describes engineering difficulties, a perplexing case, and a harmonious meeting.
captain lee’s object in visiting london was twofold. he went there primarily to attend the half-yearly general meeting of the grand national trunk railway, and secondarily, to accompany his friend edwin gurwood to the railway clearing-house, in which establishment he had been fortunate enough to secure for him a situation.
the various circumstances which contributed to the bringing about of an intimacy between captain lee and young gurwood are partly known to the reader. it was natural that the captain should feel some sort of regard for one who had twice shown himself so ready to spring to his assistance in the hour of danger; but that which weighed still more strongly with the old sailor—who had been a strict disciplinarian and loved a zealous man—was the energy, with which edwin threw himself into the work of the department of the railway, in which he had first been placed. perhaps if the captain had known the motives and the hopes which actuated the youth he might have regarded him with very different feelings! we know not—and it matters little now.
as a clerk in the engineers’ office, edwin had, in a few weeks, evinced so much talent and aptitude for the work as to fill his patron’s heart with delight. he possessed that valuable quality which induces a man—in scripture language—to look not only on his own things but on the things of others. he was not satisfied with doing his own work thoroughly, but became so inquisitive as to the work of his companions in the office that he acquired in a short time as much knowledge as some of these companions had acquired in several years.
the engineer’s department of a railway is one which involves some of the most important operations connected with the line. but indeed the same may be said of all the departments—passenger, goods, locomotive, and police, each of which is independent, yet connected. they are separate wheels, as it were, which work harmoniously together in one grand system, and the gentlemen at the head of these departments must be men of experience; of acknowledged talent and power, each supreme in his own department, but all subject to the general manager.
the engineer-in-chief, who was edwin gurwood’s superior, had charge of the entire railway, which was something over one thousand miles in extent. this vast line was divided into four divisions—namely, the northern, southern, western, and eastern; each division being under the superintendence of a resident engineer, who was, of course, subject to the engineer-in-chief. each division was about 250 miles long, and was subdivided into districts varying from thirty to seventy miles. these were under the charge of inspectors, whose duty it was to travel constantly over their lengths—almost daily—partly on foot and partly by train, to see that the line was kept in perfect working order. the travelling inspectors had under them a large body of “surface-men” or “plate-layers,” men whose duty it was to perform the actual work of keeping the line in order. they worked in squads of four or five—each squad having a foreman or gaffer, who was held responsible for the particular small portion of the line that he and his squad had to attend to. the average number of surface-men was about two to the mile—so that the entire staff of these men on the line numbered over two thousand. their business was to go over the entire line twice a day, drive tight the wooden “keys” which held the rails in their chairs, lift and re-lay broken or worn-out rails and chairs, raise or depress sleepers wherever these required alteration, so as to make the line level, and, generally, to keep in thorough repair the “permanent way.” again, each of the four divisions had an inspector of signals and an inspector of buildings, the former being responsible for the perfect working order of all signals, and the latter, who had a few masons, joiners, slaters, blacksmiths, and others under him, having charge of all the stations, sheds, and other buildings on the line. every month each division engineer sent in to the head office a statement of material used, and of work done; also a requisition for material required for future use.
from all this it can easily be understood that edwin had a fair opportunity of finding scope for his talents; and he had indeed already begun to attract notice as an able, energetic fellow, when captain lee, as we have said, procured for him an appointment in the clearing-house. on the occasion of the change being made, he invited his young friend to spend a few days at his residence in clatterby, and thereafter, as we have seen, they travelled together to london.
it need scarcely be said that edwin did not neglect this golden opportunity to try to win the heart of emma. whether he had succeeded or not he could not tell, but he unquestionably received a strong additional impulse in his good resolves—to achieve for himself a position and a wife!
“gurwood,” said captain lee, after mrs durby had taken her departure, “i want you to aid me in a little difficulty i have about our mutual friend, mrs tipps. she is ridiculously determined not to accept of assistance from me, and i find from that excellent nurse that they are actually up to the lips in poverty—in fact, on the point of going down. i think from what she said, or, rather from what she didn’t say, but hinted, that her errand to london had something to do with their poverty, but i can’t make it out. now, i have made up my mind to help them whether they will or no, and the question i wish to lay before you is,—how is the thing to be done? come, you have had some experience of engineering, and ought to be able to cope with difficulties.”
“true,” replied edwin, with a smile, “but to bend a woman’s will surpasses any man’s powers of engineering!”
“come, sir,” said the captain, “that is a most ungallant speech from one so young. you deserve to die an old bachelor. however, i ask you not to exercise your skill in bending a woman’s will, but in bridging over this difficulty—this chat moss, to speak professionally.”
“could you not procure for my friend, joseph tipps, a more lucrative appointment?” said edwin eagerly, as the idea flashed upon him.
the captain shook his head.
“won’t do, sir; i have thought of that; but, in the first place, i have not such an appointment to give him at present; in the second place, if i had, he could not draw his salary in advance, and money is wanted immediately; and, in the third place, he would not if he had it be able to spare enough out of any ordinary clerk’s salary, because the debts due by mrs tipps amount to fifty pounds—so mrs durby said.”
“it is indeed perplexing,” said edwin. “would it not be a good plan to send them a cheque anonymously?”
again the captain shook his head.
“wouldn’t do. the old lady would guess who sent it at once. come, i will leave it to you to devise a plan. never could form a plan all my life, and have no time just now, as i’m going off to the meeting in ten minutes. i constitute you my agent in this matter, gurwood. you know all the circumstances of the case, and also about my bet of five hundred pounds with the late captain tipps. your fee, if you succeed, shall be my unending gratitude. there, i give you carte-blanche to do as you please—only see that you don’t fail.”
saying this, the captain put on his hat and went out, leaving edwin much amused and not a little perplexed. he was not the man, however, to let difficulties stand in his way unassailed. he gave the subject half-an-hour’s consideration, after which he formed a plan and immediately went out to put it into execution.
meanwhile captain lee went to the head offices of the grand national trunk railway, and entered the large room, where the directors and shareholders of the company were already assembled in considerable numbers to hold a half-yearly general meeting.
it was quite a treat to see the cordial way in which the captain was received by such of his brother directors as sat near him, and, when he had wiped his bald head and put on his spectacles, and calmly looked round the hall, his bland visage appeared to act the part of a reflector, for, wherever his eyes were turned, there sunshine appeared to glow. in fact several of the highly sympathetic people present—of whom there are always a few in every mixed meeting—unconsciously smiled and nodded as his eye passed over their locality, even although they were personal strangers to him.
very various are the feelings which actuate the directors and shareholders of different railways at these half-yearly gatherings. doubtless some directors go to the place of meeting with the feelings of men who go to execution, and the shareholders go with the feelings of executioners, if not worse; while other directors and shareholders unquestionably go to hold something like a feast of reason and a flow of soul.
the half-yearly meeting we write of was imbued with the latter spirit. wisdom and conscientious care had steered the ship and swayed the councils of the grand national trunk railway, so that things were in what the captain called a highly flourishing condition. one consequence was, that the directors wore no defensive armour, and the shareholders came to the ground without offensive weapons.
sir cummit strong having taken the chair, the secretary read the advertisement convening the meeting.
the chairman, who was a tall, broad-browed, and large-mouthed man, just such an one as might be expected to become a railway king, then rose, and, after making a few preliminary observations in reference to the report, which was assumed to have been read, moved, “that the said report and statement of accounts be received and adopted.”
“he-ar, he-ar!” exclaimed a big vulgar man, with an oily fat face and a strong voice, who was a confirmed toady.
“i am quite sure,” the chairman continued, “that i have the sympathy of all in this meeting when i say that the half-year which has just come to a close has been one of almost unmixed success—”
“he-ar, he-ar!” from the toady.
“and,” continued the chairman, with pointed emphasis, and a glance at the toady, which was meant to indicate that he had put in his oar too soon, but which the toady construed into a look of gratitude—“and of very great satisfaction to those whom you have appointed to the conducting of your affairs.”
“he-ar, he-ar!”
captain lee, who sat immediately behind the toady and felt his fingers and toes tingling, lost a good deal of what followed, in consequence of falling into a speculative reverie, as to what might be the legal consequences, if he were to put his own hat on the toady’s head, and crush it down over his eyes and mouth.
“gentlemen,” continued the chairman, “there are three points on which we have reason to congratulate ourselves to-day, namely, the safety, the efficiency, and the economy with which our railway has been worked. as regards the first, i find that ten millions of journeys have been performed on our line during the half-year with hardly a detention, with very few late trains, at high speeds, and with only one accident, which was a comparatively slight one, and was unattended with loss of life or serious damage to any one.”
“he-ar, he-ar!” from the toady.
at this point a wag in the distance got up and suggested, in a very weak voice, that if the toady would say, “he-ar, he-ar!” less frequently, perhaps they would “he-ar” much better—a suggestion which was received with a burst of laughter and a round of applause. it effectually quelled the toady and rendered him innocuous for a considerable time.
“now,” resumed the chairman, “some people appear to think that it is an easy thing to work a railway in safety, but i can assure you that such is not the case. intelligence, care, foresight, and the strictest discipline, are necessary to secure this result; and, remember, we have not the advantage of anything so powerful as military discipline to help us. we have nothing to appeal to save the hopes and fears of our staff; and we feel it to be our great difficulty, as it is our principal duty, to be most careful in the selection of the thousands of men who, in their various positions and vocations, have to be employed in the conduct of your enterprise.
“i know well,” continued sir cummit strong, “how men shudder when statistics are mentioned in their ears! nevertheless, i shall venture to give you a few statistics that will, i am quite sure, prove interesting—all the more so that the figures which i quote apply to several other railways—and, therefore, will serve to give those of you who may chance to be unlearned on railway matters, some idea of the vast influence which railways have on our land.
“we run on this railway (i use round numbers) about 700 trains a day. in addition to which we have spare engines and empty trains, which perhaps ought to be added to the number given. now, just consider for a moment the operations which have to be performed daily in the ordinary working and running of your passenger traffic. these 700 trains stop about 5000 times in the twenty-four hours, and of course they start the same number of times. the empty trains and engines have also to stop and start. we have on the line upwards of 1000 signals, including the telegraphic signals and auxiliaries. those signals have to be raised and lowered 10,000 times in the twenty-four hours. there are on our line 1700 pairs of points, which have to be opened and shut, to be cleaned, oiled, and attended to, above 5000 times in the day. in addition to all this there are the operations of shunting, carriage-examining, greasing, and other things in connexion with trains which involve operations amounting to nearly 6000 in number. so that—apart from repairs to the line and to vehicles—there are above 30,000 individual operations which have to be performed every twenty-four hours in the conduct of this enormous passenger traffic.
“all this information i have obtained from our able and excellent passenger-superintendent, than whom there is not a more important officer in the company’s service, unless, indeed,” (here the chairman turned with a smile and a slight bow to the gentlemen who sat on his right hand) “i may except the general manager and secretary.
“well, now, gentlemen, i put it to you, is it surprising that the 6000 men who have to perform these 30,000 operations in the day—amounting to the vast total of ten millions of operations in the year—is it surprising, i say, that these 6000 men should now and then fall into some error of judgment, or make some mistake, or even be guilty of some negligence? is it not, on the contrary, most surprising that accidents are not far more numerous; and does it not seem almost miraculous that where duties are so severe, the demands made by the public so great—speed, punctuality, numberless trains by day and night—there should be only one accident to report this half-year, while last half-year there were no accidents at all? and does it not seem hard that the public should insist that we shall be absolutely infallible, and, when the slightest mistake occurs, should haul us into court and punish us with demands for compensation for accidents which no human ingenuity or foresight could prevent?
“before leaving this subject allow me to direct your attention to the fogs which occurred this half-year. there were thirty days in which during a part, if not the whole, of the twenty-four hours we had out our fog-signal men; that is to say, an additional staff of 300 men, each with his flag and detonating signals, placed within sight, or within sound of one another, to assist the ordinary signalmen in the safe conduct of the traffic. during these fogs the omnibuses had to be withdrawn from the roads, the steamers had to be moored on the river, and the traffic on the streets was almost at a standstill, nevertheless we carried through the fog, in and out of london, above one million six hundred thousand passengers without accident!”
the “hear, hear,” which burst from the audience at this point might have satisfied even the toady himself!
“and yet,” continued the chairman, with emphasis, “if a single mishap had occurred owing to the mistake of any of our half-blinded men, we should probably have been let in for compensation to the extent perhaps of 20,000 pounds! is this fair? if it be so, then one may be tempted to ask why does not the same ‘sauce’ suit shipowners, many of whom are notorious for sending to sea unseaworthy craft, and who consign above one thousand human beings to an untimely grave every year without being punished in any way or being asked for a farthing of compensation?
“i have already said so much on this point gentlemen, that i shall make but a few remarks on the other two subjects. well, then, as to efficiency. our carrying ten millions of passengers in safety and comfort is one proof of that—and, i may remark in passing, that our receipts for the conveyance of these ten millions amounts to nearly half a million of money. another proof of our efficiency lies in the fact that all the compensation we have had to pay for loss or detention of luggage has been only 100 pounds. then as to goods. for merchandise carried we have received about 150,000 pounds, and the total compensation for the half-year amounts to only about 660 pounds. surely i may say with truth that such facts speak to the regularity and efficiency of your service.
“if the public only knew the anxiety and care with which its interests are looked after both by night and by day by our excellent passenger and goods-managers they would perhaps present each of these gentlemen with a testimonial piece of plate, and would for evermore lay aside that wicked and ungrateful idea that railway companies are ‘fair game,’ to be plundered by every one who receives, or fancies he has received, the slightest possible amount of damage to limb or property. railway companies are not perfect any more than other companies. there are certain faults, it may be, and weak points, which all of us deplore, and which are being remedied as fast as experience and the progress of human knowledge will admit, but i hold, gentlemen, that the management of railway companies is above the average management of many other companies. we have much more work—more dangerous work—to do than other companies, and we do it with much less proportional loss to life, limb, and property.”
“he-ar, he-ar!” burst from the toady in spite of his recent rebuke; but as it was drowned in a round of hearty applause no one was the wiser or the worse of his note of approval.
“when i think,” continued the chairman, “of the condition this country was in before the days of railways—which probably most of those present remember—the ingratitude of the public seems to me utterly unaccountable. i can only understand it on the supposition that they have somehow obtained false notions as to the great value of railways and the great blessing they are to the community.
“why, our goods-manager informs me that there is a certain noble lord, whom of course i may not name in public, who has a farm at a considerable distance out of town. he has a fancy that the milk and cream produced on his own farm is better than metropolitan milk and cream—(laughter). he therefore resolves to have fresh milk and cream sent in from his farm every morning, and asks us to carry it for him. we agree; but he further insists that the milk and cream shall be delivered at his residence punctually at nine a.m. to this we also agree, because the thing can be done; yet it is sharp practice, for it is only by the train arriving at its time, punctually to a minute, and by our horse and van being in readiness to start the instant it is loaded, that the thing can be accomplished. now, gentlemen, it is owing to the extreme care and vigorous superintendence of our goods—i had almost said our good-manager that that noble lord has never missed his milk or cream one morning during the last six months. and the same punctuality attends the milk-delivery of ‘brown, jones, and robinson,’ for railways, as a rule, are no respecters of persons. should not this, i ask, infuse a little of the milk of human kindness into the public heart in reference to railways?
“then, consider other advantages. in days not long gone by a few coaches carried a few hundreds of the more daring among our population over the land at a high cost and at the truly awful rate of ten miles an hour. in some cases the break-neck speed of twelve was attained. most people preferred to remain at home rather than encounter the fatigues, risks, and expense of travelling. what are the facts now? above three hundred millions of separate journeys are undertaken by rail in the united kingdom in one year. our sportsmen can breakfast in london on the 11th of august, sup the same night in scotland, and be out on the moors on the morning of the 12th. on any afternoon any lady in england may be charmed with sir walter scott’s ‘lady of the lake,’ and, if so minded, she may be a lady on the veritable lake itself before next evening! our navvies now travel for next to nothing in luxurious ease at thirty miles an hour, and our very beggars scorn to walk when they can travel at one penny a mile. but all this is nothing compared with our enormous increase of goods traffic throughout the kingdom. i have not time, nor is this the place, to enlarge on such a subject, but a pretty good commentary on it exists in the simple fact that on your line alone, which is not, as you know, the largest of the railways of this land, the receipts for goods, minerals, and live-stock carried amounted to 500,000 pounds in the last half-year, as you will see from the report.
“there is one point to which i would now direct your attention—namely, the great facilities which we give to residential and season-ticket holders. i think it a wise and just course to afford the public such facilities, because it tends to produce a permanent source of traffic by tempting men, who would otherwise be content to live within walking or ’bus distance of their offices, to go down into the country and build villas there, and if you extend that sort of arrangement largely, you cause villages at last to grow into towns, and towns to spread out with population and with manufactures. i regard our course of action in regard to season-tickets, therefore, as a sowing of the seed of permanent and enduring income. the receipts from this source alone, i am happy to say, amounts to 84,000 pounds.”
captain lee’s spirit had, at the bare mention of season-tickets, gone careering down the line to clatterby, in the beautiful suburbs of which he had the most charming little villa imaginable, but he was abruptly recalled by a “he-ar, he-ar,” from the toady, who was gradually becoming himself again, and a round of applause from the audience, in which, having an amiable tendency to follow suit, he joined.
after this the chairman expatiated at some length on the economical working of the line and on various other subjects of great importance to the shareholders, but of little interest to the general reader; we will therefore pass them all by and terminate our report of this meeting with the chairman’s concluding remark, which was, that, out of the free revenue, after deduction of the dividends payable on guaranteed and preference stocks and other fixed charges, the directors recommended the payment of a dividend on the ordinary stock of six and a half per cent.
it need scarcely be said that this latter statement was received with hearty applause and with an irrepressible “he-ar, he-ar!” from the toady, which was not only tolerated by the meeting, but echoed by the wag in the distance, who, though his words that day had been few, had done the shareholders good service nevertheless, inasmuch as he had quelled, to some extent the propensities of a self-sufficient “bore.”
lest the reader should regard us as a statistical bore, we shall bring this chapter to a close.