Amongst the most prominent railway men I have met were Sir Edward Watkin,
Chairman of the South-Eastern Railway, and the following general
managers:--Mr. Allport, Midland, the exalted railway monarch of my early
railway days; Mr. (afterwards Sir) Henry Oakley, Great Northern; Mr.
Grierson, Great Western; Mr. Underdown, Manchester, Sheffield and
Lincolnshire; and Mr. (afterwards Sir Myles) Fenton, South Eastern. Of
Sir Edward Watkin a good story was told. When he was general manager of
the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway (he was Mr. Watkin
then) many complaints had arisen from coal merchants on the line that
coal was being stolen from wagons in transit by engine drivers. Nothing
so disgraceful could possibly occur, always answered Mr. Watkin. Down
the line one day, with his officers at a country station, a driver was
seen in the very act of transferring from a coal wagon standing on an
outlying siding some good big lumps to his tender. This was pointed out
to Mr. Watkin, who only said--"The d---d fool, _in broad daylight_!" When
Mr. Allport learned that I came from Derby, and was the son of an old
Midland official, he treated me with marked kindness. Mr. Oakley came in
the year 1880 to Glasgow, where he sat for several days as arbitrator
between the Glasgow and South-Western and Caledonian Railway Companies,
on a matter concerning the management, working, and maintenance of
Kilmarnock Station, of which the companies were joint owners, and I
learned for the first time how an arbitration case should be conducted,
for Mr. Oakley was an expert at such work. This experience stood me in
good stead, when, not many years later, I was appointed arbitrator in a
railway dispute in the North of Ireland.

In the front rank of the railway service I do not remember many beaux.
General managers were men too busy to spend much time upon the study of
dress. But there were exceptions, as there are to every rule, and Sir
James Thompson, General Manager, and afterwards Chairman of the