CHAPTER V
THE NEW TIME-CARD
So, day by day, the work at the dispatchers’ office went on in its accustomed routine. Always there was the clatter of the keys, always the trains pulling in and out of the yards, always the coming and going of men like a mighty and well-disciplined army. They were servants of the mightiest industrial force in the world, the thing which had done most for the development of commerce, the advancement of trade—the thing without which, in a word, the world of to-day would not be possible. Few people realize the tremendous business done by the railroads of the world. In the United States alone, in a single year, besides the eight hundred million passengers carried, a billion and a half tons of freight are moved, the total passenger and freight mileage reaching the inconceivable total of two hundred and forty-two billion, for which the roads received nearly two and a half billion dollars, or more than twice the amount of the national debt. Figures like that, of course, make no impression on the mind—they are too vast, too grandiose for human comprehension.
And the gigantic task of moving this freight and these passengers goes on from day to day, from hour to hour, in the usual course of things, just as the sun rises and sets, almost as though operated by a law of nature and not by man’s exertion, by the law of gravitation and not in defiance of it. And just as people grow accustomed to the miracle of sunrise and cease to wonder at it, so they grow accustomed to the miracle of steam. Only those who, day by day, do battle to keep the great machine in operation realize fully what a desperate battle it is. Allan West was soon to have a personal experience with a vital part of the mechanism with which he had never before come in contact.
“Allan,” Superintendent Schofield said one morning, stopping beside his desk, “we’ve got our new time-card about ready, and I wish you’d arrange to-morrow so you can come and help us string the chart.”
“String the chart?” repeated Allan.
“Yes. It’ll interest you—besides, it’s something you ought to know. We’re going to throw Number Two half an hour later, and make one or two other changes.”
Allan knew that the “time-card meeting” had been held at Cincinnati a few days before. Indeed, Mr. Schofield had talked over with him the projected changes, and the reasons for them.
For it must be understood that railroads everywhere are striving ceaselessly to arrange their time-cards to meet the needs of the public and to secure the greatest possible economy of operation. It is foolish for a road to run two trains when one will do, but while the number of trains is cut to a minimum, they must be run at such hours as will be convenient to the public which they serve, otherwise they won’t get the traffic. A certain number of people, of course, have to travel every day, whether the trains run at convenient hours or not; but with a much greater number travel is a matter of pleasure, of choice, and with them convenience has great weight—much greater than one would suppose.
Thus, in the vicinity of a great city, there must be locals going in in the morning and coming out in the afternoon, so that “commuters” may get back and forth to work, and shoppers may be accommodated. These trains must be sufficient in number to meet the demand, and must be run at such hours as will suit the different classes of people they serve. If the train-service is bad, the “commuters” will move, if they can, to a place where it is better—where they can get to and from work more cheaply and easily. Rents will go down in the district which is badly served, real estate will decrease in value, an undesirable class of people will move into it, and the traffic from it will drop away to little or nothing. So the road, by carelessness at the beginning, brings its own punishment surely at the end.