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.