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Railways and the Spanish Flu 1919


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Hi,

 

In view of the current state, I was wondering what the impact on railways of the Spanish Flu in 1919 was? 

 

I dont recall reading anything about it in any of the recollections and reminiscances from that era.  Perhaps the fact that the railways were still on a war footing and perhaps restrictions on "unnnecessary journeys" (although Quintinshill suggested not) did not lead to as much of an impact as the current emergency.  Perhaps the information is out there waithing to be dug up. 

 

Has anyone come across any information? 

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I've no information on Spanish Flu, but your Quintinshill reference isn't really relevant - Q was 1915, and Britain didn't really go on to a 'war footing' until much later. Conscription only started in 1916, and serious restrictions on travel, rationing etc not much until the Uboat campaign in 1917 started really affecting things. In 1915 the war was still largely 'over there'.

 

But I think by 18/19 there were also fuel shortages, which would have affected rail travel anyway.

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There was a good documentary on the "Spanish" flu a few months ago. This suggested that patient zero was an American chicken farmer and he brought a type of bird flu to the army base in 1917 where they were undergoing basic training before crossing the Atlantic. Despite the number of soldiers falling ill it was not possible for morale / political reasons to delay the project or to allow any knowledge of it to reach the general public. It became known as "Spanish" flu because the king / president ( I can't remember) died of it. As Spain was not involved in the war, news reports were not censored as they were elsewhere.

As troops became infected the virus became endemic in the civilian population and was taken to all parts of Britain and Germany as troops returned home. Where the Bubonic plague took 30 years to cross Europe, railways transmitted the virus in 30 weeks. Today, air transport did the job in 30 hours?

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I’ve wondered about why the affects of Spanish Flu on industry and commerce, not only railways, seem to have gone unremarked, and my theory is (!) that, because it struck most heavily at people in their 20s (very different from the current beast), it may not have had a great near-term affect, because so many young men were already out of the labour pool, fighting. Older guys, and women, were already doing the railway work.

 

The end of war created a male labour surplus, soaked-up to some degree, but not completely, as women were ‘let go’ - without the ‘flu, it would probably have been a bigger male labour surplus.

 

Medium term economic affects, and social affects, are another question.

 

Views?

 

 

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3 hours ago, doilum said:

...............................Where the Bubonic plague took 30 years to cross Europe, railways transmitted the virus in 30 weeks. Today, air transport did the job in 30 hours?

 

The Black Death spread right across Europe from Italy to Norway in about three years.

 

Which is interesting as the Bubonic Plague outbreak stating in China in the 1800's spread quite slowly, suggesting the fast spreading medieval plague may have been something different.

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14 hours ago, Trog said:

 

The Black Death spread right across Europe from Italy to Norway in about three years.

 

Which is interesting as the Bubonic Plague outbreak stating in China in the 1800's spread quite slowly, suggesting the fast spreading medieval plague may have been something different.

 

I think modern thinking is that there was a significant pneumonic compoment to the "Black Death" as well as the traditional direct contact - but certainly seemed to be not just bubonic.

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In the middle ages the silk route was a highway across Asia (particularly when the mongols had united it, which made it safer). From Byzantium and Venice there were well established European trading routes.

 

In the 1800s China was a far more inward looking country (and had been since the suspension of Cheng Ho's treasure voyages several hundred years before), and there were far smaller volumes of continental trade than their had been previously. Yes there was maritime contact by the Chinese managed this in various ports - it was European seapower that opened up places like Hong Kong and Shanghai. This may well also have contributed to the changes in speed of spread.

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22 hours ago, JinglingGeordie said:

I dont recall reading anything about it in any of the recollections and reminiscances from that era.  Perhaps the fact that the railways were still on a war footing and perhaps restrictions on "unnnecessary journeys" (although Quintinshill suggested not) did not lead to as much of an impact as the current emergency.  Perhaps the information is out there waithing to be dug up.

 

Other than the very rich I suspect there wasn't much in the way of unnecessary journeys back then.

 

The option to "work from home" certainly didn't exist 30 years ago let alone 100 years ago the way it does today with the rise of portable computing devices and Internet access everywhere.

 

But it is also worth remembering that in an era the predates vaccines and antibiotics, adequate nutrition for many/most, never mind all the items of modern hospitals, death from things other than old age was a regular occurrence and so while the 1918 flu was notable it also to an extent would have been "just another thing".

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On 17/03/2020 at 16:38, lanchester said:

I've no information on Spanish Flu, but your Quintinshill reference isn't really relevant - Q was 1915, and Britain didn't really go on to a 'war footing' until much later. Conscription only started in 1916, and serious restrictions on travel, rationing etc not much until the Uboat campaign in 1917 started really affecting things. In 1915 the war was still largely 'over there'.

 

But I think by 18/19 there were also fuel shortages, which would have affected rail travel anyway.

Certainly far from correct in respect of Britain's Railway Companies during WWI.  Passenger train supensions began in 1914 and became more widespread during 1915 with some Companies (the SE&CR and L&SWR) particularly hard hit because they were carrying ever increasing volumes of military traffic to the ports serving the BEF in France.  Station closures began in 1915 as did the withdrawal of various cheap fares and some restaurant cars.  The railways were immediately hit by loss of manpower right at the start of the war as reservists, including a fairly small number of specialist technical troops, joined up and this got far worse with men leaving to respond to the call for volunteers - by December 1914 58,000 railwaymen had left to join up or had been called up.  During the course of the war most Companies lost significant numbers of personnel to military service - over 20% in many cases and much more in some.  The L&NWR lost 37,744 to military service equal to 34.1% of its total Pre-War; the GWR lost 25,460 equal to 32.46%;  the LB&SCR lost 5,207 equal to 32,3%, and so on with the biggest percentage loss to military service being the RCH with 45% joining up.  Overall 184,475 railway personnel left to join the services during the course of the war, equal to 40% of the number of staff of military age they employed in August 1914 and over 21,000 never returned.  I don't know rthe demob rates but of course many servicement were not in any case released until 1919 or later.

 

The employment of women and girls on railway operational work did not commence until the Spring of 1915, and then with the specific intention of releasing men for military service.  By December 31 1916 the total of women employed was 46,316 compared with 13,046 in August 1914.  The number of women employed on 'railway work' reached its peak in December 1918  with 55,942 engaged out of the total of 68,637 women employed at that time by the Railways including those on munitions work on railway premises.  over 22,000 women left railway employment between November 1918 and July 1919.

 

I can't find any detail about the rate at which men returned to the railways at the end of the Great War in a way which contributes to discussion. of the impact of the Spanish 'Flu.   Taking information from various sources the first cases of the flu occurred in Britain in May 1918 and the peak of mortality was between on October and December of that year and the third and final wave of infection in Britain had ended by the summer of 1919.  Now consider that the peak of female employment on Britain's railway did not come until December 1918 and that the number employed on railway premises on munitions work had considerably reduced during that year ths suggests overall that the impact of the flu was considerably less overall than the effect of manpower lost to the war had been.   No doubt railway personnel were affected by the flu epidemic in Britain but but the time of the peak of mortality the railway workload in respect of military operations was beginning to decline anyway and other services were still not being restored so there might well have been some slack in the system as far as manpower was concerned.

 

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