RAILWAYS AND THE FIGHT AGAINST FASCISM

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: january 2021 :: RMTnews 20 This important book is not only a fascinating insight into a crucial period of this country’s railway network but also helps us to understand its history in the first half of the Twentieth century through the prism of the Second World War. Just as during the First World War, the rail network came under the control of the government’s Railway Executive Committee in 1939 but it faced very different challenges. During the Great War troops fought abroad for the entire conflict whereas in World War Two Britain’s railways were expected to deal with the mass evacuation of children and the movement of resources and troops from across the globe from Dunkirk in 1940 up to D-Day in 1944. It was long-recognised that the railways were essential to the military during times of war and even as far back as the Crimean war the British state built a railway from Balaclava to Sebastopol in 1854. By the outbreak of the First World War it was clear that the chaotic railway system, made up of the hundreds of private companies, was not fit for purpose and it came under government control. At the time the government rewarded shareholders handsomely while doing nothing for rail workers in a deal that NUR general secretary and MP for Derby Jimmy Thomas famously called ‘a one-sided arrangement’. Government control continued after the war until the 1921 Railways Act which, despite vague electoral promises of full nationalisation, created the Big Four private companies Southern Railway (SR), Great Western Railway (GWR), London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) and the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER). Incredibly, when the railways once more came under government control in 1939, author Michael Foley reveals that the fixed payments of over £40 million per year to the nearly bankrupt Big Four were so huge that railway shares rocketed and became very sought after as a result. As a result of this rampant wartime profiteering it was a boom time for shareholders as previously only one rail company had even paid dividends in 1938 and that was just 0.5 per cent. The government also commandeered the light railways, steam ships and docks that did not fall under the control of the Big Four in 1921 and the term British Railways was first used on the many posters that started to appear to appeal to the public not to travel and about how the railways were carrying the ‘war load’. Many of the over 100 black and white illustrations in this book include these posters designed to educate and inform the public and boost morale. By 1942 nearly 600,000 workers were running the network including 40,000 women in an industry which effectively served as another branch of the military during the conflict. The NUR annual general meeting in Carlisle in July 1943 welcomed this influx of RAILWAYS AND THE FIGHT AGAINST FASCISM A new book Britain's Railways in the Second World War tells the fascinating story of Britain’s railways during the fight against Nazism Volunteers serve drinks to Dunkirk survivors