. The English railway companies do not often give return tickets at the most reduced figures that we are accustomed to in Australia. The return faro is almost always exactly double the single faro. It doesn’t seem a compliment to one when one comes to think of it; there is no special inducement to one to come back again. I suppose that everyone has heard of the countryman who went to a London hooking office and asked for a ticket. “ What place?” asked the clerk. “ Oh. I dunno,” 'he replied. “ What places yer got?” And when you recollect the insatiate love of bartering-in- the Eastern

mind you -can easily picture the Indian who h*.d just come over to England asking hpw much the fare was to Cambridge. ■ On being told it was 5s 7£d he replied : .No good; too much. ITI give you three bob.” —A Notch for Mr Millar.— The English companies run very cheap trains indeed to scores of places every public holiday, and millions or dodgers, as well as quite large pamphlets, are issued .weeks before advertising these fares. The amount spent in railway advertising must be enormous. Quite a large number of excellent books of views and information about places all over the British Isles may also be had free. There are cheap Sunday trains almost everywhere, and weekend trains at rather higher rates, bnt although one generally goes third class, I don’t know that, on the whole, their ordinary travelling is much cheaper than our own, especially when one isn’t allowed return tickets. One thing has struck me especially, and that is the way in which their ticket-collectors preserve one from getting into a wrong train. At all important stations they come along to the windows and ask one “ Where fqr?”