Page:The Working and Management of an English Railway.djvu/279

 State control, the case may somewhat differ from that of Great Britain, where all the railways have been constructed by private enterprise; but, in the main, the pressure of public opinion will no doubt operate in the same direction, and there will be a constant tendency to require greater and still greater facilities, and thus continually to diminish the revenue-earning powers of the railways. The facts and figures which are here adduced will probably suffice to convince any impartial student of the subject that this process has continued upon the principal railways of Great Britain, to such a degree as to bring about a state of things which can scarcely be defended on sound commercial principles—at any rate from the shareholder's point of view.

Prior to the year 1872 the general practice of all English railway companies was to convey by the mail, and principal fast passenger trains, only first and second class passengers, third class passengers being compelled to travel by less important trains calling at a greater number of stations, or by the Parliamentary trains, so called, which stopped at every station, and which the companies were bound by statute to run over their lines at least once a day in each direction. For example, in 1872 the Parliamentary train from Euston to Liverpool, a distance of 201¾ miles, started at 7.40 a.m., stopped at every station on the route, and reached its destination at 6.35 p.m., thus occupying nearly eleven hours on a journey which the more fortunate third class passenger of to-day is enabled to perform in four and a half hours. The fares charged at that period averaged 2d. per mile for a first class passenger, 1½ d. per mile for second class, and 1d. per mile for third class by Parliamentary trains, while fares at a fraction over 1d.