I have produced a series of extracts from the Railway Magazine during the First World War and the period straight after that. Some relate directly to the GER, others illustrate the effects the war had on railways and on the people of this country in general.
I was restricted since I did not have access to a complete run of the magazines, as those ones are quite scarce - readers were encouraged to send them to the trenches when they had finished with them. Nevertheless what appears is instructive.
Part 1, dealing with 1914 and 1915, was first issued as Information Sheet M452 at the October meeting in Cambridge. Initially of course the articles had been prepared before the outbreak of hostilities, so there was for example an early article extolling Lowestoft for your next holiday (with no mention of the risk of naval bombardment or Zeppelin raids!).
Parts 2 and 3 cover 1916 to 1919, and they will be available at the AGM as M458 and M459. These take you through the stage when the railways were at full stretch and unusual workings were common. Daylight saving was introduced, and Irish time was brought into line with that on the 'mainland' (until when, the clocks in Ireland had been 35 minutes behind ours!).
Finally as the war ended, two consequences emerge. One was a fresh start by the setting up of the new Ministry of Transport, with hopes of the development of an integrated and co-operative scheme for the benefit of the nation - hopes which even then revealed signs of cracks, such as agitation from the road lobby.
The second was the inevitability of industrial strife. During the war the railway workers' pay was static, but the government also paid them a war bonus to help cover an increased cost of living. After the war the government's contribution ceased, and it was clear that the railway companies would struggle to pay that let alone the men's demand for a rise. At the close of this period there were strikes, with enthusiastic amateur volunteers doing what they saw as their national duty - and a jolly jape, besides - keeping the network running.
Their files in the Files Emporium may be found here:-
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