Handbook of Railroad Construction; For the use of American engineers. / Containing the necessary rules, tables, and formulæ for the location, construction, equipment, and management of railroads, as built in the United States.

by George L. Vose

The mercantile department.

The mechanical department.

The first embracing every thing relating to the adjusting of tariffs, the transport of passengers and freight, the embarking and delivering of goods, and the weighing and measuring, ticket and receiving offices, steamboat, stage, and railroad connections. The second, the maintaining the road-bed, superstructure, bridging, masonry, buildings, and fixed stock in working order; making all repairs, renewals, enlargements, and alterations, and the purchase, inspection, maintaining, and operating of the rolling stock. These departments are again divided and subdivided until we come to the minutest details.

Note.—That part of Chapter XVI. in italics is extracted, by permission, from the elaborate Report of D. C. McCallum to the stockholders of the New York and Erie Railroad, (March 25, 1856).

399. The following general principles govern the formation of an efficient system of operations.

First. A proper division of responsibilities.

Second. Sufficient power conferred to enable the same to be fully carried out, that such responsibilities may be real in their character.

Third. The means of knowing whether such responsibilities are faithfully executed.

Fourth. Great promptness in the report of all derelictions of duty, that evils may at once be corrected.

Fifth. Such information to be obtained through a system of daily reports and checks that will not embarrass principal officers nor lessen their influence with their subordinates.