Letters from an old railway official/Letter 6
LETTER VI.
STANDARDIZING ADMINISTRATION.
My Dear Boy:—While backing in on a branch idea I bumped into a load consigned to the American Railway Association which, with your permission, I wish to bring in behind the caboose to save a switch. Yes, I have tied a green flag on the rear grabiron for a marker. When the hind man has dropped off to shut the switch and has given the eagle eye a high sign, I shall make a note on the wheel report to the effect that there is not a much better daylight marker than the caboose itself. Some people doubt the necessity for green flags on freight trains or work trains unless the caboose does not happen to be the last car. Night markers are unquestionably necessary, but are not a source of additional expense, as the same oil answers for both the rear red signal and the marker.
The idea in question is that the American Railway Association might well afford to pay salaries to more of its officials and let certain ones give their entire time to committee work and the general welfare. It is too much to expect that men, probably already over-worked on their own roads, can find the broadest solution of problems in the very limited time allowed. It might be possible to work out a plan whereby election to certain positions in the association would mean that the individual elected was to be loaned to the association for his term of office, say two years, and then return to service with his own company. A permanent body of officials in such an organization would be undesirable, save of course the able secretary, for the reason that too long a separation from active service would beget an indifference to practical operating conditions. Under such a plan officials would have to be elected by name to prevent a company from unloading any old rail on the association. You know that some statistician has figured out that the average official life of a railroad man in any one position is only about two years. Rearrangement of the staff on the return of an official from such broadening special duty should not be a difficult matter. But, as a man once said to me, “You will not bring all these reforms about until the old fogies die off, and by that time you will be an old fogy yourself and it will not make any difference.”
There is almost no limit to the number of matters in railway administration that can be made standard and uniform for all roads. A great deal has been done, but to a coming generation the present stage of accomplishment will seem to have been only a fair beginning. The hopeful feature is that roads now meet each other in a much broader spirit than ever before. The fortress that parleys is half taken, and when negotiations looking to uniformity are once begun a long stride forward has been taken. Take the wage agreements of a dozen roads at a large terminal. All twelve are intended to mean practically the same thing, yet the wording of no two will be found alike. This probably is not due so much to a disinclination to get together as to a lack of time for working out uniform details.
Some roads are noticeable for the clearness, conciseness and brevity of their instructions. Others employ a lot of surplus words which are as expensive and annoying in operation as dead cars in a yard. On every road there are a few men in the official family who have a faculty of expression, either inborn or acquired. Some day when we more fully overcome the prejudice against sending officials to school we shall utilize the services of such valuable men as instructors in style. When this is done, especially in the traffic and legal departments, we shall materially reduce our telegraph expenses. The mere thought of the thousands of unnecessary words flying over the railroad wires every day is enough to give one telegrapher’s cramp. Some roads occasionally censor telegrams with a view to reducing their number and their length. These efforts, like municipal reform, are apt to be too spasmodic to prove of lasting value. Success in anything depends upon keeping most everlastingly at it. You notice that I do not confine this remark to our own profession. Carry a flag for me against the man who always says: “In railroading you have to do thus and so, for it’s not like other business.” All must admit that conditions in railroading are intense; that, except in an army in time of war, there is no profession that is more strenuous or calls for better staying qualities. These facts, however, do not put us in a class by ourselves, a little lower than the angels, a few car lengths ahead of perfection. As Oliver Cromwell said, some things are fundamental. One of them is that good organization and administration depend upon certain basic principles which hold true for any industry. Whatever one’s religious views, he must find that the Bible is one of the best books of rules ever written, one of the best standard codes on organization that has been devised. Men were organizers on a large scale centuries before railroads were built.
When, after months of deliberation, the convention had finally agreed upon the provisions of the Constitution of the United States, the document was referred for revision to a committee on style and expression. The result has been the admiration of the English speaking race. The caller’s book does not show that the American Railway Association has ordered a run for such a committee. Should a claim of that sort be made it would hardly be advisable to file the last standard code as an exhibit.