328 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



trains, is primarily due to the general derange- 

 ment caused by the mutual interference of fast 

 and slow traffic. 



Again, while it is evident on the first glance 

 that 57 per cent, of the casualties affecting rail- 

 way servants from 1872 to 1875 are due to the 

 three special causes of shunting, injury by falling 

 between engines, and wagons, and vans, and load- 

 ing or unloading goods, there is not one of the 

 remaining fourteen causes of accident which can 

 be exclusively attributed to the fast traffic taken 

 apart. Positive data give the proportions we 

 have cited with regard to classified accidents 

 alone. As to the unclassified accidents, our best 

 guide will be found in comparing the danger-rate 

 of the lines when the traffic is principally of one 

 description with that of the lines of mixed traffic. 

 The result of this comparison is the inference 

 that perfectly unmixed traffic can be carried on 

 with an almost inappreciable risk to human life, 

 as in the case of the Metropolitan Railway, with 

 one casualty to 10,000,000 passengers, or of 

 the Taff Yale Railway, carrying more than 4,- 

 000,000 tons of minerals, without a casualty men- 

 tioned in the report of Captain Tyler. From these 

 considerations, it is clear that the proportion of 

 casualties already attributed to the interference 

 of the two descriptions of traffic is probably far 

 below the truth. The chief difference which 

 strikes the investigators as to the main causes of 

 accident to the railway-passenger, and that to 

 the railway-servant, is, that the former appears 

 to be the intermixture of traffic directly regarded, 

 while the latter is more distinctly traceable to 

 the mineral traffic itself, although the fatal nature 

 of that business is probably chiefly due to the 

 rapidity with which all operations have to be 

 carried on under the pressure of the partial occu- 

 pation of the line and the station-yards by the 

 rapid passenger-trains. 



It is now desirable to inquire as to the bene- 

 fit derived by the railway companies, in a pe- 

 cuniary view, from that mode of accumulating 

 traffic to which, to say the least, we may attrib- 

 ute from 66 to 96 per cent, of an annually aug- 

 menting list of casualties. In other words, what 

 is the net pecuniary result of the mineral traffic 

 of the railways of the United Kingdom ? 



This simple and pertinent question is as yet 

 wholly unanswered. The managers and directors 

 of our railways maintain a discreet silence on the 

 subject. The Board of Trade returns shed but 

 little light upon it. The latest and most elabo- 

 rate analyst of our railway returns says : " It is 

 rather humiliating that, after fifty years' expe- 



rience of railways, we have no data of, or hardly 

 even the means of approximating, the intrinsic 

 loss and gain per passenger and per ton of goods 

 or minerals per mile." 1 It is essential to call 

 attention to this point. The plain, blunt state- 

 ment that the railway companies do not know 

 the proportions of profit or of loss due to each of 

 their three main branches of traffic appears at first 

 simply to be incredible. If we suppose that the 

 dividends on Bank of England Stock had declined 

 from their normal ten per cent, to six, to five, and 

 to four, what manner of questions would be put 

 to the half-yearly courts ? What acute investi- 

 gation would there not be directed to ascertain 

 the cause ! And if, on the inquiry of a proprie- 

 tor as to the respective results of the operations 

 of the issue, the banking, and the discount de- 

 partments of that important institution, the di- 

 rectors were to reply that the accounts could not 

 be dissected ; and that, even if this were done, it 

 would be necessary to conceal the result, for fear 

 of the rivalry of the London and Westminster, 

 and other banks, but that the proprietors might 

 rely on the best exertions being used (although 

 the decline of trade, the depreciation of silver, 

 the fear of war, and other causes over which the 

 directors had no control, had unfortunately re- 

 duced the general profits) : what would be the 

 condition of the great room ? Would there not 

 be found men of high standing ready to point 

 out that the fall of a great city establishment, 

 once proudly called " as good as the bank," 

 would have been impossible had all concerned 

 been aware of the state of that branch of busi- 

 ness which was really consuming all, and more 

 than all, the immense legitimate profits of the 

 trade of Messrs. Gurney ; and that no establish- 

 ment, great or small, which carried on different 

 kinds of business without distirct balance-sheets 

 for cash, was safe from peril of insolvency ? 



It has been brought under the notice of the 

 Board of Trade that the returns which are now 

 published, under their auspices, of railway-traffic 

 are so imperfect that they throw no light on the 

 essential question of the respective loss or gain 

 of the passenger, the goods, aud the mineral traf- 

 fic of railways ; and that, as that department 

 exerts a general supervision of railways, and an- 

 nually reports in detail on the movement of each 

 year, the public may justly expect that the board 

 either should secure the information, or clearly 

 state the fact of their deficient knowledge. 



The Board of Trade have replied that in 1840 



1 " The Index to our Railway System," by "W. Flem- 

 I ing, p. 15. 



