The Friends of the National Railway Museum
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The Friends of the FOR CURRENT LIST OF FORTHCOMING LECTURES See the Diary section of the web page at: National Railway Museum http://www.nrmfriends-south.org.uk/Diary.ht ml Briefing 50 South of England Group June 2008 Vice Presidents – Alan Pegler OBE, FRSA; Sir William McAlpine Bt., FRSE, FCIT, FRSA Be "Safe" Men! Making Railway Workers Safe, 1900-1939 Seventeen members were present when The accident statistics, collated by the Mike Esbester, of Reading University, Board of Trade, between 1900-1913 gave a talk based on his PhD thesis showed an annual average of 17,000 covering the development of the Railway people injured each year with the trend Companies to promote a safety culture being upward; in 1913 a total of 30000 amongst their workers. Mike became workers suffered some form of accident. interested while looking through Even hard-hearted business managers company magazines during his Masters at couldn't ignore this, especially when it the Institute of Railway Studies. He was costing money. The GWR, for noticed several articles on safety and example, paid out £13,000 in wanted to find out when this started and compensation, equivalent to well over why. £1M in today's money - and that didn't In the 19 th century the general approach include the cost of the lost working time. of the country was that people were The problem was how to reconciling the FOR CONTACTS IN FNRM SOUTH OF ENGLAND responsible for their own safety - with the business of operating the railway at singular exception of railway passenger lowest cost and improving safety of the GROUP: safety. Here the State felt it appropriate to workers so that a) the costs were reduced and b) Government were persuaded to See Contacts at main index: have statutory regulation because passengers were not in a position to take keep their noses out of the business of http://www.nrmfriends-south.org.uk/index.html charge of their own safety. Accidents running the railway. This was the catalyst were, even then, front page news - the that brought about the idea of safety impact of the press on politicians is (continued overleaf) nothing new! Accidents to employees were of little interest and mostly CONTENTS happened out of sight of the public, press Be Safe Men ....................................... 1 and politicians. After 1890 the trade 1968 and all That ................................ 3 unions began to flex their mussels and Summer Outing ................................... 3 pushed that more attention be given to workers' safety. Their activity resulted in Spanish Practices ................................. 5 the first Parliamentary Act covering Outreach Report .............................. 7 workers' safety which was introduced in NRM Locos in the South .................... 7 1900. However, the impact was minor. Forthcoming Events ................. 8 Briefing No 50 4 June 2008 Briefing No 50 1 June 2008 education. The GWR was the first to take also played a part, from trade unions and OUTREACH action, quickly followed by the other government. A government committee The stand was in attendance at the recently arrived, and several others railways, during the course of 1913. Until was finally established in May 1914 and London Festival of Railway Modelling at eagerly awaiting theirs. Those that had this point, the companies had relied on the companies used the education Alexandra Palace on 29th and 30th March. received their models were impressed by their rulebooks. The typical rulebook was programme as evidence of their action We occupied our normal position at the the standard and were keen to know of the not particularly approachable for the and that the companies could be left to front left hand side of the second hall. future plans of the Museum to produce average literate worker - and for those manage their own business. They claimed However, this year, because of some other models of National Collection who couldn't read, it was a closed book! savings of hundreds of workers accidents faults with the carpeting, the entry door locomotives. The layout was full of closely spaced text as a result of the campaign. opposite our stand was locked. This meant The planned events at the Museum drew and read as a top-down lecture from This argument was accepted since the that we did not get our usual flow of senior management in legalistic language. questions and we provided handouts of perceived wisdom was that accidents visitors passing the stand, but even so the Spring Bank Holiday celebration of As most injuries were to manual workers were an inevitability of work, and that it attendance numbers were high, especially with limited reading ability, the GWR "1968 and all that". Quite a few visitors was the employees who must change their on the Saturday. The stand used a new expected us to be carrying tickets, but 1913 promotional programme addressed approach not the company. It was the display table and layout, allowing the them using photographs, bold headlines unfortunately this had not proved company's responsibility to promote range of used books and videos to be possible. with simple messages and attractive safety and the employees were displayed on shelves at the lower side of Our next event will be the Napier event at layout as an insert in the company responsible for their own action in putting the display. This proved very popular and, Buckinghamshire Steam Centre, Quainton magazine. More novel ideas followed - the advice into practice. Work colleagues with the bequest of Brian Gilliam's Road on 20th and 21st June, when we italics, upper case and even letters on their were responsible for avoiding putting videos, we had plenty of stock to sell, We expect to have a lot of interest in Deltic side. However, the magazine was charged each others in danger. However, the had a good deal of interest in the new memorabilia. We will then have a short at 1d, and only 40 copies were sold for companies continued to push for enamel advertising signs, and the FNRM break before the Autumn season is upon every 100 workers. Also other articles in improved efficiency, and did not provide locomotive guides sold steadily. us. Meanwhile there will be a number of the magazine were probable more any financial support for the employees to There was quite a lot of interest in the excursions hauled by NRM locomotives interesting! By 1914, the GWR were put the advice into practice. aware of the lack of penetration, so Prototype Deltic model, with several (see below) on which we plan to have a Did it work? The casualty figures did visitors noting that their models had presence. reprinted the safety articles in booklet decline from 1919 to 1937 but were also form for issue to all workers without effected by other factors, e.g. reduced NRM LOCOMOTIVES IN THE SOUTH charge. Eight booklets were produced working hours and practices. Employees before 1939. Other novelties followed all may also have been unwilling to report A number of excursions are being planned to commence in the South of England, all o bearing safety slogans - a token in the accidents. The trade unions were in starting from London. These are scheduled for haulage by BR Standard Pacific N o form of a coin, safety pendants, favour of safety education and push for 70013 Oliver Cromwell and SR Sir Lamiel in its BR guise as N 30777. The tours are matchboxes, and cinema presentations in more whenever they saw unsafe practices. promoted by Steam Dreams and further details are on their website at http:// special coaches. A crossword was The government followed this lead, the www.steamdreams.com/ or telephone 01483 209888. The ones currently on offer are: published in 1925 with BE SAFE MEN as chief railway inspector making repeated Date Destination Locomotive the blocked parts - this was only a year calls for more safety education. This also Thu 24 Jul Norwich 70013 after crosswords were generally meant that further safety legislation was Sat 26 Jul Manchester 70013 introduced. GWR waived copyright on avoided. Other businesses saw the Thurs 11 Sep Salisbury, Bath and Bristol 70013 the 1914 booklet so other companies benefits of this, London Omnibus Sun 14 Sep Salisbury and Exeter 70013 could follow and 700,000 booklets were followed in 1916 and the approach was in distributed before 1939. general use in factories by the 1930s. Sat 20 Sep Norwich 70013 Why did the change happen in 1913? Ultimately, safety education permeating Wed 24 Sep Canterbury 70013 Probably recognition of the economic society's conscious and resulted in the Sat 11 Oct Gloucester 30777 benefit of education compared to founding of the Royal Society for Wed 15 Oct Oxford, Warwick & Stratford on Avon 30777 alternative of introducing expensive Prevention of Accidents in 1941. Which We are aiming to have a stand on board for the FNRM. If you are interested in helping technical safety changes, such as is where Mike ended his story. automatic couplings. External pressure man this on one of the runs, please contact Ian Harrison to check on the arrangements. Briefing No 50 2 June 2008 Briefing No 50 7 June 2008 to have the NRM. Also tacked on around I was struck by a somewhat bizarre 1968 AND ALL THAT the side is the National Museum of example of the results of mixing old and By 1968, the need for change on the BR passenger shuttle with Middleton Science and Technology. new systems. I had noticed that the network had become essential. BR had to Railway's Sir Berkeley and later the NCB This is a small collection of rather ancient Cercanias in and around Madrid and the accept that some traditions had to go.