For eighteen months after his graduation, he worked in Germany as an English tutor to Prince Wilhelm and Prince Henry of Prussia, the future Kaiser Wilhelm II and his brother.[3] He subsequently took a post as a master in Dulwich College, where he remained until 1885.[1][3]
In 1889 he wrote Railways of England followed in the following year by Railways of Scotland.[1][2] These two books comprised a series of descriptive articles of the railways, but his later work concentrated on the economics and statistics of the industry. He visited the United States where he studied the statistical methods used on the railroads there, and on his return wrote his third book, Railways and the Traders (1891), which was critical of the accounting practices of the British railway companies.[3] From the mid-1890s he lectured at the newly formed London School of Economics on railways.[1] In 1905 he published his fourth book The Elements of Railway Economics, which was widely used as a textbook.[1][2][3] In 1919 he gave evidence to the United States Congress before the Joint Committee on Inter-State and Foreign Commerce.[1] His testimony formed the basis of his fifth and final book, State Railway Ownership, was published in 1920.[2]
He maintained his connections with the Conservative Party, and was adopted as their candidate for Keighley in the West Riding of Yorkshire. He contested the seat on three occasions in 1906, 1910 and 1911 but failed to be elected.[1][2]
He was married twice. In 1878 he married Elizabeth Louisa Oswald Brown, who died in 1904. In 1923 he married Elizabeth Learmonth Wotherspoon.
In 1924 he was given the task of reorganising the German Railways by the Inter-Allied Reparations Commission. The heavy workload led to a deterioration in his health, and he died suddenly at his London home at The Albany, Piccadilly, aged 74.[12]