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/48

 of engines were in daily service, and a very large staff of badly-paid and overworked railwaymen were at work. Mere and more men became familiar with the vibrating "dither" of footplates rattling along at high speed, with everything hard and hot about them. They got used to handling boilers of 400 or 500 gallons of boiling water close to them, and to feeding a flaring cauldron of five to ten cwts, of coal roaring like a furnace. They knew what it was to see smoke-box doors and wheel guards get red hot,

In those early days drivers and firemen were not so protected as they are now from the full force of the wind and the keen night air of winter. They would get half blinded with dust, and knew what it was to have warm feet and ears piercingly cold:—

"To bear The pelting brunt of the tempestuous night, With half shut eyes, and puckered cheeks and teeth Presented bare against the storm."

Time-tables had become familiar to the public (Bradshaw's being first published in 1841), water tanks had been put down, Metropolitan railways were running, St. Pancras had been opened (October 1st, 1868), and every month of every year seemed marked by some new development. Modest attempts had been made to organise the men, but without success. The Railway Working Man's Provident Benefit Society was started in 1865 amongst the guards on the Great Western Railway, by Charles Bassett-Vincent, but two years later it was completely smashed by wholesale dismissals of its prominent members. On the North Eastern Railway—and this is a very interesting matter—an Engine Drivers' and Firemen's Society was started at the same time, but it also was broken up after an unsuccessful strike. Railways had been developing for a whole generation, and were employing whole armies of men, before Trade Unionism took root amongst them. Their widely different vocations, the many grades of railway service, and the scattered nature of this large army over every point of the country, all hampered that spirit of cohesion needed.