Before issuing
the order the Board consented to hear any representations which the
railways desired to make. The smaller companies, upon which the
expenditure involved would press very hardly, and the circumstances of
whose traffic seemed scarcely to require the same elaborate precautions
for safety in working as the bigger and more crowded systems, banded
together and waited on the Board of Trade. Upon me devolved the duty of
presenting the case for the smaller Irish companies, and upon Conacher,
of the Cambrian, for the smaller English lines. How finely Conacher
spoke I well remember. He had an excellent voice, possessed in a high
degree the gift of concise and forcible expression, and his every word
told. But our eloquence accomplished little--some small modification
regarding mixed trains, and that was all. Many of the lines in Ireland
serving districts where population is scanty, traffic meagre, and trains
consequently infrequent, could well have been spared the costly outlay
which the Act involved. Three or four trains each way per day represent
the train service on many of these small railways, and some of the
sections of the larger lines warrant little more.
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