| rdfs:comment | - A Parliamentary train or Parly (also referred to as a ghost train) is, nowadays, a British English term for a train that operates a Parliamentary service - that is to say a token service to a given station, thus maintaining a legal fiction that either the station in question or, in some cases, the whole line is in fact open, whereas in reality the train operating company in question has almost completely abandoned the station or line.
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| abstract | - A Parliamentary train or Parly (also referred to as a ghost train) is, nowadays, a British English term for a train that operates a Parliamentary service - that is to say a token service to a given station, thus maintaining a legal fiction that either the station in question or, in some cases, the whole line is in fact open, whereas in reality the train operating company in question has almost completely abandoned the station or line. Originally, however, the term stems from the Railway Regulation Act 1844. Working people were increasingly travelling long distances to find employment in the growing industrial centres. Such third class facilities as there were consisted usually of open wagons, often without seats, nicknamed "stanhopes". The Act was an attempt to make train travel available – and safe – for those who could ill afford it. The Act set minimum standards for passenger accommodation, and was influenced by the railway accident at Sonning Cutting on Christmas Eve 1842 when nine stonemasons were thrown from open wagons and killed.
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