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Railway Regulation Act 1844

The Railway Regulation Act 1844[1] (7 & 8 Vict. c. 85) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom providing a minimum standard for rail passenger travel. It provided compulsory services at a price affordable to poorer people to enable them to travel to find work. It is one of the Railway Regulation Acts 1840 to 1893.[2]

Long title

An Act to attach certain Conditions to the construction of future Railways authorised by any Act of the present or succeeding sessions of Parliament; and for other Purposes in relation to Railways.

9 August 1844

The prior situation[edit]

Until that time there were three or more classes of carriage, third class usually an open goods wagon, often without seats, sometimes referred to sarcastically as "Stanhopes", a corruption of "Stand-ups". During that year, a select committee had produced six reports on the railways, at the behest of the Board of Trade under its president, W. E. Gladstone. These led to An Act to attach certain Conditions to the construction of future Railways authorised by any Act of the present or succeeding sessions of Parliament; and for other Purposes in relation to Railways, referred to as "Gladstone's Act".


The original bill introduced into Parliament by W. E. Gladstone had been far-reaching for its time - even proposing state ownership of the railways and telegraph.

One train with provision for carrying third-class passengers, should run on every line, every week day, in each direction, stopping at every station. (These are what were originally known as ".")

parliamentary trains

The fare should be 1d. per mile.

Its average speed should not be less than 12 miles per hour (19 km/h).

Third-class passengers should be protected from the weather and be provided with seats.

The Act stated:


In return the railway operator was exempted from duty on third class passengers. The price was not cheap for working people. An additional requirement was that they should be allowed to carry 56 lb (25 kg) of luggage free. It helped those in search of work thus, as Smith[3] points out, its benefit was to improve labour supply.

Cheap Trains Act 1883

Ransom, P. J. G. (1990). The Victorian Railway and How It Evolved. London: Heinemann.

Billson, P. (1996). Derby and the Midland Railway. Derby: Breedon Books.

McLean, I. (2004). "The history of regulation in the United Kingdom: three case studies in search of a theory". In Jordana, J.; Levi-Faur, D. (eds.). The Politics of Regulation: institutions and regulatory reforms for the age of governance. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. pp. 45–66.  1-84376-464-4.

ISBN

Railways Archive: An Act to attach certain Conditions to the Construction of future Railways 1844