The Iron Horse, R. M. Ballantyne [howl and other poems .txt] 📗

Having thus delivered himself, he took the necessary steps to have the ring sent to London, and obtained leave (being an intimate friend of the Tipps family) to run down by train and deliver it.

While he is away on this errand, we will take the opportunity of mounting his stool and jotting down a few particulars about the Clearing-House, which are worth knowing, for that establishment is not only an invaluable means of effecting such happy re-unions of the lost and the losers, as we have referred to, but is, in many other ways, one of the most important institutions in the kingdom.

The Railway Clearing-House is so named, we presume, because it clears up railway accounts that would, but for its intervention, become inextricably confused, and because it enables all the different lines in the country to interchange facilities for through-booking traffic, and clears up their respective accounts in reference to the same.

Something of the use and value of the Clearing-House may be shown at a glance, by explaining that, before the great schemes of amalgamation which have now been carried out, each railway company booked passengers and goods only as far as its own rails went, and at this point fresh tickets had to be taken out and carriages changed, with all the disagreeable accompaniments and delays of shifting luggage, etcetera. Before through-booking was introduced, a traveller between London and Inverness was compelled to renew his ticket and change luggage four times; between Darlington and Cardiff six times. In some journeys no fewer than nine or ten changes were necessary! This, as traffic increased, of course became intolerable, and it is quite certain that the present extent of passenger and goods traffic could never have been attained if the old system had continued. It was felt to be absolutely necessary that not only passengers, but carriages and goods, must be passed over as many lines as possible, at straight “through” to their destinations, with no needless delays, and without “breaking bulk.” But how was this to be accomplished? There were difficulties in the way of through-booking which do not appear at first sight. When, for instance, a traveller goes from London to Edinburgh by the East Coast route, he passes over three different railways of unequal length, or mileage. The Great Northern furnishes his ticket, and gives him station accommodation besides providing his carriage, while the North-Eastern and North British permit him to run over their lines; and the latter also furnishes station accommodation, and collects his ticket. To ascertain precisely how much of that traveller’s fare is due to each company involves a careful and nice calculation. Besides this, the whole fare is paid to the Great Northern, and it would be unjust to expect that that company should be saddled with the trouble of making the calculation, and the expense of remitting its share to each of the other companies. So, too, with goods—one company furnishing the waggon and tarpaulin, besides undertaking the trouble of loading and furnishing station-accommodation and the use of its line, while, it may be, several other companies give the use of their lines only, and that to a variable extent. In addition to all this, the company providing its carriages or waggons is entitled to “demurrage” for every day beyond a certain time that these are detained by the companies to which they do not belong.

Now, if all this be unavoidable even in the case of a single fare, or a small parcel, it must be self-evident that in lines where the interchange of through-traffic is great and constant, it would have been all but impossible for the railway companies to manage their business, and the system would have given rise to endless disputes.

In order to settle accounts of this description, it was soon seen to be absolutely necessary that some sort of arrangement must be come to, and, accordingly, the idea of a central office was conceived, and a system established without delay, which, for minute detail and comprehensive grasp, is unrivalled by any other institution. At first only a few of the railway companies united in establishing the Clearing-House in 1842, but by degrees, as its immense value became known, other companies joined, and it now embraces all the leading companies in the kingdom. It is said to be not inferior to the War Office, Colonial Office, and Admiralty in regard to the amount of work it gets through in a year! Its accounts amount to some twelve millions sterling, yet they always must, and do, balance to a fraction of a farthing. There must never be a surplus, and never a deficiency, in its funds, for it can make no profits, being simply a thoroughly honest and disinterested and perfectly correct go-between, which adjusts the mutual obligations of railways in a quick and economical manner. Its accounts are balanced every month, and every pound, shilling, and penny can be accounted for. It annually receives and dispenses a revenue greater than that of many European kingdoms. In 1847 its gross receipts were only 793,701 pounds. In 1868 they had risen to above eleven millions.

Each line connected with the Clearing-House has a representative on the committee to look after its interests, and bears its proportion of the expenses of the establishment.

Before showing the manner in which the work is performed for the railway companies, it may be well to premise that one great good which the Clearing-House system does to the public, is to enable them to travel everywhere with as much facility as if there were only one railway and one company in the kingdom.

To avoid going too much into detail, we may say, briefly, that in regard to goods, statements of through-traffic despatched are sent daily from thousands of stations to the Clearing-House, also separate statements of through-traffic received. These are compared. Of those that are found to agree, each company is debited or credited, as the case may be, with the proportion due to or by it. Where discrepancies occur, correspondence ensues until the thing is cleared up, and then the distribution to the accounts of the several companies takes place. As discrepancies are numerous and constant, correspondence is necessarily great. So minutely correct and particular are they at the Clearing-House, that a shilling is sometimes divided between four companies. Even a penny is deemed worthy of being debited to one company and credited to another!

As it is with goods, so is it with passengers. Through-tickets are sent from all the stations to the Clearing-House, where they are examined and compared with the returns of the tickets issued, and then sent back to their respective companies. As these tickets amount to many thousands a day, some idea may be formed of the amount of labour bestowed on the examination of them. The proportions of each ticket due to each company are then credited, and statements of the same made out and forwarded to the several companies daily. From the two sets of returns forwarded to the Clearing-House, statements of the debit and credit balances are made out weekly.

Parcels are treated much in the same way as the goods.

“Mileage” is a branch of the service which requires a separate staff of men. There are hundreds of thousands of waggons, loaded and empty, constantly running to and fro, day and night, on various lines, to which they do not belong. Each individual waggon must be traced and accounted for to the Clearing-House, from its start to its arrival and back again; and not only waggons, but even the individual tarpaulins that cover them are watched and noted in this way, in order that the various companies over whose lines they pass may get their due, and that the companies owning them may get their demurrage if they be improperly detained on the way. For this purpose, at every point where separate railways join, there are stationed men in the pay of the Clearing-House, whose duty it is to take the numbers of all passenger carriages and goods, waggons and tarpaulins, and make a daily statement of the same to the Clearing-House.

As daily returns of all “foreign” carriages arriving and departing from all Clearing-House stations are forwarded to the same office, they are thus in a position to check the traffic, detect discrepancies, and finally make the proper entries as to mileage and demurrage in the accounts of the respective companies. Frequently the charge of one-tenth of a penny per mile for a tarpaulin is divided among several companies in various proportions. For a waggon or carriage from Edinburgh to London, mileage and demurrage accounts are sent out by the Clearing-House to four companies. Formerly, before demurrage was introduced, carriages were frequently detained on lines to which they did not belong, for weeks, and even months, until sometimes they were lost sight of altogether!

Once a month the balances are struck, and the various railways, instead of having to pay enormous sums to each other, obtain settlement by means of comparatively small balances.

For example, the London and North-Western railway sends its through passengers over the Caledonian line. The mileage charged for its “foreign” carriages is three farthings per mile. Small though that sum is, it amounts at the end of a month perhaps to 5000 pounds. This little bill is sent to the Clearing-House by the Caledonian against the London and North-Western. But during the same period the latter company has been running up a somewhat similar bill against the former company. Both accounts are sent in to the Clearing-House. They amount together to perhaps some fifteen or twenty thousand pounds, yet when one is set off against the other a ten or twenty pound note may be all that is required to change hands in order to balance the accounts.

The total mileage of lines under the jurisdiction of the Clearing-House, and over which it exercises complete surveillance on every train that passes up or down night or day, as far as regulating the various interests of the companies is concerned, amounts to more than 14,000. The Times, at the conclusion of a very interesting article on this subject, says,—“Our whole railway system would be as nothing without the Clearing-House, which affords another illustration of the great truth that the British railway public is the best served railway public in the world, and, on the whole, the least grateful.” We hope and incline to believe that in the latter remark, the great Thunderer is wrong, and that it is only a small, narrow-minded, and ignorant section of the public which is ungrateful.

Disputed claims between railways are referred to the arbitration of the committee of the Clearing-House, from whose decision there is no appeal.

The trouble taken in connexion with the lost-luggage department is very great; written communications being sent to almost innumerable stations on various lines of rails for every inquiry that is made to the House after lost-luggage.

It is a striking commentary at once on the vast extent of traffic in the kingdom, and the great value in one important direction of this establishment, the fact that, in one year, the number of articles accounted for to the Clearing-House by stations as left by passengers, either on the platforms or in carriages, amounted to 156,769 trunks, bags and parcels, and of these nearly ninety-five in every hundred were restored, through the Clearing-House, to their owners. It is probable that the property thus restored would amount to half a million of money.

This reminds us that we left Edwin Gurwood on his way to restore Mrs Tipps her lost ring, and that, therefore, it is our duty to resume the thread of our story, with, of course, a humble apology to the patient reader for having again given way to our irresistible tendency to digress!