His secretary loads several boxes with correspondence, much of it relating to matters to be taken up at points to be visited, and much concerning all kinds of business accumulated at the head office. Where inspection of physical property is an objective—which is always the case, for, wherever you go, you are on the property for whose maintenance you are held responsible by shareholders and public—the President while the train is moving will be found sitting at the observation end of his car, with his secretary by his side, watching everything as it comes into an instantly dissolving view.
On a siding he sees a couple of cars belonging to an American road, for which rental is being paid for every day that they are on his system. They may be in this unlikely place for very good reason—and again there may be some neglect of duty in their present location. Note is made of it, for the attention of the superintendent concerned. At the fourth telegraph post, after mileage six hundred and fifty-three, there is a stack of ties, with weeds growing about them in a profusion which suggests that there has been unwise distribution of costly, deteriorating material.
A station not stopped at gives evidence of slovenliness in the agent. The next has flower beds in lovely bloom—the proof of a pride in his post for which the agent will receive a word of appreciation from a superior who does not forget that he is also a colleague.
Crossing one of the fast-diminishing number of wooden trestles it is observed that the water barrels are not well filled. Further on a tank is leaking water—and money.
During a stop at a division point the President hurries to the roundhouse, to get his own idea of the efficiency with which the power is being handled, and repairs made without undue delay.
After a day of this description you arrive at a city where the City Council and the Board of Trade are waiting to press for a pledge of improvements which, to them, are most important items in a civic programme.
In the afternoon, perhaps, you passed through a station of a small and juvenile town for which the local Board of Trade had urged the desirability of another express truck, and a larger cattle pen, so that passengers on the express trains might get a better idea of the magnitude of the business done at that point.
Sometimes the difference between the small town and the big city is only of degree. Local patriotism is a mighty fine asset in every community. One finds no fault against the urgency with which local problems are pressed upon a harassed railway executive, with the remark, often heard, that what is asked is a very small matter for so large a railway. Many a mickle makes a muckle; and there are limits to what can be done with the revenues of a railway, every department of which has an Oliver-Twist-like propensity for demanding more.
Take an instance of the problems that beset your railway president as he flits about the country—the passenger accommodation at St. John. The Intercolonial station is on low ground. It is one of the structures which do not reflect the magnificent ambitions of members of Parliament, whose chief end in public life is to get public money spent in their ridings—well spent on the whole, of course, but spent. Lately the train sheds that served the purpose of a metal umbrella, had collapsed, and temporary shelters over the platforms had to be put up.