Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
services between urban centres where routes over the lines of two or more companies
were possible. Competition was fuelled by the bravura tactics of individual railway
entrepreneurs, and by successive waves of investment mania.
The procedure for companies to obtain Parliamentary authority for railway
construction was enormously costly. The provisions of each Bill were extremely detailed
and large amounts of time and money were spent countering, and ultimately buying
off, opposition. This came not only from landowners and industrialists fearful of the
environmental or local economic effects of a new railway, but also from promoters of rival
schemes and from canal companies anxious to protect their revenues. Many schemes
which would in practice have been mutually exclusive were promoted concurrently.
Significantly the Private Bill procedures did not involve, and were not accessible to, the
mass of the population. This may not seem all that remarkable in the social context of
the mid-19th century but it may be more surprising to learn that this remained a route
to approval for promoters of transport schemes up to the present day.
Quite apart from Acts authorising the construction of railways, Parliament was
involved throughout the 19th century in a mass of legislation concerning various aspects
of railway operation. But its attitude was essentially responsive - countering types of
problem of a new scale and kind as they arose. Regulations were established covering the
safety of construction and operation, rates and charges, and conditions for the carriage
of goods. Much of the legislation was concerned with preventing abuse of the monopoly
position which railways began to acquire in the field of transport generally and which
individual companies enjoyed in particular parts of the country.
In an early example of public intervention in transport for social purposes an Act
of 1846 required railway companies to provide at least one stopping train a day - the
so-called Parliamentary Train - with third class carriages and fares of no more than one
penny a mile. As with private motor cars a century later there was elitist resistance to
the idea that this new mode of transport should be available generally to the mass of
the population. The Act was therefore an important symbolic gesture although railway
companies soon discovered that there was an enormous mass market waiting to be
tapped, and third class travel rapidly outstripped the other two classes and became the
norm. Interestingly of course the distinction between a minority of first class travellers
and the remainder remains to this day.
The growing significance of railways was not simply due to the increasing geographical
extent of the network but to the technical improvement in steam locomotives. This
made possible very much faster journeys, generating growth in passenger travel at the
expense of the stagecoaches, and much greater haulage capability, leading to the demise
of the inland waterways.
Interesting examples of the social changes brought about by the railway were the
adoption of Greenwich Mean Time as the standard time throughout the country, the
growth of national daily newspapers for mass circulation produced and distributed from
London, and the promotion of leisure excursions for mass travel to the seaside towns
which developed as holiday resorts. Development of the railway also brought an end
to the traditional practice of driving sheep, cattle and poultry long distances to market.
Stagecoach services were abandoned except in remoter areas not served by railways whilst
turnpike trusts, losing much of their revenue from passengers and goods, degenerated
into bankruptcy. Horse-drawn transport generally reorganised itself as a feeder mode,
collecting and delivering from railway stations, a pattern which continued well into the
early decades of the 20th century. This feeder function remains an important element
of today's taxi trade.
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