The railways number of employees at its height

[4F89]

Does anyone know what the highest number of railway employees was? I assume under BR in the glory days of steam, just prior to Mr Beeching.....

I'm asking this because of the current figure that the UK govt is currently "paying the wages" of like 25% of the country got me thinking that back in the day, I'll bet it was also pretty high when you consider how many nationalised companies there were - NHS, coal, gas, water, railways, GPO etc etc

 

[Bald Rick]

600,000 is in my memory from somewhere. Think that was in the 30s. There is data out there for this somewhere.

Whilst Government paid the wages of more people in the past, it also had all the income from those industries. Also the NHS was a lot, lot smaller in 1948 than it is now, as was education.

 

[pdeaves]

I expect wages were comparatively lower, too (less disposable income).

 

[DarloRich]

I think @Bald Rick has it right. I recall reading 600k employees in the 1920/30's

I expect wages were comparatively lower, too (less disposable income).

Cost of living also lower I suspect.

 

[matt_world2004]

The railways also employed a lot more people than rail staff in the early part of the 20th century. With rail companies running hotels, estate agents , restaurants and some other things

 

[Taunton]

Until the 1960s the railway was far and away the largest employer in Taunton, and the majority of the housing north of the main line was traditionally occupied by rail staff. There was no railway-owned hotel, but there was the GWR concrete works, a considerable employer itself. Someone told me it was put at Taunton because it was the nearest large town on the main line to the Mendip limestone quarries that provided its principal raw material.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The railways also employed a lot more people than rail staff in the early part of the 20th century. With rail companies running hotels, estate agents , restaurants and some other things

Including ports, ships, canals, bus companies and an airline in the case of the LMS at least.
Some railways owned the quarries from which their ballast came, and even mines and steelworks in some cases.
I think they were also the biggest landowners in the country (bar perhaps the church).

But there was income to pay for it (with profit in some cases).
Unlike the NHS and Education, most major public-sector enterprises like rail, gas, electricity, water etc, were corporations at arms length from the government.
So even at the height of BR employment, the government did not pay wages directly.
It did dictate pay policy though, set targets*, and appointed the boss.

* "break even, taking one year with another" was a legendary DfT instruction in the 1950s.

 

[Dr Hoo]

The Oxford Companion to British Railway History is rather vague in its 'Employment' section but suggests a peak during World War 1 of nearly 650,000. British Railways had 629,000 at its formation.

I completely endorse the comments above about some of these being in hotels, shipping, docks, etc.

 

[Royston Vasey]

Does anyone know what the highest number of railway employees was? I assume under BR in the glory days of steam, just prior to Mr Beeching.....

I'm asking this because of the current figure that the UK govt is currently "paying the wages" of like 25% of the country got me thinking that back in the day, I'll bet it was also pretty high when you consider how many nationalised companies there were - NHS, coal, gas, water, railways, GPO etc etc

The number had already fallen to under half a million by Beeching. Road freight and the automobile had already started to bite, which of course gradually started the post-war rot Beeching was eventually installed to stop. Those were not the glory days of steam!

The Beeching report states a total of 648,740 railway employees in 1948 having fallen to 474,538 by 1961. Whether 1948 was the peak I don't know.

 

[pdeaves]

Whether 1948 was the peak I don't know

I have no evidence to back up, but I suspect the peak would have been before the war with associated loss of workforce and loss of potential recruits. As a % that may not have been that much but my hunch would be that there was 'some' work force reduction over the decade from 1939.

 

[Dr Day]

Slightly tangential, but at least back then it was probably easier to define who worked in the ‘railway industry’ than it is today where arguably a wide range of civil servants and private sector contractors can justifiably claim to be working in the industry alongside direct employees of TOCs, FOCs and Network Rail.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Just dug out the Railway Research Service statistical digest for the 'Big Four' for 1923-1937. Obviously this excluded some smaller railways, London Transport, Northern Ireland, etc.

1924 669,648
Apparent fall to a nadir
1933 539,278
(This gives some idea of how a 'great depression' might affect railways whilst operating methods and structure remained broadly stable.)
Some rebound
1937 574,521

Sadly the famous Tables of Statistical Returns Relating to the Railways of Great Britain 1938-1947, produced by the Railway Clearing House as a wash-up after normal annual reporting was suspended during the Second World War, focussed mainly on capabilities and outputs. There were no employment figures (unless you were a horse).

[Dray horses: 11,216 in 1938 down to 8,453 in 1947. Shunting horses: 344 in 1938 down to 241 in 1947 by the way.]

 

[deltic]

The Railway Year Book for 1922 gives railway employment in 1921 as 735,879 for Britain and 30,511 for Ireland (then all part of the UK). LNWR the biggest with 101,000 employees. Of the total UK number of 766,000 37,000 were engine drivers and motormen, 20,000 shunters, 18,000 goods guards and 9,000 passenger guards.

 

[80sGuard]

I imagine the period in the run up to the Grouping in 1923, or just after, would have had the highest total employment figure. Deltic's 1922 number is probably representative of the peak total. I posted a reply to a similar thread in March, containing an extract from Whitakers Almanack of 1967. It's a tightly written three page summary of the Railway in 1965. From that, we can see that BRB had 491,571 employees at 14 April 1962. 399,005 at 31 December 1964 and 365,043 at 31 December 1965. There's also a summary of average weekly earnings as at 14 April 1962, fares for selected journeys on the SR, other provincial destinations in other Regions, Underground and Green Line coach fares from 1938. Well worth reading (in my opinion!).

I don't have any figures for either 1950 or 1979, but in a strange coincidence, I do have a copy of Whitakers Almanack for 1967 open in front of me - here's their take on BR in 1966, which is just about half way through the period you're interested in. I'm sure someone will be along soon with the info you're looking for.

 

[S&CLER]

The Railway Year Book for 1922 gives railway employment in 1921 as 735,879 for Britain and 30,511 for Ireland (then all part of the UK). LNWR the biggest with 101,000 employees. Of the total UK number of 766,000 37,000 were engine drivers and motormen, 20,000 shunters, 18,000 goods guards and 9,000 passenger guards.

That's interesting to me, as I have the Railway Year Book for 1921, and it doesn't give figures for total employees as far as I can see. Must have been a useful new feature introduced in the 1922 edition. A Ministry of Transport census for the week ending 25 March 1922, classified by grades, gave a total of 676,802 employees for the railway companies of Great Britain (not Ireland), quite a bit lower than your 1921 figure; by the 24 March of the following year, the total had risen to 681,778 (source: Modern Railway Administration, 1925, vol. I, p. 113).