Portland, Ore., July 29, 1911.
My Dear Boy:—The man who is successful in the exercise of authority soon learns to be something of a buffer between his superiors and his subordinates. He learns to temper justice with mercy. In this little railroad game of ours there has often been an unconscious departure from this rule of conduct. The word "why" should ask for an increased overtime rate in its next working schedule. Somebody at the top is peeved because a train comes in late. He asks the next man below, "Why?" Down goes the inquiry through the baskets of offices whose files contain the desired information, because it is so much easier to write another man a letter than to dig up one of our own. The final inquiry is to a man who has already rendered one report or explanation. It would be a pretty poor sort of recording angel that would register against this underling the more or less justifiable profanity in which he then indulges.
Up in this part of the country, where they do some mighty good railroading, is a big hearted general officer, who once, during a blizzard, directed his superintendents to order train and engine crews to disregard block signals forced out of commission by the elements. A section foreman went out to change a rail with the traditional one man who could not flag both ways. So the section foreman, with the rail out, relied upon the [automatic] block signal for protection. Along came the train with orders to disregard the signal—and the engine landed in the ditch. There was some official talk of discharging the section foreman. The big general officer faced the music and said, in effect, that if any enforced vacancies were to occur he himself must be the man. "Furthermore," he added, "we have learned something; if we are ever again tempted to disregard block signals, we will first notify everybody on the railroad, including the section foremen." Such manliness is the rule rather than the exception among railroad officers. It is a practical kind of honesty which counts in the great art of handling men.
The lesson to be drawn is that we should all be just as honest and considerate for the man below in the conduct of our offices as in the face to face contact of outside activities. The first thought of an official and of his chief of staff should be to avoid humiliating a subordinate. A letter demanding an explanation accumulates much momentum of censure while traveling, perhaps from the general offices, through the channels to an agent, a yardmaster, a conductor, or a foreman. The tendency of each office is to unbottle a little more of a never-failing supply of suppressed indignation. By the time the return explanations and apologies have trekked back across the plains to the starting point, the whole incident is often as much ancient history as the days of '49.
Yes, we must have explanations for certain irregularities. The taste for such office pabulum is more or less cultivated. It is a kind of diet which demands vigilant restraint of appetite. It does not increase the self-respect of a faithful old employe to write a schoolboy explanation of something that looked badly on paper in a distant office. Actual experience has demonstrated that discipline can be maintained, efficiency increased, and loyalty engendered by greater politeness and consideration in official correspondence. Instead of the superintendent or trainmaster writing to a conductor, "Why did you delay No. 1 at Utopia when you pulled out a draw-bar on the main track on the 32nd?" why not say, "It is claimed that quicker work on your part would have avoided delay to No. 1 when your train pulled out a draw-bar, etc." This leaves it open to the man to explain or to let the matter go by default. The employe who lets too much go by default is soon well known to his officers and his cases will receive the special treatment they deserve. Some officials devote more time to the gnat-heel measure of explanations than to a broad analysis which will prevent future irregularities.
To some officials, papers on the desk are a nightmare. For the sake of a clean desk they will write unnecessary letters and pass the papers to the men below. The road will not go to pieces if many papers are held for a personal interview next trip. Because it is now and then desirable to force some old buck to go on record is no reason for not separating the sheep from the goats and avoiding the necessity for a record in a majority of cases. This is another instance where L.C.L. judgment is worth a whole trainload of rigid bumping posts.
Among the many advantages of the chief of staff should be his ability to prepare explanations for higher authority from routine reports at hand without making a special reference of papers to offices below.
Your old dad takes considerable pride in the fact that he never consciously wrote a sharp letter to a subordinate. Once, when a trainmaster, and sick in bed, he dictated in a letter to a conductor, "Hereafter, please takesufficientinterest to see that switches are properly locked." The stenographer improved the phraseology by writing, "Please takespecialinterest, etc."—see the difference?—which happy circumstances caused the conductor to come to the sickroom and express his undying devotion to the cause of locked switches. A personal interview with a conductor, however, is worth a dozen letters by a trainmaster.
These same observations apply to the general manager as well as to the trainmaster. The higher one goes, the more consideration must he cultivate. If you have something disagreeable to get out of your system and the typewriter is your only recourse, take it out on your superiors rather than your subordinates. It is better for the company to have you fired for insubordination than for you to demoralize the service by rawhiding men below. You must carry out the policies and instructions of your superiors. The success of your administration will depend upon the manner in which you execute the wishes of your superiors and upon the methods you pursue, as much as upon the inherent merits of the policies themselves. Flattering yourself, as you probably do, at being the happiest of the happy in the medium line, see how safe a middle course you can steer. It will take another generation to eradicate feudalism in railroad administration. Those whom Fate, opportunity, or desire has landed in the railroad game must abide by the existing rules. If out of accord with the policies of those above, be a good sport and resign like a gentleman. Before doing so, however, be dead sure that you have not mistaken some trifling inconsistencies of methods for real incompatibility warranting voluntary separation.
A good friend and a good superintendent down south recently asked me to preach a little on the necessity for a more dignified tone in railway correspondence. He cited his correspondence with government offices as an example of dignified expression. Instead of saying, "Please advise me," or, "Kindly let me know," or "I wish to be informed," they use some such impersonal expression as, "Please advise this office," or "Kindly favor the department," or, "This bureau desires information concerning, etc." Some people say they like to have an official or an employe act as if he owned the property. I would not. A man will ride his own horse to death. When acting as trustee, guardian, or fiduciary, he will perhaps conserve the property entrusted to his charge more carefully than if it were his own. Is not a careful trustee better than a careless owner? Railway officials are trustees as well as hired hands. Through long traditions of service, the government officer, however hampered by certain limitations that are inherent in government administration, forms a habit of mind which prompts first attention to his employer rather than to himself. On railways we are equally loyal, but are cruder in our manifestations. We have the feudal conception of "myrailroad" rather than that of "the railroad on which I have the honor to be employed."
Following the same reasoning, it is better for a man to sign, "John Doe, for and in the absence of the General Manager," than "Richard Roe, General Manager, per John Doe." When John Doe acts in the place of Richard Roe, the former has become the representative of the company, rather than a facsimile of Richard Roe. The act of John Doe binds the company, and the papers should show on whom personal administrative responsibility must be fixed. The phrase, "For and in the absence of," explains to the recipient the departure from normal procedure, and to the company's future reviewer is John Doe's explanation or apology for seeming usurpation of the functions of higher authority.
When you have signed a letter, no matter by whom suggested or prepared, it becomes your act for which you are responsible. Do not have its effect weakened by showing in the corner of the original the initials of the persons dictating and typewriting. Whether or not such initials shall be shown on your file carbon for the sake of future reference is a matter of taste. Such carbon copy record can be made either by a rubber stamp or by typewriter. With the latter method some stenographers prefer to slip in a piece of heavy paper to blank the original and to save the trouble of removing the outer sheet from the machine. The point is that, however desirable such information may be for your own office, it is no concern of the recipient of the letter. It is much more important that the carbon copy should show by rubber stamp or otherwise who actually signed the original and became responsible for that completed stage of the transaction.
The impersonal form of address used in government correspondence precludes the necessity for printing the names of officials on letter heads. Illegible signatures are a pretty poor excuse for attempting to issue an official directory in the form of a letter head. The working conception of the self-perpetuating corporation falls short if we must alter or reprint our stationery every time an official is changed.
We are wont to look upon government administration as typical of conservatism and circumlocution. Some things we do much better than the government. There are things the government does much better than we do. For example, an officer of the corps of engineers in the Army does his own disbursing. He controls all the component functions of his particular activity, including supply and purchase. He is checked up after the fact by an auditor in Washington. A railway cannot pay most of its bills until six or seven persons sign a voucher. Number seven signs perfunctorily because Number six did. Number six likewise is the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt that caused the voucher in the house that Jack built. It all comes down to some responsible man who handled the matter in the first place. Why not trust him, and perhaps one other, checking them both after the bill has been promptly paid? A bank check is validated by only one genuine, creditable indorsement. If drawn to bearer or to self, only one signature is necessary. I am optimistic enough to believe that you will live long enough to see railways follow the example of the banks and the government and pay a legitimate bill with one, or at the most two signatures. When this is done, however, I trust that due notice will be given, so that the seismograph stations may have fair warning. If all the old time auditors turn over in their graves at the same time, the earth will tremble and the shock will be too great for delicate instruments.
Affectionately, your own,
D. A. D.
Spokane, Wash., August 5, 1911.
My Dear Boy:—Someone has asked me how far up and how far down the principles of the unit system and the chief of staff idea can be applied. It is too bad the answer is so easy. Otherwise we might inaugurate a guessing contest and offer prizes. The unit system is applicable to every phase of modern organization. When its principles are better understood, you will see develop in the great financial centers some such important title as vice-chairman, in order that rank and authority may be conferred superior to that of the presidents of the constituent properties. Both the chairman and the president need a senior vice-chairman and a senior vice-president, respectively, to act as chief of staff. The New York Central once had a senior vice-president, W. C. Brown, and the St. Louis & San Francisco created the same position for Carl Gray. When these two able men became presidents, their former positions were discontinued. Puzzle: Find the reason. Answers to be sent to the Puzzle Editor, Louis D. Brandeis, Boston, Mass.
A prominent railway executive, who is also a distinguished bridge engineer, said to me, "You must be patient until railway people can measure this big idea in their own little half bushels. I did not see it clearly until I thought it through in terms with which I am familiar. I reverted to my graphic statics and measured organization as a bridge truss. This showed the chief clerk as a short ordinate between the longest, the head of the unit, and next longest, the official second in rank. We would never design a bridge that way, for the short ordinate in between would break under the strain. You interpose the chief of staff and diminish your strains logically to suit the decreased resisting power. Why don't you show the old telegraph men and the electric people the same idea in terms of things with which they are most familiar? They should see that you can not step down your potential through an undersized transformer."
Railroad administration is usually said to be divided into four real departments, namely: the executive, including legal and financial, the traffic, the operating, including maintenance and construction, and the accounting. Most railroads place each of these departments in charge of a vice-president. I think that this is usually a mistake. Experience has demonstrated the practicability of the same man being a division master mechanic, for example, and at the same time performing some of the broader duties of an assistant superintendent. Likewise an assistant general manager can act as the head of the mechanical bureau in the general office. When we reach so high as to go beyond the heads of real departments we find our old friend, volume of business, and his bastard brother, unbalanced administration, to demand more balance wheels. The unit has become of too large a size for a single governor. If you don't believe this, watch somebody try to transfer a bureau, freight claims, for example, from the department under one vice-president to that of another.
When I incorporate and organize that ideal railroad it will have a president, a senior vice-president and as many other vice-presidents as may be necessary. The vice-presidents will be real assistant presidents, not heads of departments. Each will be an expert graduated from some particular department. Such graduation will depend more upon the man being big enough for a vice-president and possible president than upon the department itself. Since volume of business warrants separation of the financial and the corporate from the legal, and of passenger from freight traffic, I shall have seven departments, under seven general officers, namely, the general inspector (who will also be the comptroller), the secretary, the general treasurer, the general manager, the freight traffic manager, the passenger traffic manager, and the general counsel. Each of the seven departments will have its own office file. All of the vice-presidents will have one consolidated office file in common with the president.
Trusting that these few lines will restrain you for a brief period, which is Boston & Albany for hold you for a while, let us consider the application of the unit system to a humbler sphere, that of roadmaster or track supervisor, who is the head of a highly important sub-unit of maintenance organization. The roadmaster's clerk is usually paid less than a section foreman. As a result such clerk is either a callow youth looking for speedy transfer or an old man married to the job. In the latter case, after one change in roadmasters the clerk probably dominates the office. He puts so much fear of paper work in the minds of the section foreman that few aspire to be roadmasters. Instead of a clerk, why not have an assistant roadmaster, a real understudy, promoted from section foreman at a slight increase in pay and allowances? Get the working atmosphere of the section into the roadmaster's office. Perhaps some of the section foremen are not relatively as stupid as certain superiors who take snap judgment on possible qualifications. Some people deny the necessity for a roadmaster's office. Is it not rather difficult to hold a man responsible without giving him access to first hand records of performance? An assistant superintendent or an assistant general manager can and should come to his own headquarters where there are clerks to furnish him necessary information. A roadmaster away from division headquarters cannot gain such contact without deserting the subdivision for which he is responsible night and day. He cannot well take the section foreman from work to compile statistics.
When the word superintendent is eliminated from all higher titles so that it means the head, and a real head, of an operating division, there will be a bigger return for that item of operating expenses known as "superintendence." If the notion still lingers that operation is merely train movement, and that it is enough for a superintendent to be a high class chief dispatcher, the idea of real management can be driven in by calling the head of a division a "manager." In such case, the title general manager would have a logical meaning. The title district manager would fit the case where subdivision into such territorial units became unavoidable.
When the telegraph, the telephone, and the phonograph were invented the Greek language was consulted and new words were scientifically coined to express a new necessity of linguistic expression. The automobile and the aeroplane are founding whole families of new words. As society and industry become more highly organized it may be necessary to coin new words to convey the full idea of the rank and duties of the human elements in a large organization. Critics of the unit system deplore the uniformity of titles as tending to merge individual identity. This is not the fault of the system but of the poverty of the English language which lacks varying terminations of root words to express different shades of meaning. If necessary to meet this view helps can be sought from such highly inflected languages as Greek and Esperanto, and new words coined. Thus the same word with a slightly different ending would mean, "assistant superintendent in charge of maintenance of way and structures as classified by the Interstate Commerce Commission," or, "assistant superintendent in charge of maintenance of equipment, including an allowance for depreciation at the legal and constitutional ratio of sixteen to one, expiating the crime of 1873 and glorifying the Hepburn Act of 1906."
Many practical things in this world escape attention because they are so close as to be inside the focal distance. The persons most concerned are often too close to a proposition to observe what should be distinctly obvious. I uncover my headlight to the fellow down East who recently showed us all that green flags can be replaced by the night markers. For the over-specialization of perishable day indicators he substituted the all-round day and night marker. The supply people should not kick at the decreased demand for their product. They should be thankful, rather, that railroad officials did not wake up sooner to changed conditions. The new practice is worth the price of admission if it only serves to do away with the delay and inconvenience of loading and unloading the time-honored and cumbrous train box which still roams wild in some regions covered by the Spokane rate decision.
Among the other simplifications which time will bring is a logical method of designating extra trains. To-day we tell a man that an engine number means little, because the train indicator says that it is train so-and-so. The numbers on the engine and on the train indicator are different and have no relation. To-morrow the engine runs extra and the two numbers must be identical. When we adopt the train indicator, should we not banish numbers from the outside of our engines and tenders? Should not the number be inside the cab to be consulted for reports and statistics, including the train sheet? This would mean that extras would be numbered consecutively in a series higher than the numbers on the regular trains. Extras, like regular trains, would lose their running rights in twelve hours. In this connection, did you ever figure that, except possibly in the case of extras, the distinctions "A.M." and "P.M." are superfluous on train orders? Should P.M. come before the order is fulfilled, the A.M. train is dead.
The proposed change would force regular trains to be numbered in lower series, regardless of divisions and branch lines. This would make for safety. The more figures in a number, the greater the possibilities of error in reading a train order. A man is much more likely to confuse 2347 with 2345 than 47 with 45. If the motive power bureau must recognize the high numbered union for classification purposes, let us avoid having the blooming series federate with the train dispatcher's order book.
The magnificent distances of this western country are reflected in increased difficulties in railway operation. Perhaps no branch of the railway service is more affected thereby than the dining car service. American travelers, as the colored soldier said about the Cubans, are the "eatin'est lot of people." The long haul for cars and supplies renders supervision more difficult and deficits correspondingly greater. The dining car man on most, if not all, western roads is attached to a losing game. When poverty comes in at the door, love flies out at the window. The dining car superintendent is kept busy retaining the affections of the management in the face of red figures.
A dining car is about the most complex proposition in its operation that we have on the railroad. It will be the hardest to bring under the supervision of the division superintendent and his assistants. The difficulties of so doing are many, but are not insurmountable. The dining car, because it moves on wheels, is an incident to the manufacture and sale of transportation. It is not, as a few dining car people suppose, merely a traveling hotel to which the railway is an incident. Originally the dining cars were under the passenger traffic department. Later it was realized that they are logically a part of operation. So they have been placed under the general manager and his subordinate, the superintendent of dining cars. We say nonchalantly that the superintendent and the train conductor can instruct the so-called conductor of the dining car. Let a passenger conductor report a dining car conductor. The former's superintendent will probably find himself helpless to defend his man against the momentum of a correspondence bureau located in the general offices. As a result, the superintendent and the passenger conductor soon lose interest. They are not looking for trouble and possible censure. The outcome is long-range supervision of a centralized activity. The man in charge of the dining car should be called steward, because he cannot conduct a car even to a side track. He should be under the control of the train conductor, whom the superintendent can hold responsible for the entire train performing proper public service. A good, honest passenger conductor can secure and retain more business for the company than two traveling passenger agents. The conductor cannot do this if the dining car man is unwilling to send promptly a pot of coffee to the shabby little sick woman in the chair car whose daughters are going to buy tourist tickets next year. In the days of simpler organization the good old passenger conductor would unload on the prairie a short-sighted sleeping car or dining car man and let the latter walk home. Because this cannot be done to-day is one of the reasons for the lack of initiative on the part of the train conductor. The lack of courtesy sometimes shown by employes is not infrequently the fault of heads of would-be departments whose tenacity for departmental lines leaves subordinates with an unbalanced notion of the necessity for real courtesy and consideration. Bowing and scraping do not alone constitute politeness.
One of the best dining car superintendents in the country is Tom Clifford of the Erie, a graduated division superintendent and passenger conductor. Because they are general officers, the dining car superintendents of the future should be assistant general managers, and should come up from the grade of division superintendent, in order to acquire a more comprehensive knowledge of operation. Just how to work out all the details is, I confess, perhaps the hardest operating problem that I have yet tackled. Pullman employes have a home terminal and a home district to whose superintendent certain reports are made and complaints referred. This works well, although Pullman cars may run over several of their superintendents' districts. The fact that dining cars run over more than one division is not of itself a sufficient reason for the employes being under the immediate direction of a general officer. Volume of business, density of traffic, shortness of runs, and other causes may warrant varying applications of the underlying principle. Above all, we should avoid those hard and fast rules which even the Medes and Persians never attempted to make applicable to dining cars.
Affectionately, your own,
D. A. D.
Chicago, August 12, 1911.
My Dear Boy:—As the old order changeth, yielding place to new, the last of the feudal barons among the chief engineers are passing. Bold have been their conceptions, faithful their performances and great their achievements. Their work has developed those splendid types of manhood which are characteristic of the futile struggle of nature against art, of the wilderness against civilization.
Partly because of better intellectual training, partly because of the rush to complete additions and betterments and partly because of the inborn tendency of human nature to over-specialize, the construction men of most railways have frequently put it over on the so-called operating men. Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war. As civilization advances the struggles of a railroad are less against physical nature and more against sociological and political conditions. This advanced stage makes for altruism and comprehensive coöperation. The problem of the construction engineer becomes harder when his work is interwoven with the necessities of everyday operation. A manufacturing plant can sometimes shut down during a period of new construction. A railway, however, cannot store its product, transportation. Some car wheels must be moving all the time. It follows, then, that construction must yield to operation rather than operation to construction. Again, from the nature of a railway, construction is a component of operation, and the whole is greater than any of its parts.
During the period of rapid expansion the construction men were kept "on the front." Here is another bet that our predecessors overlooked. Instead of amalgamating construction with operation and developing a corps of all around men they sacrificed the future. The result is two sets of specialists lacking sympathy with each other's difficulties. The point of convergence is the company's treasury, which pays unnecessary bills. Sometimes these are in the form of a duplication of work train service; sometimes in idle equipment in which the construction bureau retains a proprietary interest on days of idleness. The construction people may be awaiting material or men. Meantimemywork train cannot be used by the superintendent for maintenance purposes. The chief dispatcher has so little sympathy with new construction that the young assistant engineer dare not let go ofmyengine lestau revoirmay mean good-by. Another delightful but expensive duplication occurs frequently in the matter of stores. Look around and see how many separate stores your construction bureau is maintaining, some of them within a stone's throw of a well stocked permanent store.
After defying a few times the official lightning our wise construction Ajax learns to make his estimates large. Having beaten his own figures he exclaims, "Behold how much money I have saved the company."
Comparisons of costs in construction work are much more difficult than in operation. This inability to control disbursement through the discipline of statistics should be met as far as possible by the most careful organization. Extravagance and waste in maintenance and operation are bad enough. In construction they are worse, because capitalized and bearing an interest burden for innumerable years to come.
All positions have their inherent temptations. The young engineer in charge of construction is tempted to nurse the job because when it is finished he may be laid off. Whether he yields or not, it is a poor kind of organization that places the temptation before him. Too frequently the construction engineer costs the company money because of his unfamiliarity with maintenance conditions. Experience in maintenance would help him in construction. Before being entrusted with authority an engineer should have experience in both maintenance and construction, regardless of the branch in which he may have happened to start. Check up your new branch lines and see how much money being charged to maintenance could have been saved if the construction people had better appreciated operating conditions. See how many side tracks and water tanks are on curves. Never investigate a collision without considering faulty construction and location as factors.
One of the easiest ways to save your company money will be to reorganize your construction activities. When you decide upon some new line, be it a branch, a second track, or an extension, call a cabinet meeting of all your assistants. Let the supply assistant of your grand opera troupe know at which stand you are to play. Call in the superintendent of the division concerned, with his maintenance assistant. Tell the superintendent that he will be responsible for the new work subject to the instructions of your construction assistant. Let it be understood that the work will be under the direct charge of his maintenance assistant, that the equipment will be looked after by his mechanical assistant and the material and supplies furnished by his supply assistant. Throw the whole official momentum of the division on the side of the new work. Under the old order of things the division people do what they are told in helping out the construction, but no more. The proposed organization will beget that extra individual effort which is relatively as profitable as the farmer's extra bushel per acre. At this same cabinet meeting let your superintendent nominate a junior assistant to act as understudy for maintenance while his leading maintenance man is treading the construction boards. If, when the job is over, any scrimping has to take place it will not be the construction man who has to drop back. Two years hence the maintenance assistant will not give you the old song and dance about poor construction causing excessive maintenance, because he himself built the line. There is, of course, a danger that this maintenance assistant will be extravagant in construction for the sake of a future record in maintenance. You have two checks against this, one through the efficiency of your construction assistant and the other through the division accounting bureau, which should handle additions and betterments as separate accounts.
Once upon a time I ran across a contractor grading a new line. His organization, the most efficient that I ever happened to see in any line of activity, made that of the railway for which he was working look like thirty cents. He made the grading camp the unit. Each of his sixteen camps was in charge of a foreman who controlled his own commissary, his own timekeeper, his own blacksmith and his own animals and equipment. The first duty of the foreman was to supply his men with grub and his animals with feed. Normally this took two wagons. If he happened to be near the base of supplies he used only one team and put the other on a plow or a scraper. If he happened to be clear at the front he might have to borrow another wagon and use three teams for supply. The point is that he kept all of his teams working all of the time and never ran out of supplies. The railroad would organize a department of wagons, a department of plows and a department of scrapers, and the foreman who kicked the hardest would have the most grub, even though somebody else was short. These foremen were jacked up if they used poor judgment in accumulating supplies and had too much on hand when the next move came. No clerk at the base was allowed to cut the requisition of a foreman. The resident engineers of the railway in charge of the several staking and inspection parties could not procure railway commissary supplies without the O.K. of a clerk in the so-called boarding house department.
Another noteworthy feature was the constant presence of officials and sub-officials with authority to act for the contractor. A general foreman and two assistant general foremen were riding the line and giving instructions to meet changing conditions. For example, in the afternoon an assistant general foreman countermanded an order given by his general manager who had happened to be on the ground in the morning. When a resident engineer in charge of a party desired such authority he called up the tent of the division engineer and gained the desired information from the latter's chief clerk, who was receiving a smaller salary than the resident engineer. I spare your feelings a description of the complex methods imposed by the railway accounting department in marked contrast to the simple common sense practice of the contractor. How much stockholders are paying for maintaining the sacred system of railways I am unable to state. Many administrative crimes are committed in the name of organization.
One of the fallacies sometimes introduced by the accounting department in construction organization is to have all the timekeepers report to a chief timekeeper, regardless of the engineer or other chief of party. A bright young engineer once told me his troubles in this respect. He was astonished at the difference when he followed the advice to make each party a complete unit with its own timekeeper, the chief of the party being held responsible for proper time keeping as well as for all other duties. This efficient youngster deplored the fact that neither his engineering school nor his official superiors had ever deemed it necessary to give him lessons in the applied science of organization. Never forget, my boy, the immortal words attributed to George Stephenson that the greatest branch of engineering is the engineering of men.
Affectionately, your own,
D. A. D.
Tucson, Ariz., August 19, 1911.
My Dear Boy:—Do you think it logical and just to pay a train (including engine) crew the same wages for going over the freight district with a light caboose as with 50 or 75 cars? Be careful how you answer.
As I understand it, the train-mile was adopted as a unit of compensation for employes on the theory that piece work rewards the deserving and promotes efficiency. Whatever the merits or demerits of the piece work theory, I have never been able to reconcile its applicability to train service. A man operating a machine in a shop can stop or start his individual machine, can save steam power or electric current without seriously inconveniencing his fellow workers or the general operation of the plant. A railroad train cannot move regardless of all other trains on the road. Such independence of function will cause either a criminal collision or an expensive blockade. A train must, therefore, move according to a time-table and orders. The space occupied by a train, unlike a stationary machine, is so variable that time becomes the essence of the proposition. The train crew cannot be allowed that freedom of action which permits of piece work. Too many arbitrary conditions are necessarily imposed to warrant a very extended application of a practical bonus system. One delayed train will upset the whole day's combination. On the other hand, the task imposed upon a train crew is extremely definite and easy to measure, when the equation can be solved for all the variables.
So fallacious a unit of compensation as the train-mile breeds numerous illogical practices. We penalize ourselves every time we run a train without full tonnage. Conditions of traffic may demand quick movement regardless of tonnage. When business is heavy terminals are congested and empty equipment is scarce. We all know that the way to relieve congested terminals is to run light, fast trains. This serves a double purpose, relieving the terminals and increasing the earning power of the equipment. Unfortunately our fundamental conception is so distorted that we mulct ourselves in money by doing that which is an obvious necessity. Why not so arrange our methods that we can be rewarded for quick judgment and prompt action?
A shop workman sups, sleeps and breakfasts at his own home. A train crew must have increased expenses when away from the home terminal. A train crew would really be ahead of the game as far as expenses are concerned if a round trip could be made within the sixteen-hour limit and the away-from-home terminal expenses avoided. We say that demurrage is imposed primarily to hasten the release of equipment. We claim that normally we would rather have the cars than the dollars of demurrage. If cars are so valuable, how much should we charge ourselves for the hire of the fifty cars which are twelve or fifteen hours getting over the district?
We can work out by a mathematical formula the most economical scheme for fuel consumption and maximum tractive effort. It is more difficult to devise a formula to express the effect of drastic laws caused by poor service. Attempting to club converging live stock runs in big trains has caused, in some states, legislation covering the movement of stock. Perhaps this is offset by the claims save for missing the market with delayed stock. Is it not a sad commentary to think that legislation is necessary to make us do what is for our own best interests?
There can be no doubt that for a heavy and regular movement of low grade commodities on two or four track roads the big train is logical and economical. Most of the prairie roads are single track. Most of the distances between the prairie cities are relatively long. Stock, perishable freight and merchandise must have rapid movement. Is it wise under such a disparity of conditions to make the train-mile rigid and sacred? Why not pay men by the hour, with a monthly guarantee, and run trains sometimes light and sometimes heavy, sometimes fast and sometimes slow, to meet actual controlling conditions of traffic? When business happened to be light, equipment plentiful, and terminals open we would penalize ourselves in wages for slower movement, but would save in fuel, in engine house expense, etc. Just where the economical limit would be, just how it would all work out, I do not pretend to say. I do say, however, that the old methods can be improved when we start from proper basic conceptions. I do not believe that we yet understand the relation between increased cost of maintenance of equipment and decreased wages for train crews.
Perhaps because I had the honor of braking on a way freight I have never outgrown the idea of the practical trainman that a local freight is a traveling switch engine and a peddler of L.C.L. merchandise. Whatever may be the showing as to percentage of tractive power utilized I am unable to see the wisdom of a way freight dragging in and out of passing tracks all day with a lot of through cars. The claim is often made that a few big trains can be easily handled by the dispatcher, because the number of meeting points is decreased. My own opinion is that this seeming advantage is often more than offset by the unwieldiness of the big train. Fear of censure for delaying some important train makes the conductor "leery" about starting and the dispatcher timid about directing a prompt movement. When we begin wrong, how not-to-do-it methods always follow. The chief dispatcher will let freight be delayed in a yard for a full train with power needed at the other end, if he can start a light caboose without its being included in the average train load showing. How much better, and how much easier, to run two fractional trains in the direction of unbalanced traffic than one light caboose and another dreary drag! The shipper, only a hard-headed business man, takes the same view. He becomes skeptical of all our statements, before commissions or elsewhere, because of our frequent seeming lack of judgment.
Let us not spend too much time in discussion as to theoretical possibilities. My assertions can be either proved or disproved by actual demonstration. In the next labor agreements you make include a stipulation for experiment on some division. My prediction is that if you can convince the labor leaders of your fairness they will give the scheme a trial for the sake of more possible time at home. With a full trial the results will speak for themselves. Success in such matters is made possible only by enlisting the most intelligent efforts of all concerned. Let your officials and employes understand that you do not claim to know it all, that you believe in their practical intelligence as well as in your own, that ideas are greater than men, and that right wrongs no man.
Railroads have grown so fast that our conceptions of working units have sometimes outstripped practical possibilities in performance. Too frequently we make the unit too large. There must be a practical limit beyond which the train becomes too long for an economical unit of movement. The fact that we should have elasticity rather than rigidity in the size of our economical train emphasizes the necessity for defining the elastic limit. Practical experience and sound judgment must aid in interpreting and applying not only the laws of matter and physical nature, but the laws of sociology and human nature as well. After the lading for the trip is discharged, the car cannot be sold or abandoned, as was the flat boat which Abraham Lincoln helped to float down the Mississippi river to New Orleans. Have you not seen cars pulled to pieces in big trains, have you not seen freight delayed in a manner to suggest to an innocent bystander that the road was perhaps running its last train and giving its cars their last load?
The inevitable tendency of the big train is to hold back and combine in large lots cars destined to the same point and to the same consignee. When a whole train can be unloaded at the ship's side at tidewater, or at a large consuming plant, the system is ideal. The trouble begins with the small consignee. Instead of giving him a regular, systematic delivery of the five or ten cars which he can unload each day, our tendency is to bring in twenty-five or fifty cars every five days or so, and then express our horrified astonishment at his failure to release promptly. No, we should not run special trains of five or ten cars for each consignee. What we should do is to watch the matter so carefully that we can feel certain we are considering all the factors of expense as well as that of seeming light tonnage. It may, under given conditions, be cheaper to run light trains than to put on expensive switch engines, to relieve unnecessary congestion in receiving terminals, than to increase overtime and demoralize the road by pulling out drawbars when sawing by at short passing tracks. Sometimes money can be saved by balancing motive power as between steep and level territory.
As a good soldier and a faithful hired hand you must build up for yourself and your superiors the best possible record for train load. Carry out the policy consistently and loyally. At the same time study the subject. Do not have to flag in, but be prepared to run as a section of a better unit of comparison when the train mile loses its first class running rights.
Speaking of running in sections, you have doubtless thought how inconsistent and almost criminally dangerous is the method of displaying signals. We drill our men to watch the rear of the train for the presence of something, the markers, a positive indication. When the markers are seen, the train is complete and the opposing train can proceed in safety. If the train happens to be complete without displaying markers, or the markers are overlooked, the opposing train declines to proceed. An avoidable delay occurs, but the error is on the side of safety and away from a collision. At the head end, however, we tell our men to watch for the absence of something, the classification signals, a negative condition. When classification signals arenotseen the train schedule is complete and the opposing train proceeds in fancied safety. If the train happens to beincompletewithout displaying signals or the signals are overlooked, the opposing train proceeds just the same. No delay occurs, but probably a collision, for the error is on the side of danger and toward a collision. The practice should be reversed. The last or only section should display classification signals. A positive indication should replace a negative. Can the train rules committee of the ladylike American Railway Association beat the Interstate Commerce Commission to this unprotected draw? Cases of such avoidable collisions can be cited, even though "we never had one on our road."
Some roads prefer special schedules and extra trains to movement in sections. On the good old Big Four we handled everything possible in sections. I think this latter method the better. Theoretically yardmen, section men, tower men and all others should be always prepared for extra trains. Practically, the more information that can be disseminated among intelligent men the more effectively can they coöperate in preventing disaster or delay. There are fewer unlocked switches and fewer unspiked rails when information is not locked in the dispatcher's office and not spiked down by too many train orders.
Affectionately, your own,
D. A. D.
Tucson, Ariz., August 26, 1911.
My Dear Boy:—If people's eyes were never too large for their stomachs there would be less overeating. If human concepts were never too vast for practical performance there would be fewer disappointments in administration. Because the railroads have grown so fast and have become so large, our imagination has sometimes run too far ahead of our judgment. This is a big world full of big things and big men. The biggest men are learning that big things can be handled and big men developed only by complete treatment of little things and of the so-called little men. This growing conviction is manifesting itself in various ways. Railways, thank God, are building more division shops and relatively fewer general shops. Division stores are becoming more and more complete. Division accounting is gaining ground and is paving the way for local disbursement.
The station agent, bless him, is being emancipated by the telephone from specialized selection, and is gradually being accorded that recognition which is his due as an all 'round man. In short, our big corporate units are growing in strength only as the smaller units become complete and self-contained. Official solicitude should be for ton-miles, as well as for train-miles, for car-loads as well as for train-loads. Take care of the mills and the millions will take care of themselves. Above all, study an often neglected unit, the man-day. How much work can each man reasonably be expected to perform in one day? How many days in each year can a man reasonably expect to be employed? Labor conditions on railways will never be satisfactory until employment can be reasonably constant and continuous. This is a difficult problem, but when enough big men give it attention it will be solved. It probably means more elasticity, more interchangeability between train service and the various kinds of maintenance, between the locomotive and the shop, between the railway and allied contiguous industries. The individual is the indivisible unit of society. We must build from him as a unit. Since he is of such infinite variety it follows that our sociological architecture must be varied accordingly. Design is staff work. Execution is line work. I do not doubt the ability of one man to direct the carrying out of a scheme practically designed. When one man tells me that unassisted he can furnish a design to meet all requirements I am from beyond Missouri and have to be shown several times.
I have been writing you all these things because of interest in you and pride in our profession. With four or five other professions and occupations at command, I stick to the railroad game because it is the greatest of ancient or modern times. If these letters, written hurriedly in the midst of a strenuous life, with little opportunity for revision and verification, have hurt anyone's feelings, I am sorry. Many things in this world are taken too personally and too seriously when intended as only Pickwickian.
If these letters have helped you or any friend of yours, by shattering any false idol or otherwise, they have more than fulfilled their purpose. Those to whom fortune has been kind in affording extended opportunities owe to society the duty of imparting their conclusions to their fellows. The recipients alone are qualified to judge as to how well such duty is performed and as to how far such conclusions are worth while. In this case the duty has been a pleasure as well.
To avoid the switch shanty garrulousness of an old brakeman I now give up this preferred run and turn in at the office my lantern and keys.
With a father's blessing,
Affectionately, your own,
D. A. D.
This system of organization, sometimes called "the Hine system," is frequently mentioned in these "Letters." It was originated and installed by their writer while serving as organization expert for the Union Pacific System-Southern Pacific Company (Harriman Lines), 1908-1911, with the title of Special Representative on the staff of the Director of Maintenance and Operation, Mr. Julius Kruttschnitt.
An idea of the system can be obtained from the two following standard forms of official circulars for announcing its adoption:—