Our rail system is a well defended
nightmare, the standard defence being it was worse when previously
nationalised, and invariably the ‘stale cheese sandwiches’ come out as the
ultimate proof that nationalisation was bad. I’m not convinced. What I do know
is that we live in a different age characterised by too many people gobbling up
finite resources – in this case seats on trains.
Even trains.
The free
enterprise solution is to charge until the pips squeak, creaming of a proportion
of profits in investment, the rest going to shareholders – including, no doubt,
my pension fund. The other alternative is to regard rail transport as a public
investment and subsidise prices via taxation.
Regardless of which side has the
better argument, the existing reality involves standing on trains that
sometimes never arrive – a metaphysical problem, and a fare structure that
defies explanation. It's enough to drive people mad - which many Victorians believed.
It is comforting in such
circumstances to read old periodicals like ‘Punch’
to see that, with regard to British railways, somethings never change.
In a
satirical side swipe at conditions then, ‘Punch’ suggested the following ‘Rules
and Regulations for Railways:
Every passenger in the second or
third class is to be allowed to carry a penny candle, or safety lamp into the
train…as the directors have kept the public in the dark quite long enough.
No train is to travel slower than
an omnibus, let the excursion be ever so cheap, or the occasion ever so joyful.
Cattle are to be separated from the
passengers as much as possible, as it has been found, from experience, that men
and oxen do not mix sociably together.
No stoppage at a railway station is
to exceed half an hour.
No railway dividend is to exceed
100%....
No fare is to be raised more than
at the rate of a pound a week.
No third class carriage is to
contain more than a foot deep of water in wet weather, but, to prevent
accidents, corks and swimming belts should always be kept in open carriages.
The ladies’ carriages are to be
waited upon by female policemen.
Every tunnel must be illuminated
with one candle at least.
Never less than five minutes are to
be allowed for dinner or refreshment. (Perhaps the origin of the stale
cheese sandwich with curled up corners)
Queen Victoria of course was above such things.