APPENDIX A
ABRIDGED SPECIAL REPORT OF THE OPERATING
AND MAINTENANCE DEPARTMENT, CANADIAN
NATIONAL RAILWAYS, FROM THE FALL OF
1918 TO THE END OF 1921.
The following account of the operating and maintenance department of the Canadian National Railways is a shortened form of the report of the Vice-President in charge, which was included in the comprehensive survey of the railways’ position, submitted by the President to the Hon. Mr. Kennedy, on his becoming Minister of Railways and Canals, and as the outcome of the interview mentioned on page 265. Perhaps no report which has reached the public gives so succinct and comprehensive a sketch of the manifold activities of the operating and maintenance department of a great railway system. It is thought these appendices will be of some value to Canadian taxpayers who are interested in knowing how their money has been spent on railways account.
The Management of the National Railways, during 1918-21, was required to weld a number of disjointed and separately operated Railway properties into a single system, completely rearrange jurisdictional territories, and reorganize all departments, dispose of the accumulated arrears of work in connection with the maintenance of equipment and permanent way and structures, provide large quantities of new rolling stock, develop and inaugurate the use of new standards, systems, methods, plans and forms, while dealing with the most extensive and important wage movement that ever took place in the history of roadbuilding.
The functions of the Operating and Maintenance Department may be broadly grouped as follows:
(a) Transportation (i.e., train and station service).
(b) Maintenance of rolling stock.
(c) Maintenance of track bridges and buildings, including the provision of additional facilities or the extension or improvement of facilities on all lines, excepting those still under construction.