British Railway Traffic in 1921

Abstract

The traffic records of the eighty-seven railway companies operating in Britain prior to the 1923 amalgamations enable each company to be ranked on the basis of variations in freight conveyed per route kilometre. These measures of mean freight density can, however, only be used as an indication of actual traffic flows on the smaller systems and are best regarded as an index of intensity of use of a particular network. Coal-class traffic accounted for 59 per cent of all traffic conveyed but represented over 90 per cent of all traffic originating on several of the smaller systems serving the South Wales and South Yorkshire coalfields. The most intensively used systems were the smaller coalfield networks together with the Metropolitan line, which linked the London main-line freight terminals. The large systems linking London with the industrial regions of the Midlands and northern England recorded mean freight traffic densities above the average, whereas the systems confined to eastern and southern England recorded much lighter than average flows. The proportion of total traffic derived from within the region served by a system, rather than by exchange with neighbouring networks, was highest on the coalfield undertakings of the North Staffs., North Eastern and Taff Vale railways, and lowest upon those systems designed to provide links between major trunk routes and traversing areas with low traffic potential. GEOGRAPHICAL analyses of railway systems are normally concerned to explain two principal features: (I) the evolution and existing character of the network and its components, and (2) the generation, composition and distribution of the traffic conveyed over this network. Existing studies tend to focus attention upon either the formal or the functional characteristics of an undertaking, and the paucity of surveys of traffic patterns on British railways reflects the difficulties involved in obtaining reliable and comprehensive data on freight and passenger movements. Outside the United Kingdom, and particularly in North America, such data are much more readily available. Functional classifications of railway networks based upon variations in traffic density have been devised for the United States and other areas by W. H. Wallace,1 while F. H. Thomas has analysed the association between certain classes of freight traffic and the hinterlands in which these commodities are produced.2 Studies of this type are impossible unless detailed information on traffic passing over individual routes is available. Furthermore, if valid conclusions on the associations between a railway and the region which it serves are to be established, then additional data relating to the total traffic generated within a region and to the allocation of this traffic between the various competing transport media must also be provided. It is impossible for the geographer to examine contemporary rail traffic patterns in Britain in any detail since freight and passenger statistics are published only on a national basis. Thus, maps depicting traffic density over the component lines of the network can only be constructed on the infrequent occasions when special traffic surveys are made.3 Prior to nationalization in I948, the railway companies also presented traffic operating data which related to each system as a whole, and a more detailed account of traffic can only be obtained by an examination of the records of the many companies existing prior to the I923 regrouping. Even these records relate only to the overall carrying activities of each undertaking. However, in view of the sharing of rail services in Britain between a total of over eighty separate undertakings before I923, the records relate to less extensive operating areas than those created as the result