Letters from an old railway official/Letter 16
LETTER XVI.
THE SUPPLY TRAIN.
My Dear Boy:—Blacksmiths’ horses and shoemakers’ wives proverbially go unshod. A railroad puts up its poorest sample of transportation in the routine handling of its own material and supplies. Company stuff is moved and handled last of all; and probably at maximum expense. For example, if we wish to ship a car of wheels to division headquarters we load them after we are lucky enough to get an available car. Then after proper billing authority has been furnished we go through some more red tape, so that the auditor may not confuse figs with thistles, revenue producers with deadheads. When we happen to have a train with such light tonnage that all excuses for moving the car have been exhausted it reaches the yard nearest its destination. The master mechanic’s office in a day or two has pounded sufficiently at the yardmaster to get the car set, usually several hours after it has been promised. It is not of record just how much time and money have been wasted by the mechanical department through not having the car when expected.
If our administration is unusually smooth we may be able to load our scrap wheels on this same car. Usually, however, we wait until the car has been hauled down the line before some office away off somewhere gives disposition for the wornout material. Or, having unloaded all the wheels, we wait until next week before we order in another car, and go through the same performance to ship a couple of pairs to some junction point on the same division. I will not bore you with the expensive details of getting a car of ties loaded and distributed, of how much time the sectionmen are worked to poor advantage because the car or material failed to show up when expected.
We, mounted on wheels, with transportation as our chief asset, let our own business get it where the chicken felt the axe, where the sharp flange caught the bum. It used to be more comfortable in the old days. We could have the sectionmen do so many jobs without its seeming to cost anything. The fact that we have learned better makes me rash enough to believe that we may yet progress beyond thinking that some of our own transportation costs little or nothing because we do it with the local freight or a switch engine. We haul a car clear over the division to pick up a few pounds of scrap paper; provided, of course, the agents have not confused the day with that for loading dairy line shipments. The weakness in handling company material naturally leads to a distrust by other departments and a desire by each to control the distribution of its own supplies.
Did you ever think in what a haphazard, hit or miss manner we handle our traveling workers? The scale inspector is a very necessary individual because freight revenue is a function of weight. He is so valuable to us that, although the test car is a nuisance in trains and yards, we haul him hundreds of miles to do a few minutes’ or a few hours’ work. If he should try to do any other company business; if he should repair furniture, solicit traffic, inspect ties or examine interlocking plants, he would infringe on the prerogatives of other men who earn salaries by riding much and working little. Yes, I know we must have departments. Our great task is to work them to the best advantage; to let them overlap a little when business is dull, or where local conditions permit. We should switch our departments together so that we can cut in the air on enough to hold the train without going after expenses with a club.
The employe who does not receive supplies regularly, whose requisitions for stationery are arbitrarily cut, will try to get enough ahead to keep himself from running out. When you take an inventory you must figure on removing the temptation for everyone to hold back full returns for fear of not rendering good service in the future. With a lot of money tied up in supplies at central or division storehouses our service often suffers, even accidents occur for want of a lantern globe, or a few gallons of oil. The average local freight crew has no more compunctions in replenishing the caboose from a can of oil consigned to a country agent than did the slave in taking chickens. It all belongs to the company, Massa’s chicken, massa’s niggah. Some roads are now distributing oil to sections and to small stations from a box car fitted with inside tanks and self-registering pumps, a very economical arrangement. This car runs on the local freight at fixed times. The next step has been to put with it supply cars, handled by the oil man, who issues supplies and tools to agents, section foremen and pumpers. A stationery car comes next in the outfit. This progressive development is hampered in most cases by adherence to the time-honored requisition. It does not promote a good company spirit in an agent to haul by him a car filled with supplies and deny him a much-needed broom, a comfort-giving pane of glass, simply because a requisition has not passed through the prescribed number of chief clerks’ office baskets. Issues are for the good of the service, not for charity. The best way is to require a division official to accompany the cars on his division, hold him responsible, and make his check good on our traveling bank. Let the employe sign on a line in a book for articles received, just as an agent receipts to an express messenger, and let the official countersign once for all the employes on a page. Then you have the economy and benefits of centralization without the demoralizing interference with local administration.
The supply cars are only a beginning. The evolution must be a supply and inspection train run exclusively for company business, and to do every practicable kind of company business. It should supply every department and pick up the surplus and scrap in each. It should run over as many divisions as feasible, giving it time to return and restock so as to cover its territory at prescribed intervals, say every thirty or sixty days. This train should be manned by monthly company men, preferably of the semi-official class. The position of fireman should be part of the course of a special apprentice. If no special apprentice is available for engineman, use the man in mind for the next vacancy as road foreman. Let the scale inspector be the flagman. For conductor have a coming trainmaster, not afraid to pull off his coat to help adjust a scale or to unload a keg of track spikes. Have an ambitious brakeman for train clerk, whose records would replace requisitions and waybilling. For pilot use the superintendent, the trainmaster, the chief dispatcher, the master mechanic, the road foreman, the division engineer, or the supervisor. Have as many as possible of those last named accompany the train and give the division a rigid inspection. Pretty soon you would find the general superintendent frequently hitching his car to this train. Put the contents of the train in charge of a high-class traveling storekeeper. On the ground the employe would indicate his requirements, the division official would recommend, and the traveling storekeeper, closely in touch with the management and its policies, would take final action. Whatever happened to be done, it would be right up to date, and in accordance with existing needs. Arriving at a roundhouse, the train itself would spot a car of wheels and a car of oil, taking care to reload scrap wheels and empty oil barrels. In general do not issue a new article unless an unserviceable one is turned in. The recollections of those present will make fresher the record of expendable articles issued on a previous trip. Long range requisitions, approved by distant authority, may result in false economy, in a lack of clearly defined responsibility. The essence of good administration consists in dealing with men and things, in giving them greater value than their paper symbols. If love for requisitions should still linger in the official breast, the proprieties of such chaste affection could be preserved by going through all the forms until their absurdity is fully demonstrated.
The supply train should have a car fitted up as a workshop in which a handy man could repair station trucks, office chairs, lanterns, switch lamps, etc., etc., and save shipping many miles for a new part. Many tools and utensils would last longer if, in some such way, they could receive the stitch in time that saves nine. Prompt repair and interchange among various points should diminish investment in reserve supply. An article should not have to be returned to the place where previously used. Under present methods the return journey may put it in worse shape than when first sent in. When repaired it should be issued wherever it will do the most good.
Another car in the supply train should be a laboratory in charge of the superintendent of tests or his representative, whose office would thus get more closely in touch with division officials and with service conditions. The scrap car, with its broken side rods, its wornout shovels, its twisted drills, might mean a whole lot in connection with arbitrary theoretical tests.
With the train, on stated trips, should be the employment bureau. Pick up candidates, haul them over the division. Talk with them, note their adaptability in strange surroundings, see of how promising a stretch is the rubber in their necks. Give them transportation back home and, if desired, tell them to report again next trip for further examination.
When your supply train has to tie up away from a night roundhouse, let the crew take short turns as watchmen. Incidentally the train might serve as an object lesson as to the endurance and capacity of men, the length of runs, and the care of an engine. If your labor contracts do not permit you to man your own train, do the necessary toward an amendment of such unwise schedules.
The more you think of the increased efficiency of the service, of the ultimate economy, of the smoother administration, the more you will cuddle up to the notion of a company train. Experience will show the wisdom or unwisdom of numerous details that will suggest themselves. I have given you only an outline with a few samples of methods to be pursued. I want you to think out the rest for yourself. It is theory to-day, but the theory of to-day is the forerunner of practice a few years hence.