Gourvish and Wolmar - TurnipRail's 2 Year Anniversary - Guest Posts

This is the last TurnipRail Two-year anniversary post, and I am glad to say I finish off with two prestigious guest posters, Terry Gourvish and Christian Wolmar.

Kevin Tennent, Me and Terry at Battersea Beer Festival, 2011

Terry Gourvish: On the first day of my PhD, my supervisor he handed me a book: 'Mark Huish and the London and North Western Railway.' I consumed it, gaining a fondness for a subject which, at that point, I knew little about. But beyond that, I was in awe of the author: Terry Gourvish. On our first meeting I was star-struck. Oh how things have changed. Indeed, over a pint in the Golden Ball, York, it was partially his idea to start the blog. Terry's had an extensive career. His two-volume history of British Railways is unsurpassed, and he authored the Official History of the privatised railways between 1997 and 2005  and the Channel Tunnel. Furthermore, he has written countless articles on railway history, a comprehensive history of Britain's brewing industry and on business history generally. He now heads the London School of Economics' Business History Unit. Indeed, Terry is someone I look up to immensely. Thus, I was overjoyed when he agreed to write a piece for the blog, and for that I owe him much thanks.

Should Passengers Pay Higher Fares?

This issue comes up every year, and produces the same sterile arguments from the main protagonists: Passenger Focus, ATOC, et al. How much of the cost of running the passenger railway should be charged to the ‘fare box’ is, of course, a matter for public policy. Some countries, e.g. France and Italy, have historically charged more to tax-payers than we do in the UK. If that is justifiable, then passengers should pay less here too. On the other hand, in countries which load the burden onto tax-payers, the operation represents a subsidy to rail users, who are in general not the poorer members of society that subsidies really ought to reach. I would say that increasing the fare box via higher fares is justifiable, but only if: 1] railway costs are as low as they could be; and 2] journeys made on the spur of the moment, i.e. non-APEX fares, are not punitively high.

Can we say that this is so? 

Christian Wolmar: Well, what can be said about Christian Wolmar that hasn't been said already? Christian is Britain's leading transport commentator, popping up on TV and Radio almost every week. But more than that, he has written widely about railway issues and history. The first book of his I read, many moons ago, was the 'Subterranean Railway', his engaging account of the history of the London Tube. Subsequently, I have consumed most of his other books, including 'Fire and Steam', 'On the Wrong Line' and 'Engines of War.' I also am an avid reader of his fortnightly column in RAIL magazine. Therefore, as an author whose writings I have thoroughly enjoyed through the years, I was thrilled when he agreed to write a paragraph for this anniversary. Many, many, thanks to Christian:

Without understanding history,we cannot learn its lessons. In the research for my various books, it is remarkable how the same dilemmas over railway politics have occurred throughout their history. Italian politicians, for example, were debating whether to nationalise their railways in the 1880s, and interestingly it was the Left who opposed state control. Discussions over open access to railways predate that by some decades and nearly all rail companies realised that providing the traction as well as the track was the best option, a lesson of history missed by those who supported the rail privatisation of the mid 1990s. Subsidy, too, has always been a thorny issue and subject to much handwringing from politicians. If only they understood the history and learned from it, they would not make the same mistakes as their predecessors. Maybe that is too much to hope for, but as historians – and I have become one by default – we must strive to educate today’s decision makers about how the past can inform them.

TurnipRail 2 year Anniversary - The Best of the Second Year

What a couple of years it has been. As I write, my Turnip Rail website hosts 213 posts on a range of railway history topics. However, despite what I have produced, the past year, and especially the last six months, has not been one of the easiest periods in my life. In September I began suffering from anxiety, which has affected my ability to work and, I think, the quality of my output. I also broke my toe around the same time - which I'll only say was annoying. Gladly, both these problems are mostly resolved. Nevertheless, in the last couple of months I have gone through a process of a work restructure. Therefore, I have been made redundant and will have to re-interview for a job in the coming months. Consequently, combined with an increasing work-load from my PhD (which has until late September to be submitted) I have been reduced to doing a post a week.

Despite these things, I hope I have turned out posts which you have found entertaining and interesting. I have certainly enjoyed researching and writing them. So, in this anniversary post I have randomly chosen some of my favourites from the past year. 

1. “When Victorian Beer Trains Crash” – In some sense, this post from April explored the link between the railways and the brewing industry.  Indeed, I looked at some of the interesting ways that crashed beer trains were reported. I was unsurprised that the newspaper reports always seemed to have humorous remarks, this being the funniest:  “Alcohol can thus baffle her Majesty’s mail as well as her Majesty’s Government.”[1] However, what was particularly interesting was that the majority of the accidents I found befell Midland Railway trains coming from Burton. This was logical though, Burton being the centre of the Victorian brewing industry.

2. “The York Tap - A piece of railway heritage restored”– OK, this is another beer-related post, but in a different way. A trip to York in early December meant I had the pleasure of going into the York Tap, a pub sited on the York Station platform. In the post I described how the building the Tap inhabits was opened in 1907 as the station’s tea room, and its recent conversion to a pub restored the building to its former glory. I love the Tap and would recommend a visit to anyone.

3. “Unlocking the Early Railway Manager – Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4” (The link is to Part One) – Using three directories of railway officials from 1841, 1847 and 1848, these four articles sought to investigate the validity of a long-held belief that early railway managers were mainly ex-military men, as well as look at early managers generally. However, rather than presenting four finished pieces of research as I normally do in posts, I set out to describe how this investigation progressed over the period of a few weeks. The results were startling and should change the content of railway history books in the future. Firstly, I concluded that ‘the notion that military men were the driving force in early railway management is erroneous,’ given that they constituted a tiny proportion of all railway managers. Secondly, in 1848 the three great engineers of the period, Brunel, Locke and Stephenson, directly controlled  the engineering affairs of 28.81% of Britain’s railway companies. Yet, even more impressively, engineering matters for 59.13% of all Britain’s total railway mileage was under their collective charge. These are important findings and I would like to do much more work on this subject in the future.

4. “A New High-Speed Line, an Old Victorian Assumption?”– I got some interesting reactions to this post which simply highlighted something I observed. The building of Britain’s second high-speed line (HS2) was being promoted by its supporters as adding capacity to the railway network, as the number of passengers using the railways is predicted to massively grow in the future. I suggested that if you talked to any railway manager before 1900 they too would have said that traffic growth was inevitable. Yet, the expected growth didn’t occur, and after 1900 the number of passengers using the railways levelled off and then began falling. All I did was compare the two situations, observing that this part of railway history shows us that passenger traffic growth can be hard to predict. I will state this now, I did not post this because I necessarily oppose HS2; I posted it only as a consideration. I will not reveal my position on HS2, because I don't think getting political is what my blog is about.

5. “‘Crabbed, morose and irritable’ - One Liverpool Man's Complaints Against the L&NWR in 1867” – This was a post that discussed of six long letters that ‘A CONTRACTOR’ wrote to the Liverpool Mercury in 1867 complaining about the station facilities of the London and North Western Railway. The station that received the most criticism was at Huyton Quarry, which he argued ‘might be a station in Chancery, so out-of-elbows does it look, or belong to some bankrupt company, who could not afford a few pounds to put in a tolerably descent condition.’[2] Generally, these letters were just interesting insights into how the public felt about railway managers at the time and the services they received.

6. Lastly, I have done three posts this year about the first sixteen female clerks to be employed at the London and North Western Railway’s Birmingham Curzon Street Station between 1874 and 1876. The first in August looked at how the company’s decision was reported in the press. Indeed, the newspapers detailed the basic facts of their employment, for example, whose decision it was, the company’s attitude, their working environment and their pay. However, on Ancestry.co.uk releasing digitised railway staff records, I was able to look these women up and do some detailed statistical analysis of their employment. In two following posts (HERE and HERE) I examined the women’s ages, promotional prospects, length of employment and pay. Indeed, on this latter point I found that up until their eighth year they received the same pay as the men, at which point it was curtailed. This was a very interesting finding, showing that the newspapers at the time were wrong when they said that the employment female clerks was immediately going to reduce company costs.

Overall, I cannot say these were my absolute favourite posts, yet, they are definitely near the top. I strive hard in my blog to pass on entertaining and interesting pieces of railway history, things I find, and elements of my PhD. In return I have received a lot of love, complementary comments and warmth. I just want to thank all my readers so much for your support this year. My blog wouldn't have been a success without you all reading, re-tweeting and re-posting, and for that I am eternally grateful.

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[1] Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, Sunday, August 10, 1873; Issue 1603

[2] Liverpool Mercury, Tuesday, November 12, 1867; Issue 6175

Guest Post by Keith Harcourt - TurnipRail's 2 Year Anniversary

For today's two year anniversary of TurnipRail, I asked a number of people who I hugely respect to write short pieces for the Blog. Many thanks to Keith Harcourt, Academic Liaison Officer for the Historical Model Railway Society, for the first post. I've known Keith for only a short while, however, in this period I have come to truly admire his commitment to spreading academic research on the railways. Indeed, only recently he started his own excellent blog 'The Railway Servant', which I really recommend you check out. I am sure you will find Keith's post as fascinating as I did, so, over to him:

I am delighted to be able to write in support of the second anniversary of Turniprail.  Some figures in railway history have introduced new ways of communicating for a variety of reasons and I shall instance one here.  What David has done is to introduce us a 21^st century way of spreading our research and that seems to me to be very important.

Pic 1) LMS Film Poster For Staff Notice Boards

When the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) was formed in 1923, it was an amalgam of individual companies each with their separate working practices, management traditions and machinery.  Mr E. J. H Lemon, Vice-President from January 1932, had seen the strain that a lack of cohesion in the workforce had put on the LMS. On November 21^st, 1933, he wrote to the President, Lord Stamp, “Whilst our publicity for public purposes has developed in step more or less with modern conditions, I am afraid that publicity or propaganda for staff purposes has not kept pace with the times. This has been forcibly brought home to me by the reception which has been given to the ‘Royal Scot’ film presentations at various centres recently, e.g. at Crewe the enthusiasm of the railwaymen was simply astonishing. It seems to me, therefore, that we shall have to pursue a policy which will awaken the interest of and develop the esprit de corps of our staff… we must let them see what the railway means in all its workings.”[1]

From this small beginning a yearly programme of film showings, mainly in hired halls or suitable railway premises developed. Posters (Pic 1) were distributed and as Lemon had observed at Crewe the films were very popular. However, with such a huge route mileage as that of the LMS there were still places where films needed to be shown, but because of their remoteness and lack of facilities this was difficult. Undeterred, in 1936, Lemon obtained agreement for the conversion of old sleeping carriages into mobile cinemas. (Pic 2)

Pic 2) The Interior of the first cinema coach

The use of film on the LMS was not solely confined to the development of staff morale however. H.G. Smith, Lemon’s secretary from 1932 to his departure from the railway in 1942, recorded in a diary of “The Achievements of Mr Lemon” [2] (which can now be consulted at the Archive of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers), that the film medium was to be used: “…to instruct the staff in the correct method of carrying out their work”.  The mobile units were deemed especially useful in this regard.

When the LMS School of Transport in Derby opened in 1938 it had a specially designed Lecture Theatre with a proper projection suite and in the development of the curriculum film was specifically mentioned as a medium of instruction. (Pic. 3)

Pic 3) The LMS School of Transport Lecture Theatre as it was on opening

For film in the 1930s, substitute the Internet, YouTube and Blogs. David, with Lemon and others, has shown us that in order to develop ideas, learn from each other and promulgate archival research, we need to use the most modern communications media available.  Happy Second Birthday to Turniprail and as the LMS announcer might have said, “Long may it continue to prosper.,”

References

[1]Lemon, E.J.H. “LMS Film Propaganda” Memorandum to the President. 21^st November, 1933. The Lemon Papers held in the Archive of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
[2] Smith, H.G. “The Achievements of Mr Lemon”. The Lemon Papers held in the Archive of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

Picture Sources:

1) Author's Collection
2) Railway Gazette
3) Railway Gazette

Looking forward to 2012 with Turniprail (and a thanks to all)

I thought that I would use this first post of the year to lay out some personal goals for the blog, my research and myself over the coming twelve months. I really hope that all come true, but I doubt it.

PhD: I am actually in the last stretch of my PhD and I have to submit the thing by October. However, my academic task in the next few months is to take the eight chapters I have crafted over the last five and a quarter years and turn them into a coherent piece of work that can be submitted in draft form to my supervisor.  Theoretically, this should be easy, as in my head my thesis, which is on the management of the London and South Western Railway between 1870 and 1910, is pretty complete. The reality is that a lot of work needs to be done, especially to brush up on a bit of background reading. But I’ll get there, I have no doubt.

Blog: I have to warn you, given that these are the last ten months of my PhD, my blog may suffer due to a diminished number of updates. Already, the frequency of my posts has dropped to one a week and it is quite possible that as October nears I may need to reduce this further.

This said, I am committed to the blog and will hope to do some original research for it at points (naturally I may gush forth after October with a plethora of posts because of the freedom I will have). More importantly though, while I have made some wonderful friends through it, and hope to make more, it entertains many who read it and also helps my ultimate career goals (see below).

I don’t think the topics of my posts will change much. I am still interested in railway management, even though I may be sick to death of it by October. My continuing interest in Railwaywomen will feature, not just because I have already written a post on this topic for the future, but because I find it a fascinating area to study with new revelations coming forth every time do more work on the subject. I will also want to look at a bit more at the railways before 1870, as this area of railway history has received little investigation. Ultimately, however, all of Victorian railway history is still fair game for blogging about, and I hope to choose varied and interesting subjects to post on throughout the year.

Work:  As I have mentioned elsewhere, I work in a public library part-time to fund my PhD. Unfortunately, like all who work in libraries, I possibly may loose my job by March. Therefore, it should not surprise anyone that one of my hopes for 2012 is that this doesn't happen. Yet, given this has been a possibility for some while, and to avoid not having the finance to fund my PhD, I have already paid off my university fees.

Nevertheless, one interesting thought has crossed my mind. If I am made redundant I’ll be able to finish my PhD early given the free time. Clearly that would not be in any way ideal, firstly, because this is not the way I hoped my career would progress (see below), but also because I genuinely love helping people at the library.

Career: I suppose I had it in my head that in this year my career would begin – whatever would be. I’ve had two main ideas since my PhD commenced; the first to be academic, the second to be a journalist and freelance writer. The former is an option. However throughout my PhD I have not done any teaching (and therefore have had time to write the blog). I would be very willing to teach if it was to lead me to better things, but I have never been over-keen on the idea. I dunno, maybe I’d love it when I get there. Furthermore, I have always considered that there may be an opportunity to get an research grant to do a project, perhaps on the early railways, so I may look into that as an option.

However, I think I am more interested in becoming the journalist and freelance writer (while keeping firmly in touch with academic developments). Firstly, given the cuts, I am not sure that positions in the academic world will be flowing as easily as they did in years past, especially for an early career historian. But secondly, I so enjoy writing my blog and would love to do something similar for some money (don’t worry, I love writing my blog so much that that will always remain). Originally, before the crisis hit, my idea was that I was going to keep the part time job in the library while building up my profile as a writer. Then, when I was getting enough regular work to sustain me, I would reconsider my position at the library. However, if I do lose my job, parts of this plan may have to be advanced. Nevertheless, whatever happens, I suspect I will be on that career road before the end of the year.

Love: I am sure I will secure the love of many new friends in 2012 whatever happens, as that is what occurred in 2011. Indeed, one of the joys of 2011 has been that I have met so many good, kind, supportive and loving people.

Indeed, I want to wish everyone a happy and productive 2012. I love writing my blog for such wonderful, supportive, generous and friendly readers and Twitter followers. I am always buoyed by your positive comments, your support for my work and your friendship. I cannot begin to thank you all enough.  You are all so lovely.

And now for some blog stats from 2011:

Most visits on one day: 24 December – 284

Lowest number of visits on one day: 22 April – 12

Week with most visits: w/b 18 December - 576

Month with the most visits: December – 1,783

Total visits: 13,201 (Average - 36.17/day)

Unique visits: 9,651 (Average – 26.44/day)

Page views: 21,399 (Average – 58.63/day)

Pages per visit: 1.62

Average time on the site: 1 minute 13 seconds