LIFE IN A RAILWAY FACTORY

LIFE IN
A RAILWAY FACTORY


BY

ALFRED WILLIAMS

AUTHOR OF
‘A WILTSHIRE VILLAGE’
‘VILLAGES OF THE WHITE HORSE’

LONDON
DUCKWORTH & CO.
3 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.

First Published 1915
Published in the Readers’ Library 1920

Printed in Great Britain
by Turnbull & Spears, Edinburgh

To My Friend
ALFRED E. ZIMMERN

PREFACE

My object in penning “Life in a Railway Factory” was to take advantage of the opportunities I have had as a workman, during twenty-three years’ continuous service in the sheds, of setting down what I have seen and known for the interest and education of others, who might like to be informed as to what is the actual life of the factory, but who have no means of ascertaining it from the generality of literature published upon the matter.

The book opens with a short survey of several causes of labour unrest and suggestions as to its remedy. Then follows a brief description of the stamping shed, which is the principal scene and theatre of the drama of life exhibited in the pages, the central point from which our observations were made and where the chief of our knowledge and experience was acquired. After a glance into the interior we explore the surroundings and pay a visit to the rolling mills, and watch the men shingling and rolling the iron and forging wheels for the locomotives. Continuing our perambulation of the yard we encounter the shunters, watchmen, carriage finishers, painters, washers-down, and cushion-beaters. The old canal claims a moment’s attention, then we pass on to the ash-wheelers, bricklayers, road-waggon builders, and the wheel-turning shed. Leaving them behind we come to the “field,” where the old broad-gauge vehicles were broken up or converted, and proceed thence into the din of the frame-building shed and study some portion of its life. Next follows an exploration of the smithy and a consideration of the smith at work and at home, his superior skill and characteristics. From our study of the smiths we pass to that of the fitters, forgemen, and boilermakers, and complete our tour of the premises by visiting the foundry and viewing the operations of the moulders.

The early morning stir in the town and country around the sheds, the preparations for work, the manner in which the toilers arrive at the factory, and the composition of the crowd are next described, after which we enter the stamping shed and witness the initial toils of the forgemen and stampers, view the oil furnace and admire the prowess of “Ajax” and his companions. The drop-hammers and their staff receive proportionate attention; then follows a comparison of forging and smithing, a study of several personalities, and an inspection of the plant known as the Yankee Hammers. Chapter XI. is a description of the first quarter at the forge expressed entirely by means of actual conversations, ejaculations, commands, and repartees, overheard and faithfully recorded. Following that is a first-hand account of how the night shift is worked, giving one entire night at the forge and noting the various physical phases through which the workman passes and indicating the effects produced upon the body by the inversion of the natural order of things. The remainder of the chapters is devoted to the description and explanation of a variety of matters, including the manner of putting on and discharging hands, methods of administration, intimidating and terrorising, the interpretation of moods and feelings during the passage of the day, week and year, holidays, the effects of cold and heat, causes of sickness and accidents, the psychology of fat and lean workmen, comedy, tragedy, short time and overtime, the advantages — or disadvantages — of education and intelligence, ending up with a review of the industrial situation as it was before the war and remarks upon the future outlook. A table of wages paid at the works is added as an appendix.

The site of the factory is the Wiltshire town of Swindon. This stands at the extremity of the Upper Thames Valley, in the centre of a vast agricultural tract, and is seventy-seven miles from London and about forty from Bristol. Its population numbers approximately fifty thousand, all largely dependent upon the railway sheds for subsistence. The inhabitants generally are a heterogenous people. The majority of the works’ officials, the clerical staff, journeymen, and the highly skilled workers have been imported from other industrial centres; the labourers and the less highly trained have been recruited wholesale from the villages and hamlets surrounding the town. About twelve thousand men, including clerks, are normally employed at the factory. A knowledge of the composition of the inhabitants of the town is important, otherwise one might be at a loss to account for the low rate of wages paid, the lack of spirited effort and efficient organisation among the workers, and other conditions peculiar to the place.

The book was never intended to be an expression of patriotism or unpatriotism, for it was written before the commencement of the European conflict. It consequently has nothing directly to do with the war, nor with the manufacture of munitions, any more than it incidentally discovers the nature of the toils, exertions, and sacrifices demanded of those who must slave at furnace, mill, steam-hammer, anvil, and lathe producing supplies for our armies and for those of our Allies in the field. It is not a treatise on economics, for I have never studied the science. If I had set out with the intention of theoretically slaughtering every official responsible for the administration of the factory I should have failed signally. I never contemplated such a course. Instead I wished to write out my own experiences and observations simply, and from my own point of view, mistaken or otherwise, without fear or favour to any. I have my failings and prejudices. What they are is very well known to me, and I have no intention of disavowing them. Whoever disagrees with me is fully entitled to his opinion. I shall not question his judgment, though I shall not easily surrender my own. I am not anxious to quarrel with any man; at the same time I am not disposed to be fettered, smothered, gagged or silenced, to cower and tremble, or to shrink from uttering what I believe to be the truth in deference to the most formidable despot living.

A. W.

24th July 1915.

A portion of Chapter XIII. has appeared in the English Review. My thanks are due to the Editor for his courteous permission to reproduce it in the volume.

CONTENTS

LIFE IN A RAILWAY FACTORY

CHAPTER I

LABOUR UNREST

Someone once asked the Greek Thales how he might best bear misfortune and he replied — “By seeing your enemy in a worse condition than yourself.” He would have been as near the truth if he had said “friend” instead of “enemy.” Everyone appears to desire to see every other one worse off than himself. He is not content with doing well; he must do better, and if his success happens to be at the expense of one less fortunate he will be the more highly gratified. This lust of dominion and possession dates from the very foundation of human society. It is a feature of barbarism, and one that the wisest teaching and the most civilising influences at work in the world have failed to remove or even very materially to modify. The idea behind the Sic vos non vobis of Virgil has always been uppermost in the minds of the powerful. This it was that doomed the captives of the Greeks and Romans to a life of wretchedness and misery in the mines. This was responsible for the subjugation of the English peasants, and their reduction to the order of serfs in feudal times. And this is what would enslave the labouring classes in mine, field, and factory to-day. It must not be permitted. There is a way to defeat it. That is by law. Not a law made by the depredators but by the workers themselves. They have the means at their disposal. If they would summon up the courage to make use of them they might shatter the power of the capitalist at a stroke and free themselves from his domination for ever.

A principal cause of trouble everywhere between the employer and the employed is the lack of recognition of the worker. I mean this in its broadest sense. I do not mean merely that great and powerful combinations do not want to recognise Trade Unions. We all know that. It is a part of their policy and is dictated by pride and the spirit of intolerance. But they make a much more serious and fatal mistake. They refuse to recognise a man. All kinds of employers are guilty of this. The mineowner, the trading syndicate, the railway or steamship company, municipal authorities, the large and small manufacturer, the farmer and shopkeeper are equally to blame. If they would recognise the man they might be led to a consideration of his legitimate needs. They must first admit him to be equally a member of the human family and then recognise that, as such, he has claims as righteous and sacred as they. That is where the representative of capital invariably fails. He will not admit that the one under his authority has any rights of his own. To him the worker is as much a slave as ever he was, only he is conscious that his treatment of him must be subject to the limitations imposed by the modern laws of the land. And as he flouts the individual so he contemns the collective organisations of the men. He is determined not to recognise them. He considers this to be a proof of his strength. In reality it is a badge of his weakness. Sooner or later it will prove his undoing.

I will give an illustration. Several years ago, working in the same shed as myself, was a grey-headed furnaceman. He was not an old man; he could have been no more than fifty. One day he met with a serious accident. While attending to his furnace, in a stooping position, someone in passing accidentally pushed him. This caused him to lose his balance and he slipped on the plate and fell head-first into a boshful of boiling water underneath the fire hole. His head and shoulders were severely scalded, and he was absent on the sick list for two months. When he came in again he was not allowed to resume work at the furnace but was put wheeling out ashes from the smiths’ fires. To my steam-hammer an oil furnace had recently been attached and several managers came daily to experiment with it. One morning, while they were present, the ex-furnaceman came to wheel away the debris. Then a manager turned to me and said — 

“Who’s that? What’s he doing here?”

I explained who the man was and what he was doing.

“Pooh! What’s the good of that thing! He ought to be shifted outside,” replied he.

In a short while afterwards the furnaceman was discharged.

There is something even worse than this and much more serious in effect. That is a result of too great recognition. I am referring to the common fault of interfering with and penalising men of superior mental and intellectual powers. There is even a certain advantage in a man’s ability to escape attention. Especially if he is of a courageous turn of mind, has views and ideas of his own, and is able to influence others. He will live the more easy for it. Left to himself he can work away quietly, informing the minds and leavening the opinions of those round about him. If he can escape recognition. But he cannot. He is soon discovered, gagged, smothered, or got rid of. The safest way to strengthen a flame is to fan it. And if you want to intensify a man’s dissatisfaction with a thing attempt to prevent him by force from giving expression to it. That is a sure means of provocation and will bear fruit a hundredfold.

We hear a great deal about the “discontent” of the workers, and a degree of censure and reproach is usually conveyed with the expression. It is not half general enough. The average working man is too content. He is often lazily apathetic. Is the mineowner, the manufacturer, or the railway magnate content? Of course he is not. Strength is in action. When I hear of a man’s being satisfied I know that he is done for. He might as well be dead. I wish the workers were more discontented, though I should in every case like to see their discontent rationally expressed and all their efforts intelligently directed. They waste a fearful amount of time and energy through irresolution and uncertainty of objective.

The selfishness, cruelty, and arrogance of the capitalist and his agents force the workers into rebellion. The swaggering pomposity and fantastic ceremony of officials fill them with deserving contempt. Their impudence is amazing. I have known a foreman of the shed to attack a man by reason of the decent clothes he had on and forbid him to wear a bowler hat. Not only in the workshop but even at home in his private life and dealings he is under the eye of his employer. His liberty is tyrannically restricted. In the town he is not allowed to supplement his earnings by any activity except such as has the favour of the works’ officials. He must not keep a coffee-shop or an inn, or be engaged in any trading whatever. He may not even sell apples or gooseberries. And if he happens to be the spokesman of a labourers’ union or to be connected with any other independent organisation, woe betide him! The older established association — such as that of the engineers — is not interfered with. It is the unprotected unskilled workman that must chiefly be terrorised and subjugated.

The worker is everywhere exploited. The speeding-up of late years has been general and insistent. New machinery is continually being installed in the sheds. This is driven at a high rate and the workman must keep pace with it. The toil in many cases is painfully exacting. There may be a less amount of violent physical exertion required here and there, though much more concentration of mind and attention will be needed. The output, in some instances, has been increased tenfold. I am not exaggerating when I say that the actual exertions of the workman have often been doubled or trebled, yet he receives scarcely anything more in wages. In some cases he does not receive as much. He may have obtained a couple of shillings more in day wages and at the same time have lost double the amount in piecework balance. Occasionally, when the foreman of the shed has mercilessly cut a man’s prices, he offers him a sop in the shape of a rise of one or two shillings. On the hammers under my charge during the last ten years the day wages of assistants — owing to their being retained on the job up to a greater age — had doubled, and the piecework prices had been cut by one half. As a result the gang lost about £80 in a year. A mate of mine, whose prices had been cut to the lowest fraction, though offered a rise, steadily refused it on the ground that he would be worse off than before. Though slaving from morning till night he could not earn his percentage of profit. In many cases where the workman was formerly allowed to earn a profit of 33 per cent. on his day wages he is now restricted to 25 per cent., and the prices have been correspondingly reduced. Even now the foreman is not satisfied. He will still contrive to keep the percentage earned below the official figure in order to ingratiate himself with the managers and to give them the impression that he is still engaged in paring the prices.

At the same time, a marvellous lack of real initiative is discovered by the factory staff. Things that have been so are so, and if any sharp and enterprising workman sees the possibility of improvement anywhere and makes a suggestion he is soundly snubbed for his pains. In their particular anxiety to exact the last ounce from the workman in the matter of labour the managers overlook multitudes of important details connected with their own administration, but which the workman sees as plainly as he does the nose on his face. They often spend pounds to effect the saving of a few pence. They lavish vast sums on experiments that the most ordinary man perceives have no possible chance of being successful, or even useful if they should succeed. Men’s opinions upon a point are rarely solicited; if offered, they are belittled and rejected. Where an opinion is asked for it is usually intended as a bait for a trap, the answer is carefully recorded and afterwards used to prove something to the other’s disadvantage.

But those ideas which are most valuable, provided they are not complex and the simple-minded official can readily grasp them — which is not always the case — he secretly cherishes and stealthily develops and afterwards parades them to his superior with swaggering pride as his own inventions. It is thus Mr So-and-so becomes a smart man in the eyes of the firm, while, as a matter of fact, he is a perfect blockhead and an ignoramus. Meanwhile, the very workman whose idea has been purloined and exploited is treated as a danger by the foreman; henceforth he must be watched and kept well in subjection. The cowardly overseer sees in him a possible rival, and is fearful for his own credit. This is one of the worst ills of the manufacturing life, and has crushed many a brave, good spirit, and smothered many a rising genius. The disadvantage is twofold. There is a loss to manufacture in not being assisted with new and bright ideas, and another to the individual, who is not only deprived of the fruits of his inventive faculty but is systematically punished for the possession of an original mind. In a word, officialism at the works is continually straining at the gnat and swallowing the camel.

What means are to be adopted in order to do away with the anomaly? One of the first things to do would be to recognise the individual. We want a better understanding and a new feeling altogether. The worker does not need a profusion of sentiment; he claims justice. He is willing to give and take. He knows that enormous profits are made out of his efforts and it is but natural that he should demand to receive a fair amount of remuneration and equitable conditions. My companion of the next steam-hammer, by means of a new process, in one week saved the railway company £20 in the execution of a single order. He had to work doubly hard to do it but he received not a penny extra himself. The piecework system as it stands is grossly unfair. All the profits accrue to one side and when the worker demands what is, after all, an insignificant participation in them he is described as being unreasonable and discontented. Where day wages have risen all round on piecework jobs the prices should be increased in proportion, otherwise the workman is simply paying himself for his additional efforts out of his own pocket.

Better wages and shorter hours are desired in every sphere of labour and especially in factories. The worker is not greatly concerned as to whether he is employed by the State or by a syndicate as long as he obtains justice. It is no more trouble for Parliament to formulate a law for a private concern than for a Government department. Forty-eight hours a week is long enough for any man to work. I would have the factory week completed in five turns. There is no need of the half-day Saturdays. It is a waste of time. It is expensive for the employers and unprofitable for the men. They can neither work nor play. If forty-eight hours were divided out into five turns the expense of steaming for the half-turn on Saturday would be saved. The amount of work produced would not fall very far below that made at present, and the men would be better satisfied. They would at least be able to have a clear rest and come to work fresh and fit on the Monday. I would even go further and suggest forty-five hours — that is, five turns of nine hours each — as a working week for factories in the future. This is not so impossible nor yet as unreasonable as it may appear. The proposal will doubtless strike some as being amazing. Nevertheless, I recommend it to them for their leisurely consideration. By aiming high we shall hit something. But there are obstacles to remove and difficulties to overcome.

CHAPTER II

THE STAMPING SHOP — GENERAL ENVIRONMENT — THE “COALIES” — THE ROLLING MILLS — PUDDLING AND SHINGLING — ACCIDENTS AT THE ROLLS — THE SCRAP WAGGONS — WASTE

The Stamping Shop is square, or nearly so, each lateral corresponding to a cardinal point of the compass — north, south, east, and west, the whole comprising about an acre and a quarter. That is not an extensive building for a railway manufactory. There are some shops with an area of not less than five, six, and even seven acres — a prodigious size! They are used for purposes of construction, for carriages, waggons, locomotives, and also for repairs. The premises used for purely manufacturing purposes, such as those I am now speaking of, are generally much smaller in extent.

The workshop is modern in structure and has not stood for more than fifteen years. Before that time the work proceeded on a much smaller scale, and was carried on in a shed built almost entirely of wood and corrugated iron — a dark, wretched place, without light or ventilation, save for the broken windows and rents in the low, depressed roof. With the development of the industry and general expansion of trade this became altogether inadequate to cope with the requirements of the other sheds, and a move had to be made to larger and more commodious premises. Thereupon a site was chosen and a new shop erected about a quarter of a mile distant. The walls of this are of brick, built with “piers” and “panels,” thirty feet high, solid, massive, and substantial, with no pretence to show of any kind. The roof is constructed in bays running north and south, according to the disposition of the long walls, and presents a serrated appearance, like the teeth of a huge saw. Of these bays the slopes towards sunrise are filled in with stout panes of glass; the opposite sides are of strong boards covered with slates, the whole supported by massive sectional principals and a network of stout iron girders.

The roof is studded with hundreds of wooden ventilators intended to carry off the smoke and fumes from the forges. Above them tower numerous furnace stacks and chimneys from the boilers, with the exhaust pipes of the engines and steam-hammers. Towards summer, when the days lengthen and the sun pours down interminable volumes of light and heat from a cloudless sky, or when the air without is charged with electricity and the thunder bellows and rolls over the hills and downs to the south, and the forked lightning flashes reveal every corner of the dark smithy so that the heat becomes almost unbearable, a large quantity of the glass is removed to aid ventilation; the heat, assisted by the ground current, rises and escapes through the roof. But when the rain comes and the heavy showers, driven at an angle by the wind, beat furiously through upon the half-naked workmen beneath, even this is not an unmixed blessing. Or when the sun shoots his hot arrows down through the openings upon the toilers at the steam-hammers and forges, as he always does twice during the morning — once before breakfast, and again at about eleven o’clock — it is productive of increased discomfort; the sweat flows faster and the work flags. This does not last long, however. Southward goes the sun, and shade succeeds.

The eastern and western ends of the shed are almost half taken up with large sliding doors, that reach as high as to the roof. These rest on wheels which are superimposed upon iron rails, so that a child might push them backwards and forwards. Through several of the doors rails are laid to permit of engines and waggons entering with loads of material — iron and steel for the furnaces — and also for conveying away the manufactures. A narrow bogie line runs round the shed and is used for transferring materials from one part to another and to the various hydraulic presses and forges. Here and there are fixed small turn-tables to enable the bogies to negotiate the angles and move from track to track.

Southward the shed faces a yard of about ten acres in extent. This is bounded on every side by other workshops and premises, all built of the same dingy materials — brick, slate, and iron — blackened with smoke, dust, and steam, surmounted with tall chimneys, innumerable ventilators, and poles for the telephone wires, which effectually block out all perspective. To view it from the interior is like looking around the inner walls of a fortress. There is no escape for the eye; nothing but bricks and mortar, iron and steel, smoke and steam arising. It is ugly; and the sense of confinement within the prison-like walls of the factory renders it still more dismal to those who have any thought of the hills and fields beyond. Only in summer does it assume a brighter aspect. Then the sun scalds down on the network of rails and ashen ground with deadly intensity; the atmosphere quivers and trembles; the fine dust burns under your feet, and the steel tracks glitter under the blinding rays. The clouds of dazzling steam from the engines are no longer visible — the air being too hot to admit of condensation — and the black smoke from the furnaces and boilers hangs in the air, lifeless and motionless, like a pall, for hours and hours together.

But when the summer is over, when the majesty of July and August is past and gone and golden September gives place to rainy October, or, most of all, when dull, gloomy November covers the skies with its impenetrable veil of drab cloud and mist day after day and week after week, with scarcely an hour of sunshine, the utter dismalness and ugliness of the place are appalling. Then there is not a vestige of colour. The sky, roofs, walls, the engines moving to and fro, the rolling stock, the stacks of plates and ingots of iron and steel, the sleepers for the rails, the ground beneath — everything is dark, sombre, and repellant. Not a glint upon the steel lines! Not a refraction of light from the slates on the roof! Everything is dingy, dirty, and drab. And drab is the mind of the toiler all this time, drab as the skies above and the walls beneath. Doomed to the confinement from which there is no escape, he accepts the condition and is swallowed up in his environment.

There is one point, and only one, a few paces west of the shed, from which an inspiriting view may be had. There, on a fine day, from between two towering walls, in the little distance, blue almost as the sky and yet distinct and well-defined, may be seen a great part of Liddington Hill, crowned with the castellum, the scene of many a lively contest in prehistoric days, and the holy of holies of Richard Jefferies, who spent days and nights there trying to fathom the supreme mystery that has baffled so many great and ardent souls. When the sky is clear and the air free from mist and haze — especially as it appears sometimes in the summer months, under a southern wind, or before or after rain — so distinct does the sloping line of the hill show, with its broad front towards you, that you may even perceive the common features and details of it. Then you may plainly view the disposition of the stone walls running from top to base, with the white chalk-pits gleaming like snow in the distance, and tell the outer wall of the entrenchment. In short, you might imagine yourself to be standing within the mound and looking out over the magnificent valley — north, east, and west; towards Bristol, over Cirencester, and beyond Witney and Oxford. But in the winter even this is denied. Then the dark lowering clouds sweep along the downs and shut them out of view, or grey mist fills the intervening valley, or the rain, falling in torrents or driving in the furious south-west gale, hides it completely; or if it is at all visible under the cold sky, it seems so far removed and the distance so intensified as to lose all resemblance to a hill and to look like a dim blue cloud faintly seen on the horizon, and which is no more than a suggestion, a shape phantasmal.

Everywhere about the yard is evidence of industry and activity; there all is suggestive of toil, labour, and power. On the right, stretching for a quarter of a mile, are hundreds upon hundreds of wheels, tyres, and axles for carriages and waggons, in every phase and degree of fitness; some fresh from the rolling mills — from Sheffield and Scotland — some turned and fitted in the lathe, huge jointless tyres newly unladen waiting to take their turn in the operation of fitting them to the wheels, and others finished, wheels, tyres, and axle compact, dipped in tar — except the journals — to prevent them from rusting, and all ready to be placed underneath the waggons. There are wheels of solid steel, wheels with spokes, and wheels of oak, teak, and even of paper composition, of many sorts and sizes, for smooth-running carriages. One would think there were enough of them to stock the whole railway system, but a few weeks of steady consumption would thin them down, and the yard would soon be bare and empty if fresh consignments were not every day arriving.

In front of the wheels, in rows and lines, are the huge cast-iron blocks and dies used for punching and pressing by the hydraulic machines. They are of all shapes and dimensions, puzzling to the eye of the stranger, but easily identified by those who are accustomed to use them, and who have been acquainted with them perhaps from boyhood. There are sets for “joggling” and “up-setting,” and others for shaping and levelling. In the midst of them stands a stout, three-legged machine called a “sheer legs.” To this is attached strong pulley blocks for lifting the sets from the ground — many of them weigh considerably more than a ton; afterwards a stout bogie is run underneath and the blocks are lowered and so carried off to the field of operations.

Many an accident has happened in the conveyance of blocks and dies to and from their destination; many a bruised foot or broken limb has resulted from a lack of carefulness and attention on the part of the workmen. The slightest disregard may lead to injury. The bogie may slip, or the block slide, and woe be to the individual who chances to be in the way of the falling mass. Unassuming, and even valueless as this collection of dies may appear to the uninitiated, it is really worth a huge sum, for manufacturing tools are of a very expensive character.

Close on the left is a long line of waggons laden with coal fresh from the Welsh pits, and near by is a large bunk into which it is emptied to allow of the speedy return of the vehicles — an important item in railway administration. Here the dark and grimy coal heavers, with faces as black as the mineral they are handling, grunt and sweat, their eyes obtaining peculiar prominence from being inset in a ground of ebony, and their teeth glistening pearly white through the blackened lips, appearing the more remarkable if they should smile at you. For even they will brighten up sometimes. Hard and laborious as their toil is, they will now and then relax into pleasantry and relieve the tedium of work with a snatch of song and hilarity.

The coalies are not highly paid. Their day wages are eighteen shillings or a pound a week, but, as all the work of the shed is done at the piece rate, they are enabled to earn a few shillings above that sum. The dullest men — those whose misfortune it is to have missed the right education, or those who are naturally slow and awkward — are usually selected for coal-heaving. Very often, however, shrewd and capable, smart and intelligent men, who might be more profitably employed than in shovelling coal from the truck to the bunk or wheel-barrow, are put at the task. Perhaps this is the result of carelessness on the part of the overseer, or it may be dearth of hands, and very likely it is intentional. The man is out of favour and has been clapped there as a punishment.

Near the coal station stand piles upon piles of iron and steel, in plates, bars, and ingots, some six and some ten feet high, in large square stacks, and the long bars disposed between uprights to keep them together and separate those of different lengths and sizes. The chief part of this comes in from “abroad,” that is, from the midlands and the north of England, for very little iron ore is now manufactured on the premises. A small amount of pig iron is imported and worked up at the local rolling mills, but the greater part of the metal is purchased of the big firms and dealers away from the town.

The chief occupation of the factory rolling mills now is to receive the iron scrap from the various workshops, such as clippings, shearings, punchings, and drillings, with all the old iron proceeding from the breaking up of worn-out engines and vehicles. This is first of all reduced to convenient shape and then set up in “piles” on thin pieces of wood to enable of its being placed in the furnace on the peels used for the purpose. In the making of piles the flat pieces of metal are placed around the outside, leaving a hollow within, which is filled up with punchings and drillings, old rivets, nuts, bolts, and other similar scrap. The pile is set in the furnace and heated, when it coalesces into a mass; afterwards it is brought out to the heavy steam-hammer and beaten into rough bars or slabs, several feet in length. This process is called “shingling.” When the iron has become fairly solid and of convenient length, the bars, still spluttering and fizzing — for they have not been under the hammer for more than two or three minutes — are hurried off to the rolls. There they are received by the men in charge, who stand stripped to the waist, with tongs in hand, and dexterously guide the rough ingots into the ponderous rollers that revolve at speeds suited to the size and weight of the bars, and always with a loud clanking noise.

As soon as the bar is rolled through — already drawn out to two or three times its original length — the rolls stop and instantly revolve in the other direction. The bar is again guided into the channel of the rollers and emerges on the other side, longer and smoother. This process is continued four or five times until the bars are finished; then other small rollers in the floor are set in motion and the bars travel along the ground to the steam saws, where they are cut up into the lengths required. There they are loaded on iron bogies and carried off, or rolled along as before to the weighing machines; everything is paid for according to the weight of the finished material.

Punchings and drillings are also treated by the process known as “puddling.” In this case, the furnaces will have a cavity in the floor, into which the small scrap material is shovelled or tipped. The door is now made fast and the heat applied, which must not be too fierce, however, or the whole mass would soon be burned and spoiled. When the drillings and chippings have cohered, the puddler, by an aperture through the iron door, inserts a steel bar, curved at the end, and prises the lump and turns it over and over. This is called “balling up.” By and by, when the iron is thoroughly heated and fairly consistent, it is brought to the “shingler,” who soon gives it shape and solidity. At the first few blows a terrific shower of sparks shoots around, which travel for a great distance, burning everything they meet. To protect themselves against this the shinglers wear heavy iron jackboots, reaching above the knees, with an iron veil over their eyes and faces. As the steam-hammer block upon which the pounding is done is only a few inches above the floor level and the sparks and splinters fly out with the precision of shot from a gun barrel, the danger is confined to a space within two feet of the floor.

When the heats come from the puddling furnaces they look soft and spongy and soon become dull on the outer parts, so that a stranger might think them not sufficiently hot to beat up, but after the first light blow or two he will find himself mistaken. First of all the huge hammer — able to strike a blow equal to a hundred tons pressure — is merely allowed to squeeze the mass, without beating it. Then it rises gently and travels up and down, scarcely touching the metal. Gradually the blows fall harder and harder until the piece is fully consistent; then it is rapidly drawn away to the rolls. Very rarely are the hammers required to expend their full powers upon the melting slabs, unless they happen to be of steel, which is very hard, even when whitehot. Then the blows fall terrific. The steam spouts, roars, and hisses; the chains jingle and the ground under your feet shakes as though in an earthquake.

When a better quality of iron is required the punchings, bolts, and rivets are placed in a large drum which is afterwards set in motion and continues to revolve for several hours. By this means all the rust, paint, and dirt are removed from the metal, and when it is taken from the cylinder it shines like silver. Special regard is had for this in the furnaces. Care is taken to save it from over-heating and waste, and when it finally emerges from the rolls it is set apart by itself and labelled for its superior quality.

Various prices, ranging from 15s. to 50s. a ton, are paid for shingling and forging. These depend upon the weight of the piece and the degree of finish required. The shingler is clever and expert, and he is not highly paid at the works, considering his usefulness, for he is a great manufacturer. Thousands of tons of metal must pass through his hands in the course of a year, and the work is very hot and laborious. By the age of fifty the shinglers and forgemen are usually worn out and superseded at the forge. When they can no longer perform their duties at the steam-hammer they are removed from the manufacturing circle and presented with a broom, shovel, and wheel-barrow. Their wages are cut down to that of a common labourer, and thus they spend their few remaining years of service. At an early age they drop off altogether, and their places are filled by others who have gone through the same experience.

The running of the iron from the furnace to the steam-hammer and back again to the rolls is chiefly performed by boys and young men. The majority of these come from the villages round about, for the town lads, as a rule, are much too wideawake for the business; the work is too hard for them. Living close to the factory they know by report which shops to avoid, and if, by misadventure, they happen to get a start in such a place they are very quickly out of it. Accordingly the more laborious work usually falls upon those who dwell without the town. It is the same with the men. Those who live in the borough nearly always obtain the easier berths; John and George do the heavy lifting and heaving.

Accidents are frequent at the rolling mills. Burns are of common occurrence, and they are sometimes very serious and occasionally fatal. Great care is requisite in moving about amid so much fire and heated material, for everything — the floors, principals, rollers, the bogie handles, tools and all — is very hot. Some of the carrying is done with a kind of wheel-barrow that requires a special balance. The least obstruction will upset it, and a little awkwardness on the part of the workman is sufficient to bring the weltering burden down to the ground. Not long ago, as a youth was drawing a large, whitehot pile from the furnace to the steam-hammer, he slipped on the iron floor and fell at full length on his back upon the ground. As he fell the bogie inclined forward and the huge pile slid down and lodged on his stomach, inflicting frightful injuries. He was quickly rescued from his tortuous position, but there was no hope of recovery from such an accident, and he died a day or two afterwards. He, too, was of the neighbouring village.

You can always tell these young men of the steam-hammer or rolling mills, whenever you meet them. They are usually lank and thin and their faces are ghastly white. Their nostrils are distended; black and blue rings encircle their eyes. Their gait is careless and shuffling, and their dress, on a holiday, is a curious mixture of the rural and urban styles. On week-days they are as black as sweeps, and the blacker they are the better, in their opinion, for they take pride in parading the badge of their profession and are not ashamed of it as are their workmates who dwell in the town.

I have said that formerly much more iron was manufactured on the premises than is the case at this time. Then the steam-hammer shed, in which nothing but forging is done, was a flourishing place. All the wheels for the engines and waggons, together with piston rods, driving gear, axles, and cranks, were made there. These are obtained elsewhere now, some in England and Scotland, and other parts from abroad. Steel has superseded iron in a great degree, too, being harder, tougher, stronger and cheaper. The combined skill of the chemist and scientist has simplified the manufacture of it, and it is to be obtained in large quantities. But steel rusts much more quickly than iron, and does not last nearly as long in exposed positions on the vehicles.

Formerly all wheels were made of wrought iron and a great part of the work was done by hand. First of all the sections were made under the steam-hammer, in “T” pieces and boss ends, and shut in the middle. These were for the spokes. Then the “T” ends were incurved and joined together all round till the rim of the wheel was finished. After that, there remained to form the centre and make the “boss” solid and compact. As the boss sections were made to fit together in the middle, they only required to be heated and welded. Accordingly they were placed on an open forge, built round with damp coal-dust to contain and concentrate the heat, the boss being exactly over the centre of the fire. Another forge, close at hand, contained a large round iron washer, similarly placed, to which was attached an iron bar for lifting it from the fire. Both heats were prepared simultaneously. Then the wheel, lifted by a crane, was quickly removed from the forge, turned upside down and placed on the steam-hammer block. The washer was brought out at once and clapped on smartly, and down came the heavy monkey. Half-a-dozen blows were sufficient to make the weld. Then it was removed from the steam-hammer and laid on an iron table and the smiths set about it with their tools to finish it off, three or four men striking alternately on one “flatter” or “fuller,” with perfect rhythm and precision, the chief smith directing operations and working with the rest.

Those were the palmy days for the smithy. Wages were high and the prices good, and the work made was solid and strong. Now all wheels are manufactured of cast steel and with little hand labour. The molten metal is simply poured into moulds, allowed to cool and afterwards annealed in special furnaces. One can easily imagine the immense amount of labour saved in the operation, though the wheels are not as elastic and durable.

Situated near the piles of new material are the scrap bunks. These are old waggons that have served their turn on the railway and, instead of being broken up, have been lifted bodily from the sets of wheels and deposited on the ground as receptacles for the large quantities of scrap made in the workshop. What miles these old waggons have gone! What storm and stress they have endured! What burdens they have borne! East and west, north and south, over hills and bridges, through valleys, past miles upon miles of cornfields and meadows, green and gold, red and brown by turn, in rain and snow, winter frost and summer sunshine, by day and night, year after year together.

These waggons, if they could speak, would tell you they have visited every station and town on the system. They have crossed the Thames, the Severn, the Kennet, the Upper and Lower Avon, the Wye, the Dee, the Towy, the Parrot and the Tamar, times out of number. They have gone through dark tunnels, over dizzy viaducts, past cathedral cities and quaint old market-towns, villages, and hamlets, sleeping and waking, at all hours of the day and night, drawn on, and on, and on by the tireless iron steeds, piled up with all sorts of goods and commodities for the use of man — stones to build him houses, iron to strengthen them, corn to feed him and his family, and materials to clothe them. They would tell you of many lovely woods and forests through which they have journeyed, and seaside towns, with the strong blue ocean in view, sometimes running perilously near the beach, at others hidden in deep cuttings, where the banks are blue with violets, and yellow with the pale gold of the cowslip, followed by the endless array of the ox-eyes, toadflax, and sweet wild mignonette. And they would tell you of long, dark, winter nights, when the tempest howled madly through the trees and bridges and sang shrilly in the telegraph wires; when the rain fell in a deluge from the inky sky, or the sleet and snow drove in blinding clouds and was piled upon the weatherproof tarpaulins. Or again they would relate of running smoothly on summer nights under the pale southern moon, or when the stars glittered in the frosty heavens, or dense fog, so troublesome and dangerous to the ever-watchful and valiant old driver, shut everything out of view, signals and all, so that their very whereabouts were only known and identified by paying close attention to the loud, shot-like explosions of the detonators placed along the line by the fogmen.

Now all these things are at an end. They have run their race, and grown old in the service. They have fulfilled their period of usefulness on the line and, like old veterans returned from the war, they have come back to their native town to end their days. Being fairly sound of constitution and having escaped the shocks of collision and accident, they were adjudged too solid to be broken up yet, so, as a last use, they were placed here to receive the punchings and trimmings from the shears and presses, and ingloriously waste away in their old age, exposed to all the inclemencies and caprices of the weather.

The scrap, made daily, soon amounts to hundreds of tons. It is of all shapes and sizes. There is plate from an eighth of an inch to an inch and a half thick from the presses, ends and trimmings of rods and bars from the shears and steam-hammers, burs from the stamping plant and scrag ends from the forgings. In addition to this there are scores of tons of old iron and steel, brought from all over the system to be cut up at the hydraulic shears — sole-bars of waggons, stanchions and “diagonals,” “T”-iron plates, and hundreds of old draw-bars and buffers. The iron and steel are carefully observed and kept separate and huge piles soon accumulate, far more than the waggons can hold. The iron refuse is by and by passed on to the rolling mills, while the steel scrap awaits a purchaser. No attempt is made to utilise that on the premises. There are secrets in the manufacture of steel which are never betrayed to outsiders, and it would be a waste of time and money for the local furnacemen and forgers to attempt to do anything with it. However carefully the furnaceman tends it in the fire he cannot get it to cohere well in the piles, and if it is at all over-heated it bursts and scatters in all directions, brittle and glassy, as soon as the steam-hammer touches it with a gentle blow.

There is, at the same time, enormous waste in the matter of scrap iron and steel, which intelligent supervision would certainly lessen. Material that might economically be used in the workshop is indiscriminately passed out with the rubbish and sold away at a cheap rate — at a fraction of its real value. Tons of metal — good solid iron, often of the highest quality — which might be used for forging and stamping, are rejected and scrapped because it would take a trifle longer to handle. Other large scrap material might be slabbed and used without sending it to the mill, and thus large profits would accrue to the shed; for the rolling mills people will only purchase, theoretically, at trade prices, that is, at about two pounds a ton for scrap iron.

CHAPTER III

THE SHUNTERS — WATCHMEN — DETECTING A THIEF — FIRES — CARRIAGE FINISHERS — PAINTERS — “WASHERS-DOWN” — CUSHION-BEATERS — CHANGES AND INNOVATIONS — DEPARTMENTAL RELATIONS

A short way off in the yard, in a small space clear of the confusing network of lines that cross and recross here and there, running in every direction and connecting the various workshops together, are two old railway coaches dispossessed of their wheels and lodged upon baulks of timber let into the ground. Like the old scrap waggons, they have had their day in active service, and, coming home in fairly good condition, though antiquated in style and useless for passenger traffic, have yet been found convenient as occasional storehouses and shelters. They are now used as cabins, one for the shunters, who conduct their operations round about, and the other for watchmen, and they are fitted with stoves for warming the men’s food, and for drying their clothes in wet weather. The roofs and windows are intact, and some of the original seats still remain. These are of bare wood and are not padded and upholstered in the comfortable and luxurious style now required and expected by the railway traveller.

These old carriages are at this time very rarely met with and are nearly extinct. For years after they disappeared from the general traffic — superseded by more commodious and comfortable vehicles — the best of them were kept stored up in sheds and yards in out-of-the-way places to await the time of trippers and excursionists. Then they were regularly hauled out to accommodate the multitude. The windows were hastily wiped over and the interiors dusted out; they were ready to receive the people. Goods engines of the old type were brought up to draw them along. The trippers squeezed themselves inside, and, with the shrieking of steam whistles and hooters and the playing of concertinas and melodions, the trains started off and went jolting and jogging away to their destinations. At the end of the tripping season the coaches were again stored away in the yards and sidings, until they became too crazy and dangerous to run on the main line, when they were either utilised for storehouses and shelters, or broken up. The refuse wood from the destruction of old worn-out rolling stock is sawn up and used for lighting the fires in the furnaces and boilers, and is distributed throughout the system. A large quantity is also sold to the workmen, who use it both for firing and for the construction of outhouses.

The shunters of the yard are a hard-working body of men, and they are exposed to many dangers. The hours are long and they must cover many miles during the day by running up and down the lines. It is their duty to transfer the carriages and waggons from road to road and from one workshop to another, to dispose of the old ones brought in for repairs, to lead out the new, and distribute the various stores — iron and steel, coal, coke, and timber — at several points. Whatever the weather may be they must be up and doing, or the traffic in the yard would soon be in utter confusion. Rain or snow, cold or heat, sunshine or cloud, July glow or December fog and gloom are all one to them. The busy swarm of workmen comes and goes, the furnaces spout their dense black clouds of smoke into the heavens; the dazzling steam, shot out from the engines and steam-hammers, leaps up in an ascending pillar, the rapid wheels spin round in the roof or under the wall, and the endless toil goes on, all which must be catered for by the shunters.

Great care must be taken to prevent the sidings from becoming blocked by crossing a wrong point. Where two or more engines are operating over a complex siding this may easily be done, and a delay of several hours will be the result. If an inexperienced shunter, mistaking the number of his points, shifts his waggons on to the wrong track and, not perceiving his error, at once proceeds to carry out several other manœuvres, he may shut in the engines so completely and confusedly that he will want all his wits about him to extricate them again; it will be like a mathematical problem. Happily for the shunter’s credit, this is not a common occurrence.

Strong, healthy men are selected for the shunter’s trade, to carry the pole and whistle. By working in the open air, exposed to all kinds of weather, they become hardy and seasoned and present a far different appearance from that of those who are shut up within the walls of the workshop, amid the smoke and fumes. Instead of becoming lean with the constant running to and fro, they seem to thrive on the exercise, and many of them assume substantial proportions. Their faces are bronzed with the sun and wind, and they are a picture of health — strong, stalwart, and of good physique. The shunters are not under as many restrictions as are the factory workers proper, i.e., those within the sheds. It is their privilege to smoke while on duty, or, at any rate, in the intervals on the premises, an indulgence which is strictly forbidden to all other employees. They remain always about the yard and never go beyond the bounds prescribed for them, so that they really belong to the factory.

The other cabin is used by the watchmen as an out-shelter — a kind of half-way refuge. Their headquarter is at the main entrance, where there are always one or two on duty to check the coming in and going out of the workmen, to keep out intruders and to prevent any from passing out before the regulation hour. They also act in the quality of police to protect the property of the railway company, patrol the shops and yards, and keep a sharp look-out for loiterers and any who should attempt to smoke or read a newspaper on the sly.

Every workshop and building is provided with certain clock-like instruments called “tell-tales,” which are fixed in many corners and angles, and at frequent intervals along the high board fence that encloses the factory grounds. The watchman appointed for the round is furnished with a key that fits the instrument. It is his duty to visit each of these every hour, or every two hours, according to the time-table given him by his chief. When he comes to the tell-tale he inserts the key and, after turning it round, withdraws it. This leaves a record of his visit and certifies that he has gone his round regularly. At intervals, unknown to the watchman, the tell-tales are removed and privately examined, in order to see that everything is correct, and if there has been any neglect of duty the offender is sought out and punished. Occasionally it transpires that there has been wholesale tampering with the instruments in order to escape going the rounds. The watchmen, like all others at the works, agreed for the time, finally come to loggerheads and play the tell-tale themselves. Someone or other informs of his mate, this one retaliates and the scheme is laid bare. Forthwith the whole staff of watchmen are summoned to appear before the works’ manager, and are punished in various ways. Something new and strange is adopted; the men’s time and rounds are altered, and they patrol their beats the laughing-stock of the workmen whom it is their duty to observe and supervise.

The watchmen, as a class, are surly and over-officious. Perhaps they were chosen for some qualities they were thought to possess, fitting them for the duties expected of them; they are not popular with the workmen. The fact of their being placed in a supervisory position and of being exempt from manual work induces them to have a higher opinion of themselves than the actual circumstances warrant. They consider themselves above the average at the works and cultivate the pseudo-genteel.

When a new watchman is made it is noised abroad throughout the department; his size, description, and all else that is known of him are passed around the sheds for the benefit of the masses. Developments are anticipated and the results eagerly awaited. Elated at his promotion and great in his own conceit the newly initiated one, before he is well-known and identified by the workmen, slips to and fro in the sheds, eager for surprise captures. Immediately before the hooter sounds for the men’s release at meal times he is to be found suddenly opening doors and popping on the scene. If any of the workmen should happen to have on their coats, or to have gathered near the door ready to rush out, they scatter like wood-pigeons when a hawk has darted in the midst of them. This forms the subject of a report to the shop foreman or to the manager. Dire threats as to the consequences of loitering are launched at the workmen; a few youths are suspended and forced to take a rest, and so the matter is settled.

The watchman, however, is not forgotten or forgiven by the men. Some nickname or other is coined for him on the spot. Perhaps he is hooted for a sneak and teased in various ways, the boys especially enjoying a joke at his expense. They set traps for him, and after racing about the yard and dodging between the waggons and coaches, suddenly decamp and make for the tunnels or entrances. Once a nickname becomes attached to a watchman it seldom leaves him. One has borne the title of “Long Bill” for a number of years; another is honoured with the appellation of “Powerful”; this one is “Flat-foot,” that is “Rubber-heel,” and another has earned for himself the ridiculous title of “Chesty.”

Theft is sometimes practised by the workmen, though it is much more rarely committed now than it was formerly. Some of the schemes adopted for getting the stolen materials outside the works have been quite artistic, and others were ridiculously open and daring. Years ago loads of timber and other valuables were regularly smuggled out in the middle of the night, and especially on Saturday nights. They were piled upon big trucks and bogies and got past the entrances with the watchman’s consent and connivance. Probably he received a bribe for his silence — a quart of ale at the club, or a share of the stolen goods. On at least one occasion a brazen-faced fellow wheeled out a new wheel-barrow, unchallenged, amid the crowd at a dinner-time and was never suspected. At other times wheel-barrows and other tools have mysteriously disappeared in the night, as though they had been swallowed up by an earthquake. They were quietly lifted over the fence and received into the neighbouring field and so got safely away.

Sometimes a workman will split on his mate whom he knows to be in the habit of purloining things from the shed. Perhaps it is a little firewood or a few screws or nails that were picked up in the yard. Going privately to the watchman he acquaints him of the fact, and at dinner-time, or night, a stand is made at the entrance, and the culprit seized and searched. This invariably means dismissal, however small the amount of the theft may be. Somehow or other, though, the informer is discovered and for ever afterwards he is branded as a sneak and shunned by his fellows. There is no forgiveness for this kind of thing among the workmen. Honesty or not honesty, he is never tolerated but is looked upon with the utmost disgust and contempt.

Occasionally, if you should stand at the entrance as the workmen are leaving, you might see an abject-looking individual, with drawn features, making his way painfully through the tunnel, limping, or dragging a leg behind him. The casual observer would jump to the conclusion that the man had met with an accident, or that he was naturally lame or a cripple. But very likely, if the truth were known, he has a staff of wood, or a rod of iron, four feet long, concealed in the leg of his trousers and reaching up to the breast, and that is what makes him walk with such great difficulty. Another plan is to bend a rod of iron in the shape of a hoop and so fix it around the waist, or to pack the contraband next to the skin, under the armpits and around the stomach. This very often leads to detection. The watchman on duty at the entrance has his suspicions aroused by the shape of the man. Accordingly he steps out, calls him aside and feels the part, and the culprit is discovered.

It sometimes happens that a watchman gets on the track of an innocent workman and makes himself appear ridiculous, for he is sure to be noticed by the crowd and heartily jeered at for his interference. Not long ago a young workman, on his way out from the shed one morning after night duty, was challenged and stopped and required to disclose the contents of his dinner-basket, which, to the watchman’s eye, seemed unusually heavy. The young man, who was an enthusiastic Christian, smilingly complied and, opening his basket, took out a big Bible, and presented it to his challenger. That was more than the watchman had bargained for, and he immediately shuffled off in considerable confusion. A few nights ago a surly watchman stopped me and curtly demanded to know what I was carrying “in the parcel under my arm.” It was merely my daily newspaper.

It is not the rank and file alone that are guilty of taking things that do not belong to them. Some of the principals of the staff have been notoriously to blame in this respect, as is well-known at the works, though their misdeeds are invariably screened and condoned. If one of the managers has stolen materials worth hundreds of pounds he is reprimanded and allowed to continue at his post, or at most, he is asked to resign and is afterwards awarded a pension; but if the workman has purloined an article of a few pence in value he is dismissed and prosecuted. This is no general statement but a plain matter of fact.

Further over the yard, towards one of the sheds that form the boundary on this side, stands a large water-closet, one of many about the factory, built to meet the requirements of about five hundred workmen. These buildings are of a uniform type and are disagreeable places, lacking in sanitary arrangements. There is not the slightest approach to privacy of any kind, no consideration whatever for those who happen to be imbued with a sense of modesty or refinement of feeling. The convenience consists of a long double row of seats, situate back to back, partly divided by brick walls, the whole constructed above a large pit that contains a foot of water which is changed once or twice a day. The seats themselves are merely an iron rail built upon brickwork, and there is no protection. Several times, I have known men to overbalance and fall into the pit. Everything is bold, daring, and unnatural. On entering, the naked persons of the men sitting may plainly be seen, and the stench is overpowering. The whole concern is gross and objectionable, filthy, disgusting, and degrading. No one that is chaste and modest could bear to expose himself, sitting there with no more decency than obtains among herds of cattle shut up in the winter pen. Consequently, there are many who, though hard pressed by the exigences of nature, never use the place. As a result they contract irregularities and complaints of the stomach that remain with them all their lives, and that might easily prove fatal to them. Perhaps this barbarous relic of insanitation may in time be superseded by some system a little more moral and more compatible with human sensibility and refinement.