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and how they may be prevented. If I have been successful, and if my remarks should be productive of any good, my trouble will be abundantly rewarded.
I would also add that the majority of railway servants are most terribly overworked, as well as underpaid, which of itself constitutes a serious danger to railway travelling. This question has been agitated by railway servants all over the country for some time past, by means of meetings, and through the Press, and particularly through the medium of that useful railway journal, The Railway Service Gazette, which has done, and is still doing, much good for the Railway Service.
No doubt it is a difficult matter to make arrangements so as to give enginemen and guards a regular number of hours on duty each day, on account of the different distances their trains are set to run; but their hours of duty should be arranged as far as possible as follows: no engineman, passenger or goods guard, should be kept at work longer than ten hours out of twenty-four, time to be calculated from arrival (by order) at the stations to their leaving them. This would give enginemen about eight hours on their journeys, as they are generally at work the greater part of an hour before starting, and about the same length of time on arrival back. The same remarks also apply to guards’ duties.
All pointsmen, signalmen and shunters should be placed on the eight hours’ system; other servants in uniform should work ten hours per day; six days to constitute a week’s work, and Sunday duty to be paid for as overtime. These arrangements, I think, would give satisfaction to all classes of railway servants. Extra enginemen and guards should be kept on duty at all the large stations, ready to take charge of any train of which the men in charge had been on duty this appointed time, in case it should have been delayed by bad weather, “blocks,” or other causes. If the men wished to travel on to their homes, they might be allowed to do so, but they should certainly be relieved of the responsibility of working their trains.
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