THE RAILWAY IN TEN YEARS
By CANON ROGER LLOYD THE title is deliberate—the railway, not the railways, for of co,urse there will only be one. The public debates on this change have concentrated on such matters as financa, efficiency and types of management, but there is also the question of what the railway of the future will actually look like and whether trains and their engines in the nationalised millennium will continue to hold the fascinated attention of the thousands who now delight to watch them. This, too, is not a matter of trivial importance, for these thousands make up much of a railway company's goodwill, and in the world of strictly impersonal economics goodwill is something which has a cash value which chartered accountants can calculate.
In the months of controversy the wisest comment came not from a Minister of State, but from an artist. He said that "British rail- ways" would succeed if they were managed by men who "liked playing about with trains." Mercifully the new chairman of the Railway Executive is just such a one. Sir Eustace Missenden is a railway man first, last and all the time. He has also served the whole of his working life with the Southern Railway. No man can give forty-eight years to a particular company without having the ways of that company deeply ingrained. Thus the appointment is possibly a pointer to the outward shape of things to come in the new State railway system.
Its authorities are bound to want to justify the change as soon as they can, and that means at least three separate processes. They • will want to electrify all the lines they can, for that is believed to be progressive, and when electrification is in question, it is the Southern Railway which has the answers. They will want to stan- dardise all locomotive types and designs to the uttermost degree of standardisation, for that is held to be, and in fact is, economical. But they will also want to make a fair show in the flesh, and that means much streamlining of engines, for a streamlined engine is popularly held to be far superior to an ordinary honest engine which is not hypocritically trying to look like something else and merely succeeding in looking like nothing on earth. They will also want their engines to be clean and gleaming. Here, too, the pointer swings towards the Southern. It is far more completely committed than any other railway to streamlining, and it is far better than any other in keeping its engines clean.
It is therefore a pity that the Southern streamlined design is so infinitely inferior aesthetically to the L.N.E.R. In fact, it looks as
if the delicate hint of The Railway Magazine in a recent number may turn out to be a false prophecy. Its frontispiece was a picture of the sort of engine we may expect to see in the future. It shows an engine painted in post-office red, with the letters B.R. and the royal crown on the tender. But the engine is one of the L.N.E.R.'s new 4-6-0's of the Antelope class. They are so good to look at that it would be pleasant to think that they would form the 4-6-0 class of the future, especially if they were diversified by the rebuilt L.M.S. Royal Scots. But we ask for the moon if we demand diversity, and if, as seems likely, there will be only one type of 4-6-o passenger engine, then Eastleigh is likely to have more say than Crewe, Doncaster or Swindon in what that type will be.
It is possible to forecast pretty accurately how far the standardisa- tion of railway engines in Great Britain can go. The L.M.S. has recently decided and announced that all its traffic requirements can be met by no more than eleven different types of engine. Its system ranges from Bournemouth to Wick, and includes stretches of line as appallingly difficult as the Shap and Beattoc.k gradients, and long climbs as grievous as those found between Stirling and - Oban and Perth and Inverness. If the L.M.S. can do the whole of its work with no more than eleven types of engine, "British Rail- ways" will not need more. Of these eleven types, four are tank engines for shunting and suburban work, three are freight engines, one is for mixed traffic and the other three are heavy express pas- senger engines. It would be a fascinating but perhaps for the present a rather academic game to guess which of the existing loco- motive types of the four great companies in each of these spheres are likely to survive and be perpetuated in the single unified system. My own guess is that the heaviest streamlined passenger engine will look very like the present Southern " ne:chant Navy" class, and that the other two passenger engines will be either Great Western "Castles," L.M.S. rebuilt "Royal Scots" or L.N.E.R. 4-6-2 "Race- horses." We shall be a graceless people if we allow the designs of such distinguished locomotive engineers as Sir Nigel Gresley and Sir William Stanier to pass into the limbo of the forgotten, and indeed who has ever designed a mixed-traffic engine comparable with Sir Nigel's V.2's of the L.N.E.R. or Sir William's " Jubilee " 4-6-0's of the L.M.S.? These at least should find a place in the first, the only, eleven.
It is broadly true that a great railway lives on loyalty ; it must have its enthusiasts or fans. These it fails to keep as soon as it becomes too pedestrian, too set in its ways, too boring. The railway which is most successful in recruiting enthusiasts will also give the best service to the public. The temptation of a single monopolised system is to be dull. The aim of a new nationalised system ought therefore to be to provide as much diversity as possible within the compass of as much efficiency as possible. Railway engines must needs become more and more standardised in type. Where, then, is the diversity to come from? Without the least sacrifice of efficiency there could be considerable variety of colours both on engines and coaches. The engines need not all be black or the coaches red. Not long ago a high official of the L.M.S. suggested that the coaches of certain trains should be painted grey, but he was refused. What a pity! Then, too, there is considerable scope for interest and variety in the matter of engine names, which, except for the Southern, have been growing steadily less exciting for years, an endless list of Halls and Granges, of Regiments and Colonies. It is by the engine names of a railway that its history is best perpetuated, especially if to a name is added a brass plate to explain its significance. People who "like playing about with railways" will not, however, be blind to all this, and the best augury for the future is the fact that the new railway executive consists of just such people.
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