Page:Engines and men- the history of the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen. A survey of organisation of railways and railway locomotive men (IA enginesmenhistor00rayniala).pdf/109

 years of age. The Board had also promised to be accessible to the men, through the superintendent. It was therefore agreed to form a permanent committee, consisting of eleven drivers and eleven firemen, to present to the superintendent and directors any complaint existing amongst the men. These men were chosen from Bricklayers' Arms, Corwen Street, Deptford, Maidstone, Strood, Woolwich, Redhill, Reading, Tonbridge, Hastings, Dover and Folkestone, Ramsgate, Canterbury and Deal, and Ashford. It was resolved, also, to make a call of a shilling a year on the men on the line to finance the committee.

The record of that meeting is very interesting, not only for its victory, but for its proof of the urgent need of sectional action. Let us take a sweep from the South Eastern to Scotland, and allude to the evidence of Mr. Geo. Brittain, out-door locomotive superintendent on the Caledonian. He told the Royal Commission on Railway Accidents that drivers on his line were kept out as much as seventeen hours a day for a fortnight together. Hugh Riddock, a driver on the North British, was proved to have worked seventeen hours on Monday, seventeen on Tuesday, fourteen on Wednesday, and eighteen hours each on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. These terrible spells of duty were not obviously excessive" to his locomotive superintendent.

A driver on the North British, named Weston, complained to his foreman that he found great difficulty in keeping his eyes open.

"I have been on duty sixteen hours a day in succession, and on the third day I went on the engine at 7.30 in the morning and left it as a rule at 11 or 12 at night, if we were in to our time. I ran for 250 miles. In that time I was never allowed to leave the engine. I took my meals and everything on the engine. It was a passenger engine. I never left the engine. I complained to my fireman, and told him that I found difficulty in keeping my eyes open. Upon the third day I said to him that I could not hold myself responsible if anything occurred to the engine or the passengers, and that it was unfair to force us to do it. He reported this to the superintendent, Mr. Wheatley. He