Parliament train

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Parliamentary train ( English parliamentary train ) is a term in the railways in Great Britain . On the one hand, third- class trains were given the name that, due to a law passed by the British Parliament in 1844 , had to offer a minimum of comfort and run on every route.

Nowadays, the term (known locally as the Ghost , English ghost train ) for some paradoxical traits used to operate alone to escape the formal cost of a route and / or station decommissioning.

First use

In the first decades of British rail passenger transport, third-class wagons were in most cases nothing more than ordinary open freight wagons, lacking any comfort or protection from the elements, often without seats. The government took a laissez-faire attitude and did not interfere in the interests of the railroad companies. It wasn't until 1840 that it began to issue safety regulations. In 1844, a special commission of parliament prepared six reports on the state of the British railway system by order of the Board of Trade and its President William Ewart Gladstone .

On the basis of the reports, a legislative proposal was drawn up which, among other things, proposed the nationalization of the railways. The law, which was very far-reaching for its time, did not come about in this form. However, the parliament decided on minimum standards for passenger transport. The Railway Regulation Act 1844 established the following:

  • On each route, at least one train with third-class coaches should run in both directions every day and stop at each station.
  • The fare cannot be more than half a penny per mile.
  • These trains may not run more than 12 miles an hour (19 km / h).
  • Third-class cars must be equipped with seats and a roof must protect the passengers from the weather.

Many railway companies were reluctant to comply with these regulations. They did not go beyond the minimum requirements and let the “parliamentary trains” run early in the morning or late in the evening. The Midland Railway was the first company to offer three car classes on all trains, all with glass windows and lighting with oil lamps. As a result, many former second-class passengers bought first class or preferred the cheaper third class. Finally, in 1875, the Midland Railway upgraded the third class while abolishing the second class.

Over time, the other societies followed suit. In Great Britain such a two-car class system arose, as it was only introduced on "the continent" in 1953. Since the railway companies were legally obliged to offer a third class, the paradoxical situation arose until then that there was a first and third class, but hardly any second class. At the time of King Edward VII , only the London and South Western Railway and the South Eastern and Chatham Railway offered the second class, most recently after the grouping until 1948 only the Southern Railway on their "boat trains" to the ports on the English Channel . In 1953 - as part of the Europe-wide standardization - the previous third class was renamed "second class".

Cultural influence

The small comfort and the slow speed of the parliamentary traits of the Victorian period resulted in a humorous mention in the operetta The Mikado by Gilbert and Sullivan .

Usage today

The Beeching ax shut down routes on a large scale and replaced them with buses. In the associated law, an option was included that after protests it must be checked whether the line closure would not be too serious for the passengers. Now that many routes had been canceled, it became all the more difficult to enforce new closure requests, so that in many places the so-called parliamentary trains (also called ghost trains due to the "ghostly" emptiness ) run instead of closure , which are usually the most unsuitable once a week Times to drive the route or operate the station. This phenomenon is also referred to as an alibi train in the German language or with regard to German railways .

literature

for the former use
  • PJG Ransomware: The Victorian Railway and How It Evolved . William Heinemann, London 1989, ISBN 0-434-98083-8 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jack Simmons: Class distinctions , in: Jack Simmons, Gordon Biddle (ed.): The Oxford Companion to British Railway History. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1997, pp. 84-87
  2. ↑ Michael Williams: The hunt for Britain's ghost trains. In: independent.co.uk. The Independent , December 19, 2011, accessed October 10, 2015 .

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