The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1907-12-18
TRAMMAY KING
IS IN HONOLULU
Sir Clifton Robinson Amonq
Through Passengers
on Korea.

Among the passengers on the Korea
bound for the Orient, is sir Clifton
Robinson, accompanied by Lady Rob-
inson and their son. Sir clifton Isl
known as the ''tramway king of the
British Isles and was knighted two
years ago by King Edward, in recog-
milton Of his great public services in
the improvement OF the street car sys-
TENS Of Great Britain. In speaking of
him the San Francisco Chronicle Of
December 10 says:
His is the life story of a persistent
and ambitious man who has stuck to
one thing from earliest boyhood until
success has come TO him in royal rec
ognition, in amassed wealth and in the
final achievement of plans which va
rious English municipalities long OPP
posed because of their conservative
ideas.
HIS FIRST STREET-CAR RIDE.
| Born in Birkenhead, near Liverpool,
fifty-nine years ago, Sir Clifton was
a small boy of Il when George Fran
els Train, an American, built there
| what was the first street railway in
! Europe. Sir Clifton chased the first
car, grabbed it for ride, and has been
hanging on to a street car ever since.
His interest was enlisted in the BUSH
ness from that moment. And six years
later he had learned so much that
/ George Francis Train took him to
America in 1866 as one of his employees
in street railroad construction. After
] Ave -,
American cities, young Robinson went
back and undertook the engineering
work of constructing street car lines
in Cork, Ireland when he was but
twenty-three. Four years later he had
become general manager of the Bristol
tramways, and later was made man
ager and secretary of the street-car
lines of Edinburgh, Scotland. In 1884
| he started the construction of the
Highgate Gable Tramways, the first in
| England. This system has recently
been converted into electric. During
these years he has been to America
supervising and constructing street
railway systems. It was he who d.d
the engineering work in the construc-
ton of the first street car system for
Los Angeles.
| FOREMOST AUTHORITY.
| In 1889 the American Street Railway
Association engaged him as the fore
most authority on street railways to
report on the general situation in the
! United States, and his report was pre-
sented at the Pittsburg convention in
| 1891. That same year he advised the
city of Bristol to change her cable
| lines into electric, and he himself took
! hold of the work and had the new
electric system running in 1895. In
/ 1892 he was awarded the silver medal
! by the Society of Arts for his presen-
tation of "Londons Tubes, Trans and
| Trains" In 1898 he converted all the
street-car lines of Stockton-on- Tees |
into electric. In 1904 he became man |
aging director of the London United
! Tramways Company and started to
convert it to electric, and succeeded |
| over the objections and antagonisms |
of a strong local spirit. He became |
connected also with the Underground |
Electric Railway Company of London, |
which controls three tube" lines, the |
city having come to underground serv- |
/ ice ten years after ridiculing his first |
suggestion for such a system.
NEVER HAD STREET-CAR STRIKE
Since 1871 Sir Clifton Robinson has
| been an employer of labor, and during |
all the thirty-six years and the many |
great English, Irish, scotch and Amer
lean railway concerns with which he
has been prominent he has never had |
street-car strike. He has operated |
on nine-hour day, but has been very |
popular with his men. He is strict. |
but helpful, and interested in the pleas |
ure and recreation of the employees. |
w
great numbers of the employees of all
classes at their country place for lawn
parties. Lord Clifton's belief is that
every man in a position over other
men should be able to perform the
tasks he sets the men, and he himself |
exemplifies that principle, because he |
! can perform any mechanical or engi- |
neering work that his men are requir- |
ed to do, having learned the street and
electric railway business from the shop |
| up. He explains that "tramways'
originated in the first phrase describ- |
! ing tracks on which coal wagons ran. |
An engineer named Outram first used
/ such runways, and they were called
Outram ways, and later "tramways."
| FIRST VACATION IN YEARS.
| Sir Clifton says he has had no vaca- |
| ton since he was last in Los Angeles |
| seventeen years ago. At that time Los
/ Angeles was in appearance just about
such a city as he recalls New York
was when he first saw it in 1856, short
/ ly after the Civil War. In England.
| he says, the street car laws follow the
| old coaching laws, and no passenger
/ is permitted to stand in a car. If he
be caught standing he is arrested and
fined $3.50 and a similar fine is i'm
! posed on the conductor. But despite
these ideas against crowding, Sir Cliff
ton reports that on one bank holiday
in London his company, with 300 street
| cars. moved 500,O 600 passengers on thir-
ty miles of line within a period Of six
teen hours, every one of them being
required' to get on and off the rear