Confessions of a Railroad Signalman

by James O. Fagan

The Baltimore & Ohio loan feature is still more remarkable. The object is to enable the employees to own their own homes. All are real-estate transactions, and it is a remarkable fact that the administration of this feature, throughout twenty-five years, has been entirely without appreciable loss on any single investment. Employee-borrowers have entered into personal obligations representing the building of two thousand houses and the purchase of three thousand homesteads. The transactions of the loan section to June 30 represented six and three-quarter millions of dollars, when there was also a million and a quarter in the treasury, upon which the company’s guarantee of four per cent held good.

Rest-houses are another form through which welfare work in the direct interest of the employee is carried on as part of the regular operation of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. The aim is to furnish a comfortable and convenient place, open at all hours, to the employee coming in from his run, whose first want is a bath, with plenty of hot water, and subsequently a restful bed. The work carried on by the Railroad Y. M. C. A. is of a similar nature. The old-time dark cabooses, dingy freight cars, and decrepit coaches, serving as night-holes into which to crawl for the sleeping hours till the time for the next run, are now nothing but an unpleasant memory. The Railroad Y. M. C. A., with its commodious lounging-rooms, bright and airy dining-rooms, clean lunch-counters, well-appointed kitchens, billiard rooms and bowling alleys, general assembly halls, libraries, attractive bedrooms and baths, is the practical exemplification to-day of the fitness of things. The disbursements of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad for these purposes have in single years exceeded fifty thousand dollars, and every penny is profitably expended from the purely business standpoint. Bettering the man betters his work.

Furthermore, incident to the administration of the Relief Department, the company, through a corps of medical examiners and surgeons, closely supervises the health of its employees and the sanitary conditions of the places where their duties are performed. This corps is in charge of a chief surgeon and chief medical examiner, both prominent in their professions; and although the number of men in their charge exceeds forty thousand, any complicated or persistent disability of an employee secures the personal supervision of the chief surgeon.

This is surely a remarkable demonstration of what one corporation is doing, and has done, for the benefit of its employees. It is very doubtful if any government or any other industrial institution in the world can show any such record, and one which extends over such a long term of years. Fair and humane treatment of employees cannot be carried any further.

Having in this way, for the present, made an end of the evidence as regards the men, let us now turn to the management. It will, I think, be admitted that the running and operation of trains on American railroads calls for some system of management and discipline that shall be absolutely untrammeled and free from outside influence or interference. In a word, the manager of the operating department of a railroad should be permitted to manage. Public opinion, of course, is always free to express itself as it thinks fit on this and on kindred subjects, but it will be found to be utterly unjust in its position if it allows itself in any way to connive at the undermining of authority, and at the same time holds this authority responsible for results. Yet it does not call for a national mind-reader to extract from the history of public sentiment the uncomfortable conclusion that the laws and the press of the country, to a great extent, still harbor their ancient grudge, and are not prepared to treat railroad managers impartially. So accustomed have managers become to adverse criticism that they are now almost tongue-tied on the subject of their duties, and simple sufferance has become the badge of the fraternity. The manager may now be likened to a horse, willing and able to trot his distance with credit to himself and his owners; but behind him, on the box-seat, sits public opinion, the labor organization at his side. The horse is willing enough, and eager to work and to do his duty, but every effort to exert himself or to get into his stride is rewarded with a violent jerk of the rein. The effect of this treatment on any kind of an animal can be imagined. That the traveling public should be at the mercy of a three-cornered management of this nature, is rather remarkable. If managers nowadays were inclined to be autocratic or overbearing in matters relating to the public safety, there might be some excuse for the situation. On the contrary, to most people it will appear that they have already parted with the best part of their birthright. The following is the agreement on the subject, in force on nearly all railroads:—

“Employees shall not be disciplined or dismissed without cause. In case discipline is thought to be unjust, the employee may refer his case, in writing, to the superintendent, after which he shall be given a hearing within seven days. The aggrieved party may be present at all investigations and may be represented by a fellow employee of the same class. In the event of this investigation proving unsatisfactory, the case may be appealed to higher officials in regular order. If the accused is found blameless, his record will remain as previous thereto, and he shall receive pay for all time lost.”

Such an agreement will, I think, appear to most people to be remarkably fair and generous. Unfortunately for the interest of the public, it approaches the danger point. It is very doubtful if many, or any, private industrial establishments could be persuaded to sign any such agreement with their employees. Manifestly it makes a cipher of the superintendent. But taking our agreement just as it is, the manager should at least be allowed to manage, and appeal should be limited to the officials of the road. The line must be drawn just where responsibility is wanted and needed. That the management of a railroad should invite interference or assistance from grievance committees or national organizations of labor men, in matters of discipline, is absurd. The situation has been forced upon them. It has been forced upon them during “rush hours,” when business was at high tide and pressure, and when the public was clamoring for its fast trains and for the prompt delivery of freight. Such are the stormy times on railroads, when discipline is lax and when concessions are granted at the expense of the public safety. Blame the management if you will,—the results and consequences are before us for consideration and remedy. Most of us understand something about rebates on a shipment of oil or cotton goods, and about the penalties that are enforced against offenders; but we do not seem to realize the fact that to-day on our railroads there are, in actual operation, rebates on the efficiency of the service, which are being paid for by the people, not in dollars and cents, but in blood and suffering.

But putting on one side public opinion and its influence on the efficiency of railroad service, what is the nature of the treatment that the employee himself, with his eyes wide open and his wits about him, is willing to give to the management and to the public, when he has the power and the opportunity to work in a little legislation for himself? For illustration, let us take what is commonly called the “Bumping Process.” Of course no management in its right mind would ever originate or put into service any such suicidal arrangement. From beginning to end it is a ludicrous, at times a pathetic, commentary on the seniority rule. It works somewhat in this way:—

On account of slack business, a crew consisting of a conductor and two or three men is relieved from duty. The conductor immediately looks over his list and picks out another job to his liking, the holder of which happens to be his junior in the service. The man who is thus turned out does the same to some one else, and meanwhile the discharged brakemen have been “bumping” other brakemen. So it goes on from one end of the division to the other, until some twenty or thirty men have been “bumped” out of their accustomed and hard-earned places. Finally, three or four of the youngest employees are bumped into space, at the end of the string, and the “bumping” ceases for lack of material. The management has had absolutely nothing to do with the affair; it can protect neither its own interests nor those of the public. The whole business must be looked upon as the natural sequel of the seniority principle. It is a concession granted during “rush hours,” when bumping was not anticipated. To understand this thoroughly, let us take a concrete illustration.

On a certain railroad there is a section, say from X to Y, over which a local freight train has plied daily for a number of years. Along this route there are, perhaps, as many as fifty large foundries and industrial plants, to attend to the requirements of which this local freight was put on the road. The conductor of this train has attended to this business with satisfaction to his employers, and to the patrons of the road, for three or four years. He thoroughly understands the ins and outs of his route, all about the different switches, side-tracks, dangerous places, and difficulties that are to be encountered. He is personally acquainted with the foremen of the different establishments. He knows just what they want and when they want it; he understands when and where they want cars loaded and emptied. He has the phraseology of the different side-tracks on the tip of his tongue. When he arrives at any little town, his switch list reads something like this:—