Prominent amongst these officers was John Mathieson, Superintendent of
the Line, who was only twenty-nine when appointed to that responsible
post. We became good friends. He began work at the early age of
thirteen, had grown up on the railway and at nineteen was a station
master. He was skilful in out-door railway work, and an adept in
managing trains and traffic. Ambitious and a bit touchy regarding his
office, all was not always peace between his and other departments,
particularly the goods manager's. The goods manager was not aggressive,
and it was sometimes thought that Mathieson inclined to encroach upon his
territory. Often angry correspondence and sometimes angry discussion
ensued. Yet, take him for all in all, John Mathieson was a fine man with
nothing small in his composition. Soon his ambition was gratified. In
1889 he was appointed Chief Commissioner of the Railways of Queensland;
and after a few years occupation of that post was invited by the
Victorian Government to the same position in connection with the railways
of that important State. In 1900 he left Australia and became General
Manager of the Midland Railway; but his health unfortunately soon failed,
and at the comparatively early age of sixty he died at Derby in the year
1906. In his early days, on the Glasgow and South-Western, Mathieson was
a hard fighter. Those were the days when between the Scottish railway
companies the keenest rivalry and the bitterest competition existed. The
Clearing House in London, where the railway representatives met
periodically to discuss and arrange rates and fares and matters relating
to traffic generally, was the scene of many a battle. Men like James
MacLaren of the North British, Tom Robertson of the Highland, Irvine
Kempt of the Caledonian, and A. G. Reid of the Great North of Scotland
were worthy of Mathieson's steel. Usually Mathieson held his own. Irvine
Kempt I cannot imagine was as keen a fighter as the rest, for he was
rather a dignified gentleman with fine manners. To gain a few tons of