Foreword 




by Colin Dival


Professor of Railway Studies

Head of the Institute of Railway Studies & Transport History, York

Britain's railways have always been largely a man's world. Yet almost from the railways' earliest stirrings as adjuncts of the coal mining industry in the 1600s through to the modern system of high-speed passenger and heavy-haul freight trains, women have been there. Almost every type of job on the railway has at some time or another been filled by a female. In 1717 Lady Jane Clavering took over a wooden waggonway in north-east England on which chaldrons of coal were pulled by horses; nowadays women drive Eurostar trains under the Channel from London to Paris and Brussels. During the Second World War, women could be found doing pretty well any manual task except locomotive driving and firing, in addition to the numerous clerical and administrative jobs in which they were also employed in their thousands.

The story of women's role on Britain's railways is, however, largely an obscure one, and it is so because very few historians have bothered to look for the evidence. One reason then warmly to welcome the fruits of Helena Wojtczak's extensive research over a period of many years. She shows not only just how numerous female railway workers were, particularly during the two world wars, but also how varied were the tasks undertaken by them, often under particularly trying and dangerous conditions.

But this is not just a book about recovering evidence of women's participation, essential though that task is, for the author also explains why women have found it so difficult to participate in anything like equal numbers with men or with equal responsibility. In part long-standing attitudes concerning women's suitability for anything other than the most traditionally feminine of tasks were to blame, but this is not the complete story.

As with many other occupations dominated by men, women were often regarded by male colleagues as a threat - for taking jobs which should rightfully have gone to other male family bread-winners, and for being prepared to work for less pay than men and thus providing a source of cheaper labour. Thus for different (and occasionally the same) reasons, (male) trades unionists and (male) railways managers long shared attitudes and policies which resulted in women's marginalisation on the railways.

It would be pleasant to record that the renewal of feminist thinking from the 1960s plus the last quarter-century's equal-rights legislation meant that women were now as welcome on the railway as their male counterparts. There has been progress, certainly, but in bringing the story of women on Britain's railways firmly up to the present day Helena Wojtczak shows just how deeply entrenched old ways of thinking can be. Unlocking the secrets of the past, as this book does so engagingly, may yet help build a better and fairer railway in the future.

COLIN DIVALL BSC MSC PHD FRHISTS







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