HC Deb 02 April 1869 vol 195 cc29-30
MR. PALMER

said, he wished to ask the President of the Board of Trade. Whether the rope system which the Board of Trade has sanctioned for communicating in Railway trains between the passengers and the Company's servants in charge of the trains is by means of a rope carried outside the carriages, and whether the passengers will be obliged to reach out of the carriage window to use such rope; and, if so, why a rope on the outside of the carriages has been sanctioned in preference to a rope carried through the inside of the carriage; and, whether he will lay upon the Table the Papers relating to the sanction given by the Board of Trade to a rope system?

MR. BRIGHT

said, in reply, that the system which had been sanctioned by the Board of Trade was the one in which the rope ran outside the carriage. The window of the carriage being open, the rope was just outside on the top, and it was almost as easy to lay hold of it as if it were inside, its position being at the same time very much more convenient. As the House had already been informed, the system had been adopted on the recommendation of a most influential committee of the intelligent managers of our most important railways, and the Board of Trade felt that it would be but fair to give a trial to a system which the managers believed would be sufficient, which they were all perfectly willing to adopt, and which he himself thought would be found to be all that would be necessary. The railways south of London which did not run carriages in connection with the northern lines were adopting—at least some of them, the South-Eastern being one—an electric system, which had also been sanctioned by the Board of Trade; but wherever companies ran their carriages on lines on which the rope system was sanctioned then they would be requested to adopt the same system. As to Papers on the subject he hoped the hon. Gentleman would not think it necessary to press for their production, as many scores of communications relating to something like 200 inventions had been sent to the Board of Trade, Any Papers which the hon. Gentleman might like to see he could have access to by calling at the Board of Trade.