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Urban electric railway management and operation in Britain and America 1900–14

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2009

M. D. Reilly
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Extract

The debate about the comparative performance of the British and American economies around the turn of the century has involved most industrial sectors. In the case of the railways, the argument goes back at least to 1887, when a critical analysis of English railway operations compared to those of the United States was published. For British railway companies, the years after 1900 were a particularly difficult time especially in the capital market, and many new investment projects were abandoned, although not solely because of adverse conditions in the capital market. A substantial number of these projects were probably of a marginal nature but the eighteen-year period between 1890 and 1908 also saw the development of a new type of railway – the urban rapid transit system. This was in response to two very different factors – the continuing growth of cities and the application of electric power in a form suitable for railway use. The spread of these systems in Britain paralleled their expansion in the United States.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History Yearbook , Volume 16 , May 1989 , pp. 22 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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References

Notes

1 Dorsey, E.B., English and American Railroads Compared (1887).Google Scholar

2 Irving, R.J., ‘British Railway Investment and Innovation, 1900–1914’, Business History, XIII (1971), 39–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Cheape, C.W., Moving the Masses: Urban Public Transit in New York, Boston and Philadelphia, 1880–1912 (1980);Google Scholar Barker, T.C. and Robbins, R.M., A History of London Transport (1963).Google Scholar

4 An additional line in Glasgow was cable-operated and does not, therefore, fall within the remit of this study.

5 For a detailed discussion of the merits and drawbacks of the use of operating ratios, see Irving, R.J., The North Eastern Railway Co. 1870–1914 (1975), 286.Google Scholar

6 Letter from A.C. Ellis of Metropolitan Railway to Sir Henry Oakley of Great Northern Railway, February 1903.

7 Report of Committee on Contract submitted to the New York Rapid Transit Railroad Commissioners, 17 March 1898, 8.Google Scholar

8 Railway News, LXIX (1898), 165.Google Scholar

9 Shaw, Joshua, ‘Notes on the Mersey Railway’, paper read to Liverpool Engineering Society, 1 December 1915.Google Scholar The figures are the averages of the last three years and first three years of operating under the two modes.

10 Shaw, Joshua, ‘The Equipment and Working Results of the Mersey Railway under Steam and under Electric Traction’, Proceedings of the Institute of Civil Engineers (1909).Google Scholar

11 Railway News, Electric Railway Journal; annual returns of Manhattan Elevated Railway.

12 Board of Trade, Railway Returns.Google Scholar

13 This can be compared with the British lines where the initial impact of electrification led to a deterioration in the ratio, usually because train frequencies were increased to attract more passengers.

14 Board of Trade, Railway Returns.Google Scholar

16 Ibid.

17 One aspect worthy of further research would be analysis to determine whether there was any relationship between the operating ratio and the building cycle. The Mersey side case suggests that there was not, for while operating improvements may have boosted housing development indirectly, evidence of a direct relationship is lacking.

18 ‘Financial Aspects of the Relief of Congestion by the Construction of Subways and Viaducts’, Electric Railway Journal, XLII (1913), 813.Google Scholar

19 Warner, S.B., Streetcar Suburbs—The Process of Growth in Boston, 1870–1900 (1962), 25.Google Scholar

20 US Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the US, Colonial Times to 1970, Part I (1975), 212, 218.Google Scholar

21 Marvyn L. Scudder Library, Financial Reports, File 252.

22 Electric Railway Journal, XXXIX (1912), 904.Google Scholar

23 Scudder Library, Boston Elevated Co., Report of 8 February 1905, File 293; Brooklyn Rapid Transit.

24 Scudder Library, File 252.

25 Electric Railway Journal, op. cit., (1912).

26 Electric Railway Journal, XLI (1913), 878.Google Scholar

27 ‘Report of Arbitration Board on Boston Elevated Railway’, Electric Railway Journal, XLIII (1914), 170.Google Scholar

28 Ibid.

29 Ibid., p. 174.

30 Report on Financial Condition of Boston Elevated to Commonwealth of Massachusetts, February 1917, Scudder Library, File 252.

31 Belmont Papers, New York Public Library.

32 Ibid.

33 Letter to Frank Hedley (Manager) from Theodore Shonts (President), Interborough Metropolitan Co., 10 October 1912.

34 Barker and Robbins, A History of London Transport, op. cit., vol. 11, p. 315.

35 Board of Trade, Earnings & Hours Enquiry—VII—Railway Services (1907), xxvii.Google Scholar To put this overall figure in context, by 1913 the Boston Elevated alone was employing 40 per cent more workers than all British electric railways were in 1907.

36 C.W. Cheape, Moving the Masses, op. cit., 215.