Railway Act, 1903 - Page 74: Packing, Oil Cups, Overdue Trains

Here I illustrate some interesting details about railway operations from 

the 1903 version of the Railway Act, passed during the reign of Edward VII.

Having to deal with an entire cross-section of society in their stations and on their passenger trains, the railways were granted the right to create and enforce company regulations governing the behaviour of the general public under the Railway Act. I grew up reading the stern warnings posted on railway property by authority of this legislation. 

As a kid, it seemed to me that a copy of the Railway Act would yield a lot of interesting detail about railway operations ... beyond the boring posterized prohibition of public expectoration. When I finally purchased an old copy of the Act, I confirmed my suspicion about the operational details within it. Here is what is to be found on Page 74.

By 1900, the railways in North America had been forced to focus on safety. Overturning stoves in wooden passenger equipment, link and pin coupling systems, and the use of only mechanical hand brakes to stop trains had taken their toll, scandalizing the public and finally causing governments to act to protect human life.

On the topic of 'packing', I suspect that filling up these spaces would protect the safety of employees and the general public by preventing feet and hooves from becoming caught in switches and at public crossings.

Around this time, most road transportation in the city and in the countryside was powered by horses. Otherwise, many people were simply walking across public railway crossings on their way to work, school or church. With most people not being aware of the danger of these particular traps and the difficulty of extracting one's foot in a hurry, there were probably some pretty tragic outcomes. (To be historically cautious ... it is possible that this part of the legislation only applies to railway 'crossings' i.e. 'diamonds'. I don't know.)

On the employee side ... trainmen were walking around, and climbing aboard, and dropping off, rolling stock in all kinds of weather and at night - when a kerosene or oil lantern could not light up the whole scene. You can imagine it would be easy to wedge a boot under the rail at a switch when rain and grease had lubricated both the footwear and the rails. It would be less easy to quickly extract one's foot as equipment approached the switch. 

I am only speculating on the reason for these three paragraphs. However, when one considers the thousands of gaps 'of less than four inches' existing in the trackwork across Canada, and the daily hazard these foot traps presented to employees and the public, it seems likely this was the reason.

from: Baltimore & Ohio Railroad; Roadway and Track Standards; circa 1950; reprint.

The diagrams above and below show the general application of this idea on a US railroad.
The public crossing section below does a nice job of showing the gap which is filled.

from: Baltimore & Ohio Railroad; Roadway and Track Standards; circa 1950; reprint.

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Oil Cups

from: The Iron Horse; Henry B Comstock; 1992; Greenberg Publishing Co.

The view of a 4-4-0 (circa 1860) above shows the oil cups installed on top of the steam chests and the pistons below.
Early lubricator systems are described below.

from: Locomotive Engine Running; Angus Sinclair; 1899; John Wiley & Sons.

These undated snapshots I purchased (above and below) show 4-4-0 engines which were retrofitted with lubricator lines to the steam chests. The Railway Act paragraph prohibiting employees from refilling steam chest oil cups while the locomotive is in motion is consistent with previous changes to train braking practices which once required brakemen to travel from car roof to car roof to apply hand brakes to stop a train, that is, ... It is really unsafe to be working on the outside of a moving train.

To illustrate the 'old way' with the CPR 100 above, you can imagine a fireman coming out of that open front cab door, climbing over the air pump, then making his way along the running board and using an oil can to refill the oil cup while holding on to the railing with the other hand.

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Again, here is more text from Page 74 the Railway Act of 1903 ...

from: The Train Doesn't Stop Here Any More; Ron Brown; 1991; Broadview Press.

Above, at Biscotasing, Ontario (undated photo) the train has just departed after depositing freight on the station platform. To the right of the open office door, you can see a Dominion Express sign and an oil platform lamp with its shiny reflector. To the left of the door, you can see the simple train order signal and the overdue train blackboard. This early view of the station is interesting because telegraph lines generally entered at the rear of a station building.

from: Canada, A History in Photographs; Hall & Dodds; 1981; Hurtig.

The unidentified Quebec Central station in the undated view above shows a spoof of local transportation methods when the area is flooded. Unfortunately, the blackboard is not legible in this image.

In the last years of CNR and CPR passenger service, an eternally optimistic 'ON TIME' was often stencilled with white paint onto the appropriate location on the blackboards. After this 'schedule update' by Maintenance of Way, or Buildings and Bridges ... the office probably never had to requisition chalk again!

At our local Kingston station in the early 1980s, there was a telephone line through which the local station personnel could contact the CNR Belleville dispatcher for train delay and arrival track information. One day, a passenger asked if his train was on time. A conscientious local employee seemed almost startled by the question and a flurry of activity ensued behind the counter. The passenger quipped to me: 'You ask a simple question and it sends the whole system into chaos.'

BRC 1922 The Board of Railway Commissioners

Years ago, one would often see framed notices like this in Canadian railway stations. 

Being a locomotive engineer would probably be the best railway job many kids could imagine. But being on the Board of Railway Commissioners sounded pretty good as well. It sounded like a job where one would sit around and talk about trains all day, and maybe go on field trips. I always wondered about  this.

Recently, I found that one of my neglected books included a description of the original BRC - by someone who 'wrote the book' on the Board of Railway Commissioners. That follows below.

But first ... exactly what is the pyramid of authorities described at the top of that notice? 

... Many people take cool photographs of trains ... uh, I guess this is what I do ...

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The Parliament of Canada (i.e. House, Senate, King) passed/gave Royal Assent to legislation which became the Railway Act, 1919 (i.e. the current edition of Canadian legislation covering railways). 

A consolidation of legislation and case law was made by a couple of lawyers with KC after their names (King's Counsel - designating an eminent lawyer). This is the document one finds at archive.org  . You can see all the older laws they had to bring together ...

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Getting Back to That Notice ...

To understand the authority for the notice and its rules, starting from the highest authorities ... 

The Prime Minister and Cabinet advised the King/Governor General ('sanctioned by the Governor General in Council') to approve some directives and rules (regulations).

These regulations had been examined and accepted by an appointed panel of railway experts ('approved by The Board of Railway Commissioners for Canada').

To start the ball rolling ... these regulations were proposed by the company ('adopted by the Directors of the Canadian National Railways') ... because that is permitted under the Railway Act, 1919. 

Back then, the CNR was a Crown Corporation with directors appointed by the Government.

from: Commercial Canada - Its Progress and Opportunities; ed:Fred Cook; Redman Book Co, Leeds England 1913.

The Grand Trunk headquarters later became the head office of the Canadian National Railways.

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You may already know that King George V was generally the last British monarch to share and promote his opinions about how a war should be waged with democratic leaders - during the Great War.

But, as you can see, he was also a 'railway man'. The Canadian Governor General in 1925, The Lord Byng of Vimy, approved the railway rules for the CNR notice. ... But can we be sure that King George V didn't try to pass on his own pet ideas about selling tickets to passengers boarding at flag stops and expectorating on railway property ?! 

King George V and Queen Mary at the Empire Exhibition at Wembley (second season) 1925.
from: 100 Years in Pictures; DC Somervell; c1950; Odhams Press. 

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According to the Railway Act, 1919 , Section 290, the directors of a railway company can make rules, etc, and here we're talking about those rules described in paragraphs (e) and (f) ...

That notice will be reproduced in its entirety in another post. It is quite a long and historically interesting list of rules. 

Spoiler alert: Literally the bottom line is that you can be fined up to $40 (about $570 in 2016 dollars) for violating the rules, and the railway can use reasonable force to make you stop ...  eg. spitting, playing games of chance, selling goods without authorization etc.

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Let's explore the second best railway job (the BRC) and where it came from ...

Title page - book published 1914, 1922.


A biographical note from the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, September 1899 on Simon McLean

Simon James McLean was one of Canada's 'international knowledge workers' - a century ago.

The mention of Simon James McLean (below) comes from the article on Andrew George Blair 1844-1907 in the Dictionary of Canadian biography. Blair was a former premier of New Brunswick and had joined Laurier in Ottawa as Minister of Railways and Canals in 1896.

Railway and Canals Minister Blair had a major falling out with Laurier over Laurier's surprise scheme of the building of the National Transcontinental/Grand Trunk Pacific. As Blair resigned over the issue, he gave a five hour extemporaneous speech in the House of Commons and quoted from his correspondence to Laurier - Laurier's complexion turned from white to grey at this point. 

Blair:

"It will be difficult to explain why government should build and own the lean section of this railway, and provide a company with government credit to enable them to build and operate the fat section."

This article (below) from The Stanford (California) Daily, September 29, 1908, documents more aspects of McLean's career as he became a member of Canada's professional civil service.

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This section comes from Simon J McLean's own book - published 1914, 1922.
My copy cost $7, but this book is also available free at archive.org .

As is often the case with political problems, it was about money - particularly freight rates and the prices charged to move the products which farmers produced. Was one type of traffic unfairly subsidizing another?

And who was getting more favourable treatment? ... Canadian vs US shippers, Montreal vs Toronto, region vs region ... and so on to infinity.

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I have reproduced Simon McLean's brief description of the creation of the Board of Railway Commissioners. Historically, it is interesting to understand why this field of government regulation had become necessary. In case you'd like to skim over parts of the text, I have summarized a few points, following his numbering system.

Just before section 9: "The old belief of efficiency in competition as a regulator of rates was shattered."

In section 10, McLean describes some of his fact-finding work in England and in the US.

In section 11 (above) the railways were not responsive in dealing with rate complaints. Since 1886, there had been a government failure to set up a system ... to delegate the settlement of rate grievances (from the committee of government politicians) ... to professional officers of the public service.

In section 12, consistently addressing current and pressing railway problems depended on the inclinations and abilities of the Minister. The committee might be paralyzed without his presence.

Finally, in section 14, we see how the Board is to be composed of people who have an understanding of legal matters - because when the going gets tough, the railways and shippers will be lawyering up for a fight. The members of the Board will have an excellent understanding of the legal process.

In section 15, the Board will also be regulating railways when they have an impact on the general public - particularly when it comes to safety. Like robust air traffic control procedures today, 'maintaining separation' between trains on a railway, or where railways crossed each other at grade, would have been very important for public safety when most Canadians travelled between cities by train.

Section 16 - all about rates! Finally, Canada has a body which will deal with all the rate issues. The CPR threatened a court challenge, but backed off in 1909.

from: Commercial Canada - Its Progress and Opportunities; ed:Fred Cook; Redman Book Co, Leeds England 1913.

In section 17, the Board will regulate how railways work with each other. For a national and international system of railways to work efficiently, the little-appreciated field of traffic interchanging and documentation needs to be consistent. 

In section 18, we can see that other areas of national infrastructure needed to be regulated.

In section 19, is a quintessentially Canadian issue which is evergreen in the complaints it generates - the movement of grain. It has always been a source of contention and it always will be - as long as the Prairies remain arable.

Sections 20 to 25: the Board has great flexibility to self-organize - in order to address the often heavy demands placed on it to act. It is has the power to regulate and to have its rulings stand. In less than 0.5% of cases, were the early rulings of the Board overruled or altered by the designated higher legal or governmental authorities.


... The Board ruled on many of the same railway operating and safety issues which the Interstate Commerce Commission dealt with in the US.

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Politicians have their memories preserved and promoted by their fans, by their political parties (sometimes), by themselves in often-ghost-written autobiographies, and formally by their countries on currency and stamps, through statuary and in the naming of government buildings and public roads ... and even gratuitously on semi-privatized airports. If new scientific discoveries arise on topics such as substance dependence and PTSD ... academic historians revisit the 'personal demons' of leading figures to foster a more balanced understanding of their lives and accomplishments. Their 'papers' (if not their emails and text messages) are usually carefully preserved. 

If their companies still have any kind of institutional memory extending back before the previous quarter of the financial year ... railway officers and board members are remembered for their efforts to build and to organize railway systems and transportation empires, and for their abilities to keep the competition at bay and to fill the company's coffers with lucre. A great many were immortalized as a railway 'station' - at least in meeting the definition in the rulebook. A handful lived on after their deaths in the fond memories of their employees. Some are assured their place in history for their development of international systems and conventions, or for furthering the interests of the then Dominion of Canada or the British Empire during times of crisis. Like the politicians, they too have been the subject of many autobiographies and biographies -  even in the modern era.

Then, there are the professional public servants ...
who worked to set up and maintain
 institutions essential to the well-being of Canadians ...

from: Montreal Gazette November 8, 1946