Page:The Working and Management of an English Railway.djvu/34

 summer months, when the passenger traffic is heavy and the goods and coal traffic light; and again in the autumn, with a view to the winter months, when, conversely, the passenger traffic is light and the goods and coal traffic heavy. As far as is practicable, the changes are confined to these two periods; but, owing to fluctuations of business, the growth of new neighbourhoods, and all kinds of local and special circumstances, there is really no month in the year when a number of train alterations do not have to be considered and decided upon. This is done, as before stated, at the monthly meetings of the Officers' Conference, held during the third week of every month, and between that time and the end of the month the time-tables have to be revised and reprinted. No one who has ever glanced with an intelligent eye at the time-table of a great railway will be surprised to learn that this operation is one of the most complicated nature, and involving great labour and considerable skill. This will be apparent if it be borne in mind that, supposing, for instance, a train running from London to Scotland is altered in its timing ever so slightly, it involves the necessity of altering all the trains running on branch lines in connection with it, and many other trains which are affected by it A train service is, in fact, like a house of cards; if the bottom card be interfered with, the whole edifice is disarranged, and has to be built up afresh. Remembering all this, and the pressure under which the work must be done,, the wonder is not so much that an occasional error creeps into a time-table, as that such marvellous accuracy is, on the whole arrived at.

The time-tables of the London and North-Western