The Coronation Scot

[M636C]

In my earlier post regarding the "On Time" film, I failed to indicate that the opening music was "Coronation Scot" which I think was posted and discussed earlier in another thread.

A fairly complete description of the locomotives, but not much about the train itself, is contained in a short documentary of the period.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpQxDSskLxQ

At about 4:24, the man waving his hat from the cab of 6220 is Mr W.A. Stanier, later of course Sir William.

This film was probably made before the music about the train was composed and as a result had to use music from Sir Edward Elgar.

Was the London Midland and Scottish Railway really the largest commercial organisation in the world at the time, as stated in the film, and by what measure I wonder? Number of employees might have been the criterion....

Peter

[Flintlock76]

Fun old film!  Thanks Peter!

The LMS the biggest commercial organisation in the world?  I don't know myself, maybe.  Possibly they had world-wide holdings in other things beside railways?  I wouldn't think they'd make a claim like that if they couldn't back it up.

The music?  That's Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance" all right.

[timz]

Okay, if we use number of employees as the criterion -- who would be tops, in the US? We can look up the numbers of RR employees, but probably they weren't the largest in the country? How big were Sears, Roebuck or Woolworth's or A&P? Was US Steel a contender?

How many employees at LMS? First guess: no US railroad ever had more than 200000 employees.

[BaltACD]

timz

Okay, if we use number of employees as the criterion -- who would be tops, in the US? We can look up the numbers of RR employees, but probably they weren't the largest in the country? How big were Sears, Roebuck or Woolworth's or A&P? Was US Steel a contender?

How many employees at LMS? First guess: no US railroad ever had more than 200000 employees.

Recall seeing a early 1950's edition of the B&O's monthly employee magazine - in a article the statement mentioned 'the 58,000' of the B&O 'family'.

With many roads being much larger than the B&O I can only imagine how many they employed.

Saw a comment on Facebook today from a friend that is still employed on CSX - and he mentioned the 20,000 employees of CSX.  When you consider the employment of the roads that are now a part of CSX - (B&O, C&O, WM, ACL, SAL, L&N, GARR, A&WP, WofA, WSSB, GM, NYC, PRR, NH, LV, RDG and probably a dozen I have overlooked) it is staggering what the employment of those carriers woudl have been at the time of the Coronation Scot.

[Jones1945]

I don't have the figure for the 1930s, but according to this page  "At its peak in the early 1900s, PRR employed close to 280,000 people, more than any other railroad in the nation."

[timz]

Wonder what that page means by "PRR" -- including Lines West etc?

In 1927 PRR employment was less than 200000, including almost everything (not LIRR, tho).

[M636C]

The Wikipedia entry for the LMS reads...

The companies merged into the LMS included the London and North Western Railway, Midland Railway, the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (which had previously merged with the London and North Western Railway on 1 January 1922), several Scottish railway companies (including the Caledonian Railway), and numerous other, smaller ventures.

The resulting company was an unwieldy construction, with numerous interests other than railway operation. Besides being the world's largest transport organisation, it was also the largest commercial enterprise in the British Empire and the United Kingdom's second largest employer, after the Post Office.^[3] The LMS also claimed to be the largest joint stock organisation in the world.

Compared with other systems, I imagine that it must have had more than 200 000 employees, certainly as first merged in 1923.

Peter