English Railways.

Manawatu Herald, 11 June 1903, Page 2

English Railways.

FIFTY TRAINS AN HOUR “ON TIME.”

A good deal of nonsense is talked and written by way of comparisons between the management of American and English railways, For speed, punctuality of working, arid comfort of travel, England is to-day ahead of America. The conditions, however are entirely different, and when that is taken into consideration even the travelled American, who is above native prejudice, will tell you England has nothing to learn from the United States. Biscussing this over a cup of tea in the pleasant hall of the Grand at Eastbourne, and at the same time watching the showy vagaries of a couple of splendid Panhard motors in front of the hotel, my friend, a railway official, said he happened to have in his pocket a document taafc would interest me. No, he said, it was not private, it was simply one of a series of returns made by the superintendent’s department of the Great Eastern Railway, a link which I (Joseph;Hatton) think, carries by far the largest nnraber of passengers of any in the world. The Board of Trade regard trains arriving two to two and a half minutes late as “on time,” This return of the Great Eastern Railway had reference to what they call “the morning, business passenger traffic,” showing the arrivals at Liverpool-st, Station. One of a series, this had reference to a particular day of last month (March 28), and though on most days the trains were “on time,”, on this day the arrivals were in each case not a single minute late., What struck me as. extraordinary is the extent of the traffic, which comprises thej morning business trains arriving between 8 and 10, covering 100 trains, nearly one a minute--50 an hour running from stations as near as Walthamstow and as far as Cambridge and Harwieh, fast trains or ordinary—so an hoar steaming into one station and every one of them arriving to the minute, at the time set down in the public timetables. - It is not the American railway officials who belittle English railway management, any more than it is the foreigner who talks of the inefficiency of the British Navy. SUBURBAN LONDON. Some interesting evidence has been recently given in the Committee rooms of the House of Commons in the Great Eastern’s fight with Messrs Yerkes and Co. One instance mentioned by my Eastbourn acquaintance as notable among several statements made by Mr Gooday, the general manager, is an example of the growth and im-' portance of Suburban London. Walthamstow is only one of the outside districts of London that have been made by the shrewdness of land owners and of railway companies. Just as the Metropolitan and District Railway have created residential districts for people of settled but limited incomes, for the middle class of traders, clerks and other employed in town, the Great Eastern Railway had created working, class settlements within easy distance of Liverpool-st.; and one of the marvels of English railway management is the way in whsch they are catered for. The Walthamstow urban district has a population of 105,000. The Great Eastern Railway carries to London and back the whole population 177 times iri the year, or the entire population, man,, woman, and child, every three days . Borne time ago I mentioned a- lecture by Kingsley; in which he described the ideal city merely as a place for work, the toilers going home every, night to the country. This is today the life of millions of the population of Greater London. A THOUSAND TRAINS A DAY AT ONE STATION. And not only as an instance of remarkable railway traffic, which ! venture to say all the New York' and Chicago stations put together could not match, but by way of a; note on the active population of London, here are a few figures that are startling even at home :—Livor-pool-st. Station is only one of .the termini of several great companies, notably St. Pancras, Waterloo; Chariing Cross, Euston and Paddington. yet 1,000 trains run in and out of Liverpool-st, every day, carrying an average of nearly 200,000 passengers every 24 hours, which* counts up on the year nearly 73,000,000.