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FIFTY YEARS OF RAILWAY LIFE IN ENGLAND, SCOTLAND AND IRELAND

by Joseph Tatlow

Director Midland Great Western Railway or Ireland and Dublin andKingstown Railway; a Member of Dominions Royal Commission, 1912-1917;late Manager Midland Great Western Railway, etc.

Published in 1920 by The Railway Gazette, Queens Anne’s Chambers,Westminster, London, S.W.1.

CONTENTS.

I.      Introductory
II.     Boyhood
III.    The Midland Railway and “King Hudson”
IV.     Fashions and Manners, Victorian Days
V.      Early Office Life
VI.     Friendship
VII.    Railway Progress
VIII.   Scotland, Glasgow Life, and the Caledonian Line
IX.     General Railway Acts of Parliament
X.      A General Manager and his Office
XI.     The Railway Jubilee, and Glasgow and South-WesternOfficers and Clerks
XII.    TOM
XIII.   Men I met and Friends I made
XIV.    Terminals, Rates and Fares, and other Matters
XV.     Further Railway Legislation
XVI.    Belfast and the County Down Railway
XVII.   Belfast and the County Down (continued)
XVIII.  Railway Rates and Charges, the Block, the Brake, and LightRailways
XIX.    Golf, the Diamond King, and a Steam-boat Service
XX.     The Midland Great Western Railway of Ireland
XXI.    Ballinasloe Fair, Galway, and Sir George Findlay
XXII.   A Railway Contest, the Parcel Post, and the Boardof Trade
XXIII.  “The Railway News,” the International RailwayCongress, and a Trip to Spain and Portugal
XXIV.   Tom Robertson, more about Light Railways, and theInland Transit of Cattle
XXV.    Railway Amalgamation and Constantinople
XXVI.   A Congress at Paris, the Progress of Irish Lines,Egypt and the Nile
XXVII.  King Edward, a Change of Chairmen, and more Railway Legislation
XXVIII. Vice-Regal Commission on Irish Railways, 1906-1910, and theFuture of Railways
XXIX.   The General Managers’ Conference, Gooday’sDinner, and Divers Matters
XXX.    From Manager to Director
XXXI.   The Dominions’ Royal Commission, the Railwaysof the Dominions, and Empire Development
XXXII.  Conclusion

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

The Author
George Hudson, the “Railway King”
Sir James Allport
W. J. Wainwright
Edward John Cotton
Walter Bailey
Sir Ralph Cusack, D. L.
William Dargan
The Dargan Saloon
Sir George Findlay
Sir Theodore Martin
The Gresham Salver

p. 1CHAPTERI.
INTRODUCTORY

North-West Donegal.  A fine afternoon in September.  Themountain ranges were bathed in sunshine and the scarred and seamy faceof stern old Errigal seemed almost to smile.  A gentle breeze stirredthe air and the surface of the lakes lay shimmering in the soft autumnallight.  The blue sky, flecked with white cloudlets, the purpleof the heather, the dark hues of the bogs, the varied greens of bracken,ferns and grass, the gold of ripening grain, and the grey of the mountainboulders, together formed a harmony of colour which charmed the eyeand soothed the mind.

I had been travelling most of the day by railway through this delightfulcountry, not by an express that rushed you through the scenery withbreathless haste, but by an easy-going mixed train which called at everystation.  Sometimes its speed reached twenty-five miles an hour,but never more, and because of numerous curves and gradients—forit was a narrow gauge and more or less a surface line—the rateof progress was much less during the greater part of the journey.

The work of the day was over.  My companion and I had dinedat the Gweedore Hotel, where we were staying for the night.  Withthe setting p. 2sunthe breeze had died away.  Perfect stillness and a silence deep,profound and all-pervading reigned.  I had been talking, as anold pensioner will talk, of byegone times, of my experiences in a longrailway career, and my companion, himself a rising railway man, seemedgreatly interested.  As we sauntered along, the conversation now