Michael Robbins

The early years of electric traction : Invention, development, exploitation

Lutilisation de lelectricite pour la traction, dune maniere pratique et fiable, commenca vers 1880 aux Etats-Unis et se generalisa rapidement. Les cites du monde entier etait prete a accueillir ce changement. Cet article explique le cheminement dune invention vers son industrialisation, son developpement technique et son exploitation.

Book Review: The American Railroad Freight Car: From the Wood-Car Era to the Coming of SteelWhiteJohn H. junior, The American Railroad Freight Car: from the Wood-car Era to the coming of Steel, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Md, and London (1993), 644 pp.,

tion in Eastern waters and in the United States. It is not clear why there are so few references in the text to other European countries despite the fact that the leading merchant fleets of the world were European. In his essay on steam navigation in Eastern waters Roof has limited himself to a short notice of a heterogeneous character for each ship (size, shipwright, owner, engines) employed in the Eastern trade. The longest essay in the book is devoted to the United States, as that country was a paradigm of river steam navigation. Professor Still and his co-writers Watts and Rodgers argue that American environmental factors had a strong bearing upon steam propulsion in its struggle against sail. The combination of a vast territory and a low population density made water transport a crucial factor in the development of the US economy in the early stages of the nineteenth century. The section devoted to the Mississippi will undoubtedly attract the attention of most readers. According to Still, steam navigation on the Mississippi and the Great Lakes contributed far more to westward expansion than railways or waggons, though no evidence is provided to confirm this assertion. Readers with little knowledge of technical issues will undoubtedly appreciate the simplicity of the text. They may, though, wonder about the reasons for intermingling the different aspects technical, economic and geographical with no apparent justification. In spite of the fact that most contributors make it clear that coal consumption was the crucial factor behind the coexistence of steam and sail, very little is said about the actual costs of each mode of navigation. Qualitative evidence is clearly preferred by most contributors to quantitative. No data are provided on freight rates, length of journeys, output capacity or on capital formation in the expansion of the steam merchant fleet. I should also stress Dr Greenhills editorial work in avoiding The Journal of Transport History

125.00.

The Surrey Record Society is the bold pioneer in a type of publishing venture which, so far as this reviewer knows, has not been attempted before: namely, printing in full the board minute books of a British railway company. It has taken a long time (since 1959) to do so, and there have been changes in intention and editorial method along the way. The Reading, Guildford and Reigate had a relatively short life as a company: 1845 to 1852. It was skilfully directed, mainly by London City men under the chairmanship of David Salomons (Lord Mayor in 1855) and, in effect, sold itself out on good terms to the South Eastern Railway before construction began. Its promoters assumed that considerable traffic would flow through from the Great Western at Reading to the southern lines via Reigate (Redhill); but the Great Western gave it no particular encouragement. Indeed, it showed an impenetrable indifference; a standard-gauge connection was not built at Reading until 1858, nine years after the RG&R had been opened and two years after the mixed gauge had reached Reading from Oxford. It was a poor connection, and it had to be supplemented in 1899 and again in 1941. The London & South Western Railway was prepared to be neighbourly, and trains from Reading to Reigate used LSWR tracks from Ash Junction through Guildford station and tunnel to Shalford Junction. The transactions recorded are pretty much of a routine nature though Heaven forbid that I or anyone else should have ploughed through so many sets of minutes as to be able to say for certain whether these are typical or not. The possibilities of squeeze for unduly high compensation for land acquired from The}ournal ofTransport History

Book Review: Minutes of the Board of Directors of the Reading, Guildford and Reigate Railway CompanyCourseEdwin (ed.), Minutes of the Board of Directors of the Reading, Guildford and Reigate Railway Company, Surrey Record Society, Guildford (1988), 394 pp., £15–00.

Acomprehensive study of the German railways in the First World War was published in 1930 under the auspices of the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace Die deutsthen Eisenbahnen im Kriege, by Adolph Sarter (Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt and Yale University Press). However, it was not until 30 years had passed after 1945 that any similar work about the Second World War period became available. Immediately after that war, surviving documents were studied in some detail by Allied intelligence investigators, who were mainly concerned, if they understood the matter at all, to find out how the German railway system, having taken such a beating from air bombardment, still continued to function. A start was made in the 1950S on the preparation ofa history and some material was assembled, under Sarters editorship; but the project was given up on his death in 1957. Although a few articles were published on specific railway subjects, and general histories of campaigns sometimes referred to the importance of this or that line or junction in a strategic or tactical sense, it was not until the 1970S that any respectable body of work began to emerge on the Reichsbahn in the war, and that principally in articles contributed to periodicals. This contrasts with the readiness of the British railways to have their stories told: all four groups individually in 1944-7, Robert Bell for them all (History ofthe British Railways during the War, 1939-45, published in 1946), followed by the official history volume on Inland Transport (1957) by C. I. Savage. In France, Paul Durands La S.N.C.P. pendant la Guetre was issued in 1968; and the United States celebrated its wartime railwaymens feats without any delay. The time-lag in German historiography is not to be explained by suspicion of unwillingness to examine recent unpleasant experiences. It is partly because study of transport and transport history is not yet accepted on the Continent as having full academic respectability, as is the case in Britain and is becoming so in America; but mostly because the sources, after the collapse ofcivilization over large parts ofEurope in 1945, are fragmentary, scattered, or non-existent. Sarter was a railway officer, who served also in the Prussian ministry and became president of the Trier Reichsbahndirektion after the war. It has again been left to a participant in the events, not to an academic or official historian, to produce the book that some of us have been waiting for: Eugen Kreidler, Die Eisenbahnen imMachtbereich der Achsenmachte wahrend des Zweiten Weltkrieges (Studien und Dokumente zur Geschichte des Zweiten Weltkrieges, Band IS, Gottingen: Musterschmidt, 1975). Mr Kreidler, a professional Reichsbahn man, was concerned as such with defence matters from 1934; from March 1942 until the end of the war he served in the transport division at Army G.H.Q. (OKH), and after the war with the Deutsche Bundes-

The Third Reich and its Railways

able to have his own way: State ownership but electric locomotive or the slightly more modest separate economic management, with budgetary hope in the authors foreword that the whole separation of the railway accounts. forms a balanced picture of the history of the Dr Wettenhall contends that Acworths main-line electric locomotive are not sustained principal sin was to be committed to laissezby the performance. There ismuch historicaland [aire. This judgment is too sweeping. Acworth technicalinformation, excellentphotographs, and realized the limits of private enterprise, but was many general arrangement diagrams; but the unwilling to accept the idea of running railways links of cause and effect, challenge and response, simply as public utilities free of profit-making development and result that a history may propobligations. His concern was with efficiency, erly be expected to provide are not communiwhether achieved through public or private concated to the reader. For the non-technical, there trol. His approach was essentially pragmatic. are slabs of information on dimensions and It was not by coincidence that Acworth stood statistics that areabout asusefulasmusicquotations as a Conservative parliamentary candidate, thus in concert programmes are to a man who cannot siding publicly with the party of pragmatism. In read music; for the electrical engineer, there is Great Britain his opinion was that the railways awkward phrasing or compressed expression were better left to the care of the private comwhich makesthe meaning difficult to follow, and panies. Yet railway nationalization was already sometimeseven raises doubts whether the writer attracting support from all political parties. Little has got hold of the right end of the stick. wonder, therefore, that though Acworths views On the credit side, it must be said that the were closely followed abroad they made less information here assembled almost certainly impact at home, where he was regarded merely cannot be found elsewherewithin the two covers as a well-meaning academic. Clearly, however, ofa singlebook. Not only European designs, but Acworths achievements were considerable. Dr also American, Indian, New Zealand, Japanese, Wettenhall is right to remind us of them in a and others are recorded and illustrated. The study which isnot a biography ofAcworth, but a reviewer has noted some slipsin relation to lococritique of Acworths ideas. It is a pity that these motivesof the London Transport railways,which ideasare not examined more thoroughly in their inspire some doubts as to the complete accuracy British context; for the practice of the Australian of particulars given about the machines about railway. systems provided an important backwhich he knows less, or nothing at all. But the ground against which the debate over British diagrams and pictures are authentic. There is a railway reform was conducted. short bibliography of books, periodicals, and GEOFFREY ALDERMAN reports in English, French, and German.

Book Review: The History of the Electric Locomotive.The History of The Electric Locomotive. By HautF. J. G.. (Allen & Unwin, 1969, 147 pp. Illustrated. Diagrams. £6.00.)

periodically re-positioned from one base to another; but these transit flights were made at widely-spaced and irregular intervals. Bookings were accepted for seats on positioning flights which were advertised ahead to take place on predetermined dates and at stated departure (although not arrival) times. However, few flights seem, in fact, to have been made on the advertised date, let alone to a published timetable, which is surely a pre-requisite of a scheduled service. However, so much in this book is well done that it is more difficult to pick out sections which are particularly praiseworthy. The two chapters on the development of air transport in South America are notable for the lucid way in which they set out the complex pattern of airline expansion to its present massive proportions on that continent. Typical of this colourful period is the episode in which the directors of one airline narrowly escaped being lynched by an infuriated mob! Similarly, there is a stimulating account in other chapters of the remarkable growth which has taken place, particularly in the United States, since the War during the two distinct periods of piston-engined and now of jet aircraft operation. This brings out very clearly the sweeping nature ofthese developments which probably compare, in the importance of their effects on the human environment, with any advance in transport since the invention of the wheel. This book will become a classic of its kind. It is to be to recommended to all concerned with transport and particularly to those interested in the history of its development.

Review: British Branch LinesBRITISH BRANCH LINES. By VallanceH. A. (Batsford, 1965. 216 pp. Illustrated. Maps. 35s.)

periodically re-positioned from one base to another; but these transit flights were made at widely-spaced and irregular intervals. Bookings were accepted for seats on positioning flights which were advertised ahead to take place on predetermined dates and at stated departure (although not arrival) times. However, few flights seem, in fact, to have been made on the advertised date, let alone to a published timetable, which is surely a pre-requisite of a scheduled service. However, so much in this book is well done that it is more difficult to pick out sections which are particularly praiseworthy. The two chapters on the development of air transport in South America are notable for the lucid way in which they set out the complex pattern of airline expansion to its present massive proportions on that continent. Typical of this colourful period is the episode in which the directors of one airline narrowly escaped being lynched by an infuriated mob! Similarly, there is a stimulating account in other chapters of the remarkable growth which has taken place, particularly in the United States, since the War during the two distinct periods of piston-engined and now of jet aircraft operation. This brings out very clearly the sweeping nature ofthese developments which probably compare, in the importance of their effects on the human environment, with any advance in transport since the invention of the wheel. This book will become a classic of its kind. It is to be to recommended to all concerned with transport and particularly to those interested in the history of its development.

Review: The Golden Valley RailwayTHE GOLDEN VALLEY RAILWAY. By MowatC. L. (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1964. x, 121 pp. Illustrated. Maps. 15s.)

A REGIONAL mSTORY OP THE RAILWAYS OP GIUlAT BRITAIN. Vol. m. Greater London. By H. P. White. (Phoenix House, 1963. xii, 227 pp. Illustrated Maps 3Ss.) The intention and scope of this series have already been indicated in reviews of the first two volumes in this JOURNAL. Here Mr. White examines the railway system of Greater London in relation to the social and economic activity which it engendered. He seeks to look beyond the physical development of the lines to the consequences of their construction, and he has extracted many figures, difficult to find in isolation, about the use made of these railways, expressed in trains handled and passengers and freight carried. More discussion of these aspects, and less detailed description ofjunction layouts and particulars of individual platforms at terminals, would have made the book more valuable; as it is, the balance is from time to time upset by digressions on unimportant things like the user at different times of each track south-east of London Bridge station. Mr. White has kept his head in the welter of facts available to him, though he will not escape entirely from corrections. On more general historical points, he makes Metropolitan Railway history sound more obscure than it need do (see thisJOURNAL, vol. IV (1959-60), p. 85); the Surplus Lands and Country Estates activities of that railway, which were distinct, appear to have been confused; an unsupported story about Lord Ashfields parents being central Europeans is accepted from another author; there is a muddled account of Uxbridges attitude to the original Great Western. Diagrammatic presentations of traffic growth are useful, but it is statistically naive not to relate the figures to mileage open at the dates concerned. The diagram on p. 93, purporting to show District Railway carryings, has gone seriously wrong; it shows entries for 1855,1860, and 1865. before the line was opened, and it does not agree with the text below it and on the following page. The folding map at the end is reasonably good, but some of the diagram maps in the text have been reduced rather too much for clarity. Criticisms of this kind are natural when an attempt has been made to extend knowledge of a complex subject in a small space. Comparison with its latest predecessor on London railways shows this book to be markedly superior-a distinct advance. MICHAEL ROBBINS

Review: A Regional History of the Railways of Great BritainA REGIONAL HISTORY OF THE RAILWAYS OF GREAT BRITAIN. Vol. 111. Greater London. By WhiteH. P. (Phoenix House, 1963. xii, 227 pp. Illustrated Maps 35s.)

the case of the turnpike trusts, for example, this book has nothing to say on such questions as the rate of interest paid on their mortgages, their contribution to urban growth, and the fluctuations of traffic volume revealed by their toll revenues. Nevertheless, these and many other facets of road history may be investigated in the future, as they have been in the past, by students secure in the knowledge that when difficulties arise in understanding the problems of administering the roads and the legislation relating thereto, The Kings Highway is always there as a clear and comprehensive guide. This is the true measure of the enduring value of this book. All serious students of transport history and the librarians of the new institutions of higher education now being created have cause to be grateful to Mr. Frank Cassfor making it possible once again to acquire a copy.

Review: Dall'omnibus Alla MetropolitanaDALL'OMNIBUS ALLA METROPOLITANA; ovvero Pagine di Vita Milanese all'Ombra del Tram. By OgliariFrancesco and SapiFranco. (Milan: The Authors, distributed by Libritalia, Viale Umbria 54, Milan. Second edition, revised and enlarged, 1962. 327 pp. Illustrated. Maps. 8000 Lire.)

railway, airway, and shipping industries. Studies of road transport are rare by comparison, despite the fact that in many countries it hasbecome the most important carrier. In underdeveloped countries road transport is often the largest economic activity outside agriculture with which, of course, it is closely related. Nevertheless, important transport policy decisions and largescale road investments are frequently made on the basis of such limited information as would make a businessman in a similar position recoil in horror. After analysing the evidence ofvehicle growth, use, ownership, costs, journey lengths, sources of finance, taxation, etc., Mr. Hawkins emphasises that a distinctive feature of Ugandas road transport is the large amount of empty running. This phenomenon, he argues, is a direct result of the deliberate and unrealistic policy ofseparating the carriage of passengers from the carriage of freight, as well as from the railways hold on long-distance transport and the ways by which the Government controls the ex-farm marketing of the seasonal export crops. The freight side of the industry, however, has grown and readjusted itself to new and changing demand conditions without direct Government controls or intervention. The pressures to introduce A, B, and C licensing of road transport have been resisted. But Mr. Hawkins expresses his fear that controls over entry and restrictive licensing of road transport may be introduced and road development policies adopted in the hope of saving marginal quantities of freight for the Railway (p. 234). Such moves, he believes, would be against the longrun interests of the railway in that they would inhibit the economic development that would bring it more of the traffic which it is better able to carry. Mr. Hawkins strongly criticises the efforts to transplant into African soil the passenger provisions of the U.K. Road Traffic Acts of the 19305. Control of road passenger transport, he argues, has been treated more as a technical than an economic problem; the technical aim being to provide a proper bus service. A proper bus service he defines as one characterised by ... expensive vehicles of a high (British?) standard, scheduled services, the complete abolition of competition, regulated fares and the accompanying cross-subsidisation of routes to make the whole system work (pp. 218-9). One reader, at least, is convinced that this policy objective is out of line with current economic realities in Uganda. How the authors recommendation ofa planned retreat from the objective of building Britain in Ugandas green and pleasant land is to be carried out is more controversial. The cooperative road passenger bus movement of Israel, for example, shows that there can be widespread indigenous ownership of vehicles together with high technical and safety standards and good service. Tropical Africa may find the lessons of this experience more relevant than those of the U.K., U.S.A., or even West Africa, as Mr. Hawkins suggests. The other main contribution of this book is to bring out the conflict between highway engineers who want to build and surface roads to high standards and administrators who question them. The author devotes a whole chapter to show how road planning and desigu decisions should be put on the basisofcomparing the economic costs and benefits involved. Road development isprofitable to the economy of Uganda. But which roads to improve, in what order of priority and to what standards, can be decided only after an economic appraisal based on the facts. So we come around the circle again. Those responsible for transport policy and development must get the facts. New techniques are becoming available which show that once the facts are fully available and analysed, many of the policy decisionsnecessary to achieve a countrys transport aims and objectives are clearer and easier. That Mr. Hawkins comes down in favour of roads and road transport will not endear him to railway advocates. They would do well, however, to read him, if only to see their own arguments better presented than they usually manage for themselves.