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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



[July, 



companies, a salutary step which seems to liave hail the best effect. — 

 Mr. Labcjucliere was thus deprived of the support of this committee, 

 whose neglect of their duties had excited so much indignation, and in 

 place of this pliant body, he bad to conteral with the great railway in- 

 terest, representing fifty uiillions of capital. 



Brunei's evidence was the mainstay of the opposition, and abounds 

 in practical information, which we wish that it was in our power to 

 transcribe, but the liuiited nature of our space forbids. What he says 

 as to engine drivers is of direct importance to the profession, and is 

 so totally opposed to the vulgar opinion on die subject tliat we are 

 compelled to insert it liere. 



There is another regulation suggested, and whidi therefore I presume is to 

 be acted upon ; it is that an engine driver shall be able to read his instruc- 

 tions. Now I dare say that appears to a great many gcntlemeu a very essen- 

 tial thing ; but not only do I maintain that it is not essential, but 1 maiatuiu 

 that the mere laying down that rule as a rule, is a proof that the party sug. 

 gesting it is not acquainted with the class of men we are dealing with, and 

 that we must deal with, as engine drivers. I should have thought too, that 

 Sir Frederic Smitli's knowledge of the world and of militan- life, of privates, 

 would have told him that the class of men who must be employed as work- 

 men, are not a class of men who learn tlieir instnictions by reading, even if 

 they can read ; their knowledge is obtained entirely orally. A man of that 

 class has not obtained, as we have, the power of reading and remembering 

 what he reads. Those sort of men will read and derive a little amusement 

 from what they read, but they have not obtaijied the power of learning things 

 by reading, they learn orally entirely. As to the instructions, it is tnie we 

 print them, and it is true we make them read them, and we make them sign 

 them, partly to ensure their havhig an opportunity to see them, but very 

 much to satisfy the public mind « hen an accident has occurred ; but 1 do not 

 believe the men obtain the slightest knowledge of their instnictions by read- 

 ing ; they may read them through and get up with the printed letters in their 

 eyes, but as to obtaining information from it, they do not ; they obtain their 

 information orally ; and whether a man can read his instructions or not, docs 

 not at all affect the question of his being a good engineer or not. Our very 

 best man on the Great Western Railway, the verv- best engine driver we ever 

 had ; a very superior man. who is now foreman of our engineers at Reading, 

 a man whom I trust better than anybody I have got on the line, can neither 

 read nor write, and yet he issues inst.-Tictions, and he has a clerk who writes 

 wTitten orders ; and it would be a serious mischief if any regulation of the 

 Legislature should deprive us of him, and of a number of others that we have. 

 I am not one to sneer at education, but I would not give sixpence in huing 

 an engine man, because of his knowing how to rend or write. 1 believe that of 

 the two, the non-reading man is the best, and for tliis reason : I defy Sir 

 Trederic Smith, or any person who has general information, and is in the 

 habit of reading, to drive an engine. If you are going five or six nules with- 

 out anything to attract attention, depend upon it you will begin thinking of 

 something else. It is impossible that a man that indulges in reading, should 

 make a good engine driver; it requires a species of machine, an intelligent 

 man, an honest man, a sober man, a steady man; but I would much rather 

 not have a thinking man. I never dare drive an engine, although I always 

 go upon the engine ; because if I go ui)on a bit of the line without anything 

 to attract my attention, I begin thinking of something else. The duty of the 

 engine man is the simplest possible thing; he must first of .ill have a good 

 constitution, and he able to stand rough weather ; in fa"t, a gentleman can- 

 not he an engine driver, or any man who can earn a liveUhood in any quiet, 

 comfortable way ; he must know something of machinery, to a very small 

 extent ; of course he must know the parts of a locomotive engine, and he 

 must be something of a workman, although the fine workmen rarely make 

 good engine drivers ; such a very low class of knowledge of the machinery, 

 that I can hardly call it knowledge ; a mechanic learns that in a fortnight or 

 three weeks, lie must be a sober man, and have all thase qualities which 

 are included in the general term of " steady ;" I hardly know how to define 

 them ; hut he must be accustomed to follow orders, not desirous of infringing 

 them ; not reckless, and be what is commonly understood by " a steady 

 man.'' 



Sir Frederic Smith was the first witnesg examined, being in support 

 of the government recommendations — what were the arguments which 

 he used we think it unnecessary to repeat, the public being sufficiently 

 conversant with tliem. He bore testimony to the harmonv with which 

 the companies and their engineers had co-operated witli him, and ex- 

 pressed his regret at its being disturbed by the difterence which had 

 arisen on the discretionary clause — an ill omen we shordd say as to the 

 result which would be likely to be realized if the clause liad become 

 the law of the land. Sir Frederic was obliged to admit that most of 

 his proposed regulations were inapplicable as general rules, and that 

 the greatest injustice would be the effect of their stringent execution. 

 It must be observed that the intended legislation would have authorized 

 the Board of Trade to interfere with the traffic in many annoving ways, 

 as for instance on the Manchester and Leeds railway, suppressing the 

 mixed train, disturbing the arrangements of lines generally by pre- 

 scribing an interval between the trains, regulating the speevl and the 

 load, crushing small companies by overbuthening them with expenses, 



increasing the police, braaksmen, number of bre.vks, buffer springs, 

 preventing assistant engines from pushing bebinA, carrying luggage 

 with passengers, obliging to work by time tables. 



Mr. Booth of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway exhibited his 

 usual acquaintance with tlie subject, and expressed in the strongest 

 terms his objections to the powers proposed to be given to the Board 

 of Trade. He unequivocally stated that he did not consider any cen- 

 tral authority or Board competent, in the present state of knowledge 

 as referrible to railways, to take on itself the issuing of regulations. 

 Mr. Booth, as well as the other witnesses who followed on the same 

 side, forcibly dwelt on the melancholy consequences which must ensne 

 from divided responsibility, and showed the injustice of allowing the 

 Bo.trd of Trade to make rules, and then punishing the companies for 

 the bad working of them. For a central authority to attempt to re- 

 gulate the traffic on the Liverpool and Manchester would be productive 

 of the greatest confusion and injustice, on account of the fluctuating 

 nature of the traffic, requiring that arrangements should be made at 

 the moment to conform to it. In appealing against the recommenda- 

 tions already made by the Board of Trade authorities, Mr. Bootli 

 forcibly urged that they were such as to show that they had not that 

 experience which is necessary to make them capable of issuing regu- 

 lations, and that he could not have confiilence as to their general dis- 

 cretion in issuing regulations. The proposed fifteen minutes interval 

 between the trains, be showed to be equal on his line to a distance of 

 seven miles. Mr. Booth attributed in some measure the success of 

 the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in escaping accidents to the 

 very great traffic, which obliged every engine driver to be constantly 

 on the alert. Very few accidents, observed he, occur in crossing 

 Cheapside for example ; every body is obliged to be on tl»e alert, and, 

 to look about him. — The proposed regulation as to ballast trains he 

 showed would be absolutely impracticable, and time tables equally 

 useless and mischievoas. The propriety of leaving the responsibility 

 with the companies, was supported by their witnesses on the ground 

 that they had a stronger pecuniary interest in[the safety of passengers', 

 and prevention of accidents than any other parties, and were of course 

 urged to adopt every possible precaution. One compimy was men- 

 tioned as having lost illU.OUU by a single accident. 



Brunei, whose examin.ation occupied two days, followed in support 

 of Mr. Booth. To the spirit which characterized his examination we 

 have already referred. He expressed more strongly even than Mr. 

 Booth liis want of confidence in the ofliceis of the Board of Trade 

 generally and iudividaally, and throughout his examination kept Mr. 

 Laboucliere's vigilance fully on the aleit, frequently discomfiting him 

 in his attempts to entrap him into a toleration of the interference of 

 the Board, to which Brunei objected in toto. Upon the causes of 

 accidents, the remarks of this engineer fully bear out the views which 

 we maintained both on this and the steam vessel question, and are 

 well worthy of perusal. 



I think the officers of the Board of Trade .ire under a completely erroneous 

 impression both of the circumstances which really lead to those accidents, 

 and of the best mode of remedying them, and that they are without, and 

 must always be without, any suflieient knowledge of the practical working of 

 the system with which they jjropose to interfere ; and I think that the acci- 

 dents and the suggestions arising from those accidents themselves, prove what 

 I assert. They certainly prove it to the minds of those who are familiar with 

 the practical working of railways. I dare say it will be difficult to prove that 

 satisfactorily to the Committee, from the very circumstance 1 have just men- 

 tioned, that they are not acquainted with the practical detail of the working; 

 but still, if the Committee will allow me, I will attempt it. I think that the 

 mere circumstance of which the officers who have been appointed have tliem- 

 selves given very strong evidence, namely, that notwithstanding the tremen- 

 dous speed at which railway travelling is carried on, notwithstanding the 

 appearance of almost trusting to Providence as we run along the lines, and 

 the apparently great risks that are run, that notwithstanding all this, it is a 

 notorious fact, and one which is admitted by the officers who have inspected 

 railways, that it is a safer mode of travelling than any other adopted up to 

 the present time ; and that, notwithstanding all those apparent dangers, 

 really there is very little danger comparatively : 1 think that ought to have 

 led them to consider, that, in all probability, the dangers that still exist, do 

 not arise from any glaring pronunent defects in the system, which of course 

 those who have brought it to this state of perfection must long since have 

 seen, and that it would hardly be left to those officers to whom the thing 

 must be new, to ihscover suddenly that we have passed over some of the most 

 prominent and easily removed causes of danger; and I think that, as they 

 become more intimate with the practical working of railways, they will ses 

 that the real cause of danger, small as it now is, consists of a multitude of 

 small operating causes, which occasionally and accidentally are all brought to 

 bear, .and all operate to produce risk. Bnt the real source of the danger, and 

 the only one which there is any hope of removing, is in a complication of 

 imperfections in a great number of the mechanical parts of the system. We 

 I have gradually discovered, that the wheels had better be a little wider in 

 ' gauge than we made them at first ; that they had better i o; be quhe so nar- 



