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/113

 duty. Still, the grim story was petering out under resistance and exposure.

Let us look at a twin subject, wages, for a moment, under 1907 conditions. There were then over 16,000 men getting no overtime pay whatever for their excessive hours, and 103,700 were getting ordinary time rates, while 85,000 rejoiced in time and a quarter. There were 14,276 cleaners on an average weekly wage of 14s. 8d.; 25,518 firemen on a weekly average of 24s., and 25,900 drivers, the best-paid men of the general service, averaged 38s. 10d. Joseph Thornhill, a L. & N.W. driver at Swansea, with 37 years experience, wrote that ten drivers and ten firemen were in his link, and the firemen received 3s. 6d, a day, and the drivers from 5s. 6d, to 7s. a day, for ten hours. Joseph Thornhill was discharged after making that statement.

Forty years earlier a "Daily Telegraph" representative sent a message which was still true in 1900:

"'The reason why there are not ten accidents where we have one is the praiseworthy pluck and perseverance of thousands of poor fellows, who, with a noble sense of enormous trust imposed upon them, have not permitted either abuse, tyranny, or oppression to impoverish their integrity or honesty.'"

When a Leeds guard protested against being sent to London after 18 hours duty he was bluntly told "There are 24 hours in the day and they are all ours." But the most frightful case I have discovered is that of a disaster to a North Western train at Tamworth, when driver, fireman, and passengers went headlong into the river, and it transpired that the poor signalman had been on duty 68 hours consecutively!

There, let us turn from this heartbreaking stuff to something brighter. Let us see how a way was found out of this darkness of night.