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Feet, Freight and Fried Eggs was the title of Steve Harris's talk, which was about the railways. In the first half of the 20th century England had a large network of railways which connected towns and many little villages. Then in the 1960's Ernest Marples, who was Minister of Transport, appointed Dr Beeching to make the railways financially viable, and this he achieved by axing many of the lines between villages. Many of the disused lines, having had the rails and sleepers removed, are now used by ramblers. When the railways were first built there was great opposition from farmers, who thought the noise of the engines would frighten the cattle and horses. As an inducement to allow the railway on their land some wealthy landowners were offered the chance to have an engine named after them. Sometimes, because land was unavailable near a village, the railway station would have to be built in between two villages. This led to the names of the two villages appearing on the platform sign. The men who built the railways were called navigators, or navvies for short. There was a great demand for workmen and they lived in huts alongside the track they were building. They were well paid but the work was arduous and dangerous, as men were often killed in landslides. Often a single track was laid but when bridges were built over the railtrack, a large arch was made to enable another track to be laid parallel at a later date. A tremendous amount of freight was moved by the railways and factories were often built by a railway. The railways created many jobs as even a small station would have a number of employees. The trains were fuelled by coal and it was said sometimes stokers would fry an egg for their lunch by putting it on their shovel and holding it over the red hot coals. Queen Victoria was the first Queen to travel by train and she instructed that an engine go on ahead to let people know of her imminent arrival so they could stand to attention as she passed. Many of the railway stations have been demolished but some have been bought and turned into dwelling houses. MARGARET DEAL |
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