h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Class Segregation and the Evolution of the British Railway Carriage - A87820716
Author: Bluebottle - U43530

I thought I'd write something that's a bit silly and ask that age-honoured question that has intrigued mankind for as long as about 5 seconds, 'to what extent does railway carriage design reflect society?'
It looks purely at passenger carriages, so anything for cargo (including brake vans/guard vans with baggage areas) are excluded.

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Fabulus! I've read it twice, and still need to re-read, as there is so much fabulus information in there.... 'making smoking carriages compulsory'
The biggest 'class divide' I find on the trains, these days (always in standard class mind, for me as a member of the great unwashed), is on differnt lines; travelling on trains, in differnt parts of the country, certainly gives one the idea of how culture, and perhaps also 'class' varys across the country, or even, just neighbouring lines in the same county (of course, time of day can impinge on this too) Being on the St Trinian's train (first out of the station on teh nearby school kicking out for the day), is an expeiernece once one has had, one will always try to avoid like the entry a lot, BTW

This is in danger of becoming my favourate BB entry, class, politics, history, Trains and Britishnes, alas no beer well done

This is a very good Entry!

I have one question: as the dining car and toilet in the car were invented before the corridor carriage, how did people get there?

Hello – thanks for reading this through.

Good questions!
With restaurant carriages, as a whole carriage was a restaurant, if you wanted to use the restaurant facilities you simply stayed in that carriage, and could move to a different carriage at a later stop – there wasn't really a need to get to and from the restaurant carriage while the train was in motion.

Toilets, though, are quite different. No-one would want to spend the whole time between two stations sitting on a toilet, but the earliest ones were built between two compartments, so that only passengers in adjoining compartments could access it.

I've tweaked the article to include this.

The question I'd like an answer to is why is 'waggonway' spelt with two gs when 'wagon' only has one? I guess it is one of those unknown quirks of English...

As for rail experience in my part of the world – well, we don't have First Class on the IslandLine. Or a restaurant/trolley buffet service. Or corridor connectors. Or much headroom. Lots of legroom – as the seats are along the sides facing the middle, just like on the London Underground. Mind you, the Island's mainline railway service's carriages all date from 1938 (I've been on heritage lines that are much more modern).

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I enjoyed this as well Some great humour in it - I loved the comparison of people with coal, and the ordering of the carriages, and the little bins...

A few points that I noticed on readthrough:

"•Quarterlights – quarter-circle shaped lights" - weren't they shaped windows, rather than lights?

"A compartment was capable of comfortably seating six or eight passengers"

Is that section saying that first and second class passengers had armchairs, but some of them were bigger than others - First Class passengers would be 6 to a compartment whereas second class would be 8 to a compartment?

Hi BB I just realised that you have left a type of carriage out.

http://www.stainmore150.co.uk/2011_events/clerestory.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerestory#Transportation

I'm glad that you enjoyed reading this – I thought I was being too daft with the symbolism section (still trying to think of something that the adoption of plastic overhead shelves for storage rather than webbed nets can symbolise...) but that was my first idea.

Anyway, to the questions you raised – 'Quarterlights' , yes, they were windows, rather than lights. I thought I'd written 'windows', but I guess my hands were on automatic and after writing 'quarterlights – quarter-circle shaped...' I inadvertently followed with 'lights' rather than 'window', as light doesn't make sense. How can you have a quarter of a light? There's either a light or it is dark.

"A compartment was capable of comfortably seating six or eight passengers"
Well, it depends on the different companies. I think there's been about 500 different railway companies in the UK, many starting as small companies of a few miles before being taken over by their larger neighbours, and so different companies did things a bit differently. Some had larger armchairs with tables, fitting only about six, others had larger, but still quite comfortable chairs.

I just realised that you have left a type of carriage out.
I didn't really leave it out, I wrote 'Clerestory or overhead windows also allowed extra light into these carriages.' But you're right, one sentence doesn't really cover it so I've now expanded it into a small section.

I've also added a bit more about those carriage doors that can only be opened from the outside.

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Near perfection acheived*

*someone is bound to spot something

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well done