Aesthetics of British Railways
THERE ought really to be an Academy of Railway Writers, and, if there was, Mr. Hamilton Ellis would be its obvious President. Many of the other possible members have at least some of the necessary qualifications, but he has them all, His knowledge of the loco- motives of all eras is profound but not unique, though no one knows as much as he does about the history of the coaches we ride in, and this is a great asset since he always thinks in terms of the whole train and not merely of the engine. He has a novelist's eye for character, and this is important, for no chapter of British railway history can be adequate if it is all about mechanics and none of it about people. The railways in this country have always been
remarkable for the prodigality of the " characters " they have nourished, whose rich idiosyncrasies they have somehow released.
But his most telling asset of all is that he paints at least as well as he writes, and, where most of those who hymn railways in prose have to be content to rely on photographs (and only too seldom can one find exactly the photograph one wants), Mr. Ellis can underline all his contentions by painting them. In no previous book has this particular skill stood him in better stead, for his purpose is to look with an artist's eye on trains and their engines, which means that he must argue for, and try to establish, an aesthetic criterion of what constitutes beauty on a railway. His prose is therefore bound to be a little less exuberant than usual (though the story on p. 95 of what praises of his own engine the L. and Y. driver hurled at the G.N. driver across the platform at York is by no means the only authtntic Hamilton Ellis touch in the book), and so the publisher has very rightly been most generous in the matter of coloured plates of his author's paintings.
On an early page he comes to the point with a story of two students in an art school somewhere about 1890. The first deeply loved engines, while the second held that, since they were only machines, it was quite impossible for them to be beautiful. His friend gave him a collection of engine-photographs which he promised to study. He did so; and then said that there was just one engine among them the designer of which had clearly studied aesthetics. Its curves and proportions were aesthetically right, and this engine, but only this, somehow qualified as a_work of art. The engine was one of Dean's Great Western bogie single-wheel drivers. "A dreary way of looking at it," comments Mr. Ellis severely. Yes, and surely a very odd judgement too. For Dean made no artistic claims, whereas his contemporary, Patrick Stirling, of the Great Northern, was exceedingly conscious of his aesthetic responsibility, and his were surely the loveliest singles ever to run in this country. It is hard to believe that Stirling's beautiful engine was not included in the aesthetic student's bundle.
This review seems to be calling more attention to Mr. Ellis's painting than to his text. The fact is that to comment adequately on his aesthetic arguments would require another book. They seem sound and they are certainly interesting, and anyway it would be impossible for Mr. Ellis to be dull even if he were writing about mangles or garden rakes. But the paintings are irresistibly evocative. There are eight of them, and the one which excites me most is simply called" Davie Jones." Some fifty or more years ago the Directors of the Highland Railway met at Inverness to appoint a new Chief Mechanical Engineer. Astonishingly, they appointed one who -bore the name David Jones, and he at once proceeded to stamp Highland engines with his own sign manuals, giving them louvres in front of their chimneys, and building the first 4-6-0 to run in this country.
It is one of his engines pulling its train over the moor of Achnashel- lach that Mr. Ellis has painted. Now Achnashellach is on the line from Inverness to the Kyle of Lochalsh, which to Mr. Ellis's mind, and to mine, is the loveliest run to be had anywhere in these islands, not even the Fort William-Mallaig line excepted. In an earlier book Mr. Ellis wrote an unforgettable page about it, and now he paints it, and the effect is just as lyrical. It is the autumn of 1925. The old Highland is now the L.M.S., and David Jones' green engine has been painted red, but that cannot spoil it. It is pulling an odd mixture of coaches—Midland, Highland, L. and Y. and Caledonian—all in their original colours, as was still apt to happen in 1925. In the distance a thunderstorm recedes, and piercing the black cloud is a rainbow so bright and vivid as to seem incredible. But it is not incredible, not in those parts. On a stump by the lineside a golden eagle perches.
Now the strange thing is that anyone who travels through Achna- shellach today will see an equally odd mixture of colours on his train, and he would not have seen them at any time between 1925 and 1950. British Railways have for the present actually relieved the old L.M.S. sameness. The engine will certainly be a Black Stanier. But the coaches will include two or three of the new red and white livery, an odd-looking red dining-car of early Pullman vintage, a couple of vans—one of them the old L.M.S. red and one the new and nasty pink, and very likely a chocolate and yellow Great Western coach, far from home and going farther. If he does the journey in the spring or autumn, he is exceedingly likely to see the rainbow, and there is no earthly reason why he should not see the eagle as well. My one disappointment in travelling over the line is that 1 have not yet seen an eagle, but I still may, for it is the right place to expect one. The next best thing to doing the run oneself is to read Mr. Ellis's account of it and to look at his painting. There is pleasure in store for anyone who does, and in this book he will
find many other pleasures besides. ROGER LLOYD.
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