Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland

A quiet evening in Donegal prompts Joseph Tatlow to set down memories of fifty years working for railway companies across England, Scotland and Ireland. Published in 1920, his account follows a career that began as a junior clerk and eventually brought him to the posts of general manager and director. Childhood recollections place him in a railway family at Derby, where the engines, carriages and bustle of a station made an early impression.

Personal friendships sit beside the business of running a railway. Tatlow describes how knowledge of railway legislation and recommendations from colleagues helped secure his appointment to the Midland Great Western Railway of Ireland in 1890. Chapters range across office life, rates and fares, parliamentary acts, Irish lines and professional gatherings. For readers interested in transport history, these recollections show the working relationships and administrative decisions behind the expanding railway network, through the eyes of someone who took part in them.