Trains of Recollection / Drawn from Fifty Years of Railway Service in Scotland and Canada, and told to Arthur Hawkes

by D. B. Hanna

Periodical reports—weekly, monthly, or daily when necessary—are submitted by all the district men to their immediate superiors, and are passed on through the passenger or freight traffic managers to the vice-president in charge of traffic. From these reports is gleaned the information necessary to a proper supervision of the work, and to be passed on to the President, to assist in keeping him informed upon the movement and conditions of business throughout the entire system.

In the development of our traffic organization, but three years have passed, since the combination of the former Canadian Government Railways with those of the Canadian Northern, and little more than a year since the absorption of the Grand Trunk Pacific.

Co-ordination with the traffic organization of the Grand Trunk has proceeded as far as possible under the existing conditions, the district and soliciting forces having been consolidated.

It may be said that with the consolidation of a number of Canadian National and Grand Trunk offices, the absorption of the Grand Trunk Pacific staff, and the resumption of work by our men returned from overseas, that we have greatly strengthened the personnel of our official and soliciting forces. We now have a most efficient staff in Canada and in the United States whose loyalty and devotion to duty is specially worthy of mention, as it is sometimes assumed that only those employed in privately-owned corporations can be credited with these attributes.

Success is only attained by the sales department of any large enterprise, through an efficient organization composed of experienced men with initiative, who are capable of responding promptly to every reasonable demand upon their services, in the interest of the enterprise they represent. Nothing produces efficiency in all lines of activity more than rivalry. With a large competitive system, privately owned, and operated in the same territory by which to measure our results, the rivalry that necessarily follows should ensure against inefficiency and stagnation, in so far as our organization may be permitted to function under the same business principles as those governing its competitors.

It is felt that this spirit of rivalry has dominated every officer and representative of the traffic department since its organization, not as an incentive to pursue unfair methods, but rather as a stimulant to their determination that results must be accomplished by close attention to the wants of patrons, and to the service rendered by all departments of the railway.

Perhaps it is too much to expect, with operating forces extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, that complete satisfaction will be given by the staff at all times; but it should be realized that an organization in existence only three years, and engaged to a large extent in co-ordinating the services of a number of lines, previously operated independently, and in some cases in competition, has much yet to accomplish to gain the strength, and the same traffic-getting power as its chief competitor. This rival organization has gradually strengthened, as its mileage and territory grew, and as its facilities, both railway and steamship, for securing traffic, were increased.

Due economy, consistent with efficiency, has been observed in the organization of the Canadian National traffic force. The ratio of the cost to the gross revenue for last year, 1920, was 1.94 per cent., against 2.31 per cent. on the C.P.R. In this connection it should be borne in mind that we are meeting the competition of a strongly entrenched rival, and the results indicate a substantial measure of success.

GRAIN:—The following table of grain movements will give some indication of the productive value of the territory served by the lines of the former Canadian Northern and Grand Trunk Pacific, and it may not be out of place to point out that the portions of the three prairie provinces, served by the trunk lines of these companies, have been the steady producing areas of the West, where crop failure has been less frequent or entirely absent.

Number of cars of grain inspected and handled each crop year from the First of September to December 31st.