Chapter XIII: Railways

There is not much to be said respecting the nature of the injuries sustained by those at work on railways. The occupation cannot be described as unhealthy. A very large proportion of the work is done in the open air, and the normal lives of the men appear in every way up to the average.

The accidents that occur are mainly what would be called surgical. A large proportion consists of crushed hands and fingers. Instead, therefore, of entering into details respecting the character of these injuries and the manner in which they are received, it will be more useful to give a short account of the progress of legislation in respect to accidents upon railways.

The Mines and Factories Acts had their origin in the desire to preserve children from overwork and bodily injury. The protection thus accorded was gradually extended to women. The next stage was the inclusion of men in many of the factory provisions, and finally the Acts which had originally been intended only for the protection of health began to be timidly and cautiously extended to other and wider objects. But the movement for the prevention of accidents on railways commenced by aiming at the safety of passengers, and it was only in the last year of the nineteenth century that railway servants were included in the category of protected trades. Limits of space prevent my attempting to trace the movement in detail, nor indeed is it necessary. I shall therefore only mention certain epochs which have marked its progress.

As most people are aware, the railway movement began about the year 1830, the year Huskisson was killed, and proceeded until in 1840, there were nearly 1000 miles of railways in the United Kingdom. But about this time the importance of railways became so recognised that in 1840 they were placed under Government supervision. In 1841 a Bill was brought into Parliament to give the Board of Trade powers to issue regulations for the prevention of accidents upon railways, and referred to a Special Committee, presided over by Lord Seymour, and with Sir Robert Peel, Sir James Graham, and others as members.

The arguments for and against the proposal were exactly the same as they have always been upon the subject of State interference in matters of trade. On the one hand, the Board of Trade Inspector-General, Sir Frederick Smith, contended that the power was necessary. The railway companies said that by interfering with the responsibility of railway officials more harm than good would be done. Those who are acquainted with the general trend of public opinion upon factory questions in those days will not be surprised to learn that the proposal was considered likely to “disturb the amicable spirit which then existed between the Board of Trade and the railway companies,” and “to engender on the part of the railway companies a desire of concealment and feelings of jealousy which would not otherwise arise.” The Committee therefore limited its recommendations to empowering the Board of Trade to suggest improvements. These recommendations were carried into effect by an Act known as Lord Seymour’s Act, which provided for the appointment of inspectors of railways, the reporting of accidents, and the punishment of engine-drivers, guards, porters, or other servants of the company who were guilty of negligence. It was urged against the railway companies that expense was no object where life was concerned; to which Mr Brunel, the celebrated engineer, retorted on behalf of the railway companies by asking why the Government did not have a large force of men on the Serpentine when it was frozen, to prevent accidents to skaters. He submitted that in considering the question of safety it might be considered as a question of cost also. On the other hand, it is interesting to note that George Stephenson considered it would be advantageous that the Board of Trade should have power to make regulations. Coming from such a man, himself a large railway proprietor, the opinion is of great weight.

The next time the question came before Parliament was in 1857, during Lord Derby’s administration, when the matter was referred to a Select Committee. The Committee was against interference with railway companies, except as regards the times of trains, with respect to which they thought that the public should have some means of obtaining prompt and cheap redress in the recovery of penalties in every case of want of punctuality. They also made a few minor recommendations. The subject was again discussed by a Royal Commission appointed in 1865. But the times were not ripe for the adoption of State interference. The _laissez faire_ system was in full force, and the Committee recommended that the railway companies should not be interfered with. Meantime the management of the railway companies seems steadily to have deteriorated. The year 1872 was a year of considerable commercial activity, marked by a great rise in the price of coal, and by an increase in the number of railway accidents. In those days it was estimated that several railway accidents to trains took place every week, sometimes as many as four were reported on a single morning. In fact, as stated in the Annual Register for 11th September 1872, “Railway accidents are now becoming of such frequent occurrence that, unless a number of people are killed or seriously injured, no notice is taken of them.” The number of accidents to individuals was also very great. In that year no less than 1145 persons were reported killed, and 3038 were injured. Some of the accidents, too, were of an appalling character. At Wigan in August 1873 a portion of a railway carriage, with a lady in it, was hurled over a wall and through the slated roof of a foundry. The rest of the carriage was smashed to pieces.

In order to secure more precise returns of accidents by checking those made by the railway companies, it was provided in the Railways Regulation Act of 1873 that coroners should make returns to the Secretary of State of all deaths occurring on railways.

The public feeling which these accidents excited led to the appointment of another Royal Commission in 1874, during Mr Disraeli’s administration. It was presided over by the Duke of Buckingham. The Committee sat for three years and heard evidence at great length. They ended by recommending that the Board of Trade should have power to make requirements as to siding and station accommodation, and as to defects in rolling stock, permanent way, and works. They declined to recommend that general powers should be given to the Board of Trade to make general changes calculated to secure the safety of the railway servants, but they thought that servants ought to receive compensation for injuries in all cases of negligence of the companies’ officials, but not for the negligence of their fellow-servants.

In the evidence that was given it seems to have been admitted that overwork was not universal or even general on railway lines, but a good many remarkable instances of overwork were adduced. Thus Captain Tyler, a Board of Trade Inspecting Officer, gave evidence that at Wakefield in 1864, a man had been regularly on duty as a signalman 25 hours a day every third week, and 37 hours every thirteenth week. The man had made this arrangement in order to get extra time off duty; and in another case, in 1874, a signalman had actually averaged 17 hours work a day regularly.

Nearly all the witnesses complained of the couplings as a fruitful source of danger. Captain Tyler recommended automatic couplings as then used in America.

The next Act of importance regarding accidents upon railways was that passed in 1889, when Sir Michael Hicks-Beach was President of the Board of Trade. The principal objects of the Act were to secure the adoption of the block system of running trains, to cause points and signals to be interlocked, and to enforce the use of an improved brake. The principal object of the Bill was to promote the safety of passengers; there was a clause dealing with automatic couplings, but the clause was ultimately withdrawn from the Act.

During all these years, however, repeated recommendations were made by the Board of Trade officials to the railway companies to adopt various means of saving life. The companies were not obdurate or unreasonable; in particular instances and small points they repeatedly gave way and adopted suggestions. But in the main they declined to introduce automatic couplings, or other life-saving appliances on a large scale. Their refusal was based chiefly on the ground of expense; but they also defended their action on the ground that the proposed appliances were not suitable or practicable, and that if adopted they would not produce beneficial results.

Before narrating the next steps which were made in the direction of securing safety when Mr Ritchie became President of the Board of Trade, it will be of use to examine in outline the condition of railway service as regards accidents, and the means by which the number of deaths and other injuries is ascertained. Reports of accidents on railways exist from the year 1848 onwards; but in forms which render them very difficult to compare with accidents in more recent times. It was not until the passing of the Regulation of Railways Act of 1871 that the reporting of accidents was placed on its present footing. By section 6 of that Act it was provided that accidents should be reported to the Board of Trade, in such form and with such particulars as the Board of Trade should prescribe. In earlier years the reporting of accidents was not very systematically done, and in 1872 the inspector reported that “accidents to servants do not appear in many cases to have been reported by certain of the railway companies; and their numbers would, if the whole truth could be ascertained, be very considerably increased.” Moreover, no uniform standard of injury was prescribed, so that various companies adopted various standards of reporting. Some reported all accidents, even trivial ones; others reported only the serious ones. But in the year 1895 an order of the Board of Trade was made during the permanent Secretaryship of Sir Courtenay Boyle, by which the standard of accident to be reported was assimilated to the standard already in force for the reporting of accidents in factories and workshops, namely, that all fatal accidents should be reported, and all non-fatal, whenever they incapacitated a man from work for five hours on any one of three days next after the accident. The advantage of this order was that it at once established a basis of comparison between the dangers of work in factories and in railways. But there is ground for thinking that the standard was a little low. A trifling finger cut may prevent a man from working in some trades for an afternoon. The reporting of every trivial accident tends also to obscure the graver ones, and in some cases to make dangerous trades appear less dangerous than they really relatively are. In any case, however, it is desirable to have one standard of reporting, and it is a matter for regret that there is no standard of reporting non-fatal accidents in mines, so that it is still impossible to compare mines with factories or railways as to the non-fatal accidents that occur in them.

The numbers of persons employed on railways largely increases from year to year. Returns of these numbers are now furnished every three years. We have therefore not at hand the means of working out the percentage of accidents in every year exactly; but without the danger of grave inaccuracy we may assume that the increase in the numbers employed is uniform during each period of three years, and thus we may by a process of proportion arrive very nearly at the numbers of men employed at any particular period. On looking at the figures for any year, say for the year 1898, we find them set out in two tables, one showing those due to the movement of trains and vehicles, the other to those which occurred otherwise than by moving trains. They are divided up so as to show 41 different occupations of the persons killed and injured. From these tables we find that, in 1898, 522 railway servants were killed and 12,826 injured, out of a total of 534,000. This would give 1 in 1000 killed, and 24 in 1000 injured each year. When we reflect that this figure is about the same as the numbers killed and injured in mines, it might perhaps be argued that the figures are not very large, for it must be admitted that service on railways must always be considered rather a dangerous occupation. But an analysis of the risks to various branches of railway labour dispels this illusion.[47] For in these figures are reckoned numbers of men whose duties are not of a manual character, such as 53,000 clerks, who hardly ever meet with death or accident except from causes common to the whole community. Besides, about 70,000 mechanics are employed in building engines and locomotives, and work in factories, which are under the Home Department, and, strictly speaking, are not railway servants at all.

In railway service there are three occupations which from the number of accidents reported appear to present special dangers, namely, plate-laying and repairing of lines, shunting and managing goods trains. When plate-layers (of whom there are 63,000) sustain an accident, it is generally by being run over, and in more than one case out of every three they are killed outright. Out of every thousand 2 yearly meet their death, and 3 are injured. Of goods guards and brakesmen, nearly 15,000 in number, 3 out of 1000 are yearly killed, and 48 of 1000 are injured. But the business of a shunter presents the gravest dangers. The number of shunters is 9244, and with the exception of the calling of a seaman it is the most perilous trade known. For no less than 5 men are yearly killed and 66 are injured out of every 1000 employed. And from this it follows that if the average duration of a man’s service be from the age of twenty to forty, the balance of probability is against his leaving the trade without a violent death or injury. This is not satisfactory. It has been pointed out that this yearly death risk of 5 in 1000 per annum is greater on the average than that to which soldiers are exposed, taking one year with another, and war with peace. This is probably true, but the risk is far less than that of soldiers in a campaign. It has been estimated that the year’s loss from October 1899 to October 1900, of the troops serving in South Africa, has been 19 per thousand privates, and 72 per thousand officers killed, in addition to 30 per cent. of officers and privates who have died of disease. Thus of the officers engaged about 1 in 10 has died, and of the men 1 in 20.

But any figures of deaths due to accidents in industry are too large if they are preventable, and it is too much that in ten years a railway servant should run the same risk as a private in a year of a campaign.

The work of shunting is necessary to rearrange, or, as it is called, to marshal the trains. At a large goods depôt a number of trains laden with trucks come in destined for various localities. The trains have to be dissected, and all the trucks resorted, and made up into fresh trains to be sent off in various directions. Hence, therefore, it is necessary for an engine to draw the waggons on to a line of rails, and then to shunt or direct them on to sidings in different directions in order to sort them into their right places. This involves the coupling and uncoupling of the waggons. Passenger waggons have a screw coupling by means of which they are screwed up together, so that the buffers press firmly together, and thus jolting is avoided. But goods waggons have no such luxurious appliances, nor have they in all cases spring buffers. The coupling is simply a ring hitched into a hook at the end of a three-link chain, and on the starting or stopping of a goods train any one may hear the succession of slams with which the waggons clash together. When it is necessary to shunt, an engine pulls the waggons along to the place where they are to be detached. While the tension is on, of course, it would be impossible to unhook, therefore the engine stops suddenly. For an instant the waggons by their momentum go forward, bumping up against the engine and one another. For that instant, and until the rebound takes place, the hooks are free, and a skilful man, generally with a pole, and but rarely running in between the waggons, neatly slips the ring off the hook. This is all done while the waggons are in motion, so that he has to run alongside the train, skipping over the signal wires and hopping over the cross rails, keeping his eye always on the coupling, and sometimes encumbered with a pole in one hand, and at night with a lamp in the other. If he does not look out he may fall between the wheels, or be run down by the engine. And while engaged in his work express and other trains come tearing down the main line, exposing every one to the risk of being run over. Therefore in all goods sidings it is desirable in the interests of safety that the through traffic should be as small as possible, that there should be plenty of room between the lines of rails, that wires and other obstacles should be boarded over where possible, and that there should be a good light at night. But many sidings are greatly crowded; the work has to be got through rapidly, and accidents are the result. On the other hand, in the private sidings of collieries operations are leisurely; no express trains come along the line, there is no night labour, and consequently the accidents are very few. In America until lately the means of coupling waggons were more imperfect than those in England; many accidents therefore occurred, and the trains frequently broke asunder.

In order to expedite work and promote safety, experiments were made in 1868 with automatic couplings which should close like a snap-lock. American waggons differ from those in use in England, in that they are longer and larger, and have a central buffer. In 1874 the public attention was called to the great number of railway accidents, and in the more civilised states, such as Massachusetts, a movement arose for the compulsory employment of automatic couplings. Finally a coupling was devised, very like a hand with the fingers bent, and a hinge at the knuckles. When two waggons were brought together the hand caught automatically into a similar hand on another waggon, and could be released by withdrawing a pin. At first these couplings were badly made; gradually, however, they improved, and are now on the fair road to perfection. They were gradually introduced upon one railway after another. The rich eastern States took the lead, the wild west was more slow; but curiously in proportion as the couplings were adopted, so did railway accidents become less. It would be wrong to conclude that therefore the whole of the diminution of accidents was due to the adoption of couplings. But it is a fair inference from the state of railway management in the east and west of America to conclude that with careful management and State-imposed regulations, accidents can be very materially reduced.

This was the state of the problem in 1898, in which year Mr Ritchie, then President of the Board of Trade, determined to make an effort in favour of safety. For this purpose he commissioned Mr Hopwood, the Assistant Secretary of the Railway Department, to visit America and examine the system of coupling there in use, and its effects in preventing accidents. In December 1898 Mr Hopwood presented his memorandum. He says (quoting the _Railway Times_), “Our Railway Companies’ Association still lacks the moral force, to say nothing of the initiation which characterises its sister body across the Atlantic.... This view fairly reflects the opinion I formed that the progress made in the United States is greatly due to the fact that the American Association has taken great trouble, and the railroads have not spared expense in order to give a trial to promising inventors,” and he concludes by recommending that Parliament should be asked for powers to be given to the Board of Trade to order the use of a suitable coupling. In accordance with the recommendations in this very able report, the President of the Board of Trade introduced a Bill providing for the compulsory use of steam brakes for engines, and automatic couplings for carriages and waggons, also brakes on both sides of waggons, and labels on both sides of waggons, but giving to the companies two years and five years respectively to introduce these improvements.

The Bill was introduced by Mr Ritchie on 27th February 1899. He said, “I am afraid that whatever we do, a number of accidents amongst railway servants will continue to happen. They are engaged in extremely dangerous operations, and necessarily many accidents must and will continue to occur. But, sir, if it is possible by legislation or otherwise to take means to reduce the number of accidents, I think it is the bounden duty of Parliament to take those means.” Of course this announcement caused considerable agitation in the railway world, and on 16th March a deputation of the private waggon owners of the United Kingdom pressed upon the President of the Board of Trade the necessity for further inquiry. Mr Ritchie endeavoured to meet the current of opposition which his proposals had aroused, by offering to make it clear that the portion of the Bill dealing with automatic couplings should not come into operation until a satisfactory coupling was found, but he ultimately decided to withdraw the Bill and refer the whole question to a Royal Commission. He determined, however, that the inquiry should be an effective one, and therefore he enlarged its scope, and referred to the Commission not merely the question of coupling, but the whole question of accidents to railway servants and the means of preventing them. This action had very important consequences, as will presently be seen. He selected as Chairman Lord James of Hereford, who had already done excellent work as the mutually-accepted arbitrator in various disputes between capital and labour, and whose disinterestedness and fairness could be relied on. The Commission was composed of members of the House of Lords and Commons, representatives of the railway companies, private waggon owners, and railway servants, experts and Government officials. It was supposed in some quarters that the question had been comfortably shelved for at least three or four years. But the Chairman took a very different view of the position. With almost unexampled energy, he assembled the first meeting on 16th June 1899, a fortnight after the warrant appointing the Commission had been signed. The last witness was heard on 3rd August, and the report was presented to Her late Majesty the Queen on 20th January 1900.

From the very mixed character of the Commission, it might have been expected that views would differ, and that it would have been difficult to draw a report that would be signed both by the railway companies’ representatives and by the representatives of the men. But the report was unanimous, and what was more remarkable still, it went far beyond the proposals of Mr Ritchie for couplings, and dealt not only with these, but proposed a means of preventing all accidents whatever. The principle that lay at the whole root of the report was the assimilation of means to prevent railway accidents to those already adapted for the prevention of similar accidents in factories and mines.

In the Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1860, a procedure had been adopted of special rules in mines. The rules were to be agreed upon by the Secretary of State and the mine owners. If they could not agree, then arbitrators were to be named who were finally to settle them. This procedure was adopted in all successive Acts relating to coal mines. Being found useful, it was adopted into the Factory Acts in 1891 in all cases of specially dangerous trades, among others the cases of industries where lead poisoning, phosphorus poisoning, and other dangers are experienced. But by the Factories Act, 1901, an order of the Secretary of State, after hearing the parties, is now substituted for arbitration.

When the Royal Commission sat, the first question that arose was whether the accidents to railway servants were so numerous as to constitute it a dangerous trade. Figures soon settled this point, and appear from the following table:--

-----------------------------------------+---------------+----------------
|Killed from all|Injured from all
Description of Labour. | Causes per | Causes per
|1000 employed. | 1000 employed.
-----------------------------------------+---------------+----------------
Railway Servants in general, excluding | |
Contractors’ Men, Clerks, and Mechanics| 1.24 | 31.0
Goods Guards and Brakesmen | 2.92 | 61.0
Permanent-way Men or Platelayers | 1.9 | 16.0
Shunters | 5.08 | 78.0
Men Porters (railways) | 1.15 | 63.0
Seamen (merchant service) | 5.2 | Not known.
Coal Miners (underground) | 1.37 | No figures
| | available
| | for purpose
| | of comparison.
Coal Miners (surface) | 0.92 | Ditto
Metalliferous Mines (underground) | 1.34 | Ditto
Metalliferous Mines (surface) | 0.43 | Ditto
Factories--Textile (males) | 0.1 | 6.2
„ Textile (females) | ... | 2.7
„ Non-textile (males) | 0.2 | 13.8
„ Non-textile (females) | ... | 2.0
„ Extraction of Metals (males) | 1.1 | 16.4
„ Shipbuilding (males) | 0.5 | 39.3
„ Dock Labourers | 1.4 | 57.0
-----------------------------------------+---------------+----------------

From this it will be seen that while on the average work on railways is almost as dangerous as mining, yet where particular branches of it are considered, such as shunting, it is far more dangerous, and those who advocated a policy of non-interference found it impossible to explain their position consistently with the admission of the expediency of the existing factory and mine laws. It is impossible to put the matter more clearly than in the following short interrogation of one of the principal witnesses on behalf of the railway companies by the Chairman.

Q. 6374. Do you approve of a dangerous trade being inspected?--Yes. All dangerous trades?--Yes. For instance, merchant-shipping?--Yes. Mines?--Yes. Factories?--Yes. Textile and non-textile?--Yes. Machine shops on your railway?--Yes. The witness, however, contended that the case of railways was different from that of mines and factories, because railways were more amenable to public opinion.

Another witness who held these views was compelled to admit that the force of public opinion had not on all lines secured punctuality of trains. On the other hand, an argument was brought forward by Mr Gibb, the General Manager of the North Eastern Railway Company, which deserves attention, because it exhibits a phenomenon that is frequently observed in industries. By a table he showed that the accidents on railways since 1872 had been decreasing in a ratio almost as fast as the decrease in mining and factory accidents. At first sight this would appear to show that accidents decrease as fast without legislation as with it. But it must be remembered that the Mines and Factories Acts had been some years in operation, and had already before this date effected their principal results, and that the accidents were far fewer than in the dangerous branches of railway service. Moreover, the reports of previous Royal Commissions on Railways had been followed by legislation, and by increased vigilance on the part of the companies. It was proved also that this decrease had not taken place in the dangerous branches, and that the number of deaths of men engaged in shunting had actually increased.

The position taken up by the railway companies deserves attention. Their representatives were confronted with a vista of increased wages, increased cost of coal, and a fall in profits. It was asking much to expect them to apply the knife to their own throats and vote that restrictions should be imposed upon them. As a rule, although we all believe in the necessity of compelling others to do right, few people can be brought to believe that it is needful that the same principle should be applied to themselves. And yet, to the everlasting credit of the railway companies, it must be said that as soon as they were convinced that a case for intervention had been made out, they acquiesced in it. And the waggon owners, although the accidents on private lines were exceedingly few, withdrew their objections. In the result a report was unanimously signed, recommending that in the case of all dangerous trades of railway service the Board of Trade should have power to propose regulations which in case of dispute were to be settled by the Railway Commissioners.

The question of the possibility of automatic couplings was discussed before the Commission. If it had been fully gone into, the question would have taken years to consider, and, without experiments, no conclusions could ever have been arrived at. But with great tact Lord James determined that unimportant issues should be eliminated. He referred the question to a strong subcommittee, and before the Commission had gone far it was seen that it was quite possible to deal practically with railway accidents, without first determining whether or no there was a practical automatic coupling. No definite opinion on this question was expressed by the Commission.

To give effect to these recommendations Mr Ritchie introduced a Bill into the House of Commons. It was taken charge of by Lord James of Hereford in the House of Lords, and with some amendments it passed both Houses without opposition. The effect of this Bill is to bring dangerous processes on railways under regulations similar to those which can be made in the case of dangerous processes in factories and mines. No particular operations are specified; there are powers to meet all dangers as they arise. It is too much to say that this Bill will not need amendment, but it must be a source of satisfaction to the late President of the Board of Trade and his officials to have inaugurated, and successfully carried through with the unanimous consent of all interested parties, a scheme of legislation which brings railway labour within the circle of protected industries, and which establishes a fundamental principle so wide as probably to dispense with the necessity for further legislation upon the subject for many years.

HENRY CUNYNGHAME.