RAILWAY MANAGEMENT.

By E. P. ALEXANDER.

The world was born again with the building of the first locomotive and the laying of the first level iron roadway. The energies and activities, the powers and possibilities then developed have acted and reacted in every sphere of life—social, industrial, and political—until human progress, after smouldering like a spark for a thousand years, has burst into a conflagration which will soon leave small trace of the life and customs, or even the modes of thought, which our fathers knew. But, in it all, the railroad remains the most potent factor in every development. By bringing men more and more closely together, and supplying them more and more abundantly and cheaply with all the varied treasures of the earth, stored up for millions of years for the coming of this generation, it adds continually more fuel to the flame it originated. And as it is necessarily reacted upon equally by every new invention or discovery, and by all progress in other departments of human activity, the demands upon it, and its points of contact with everyday life, are still increasing in geometrical progression.

Hence, in the practical management of railroad affairs, problems are of constant occurrence which touch almost every pursuit to which men give themselves, whether of finance, agriculture, commerce, manufactures, science, or politics; and the methods, forms, and principles under which current railroad management is being developed (for it is by no means at a stand-still) are the result of the necessities imposed by these multiplying problems acting within the constraints of corporate existences.

For while the life of a corporation is perpetual, its powers are constrained, and the individuals exercising them are constantly changing. It is but an artificial individual existing for certain purposes only, and, as it lacks some human qualities, all its methods of doing business are influenced thereby. The business affairs of an individual, for instance, are greatly simplified by his memory of his transactions from day to day and from year to year. But a corporation having no natural memory, all of its transactions and relations must be minutely and systematically noted in its archives. Every contract and obligation must be of record, all property bought or constructed must go upon the books, and, when expended or used up, must go off in due form; and especially must an accurate system of checks guard all earnings and expenditures, and a comprehensive system of book-keeping consolidate innumerable transactions into the great variety of boiled-down figures and statistics necessary for officers and stockholders to fully understand what the property is doing.

Under such circumstances, then, our railroads and their systems of organization and management, like the Darwinian Topsy, have not "been made" but have "growed."

Naturally, both the direction and extent of the development have varied in different localities and under different conditions. Within the limits of this article it would be impossible to give anything like an exhaustive or complete account of the organization, distribution of duties, systems of working, and of checks in the various departments of even a single road. Most roads publish more or less elaborate small volumes of regulations on such subjects for the use of their various employees. The task would also be endless to describe technically the variations of practice and of nomenclature in different sections and on different systems. The shades of difference, too, between managers, superintendents, or masters; comptrollers, auditors, book-keepers, and accountants; secretaries, cashiers, treasurers, and paymasters in different localities would be tedious to draw. A technical account of them would be almost a reproduction of the volumes above-mentioned. I can only attempt to outline and illustrate very briefly the general principles which underlie the present practice, and are more or less elaborated as circumstances may require.

The principal duties connected with the management of a railroad may be classified as follows:

1. The physical care of the property.

2. The handling of the trains.

3. The making rates and soliciting business.

4. The collection of revenue and keeping statistics.

5. The custody and disbursement of revenue.

The president is, of course, the executive head of the company, but in important matters he acts only with the consent and approval of the Board of Directors, or of an executive committee clothed with authority of the board, which may be called the legislative branch of the management. More or less of the executive power and supervision of the president may be delegated to one or more vice-presidents. Often all of it but that relating to financial matters is so delegated, but, as their functions are subdivisions of those of the president, they have no essential part in a general scheme of authority.

Of the five subdivisions of duties indicated above, the first four are usually confided to a general manager, who may also be a vice-president, and the fifth is in charge of a treasurer, reporting directly to the president.

The special departments under charge of the general manager are each officered by trained experts:

A superintendent of roadway or chief engineer has charge of the maintenance of the track, bridges, and buildings.

A superintendent of machinery has charge of the construction and maintenance of all rolling stock.

A superintendent of transportation makes all schedules, and has charge of all movements of trains.

A car accountant keeps record of the location, whereabout, and movements of all cars.

A traffic manager has charge of passenger and freight rates, and all advertising and soliciting for business.

A comptroller has charge of all the book-keeping by which the revenue of the company is collected and accounted for. All statistics are generally prepared in his office.

A paymaster receives money from the treasurer and disburses, under the direction of the comptroller, for all expenses of operation.

All dividend and interest payments are made by the treasurer, under direction of the president and board.

There are, besides the above, two general departments with which all the rest have to do, to a greater or less extent—the legal department and the purchasing department. The quantity and variety of articles used and consumed in the operation of a railroad are so great that it is a measure of much economy to concentrate all purchases into the hands of a single purchasing agent, rather than to allow each department to purchase for itself. This agent has nothing to do but to study prices and markets. His pride is enlisted in getting the lowest figures for his road, and the large amount of his purchases enables him to secure the best rates. And last, but not least, in matters where dishonesty would find so great opportunities, it is safer to concentrate responsibility than to diffuse it.

As I shall not again refer to this department, what remains of interest for me to say about it will be said here. As an adjunct to it, storehouses are established at central points in which stocks of articles in ordinary use are kept on hand. Whenever supplies are wanted in any other department—as, for instance, a bell-cord and lantern by a conductor—requisitions are presented, approved by a designated superior. These requisitions state whether the articles are to be charged to legitimate wear and tear, and if so, whether to the passenger or the freight service, and of which subdivision of the road; or whether they are to be charged to the conductor for other articles not properly accounted for. Without going into further detail, it can be readily seen how the comptroller's office can, at the end of each month, from these requisitions, have a complete check upon all persons responsible for the care of property. The purchasing agent, too, from his familiarity with prices, is usually charged with the sale of all condemned and worn-out material.[14]

Before returning to a more detailed review of the operating departments of a railroad, its legal department requires a few words. Not only is a railroad corporation, being itself a creation of the law, peculiarly bound to conform all its actions to legal forms and tenets, but it is also a favorite target for litigation. The popular prejudice against corporations, it may be said in passing, is utterly illogical. The corporation is the poor man's opportunity. Without it he could never share in the gains and advantages open to capital in large sums. With it a thousand men, contributing a thousand dollars each, compete on equal terms with the millionaire. Its doors are always open to any who may wish to share its privileges or its prosperity, and no man is denied equal participation according to his means and inclinations. It is the greatest "anti-poverty" invention which has ever been produced, and the most democratic. But, for all that, instead of possessing the unbounded power usually ascribed to it, no creature of God or man is so helpless as a corporation before the so-called great tribunal of justice, the American jury. It may not be literally true that a Texas jury gave damages to a tramp against a certain railroad because a section-master's wife gave him a meal which disagreed with him, but the story can be nearly paralleled from the experience of many railroads. Hence settlements outside of the law are always preferred where they are at all possible, and an essential part of an efficient legal organization is a suitable man always ready to repair promptly to the scene of any loss or accident, to examine the circumstances with the eye of a legal expert on liabilities.

But the management of claims, and of loss and damage suits, though a large part, is by no means all of the legal business connected with a railroad. Every contract or agreement should pass under scrutiny of counsel, and in the preparation of the various forms of bonds, mortgages, debentures, preferred stocks, etc., which the wants of the day have brought forth, the highest legal talent finds employment. For, as development has multiplied the types of cars and engines to meet special wants, so have a great variety of securities been developed to meet the taste and prejudices of investors of all nations. There is, in fact, a certain fashion in the forms of bonds, and the conditions incorporated in mortgages, which has to be observed to adapt any bond to its proposed market.

We shall now return to the operating departments under their respective heads, and glance briefly at the methods and detail pursued in each. On roads of large mileage the general manager is assisted by general or division superintendents in charge of roadway, motive power, and trains of one or more separate divisions; but for our purposes we may consider the different departments without reference to these superintendents.

The superintendent of roadway or chief engineer comes first, having charge of track, bridges, and buildings. In his office are collected maps of all important stations and junction points, kept up to date with changes and additions; scale drawings of all bridges and trestles, of all standard depots, tanks, switches, rails, fastenings, signals, and everything necessary to secure uniformity of patterns and practice over the entire road. Under him are supervisors of bridges and supervisors of road, each assigned to a certain territory. The supervisors of bridges make frequent and minute examinations of every piece or member of every bridge and trestle, report in advance all the repairs that become necessary, and make requisition for the material needed.

Under the bridge supervisor are organized "bridge gangs," each consisting of a competent foreman with carpenters and laborers skilled in bridge work and living in "house" or "boarding" cars, and provided with pile-drivers, derricks, and all appliances for handling heavy timbers and erecting, tearing down, and repairing bridges. These cars form a movable camp, going from place to place as needed, and being side-tracked as near as possible to the work of the gang. Long experience begets great skill in their special duties, and the feats which these gangs will perform are often more wonderful than many of the more showy performances of railroad engineering. It is an every-day thing with such gangs to take down an old wooden structure, and erect in its place an iron one, perhaps with the track raised several feet above the level of the original, while fifty trains pass every day, not one of which will be delayed for a moment.

Each of the supervisors of road has his assigned territory divided into "sections," from five to eight miles in length. At a suitable place on each section are erected houses for a resident section-master and from six to twelve hands. These are provided with hand- and push-cars, and spend their whole time in keeping their sections in good condition. Upon many roads annual inspections are made and prizes offered for the best sections. At least twice a day track-walkers from the section-gangs pass over the entire line of road. To simplify reports and instructions, frequently every bridge or opening in the track is numbered, and the number displayed upon it; and every curve is also posted with its degree of curvature and the proper elevation to be given to the outer rail.

The work of the section-men is all done under regular system. In the spring construction-trains deliver and distribute ties and rails on each section, upon requisitions from supervisors. Then the section-force goes over its line from end to end, putting in first the new ties and then the new rails needed. Next the track is gone over with minute care and re-lined, re-surfaced, and re-ballasted, to repair the damages of frost and wet, the great enemies of a road-bed. Then ditches, grass, and the right-of-way have attention. These processes are continually repeated, and especially in the fall in preparation for winter. During the winter as little disturbance of track is made as possible, but ditches are kept clean, and low joints are raised by "shims" on top of joint ties. Essential parts of the equipment of any large road are snow-ploughs (pp. 154–5–6) and wrecking cars, with powerful derricks and other appliances for clearing obstructions. When wrecks or blockades occur these cars, with extra engines, section-hands, bridge gangs, and construction-trains, are rushed to the spot, and everything yields to the work of getting the road clear.

We come next to the superintendent of machinery, whose duty it is to provide and maintain locomotives and cars of all kinds to handle the company's traffic. His department is subdivided between a master mechanic, in charge of locomotives and machine-shops, and a master car-builder, in charge of car-shops.

The master mechanic selects and immediately controls all engine-runners and firemen, and keeps performance sheets of all locomotives, showing miles run, cars hauled, wages paid, coal and oil consumed, and other details giving results accomplished by different runners and firemen, and by different types of engine, or on different divisions or roads. Premiums are often paid the runners and firemen accomplishing the best results.

Report of Performance of Engines, Repairs, and all other Costs Incident thereto, for the fiscal year ending June 30th, 1888.

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The master car-builder has charge of the shops where cars are built and repaired, and of the car-inspectors who are stationed at central and junction points to prevent defective cars being put into the trains.

Formerly each railroad used its own cars exclusively, and through freights were transferred at every junction point. This involved such delay and expense that railroads now generally permit all loaded cars to go through to destination without transfer, and allow each other a certain sum for the use of cars. Usually this is about three-quarters of a cent for each mile which the car travels on a foreign road. This involves a great scattering of cars, and an extensive organization to keep record of their whereabouts and of the accounts between the companies for mileage.[15] This organization will be referred to more fully in connection with the department of transportation. But the joint use of each other's cars makes it necessary that there should be at least enough similarity in their construction and their coupling appliances to permit their indiscriminate use upon all roads. And conventions of master car-builders have recommended certain forms and dimensions as standards, which are now in general use.

There is much convenience in this, but one disadvantage. It requires almost unanimous action to introduce any change of form or of construction, however advantageous it may be. And to secure unanimous action in such matters is almost as hard as it would be to secure unanimity in a change in the spelling of English words. Still there is progress, though slow, toward several desirable reforms, the most important of which is the adoption of a standard automatic coupler (see p. 142).

Having shown how the property of all kinds is kept in efficient condition, we next come to its operation. This is called "conducting transportation," and the officer in charge is usually called the superintendent of transportation. All train-despatchers, conductors, train-men, and telegraph operators are under his immediate control. He makes all schedules and provides all extra and irregular service that the traffic department makes requisition for, himself calling upon the superintendent of machinery for the necessary locomotives, switching engines, and cars. It is his especial province to handle all trains as swiftly as possible, and to see that there are no collisions. It is impossible to detail fully the safeguards and precautions used to this end, but the general principles observed are as follows:

First, a general time-table or schedule is carefully made out for all regular trains upon each division, showing on one sheet the time of each train at each station.

This schedule is all that is needed so long as all trains are able to keep on time, and there are no extras. Trouble begins when regular trains cannot keep on schedule, or when extra trains have to be sent out, not provided for on the schedule. A diagram, or graphic representation of this schedule, upon a board or large sheet of paper, is an important feature of the office regulating train-movements. Twenty-four vertical lines divide the board into equal spaces representing the twenty-four hours of the day, numbered from midnight to midnight. Horizontal lines at proportionate distances from the top represent the stations in their order between the termini, represented by the top and bottom lines of the diagram. The course of every train can now be plotted on this diagram in an oblique line joining the points on each station line corresponding to the time the train arrives at and leaves that station. The cut on the opposite page will illustrate. It represents a road 130 miles long from A to N, with intermediate stations B, C, D, etc., at different distances from each other, and six trains are shown as follows:

A passenger train, No. 1, leaving A at 12 midnight and arriving at N at 4.05 A.M. A fast express, No. 2, leaving N at 12.45 and arriving at A at 3.30. A local passenger train, No. 4, which leaves N at 1.15, runs to E by 4 A.M., stops there until 4.10, and returns to N by 7 A.M.; being called No. 3 on the return, as the direction is always indicated by the train-number's being odd or even. No. 5 is a way freight, leaving A at 12.05 and making long stops at each station. No. 6 is an opposing train of the same character.