MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
IT has been agreeable, as a relief from the perplexities of this sundered world, to read the correspondence aroused by the new type of buffet cars to be adopted by British Railways. These cars have been designed in the shape of English wayside inns. The walls and ceilings will be of rough plaster, traversed by oak beams ; the interior lighting will be by lanthorns such as were carried by smugglers in the olden days ; the guests will sit on wooden settles, and the tables will be of simple polished oak. If the correct atmo- sphere is to be preserved, there should be lattice windows to these taverns ; it should not be beyond the ingenuity of British Railways to drape the exterior of such. cars with imitation honeysuckle and roses ; smocks and sunbonnets might be provided for those who wish for them ; it should be possible, on payment of a trifling charge, to obtain churchwarden pipes. Beguiled by the aroma of Merrie England, the traveller would thus be carried from Liverpool Street to Cambridge, from Charing Cross to Folkestone, unconscious of the towns and counties which flash past the leaded windows, feeling only that he has come in to rest by the fire for a space, while the ostlers get busy in the courtyard and the post-horses are being harnessed. This well-intentioned endeavour has not met with any warm response on the part of those who are interested in industrial design. There have been many who have contended that it is inappropriate thus to mingle the ancient with the modern, the static with the mobile. It has been suggested even that the whole con- ception offends what are called The canons of good taste. The Railway Executive have evidently been stung by these reproaches. Their Public Relations Officer wrote a letter to The Times newspaper stating that the design of these " restaurant car twin units " was purely experimental, and that the permanent adoption of this type of buffet would depend upon the " public reaction from all aspects (including the aesthetic)." The reaction has been immediate and severe ; it is improbable that the twins will now become quads.
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It is salutary, but unfair, that this incidental lapse on the part of British Railways should have attracted so much attention. Our railway companies and transport services have, in fact, been pioneers in good industrial design and in intelligent publicity. The name of Frank Pick should for long be honoured as that of "a man who with great pertinacity raised the level of our public advertisements, who provided younger artists with many valuable opportunities, and who over a space of years did succeed in raising the general level of visual appreciation. The standards maintained by the several railway companies and by the London Passenger Transport Board in the old days were very excellent' standards. Our clean and scarlet buses give colour to our dingy streets, and contribute to the character of modern London. One has only to compare • the slow, rickety, en- cumbered carriages of the Paris Metro with our own rapid and salubrious saloons to admit that, however crowded they may become during the rush-hours, the general level of comfort provided by London transport is far higher than any offered to the citizens of Paris or even of New York. No sleeping cars yet devised by man can compare with those which waft us to Glasgow or Penzance. The new coaches recently introduced into British RailWays, with their long windows and their gleaming walls, are brighter and lighter than any coaches which I have yet seen abroad. We can be proud of our transport system, and should not condemn the Railway Executive merely because they have allowed someone to be silly about two taverns on wheels.
* * * * I have been reading this week a very excellent little book on public transport which has appeared in the Penguin series, The Things We See. It has been prepared at the suggestion of the Council of Industrial Design, and has been written by Mr. Christian Barman, who worked for many years under Lord Ashfield and Frank Pick, and who is now Publicity Officer to the British Tramport Clan.. mission. I am quite sure that Mr. Barman was not consulted regarding the taverns in the trains ; he is not a man to approve of such absurd irrelevance. His conception of industrial design is founded on the correct principle that it must be functional, in the sense that all equipment represents the tools with which the workers work. " The designer's task," he writes, " is narrowed down to the simple problem of producing the best possible tool for a given job." The job demanded of a buffet car is that passengers should be able to obtain refreshments rapidly, and should be able to consume these refreshments seated comfortably and with a clear view of the scenery through which they pass. The tool needed for such a job is a long coach with a bar at one end and seating accommodation at the other, such as is provided in the coach attached to the Golden Arrow, to which some idiot has given a foolish name. It should not merely look clean and be clean, it should be composed of material which can be cleaned with ease ; in our days of stainless steel and bakelite surfaces, this should be readily attained. No, I am quite sure that Mr. Christian Barman would condemn the restaurant car twin units.
In his short history of the development of British transport design, Mr. Barman has many interesting things to tell. I had always assumed, for instance, that our old-fashioned preference for separate compartments, as compared with the open-coach system adopted in most foreign countries, was due to the Englishman's love of privacy. This is not the truth. The design of the separate compartment (which in the early days approximated in its line to those of a private horse-drawn carriage) was adopted as a means of placating the county aristocracy. The gentlemen of England, with the Duke of Wellington at their head, resented the intrusion of railways into our then terri- torial system ; they foresaw, and rightly foresaw, that it might tend to confuse the segregation of classes. The railway companies there- fore designed their compartments in the hope of providing travelling conditions similar to that of a private coach ; the result was that the type of vehicle for all classes of travellers was levelled upwards to that of a private carriage and not levelled downwards, as occurred in the United States, to the standard of the common wagon. It may be this sociological difference which explains the problem why the Americans, who have so high a standard of personal comfort, have for generations accepted without murmur the atrocious conditions which obtain in their own sleeping cars. Hour after hour have I lain awake in the top berth of these intolerable dormitories, or waited half unclad for my turn in the communal wash-room, wondering how it came that a rich and luxurious people could tolerate such doss- house conditions. Mr. Barman now suggests to me that it is because our transport system was based upon aristocratic precedents and theirs upon rugged democratic principles. It is a stimulating and disquiet- ing suggestion Mr. Barman does not examine the question why, whereas in the United States and elsewhere the railway stations in the main cities are designed as great public edifices (resplendent as the baths of Caracalla), in Great Britain our main terminuses should still be little more than enlarged sheds. It is strange indeed that the foreign visitor, on reaching the portals of our metropolis, should be greeted with congested squalor. There are those who have a sentimental affection for our dear old tumble-down railway stations and who enjoy the 184o flavour of Cannon Street or Charing Cross. Yet, whereas our more modern Underground stations suggest progressive efficiency, our main-line stations are a lamentable evidence of ill- judged conservatism. It may be that if and when Charing Cross is removed across the river we shall then possess a railway station worthy of our architectural intelligence. When that day comes, I trust that we shall not follow the example set by the twin units, and contruct a replica of Hatfield House or an enlarged version of Anne Hathaway's cottage.
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