Women are seen as equals in today's railway industry, but a new book looks at the years of exploitation and degradation they endured before breaking through the glass ceiling.

Women's Editor LINDSAY JENNINGS reports:

WHEN Anne Winter rang British Rail's Wimbledon office in the summer of 1979 and asked if it was possible for a woman to be a train driver, she was answered with hoots of hysterical laughter.

The determined Anne went on to secure herself an interview, only to sit in bemusement as the area depot manager warned her about the long and lonely nights the job entailed and the lack of female toilet facilities. How would she cope, he asked, with the lack of facilities when she had her periods? Astonishingly, when asked at the end of the interview if she still wanted the job, Anne replied "yes". But her interview was just the beginning of years spent proving herself in the eyes of a male dominated rail industry. She even had to wait ten years for a proper uniform.

"When I questioned the uniform stores I was told that, as a woman, there was some doubt as to how long I would be staying in the job and so it would be necessary for me to submit a uniform request annually, " she says. Over the years, Anne's experience of belittlement and harassment from male colleagues did not deter her from the job she loved.

Her experiences are similar to those of Helena Wojtczak, one of the first female guards in the country and author of the new book, Railwaywomen. Helen was just 19 when she passed the tough tests needed to become a guard. She too was looking forward to a smart new uniform upon her qualification, only to end up with a female carriage cleaners' uniform because there were no lady guard uniforms.

She went on to endure sexual harassment and was the subject of sexist graffiti scrawled on the walls. She eventually left after 20 years, and sued her company for sexual discrimination and personal injury after suffering a workrelated back injury.

It was the kind of treatment suffered by herself and thousands of other women which led to Helena writing Railwaywomen. Before her book, she says, there had been little mention of the role women played on the railways. "In the course of their research, writers of previous railway histories must have discovered documents and photographs that proved women's participation in railway working since 1830, and decided to ignore or should one say 'suppress' this information, " she says, incredulously.

"Not only did they choose to omit women, they also failed to mention that they had excluded them or to reveal that there was another, completely different story to tell."

As part of her book, Helena has traced the role of women in the railways back to early Victorian times. By 1914, women comprised only two per cent of the workforce and there was an enormous gulf between the wages of male and female workers. Women were paid between a third and a half of what their male counterparts were on - even if they were in the same work. Likewise, some of the perks given to the men were withdrawn for the women, such as the free travel for spouses and children of railwaymen.

Typical jobs were ladies' room attendants, laundresses - which was one of the few areas a woman might be appointed manager - catering workers, crossing keepers, station mistresses, ticket office workers, and administrative clerks. The growth of the telecommunications industry in late Victorian times also opened up a fresh source of employment for women, work which was deemed tedious by the majority of men.

Managerial positions were closed to women and the best career progression women could hope for was a one-step-up promotion to supervisor of a female section, such as a typing pool or telephone exchange.

But, like in many industries, the First World War brought a reappraisal of the role of women in the railways. In 1915, the bar on certain jobs was lifted and women rushed forward to apply for jobs such as engine cleaners, carriage cleaners, passenger and goods porters, booking clerks, ticket collectors and female clerks.

One female clerk, May Atkinson, who joined Middlesbrough goods office, in 1915, recalls that the atmosphere was somewhat frosty when she was transferred to Porters' Accounts.

"The man who had to train me had held the job for over 20 years and did not take kindly to a girl of 20 taking over, so I didn't have it so good for the first week.

But I didn't complain or weep as some girls did." While the men remained somewhat annoyed at the swift and large invasion of female staff, the women showed they were more than capable of answering back.

"The female clerk can contentedly ply her art at the typewriter until her last letter is written, without feeling obliged to break off occasionally to stand with her back to the fire and talk about sport, politics or the conduct of war, " wrote one.

But by the end of the war in 1918, many women found themselves back where they had started. Of the 36,000 working in male railways grades in 1918, about 30 per cent resigned in the weeks after Armistice and many of those who remained were dismissed shortly afterwards. Massive social pressure was forced on the women to "make way for the men". The National Federation of Demobilised Sailors and Soldiers demanded that all women vacate men's jobs and "get back to the home".

IN the wake of wartime praise and compliments, it was now being claimed that women were less punctual, less reliable and more easily fatigued and clumsier than their male counterparts.

Despite gaining the right to vote and proving they were more than capable of taking on "men's work", women failed to make much headway in rail work until the Second World War began. The 35,000 women filling male wage grades at the end of 1918 had dwindled to fewer than 200 five years later.

But with the outbreak of the Second World War, women were once again called upon. After the war, a few women managed to keep their highly prized jobs, although many more were forced to leave again, to make way for the men. Many of the women Helen interviewed recall they had grown to love railway life and looked upon it as a family. There were many tears when they left and they said that on return to "women's work" they felt as if they had lost something of themselves: pride in being entrusted with people's lives and self respect.

Former goods porter Mabel Watkinson recalls: "I went back to my job in the grocery store and I soon found out how much I hated that. I missed being out in the open air and I felt claustrophobic, miserable and bored, and I missed the company of the railwaywomen."

Up until 1975, women who applied for railway work continued to be shown in the direction of the "three Cs" - cleaning, catering or clerical - and continued to be treated less favourably with regard to sick pay, pensions, uniforms and free travel passes.

But by the latter 1970s, women began to push through the glass ceiling. The Sex Discrimination Act in 1975 changed everything by opening all railway work up to women.

Anne Winter has lost a great deal of loyalty for her bosses over the years, but says she still loves her job. "Nowhere outside will you find such a feeling of community as you do on the railway, " she says. "You can be lost in any town in Great Britain, but if you make your way to the nearest railway station and say you're staff, you will be given the customary cup of tea and help will be heaped upon you."

Helena also sees that women have succeeded in the male-dominated railway industry. "They have equal pay and equal opportunities, from train maintenance depots to station platforms; from signalling technical departments to the boardrooms of recently privatised railway companies. There is probably no job on the railway that is not done by at least one woman somewhere in Britain. "Ultimately, railwaywomen have triumphed.".

Lindsay Jennings
Women's Editor
The Northern Echo

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