A model engineer runs the most important trains, and he is never the man who wore the greasy, dirty cap or the coat and trousers all smeared with oil.
What is the secret of constant successful engine driving?
Not length of service, not because a man has served so many years on freight trains and so many more on passenger trains, for the best engineers are ever those who have been promoted over the heads of others for their smartness.
Promotion according to merit should be the invariable rule on railroads. Seniority should have nothing to do with it. The position is too important, there are too many lives at stake, too much money involved to make it right or proper to push one man forward beyond another simply because of the length of his service. That sort of thing is all right for ordinary business, but for engine driving it won't do.
Merit tells.
To the best engineer belong the best trains.
Chance never built an engine, and it should have nothing to do with running it.
Yet the opposite way of doing things is the general rule.
Engineer A retires, dies or is killed, and Engineer B is promoted because he happens to be next on the list. He may be a dull, stupid fellow, and Engineer C as bright as a dollar, but in the chance death of A, B gets the prize, and everybody that has any interest in the successful running of his train becomes the loser thereby.
Engine driving, to be good, must be based upon rules and principles.