In the year 1854 Parliament considered that regulations were necessary to further control the companies and passed an important statute, the Railway and Canal Traffic Act.  Known, for short, in railway parlance, as “the Act of ’54,” its main provisions dealt with:—­

Reasonable facilities for receiving and forwarding traffic The subject of undue preference, which was forbidden Railways forming part of continuous lines to receive and forward through traffic without obstruction The liability of railway companies for loss of, or damage to, goods or animals

and it preserved to railway companies the protection of the Carriers’ Act, to which I have referred.

The Select Committees of 1858 and 1863 sat on the subject of the great length of time and the immense cost which railway promotion in those days entailed, when Bills were fiercely contested, and protracted struggles before Parliamentary Committees took place.  Two Acts resulted from their deliberations:  the Railway Companies’ Powers Act, 1864, and the Railway Construction Facilities Act of the same year.  These Acts empowered railway companies to enter into agreements with each other in regard to maintenance, management, running over or use of each others lines or property and for joint ownership of stations.  They also enabled powers to be obtained from the Board of Trade to construct a railway without a special Act of Parliament, subject to the conditions that all the landowners concerned agreed to part with the requisite land, and that no objection was raised by any other railway or canal company.  Little use has ever been made of this well-intentioned enactment.  Landowners have rarely been disposed to accept terms which the companies thought fair; and rival railways, in the days gone by, dearly loved a fight.

By the Companies Clauses Consolidation Act of 1845 railway companies were required to keep full and true accounts of receipts and expenditure, but it was not until the year 1868 that Parliament placed upon the companies an obligation to keep their accounts in a prescribed form.  This form was scheduled to the Regulation of Railways Act, 1868.  It provides for half-yearly accounts, and is the form which has been familiar to shareholders for many years.  This Act (1868) also ordained that smoking compartments be provided on all trains, for all classes, on all railways, except on the railway of the Metropolitan Company.  Up to then the railway smoker had to obtain the consent of his fellow passengers in the same compartment before he could light up, or brave their displeasure; and many were the altercations that ensued.  The Act also imposed penalties on railways who provided trains for attending prize fights, which was hard on companies of sporting instincts.  A clause provided for means of communication between passengers and the servants of the company in charge