REESE LIBRARY 
 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, 
 
 L. 
 
 I^eceived 
 
 z.^L cessions No 
 
 I So 
 
 I 
 
 lS3f^^ 
 
 Chm No. 
 
 
THE BRITISH 
 
 RAILWAY SYSTEM: 
 
 A DESCEIPTIOJf OF THE 
 
 WORK PERFORMED IN THE PRINCIPAL 
 DEPARTMENTS. 
 
 BY 
 
 J L. MACLEAN 
 
 (CALEDONIAN RAILWAY COMPANY). 
 
 PRICE ONE SHILLING AND SIXPENCE. 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LONDON: 
 McCOEQUODALE & CO., LIMITED. 
 
 EDINBUEGH: 
 JOHN MENZIES & CO. 
 
 GLASGOW: 
 
 McCORQUODALE & CO., LIMITED, Maxwell Street; and 
 
 WILSON & McCORMICK, 120, St. Vincent Street. 
 
 MDCCCLXXXIII. 
 

 JJ> 
 
 r^ 
 
 LOSDON: 
 PRINTED BY McCORQUODALE & CO., LIMITED, CARDIKGTON STREET, X.W. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Preface 
 
 PAGE 
 
 6 
 
 Introductory 
 
 ..> 7 
 
 The Secretary's Department 
 
 The General Manager's Department 
 
 The Goods Manager's Department 
 
 The General Superintendent's Department 
 The Department of Permanent Way and Works 
 
 The Telegraph Engineer 
 
 The Locomotive Department 
 
 The Stores Department 
 
 The Accountant 
 
 The Traffic Auditor ^ 
 
 The Solicitor 
 
 15 
 
 22 
 
 30 
 
 41 
 
 49 
 
 66 
 
 64 
 
 73 
 
 82 
 
 90 
 
 .;. 96 
 
 b 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The following: chapters were contributed to the pages of the 
 llailway Sheet ^ now the Railway Official Gazette. They are offered 
 by the writer, with a deep sense of many imperfections, to his fellow- 
 labourers in the great railway service, in the hope that they may 
 fulfil, in some part at least, the object he had in view: namely, the 
 setting forth in a broad, general way the duties of the officers and the 
 staff of each of the principal departments of the railway system, and 
 the kind of culture needful to the efficient performance of their several 
 duties. They will have been written to little purpose if they do not 
 encourage every young man in the service, who may honour them with 
 a re-perusal in their revised and condensed form, to devote himself to 
 the improvement of his position by the cultivation of his faculties in 
 the fullest and most comprehensive sense. 
 
 The writer also hopes to find a general public curious to know 
 something of the intricate machinery by which the work of the great 
 nineteenth century invention of land carriage by steam is managed. 
 
CHAPTER 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 During the last fifty years there has been developing one of the greatest 
 industries of which the world's history has any record. The genius of 
 the Stephensons, and theii' sagacious foresight, ushered it into being 
 and fostered it in its infancy ; and they lived long enough to see it 
 progress even beyond their hopes. From about the middle of the last 
 century till 1825 the traffic of Great Britain was carried mainly on the 
 canals, navigable rivers, and high roads. The invention of steam, and its 
 application, by Arkwright, Hargreaves, Crompton, and Dr. Cartwright, to 
 the power-loom and the spinning -mill, demanded greater facihties for the 
 transit of coal and the raw materials of manufacture of all kinds ; and 
 also for freer, cheaper, and more frequent communication with the 
 markets. Hitherto, nearly every industry had been cramped by pro- 
 hibitive transit tariffs, and by equally prohibitive transit delays. Mr. 
 Frederick S. Williams, in his interesting volume, " The Midland 
 Railway : its Rise and Progress," gives the following instances of the 
 difficulties encountered by the manufacturers in the Midland Counties up 
 till 1839, the year of the opening of the Midland Counties Line : — " The 
 only modes of conveyance at that time were three — the canal, the fly- 
 waggon, and the coach — and the charges made were proportionate to the 
 speed. Wool, for instance, required two days to travel the fifteen miles 
 between Leicester and Market Harborough, and the expense was six- 
 pence a hundredweight, the distance being, it was said, ' so short, and the 
 traffic so unimportant, that they are obliged to charge an extra price.' 
 Only three coaches ran daily each way from Leicester to Nottingham, in 
 addition to those that passed to and from more distant points, and on 
 which httle reliance could be placed by local travellers. Similarly, many 
 of the * fly-waggons ' were long stagers, and were of secondary benefit to 
 the intermediate towns. Meanwhile, the charge for haberdashery, from 
 London to Leicester, was £2 15s. a ton by canal, five shillings a hundred- 
 weight by waggon, and a penny a pound by coach." Mr. Williams observes 
 also that " the respective conveyances were often unable to carry the quan- 
 tities of goods offered. Thus, a woolstapler stated that he frequently had 
 from 200 to 500 bags of wool lying at Bristol, which could not be 
 
8 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 brought forward by land, and he had to divide the bulk, and send it by 
 different routes ; that which went by road occupied from seven to ten 
 days in the transit, and that by water from three weeks to a month." 
 Among an enterprising people such a state of things was certain to call 
 for a remedy, and everywhere over the country men were found able to 
 suggest and carry out that remedy. The first lines of iron roads were 
 mere tramways, intended for haulage by horse-power. The advantages 
 these presented were that they were so laid, across country, as to shorten 
 distance considerably ; and also that, being smooth and comparatively 
 level, they admitted of the transit of heavier freights than was possible 
 to the " fly waggon " labouring over heavy turnpike roads. From 
 " Whitaker's Almanack " for 1881 we learn that " the first Act obtained 
 for the construction of a railway was that of the Surrey Iron Railway 
 Company in 1801, for a railway from Wandsworth to Croydon. Then 
 followed the Severn and Wye, the Berwick and Kelso, the Gloucester 
 and Cheltenham, and other small undertakings, about twenty in number 
 altogether, with an aggregate of 250 miles, and an authorised capital 
 somewhat under a million." These lines were mere waggon tracks, and 
 horses were the motive power. Although they were a distinct advance 
 upon the older species of locomotion for goods transit, it was clear to 
 many minds that they very inadequately met the requirements of a 
 growing prosperity ; and the first to put this into practical shape was 
 George Stephenson, the first engmeer of the first passenger railway in 
 the world on which locomotive power was employed — the Stockton and 
 Darlington line, which was opened on the 27th September, 1852. That 
 day will ever be held in loving remembrance by a. grateful world as the 
 beginning of an era in the history of civilization second to none. Before 
 leaving this short historic view of the rise of the railway system in Great 
 Britain, let us note a few facts regarding that progress. The Stockton 
 and Darlington line was 25 miles in length. Now, we have altogether, 
 in the three kingdoms, 18.175 miles. That parent line cost some 
 £200,000. Now, the aggregate capital of the United Kingdom is 
 £831,127,312. The Stockton and Darlington Company opened with 
 one engine. Now, we have in all some 13,727 locomotives. George 
 Stephenson's first locomotive travelled, to his great satisfaction, at the 
 rate of five miles an hour. Now, we have attained, on some of the great 
 trunk lines, to a speed of 40 miles an hour. Then, the number of 
 railway employes was under 300. Now, it has reached something like 
 
INTEODUCTORT. 9 
 
 525,000.* In the early days of railway enterprise capital was diffident 
 of investing in railway property, none but those immediately interested 
 in the development of particular districts caring to risk their means in it. 
 Now, the general public of all ranks and classes speculate and invest in 
 railway property to an extent, and with a confidence of results, never then 
 dreamed of. Indeed, the development of the enterprise is affording at 
 the present time one of the fairest channels for the profitable investment 
 of the enormous unemployed capital of the nation. We need not stay 
 to demonstrate that other fact, namely that the dreams even of the most 
 sanguine as to the blessings to trade and commerce which might flow 
 from more speedy transit of goods and minerals, have been most fully 
 realised. The growth of production in every branch of industry has 
 been fostered and stimulated, and the whole material wealth of the 
 world has been cheapened simultaneously with its being brought to our very 
 doors at command. People now travel from place to place on the slightest 
 provocation who never moved from home before, and a journey from 
 London to Oban, Inverness, or Thurso, is so easily performed, and with 
 so much comfort, that thousands of tourists flock during summer and 
 autumn to the far north and west from the busy centres of active busi- 
 ness life, with scarcely more thought of being from home than our 
 forefathers felt in visiting the nearest market town, and with much greater 
 ease and safety. The great facilities which the era of railway communi- 
 cation has afforded the toilers in large cities of living outside their 
 boundaries and nearer the green meadows has materially helped sanitary 
 reform, by spreading the hitherto crowded populations over wider areas. 
 In our forefathers' times, it is true, the population was not so large in 
 the great industrial hives, but had railway enterprise not now existed, or 
 had it not kept pace with industrial enterprise — a state of things we can 
 scarcely conceive of — what would the condition of our large cities have 
 been ? Another boon which the rapid development of the railway system 
 has conferred upon modern commercial life is the impetus it has given to 
 a new branch of engineering, in the construction of locomotives, and also 
 to these mechanical industries, carriage and waggon building. But for 
 the introduction of steam locomotion, Manchester, Leeds, Crewe, 
 Swindon, Brighton, Doncaster, and Glasgow, would have been the 
 
 ♦ I am indebted to Mr. W. Fairlamb, of the Secretary's Office, North Eastern 
 Railway, York, for these statistics, taken from his "Summary of Statistics of 
 Hallways in the United Kingdom," published in October, 1882. 
 
10 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 poorer for the want of those extensive locomotive workshops for which 
 they are now famous all over the globe. In short, without any pretence 
 of being anything more than a means of offering a fair return for invested 
 capital, the railway system is a messenger of peace to mankind, a pioneer 
 of civilization, a mighty power for good to all. Looked at through the 
 mists of prejudice at its inception, it has come to be a great necessity of 
 our daily life — to many it is even daily bread itself. Some erratic 
 Utopians, it is true, continue to regard its inroads on the country as 
 unhallowed ; but the common voice of the nation, as of all nations among 
 whom it is developing, is in its praise, and the Utopians who would 
 always live in an Arcadia — all their own — are allowed to scream out 
 their anathemas unheeded. 
 
 When we speak of the progress of the railway enterprise in this 
 country we are brought face to face with a palpable fact — one which is 
 every day bulking more largely on our observation. There is one aspect of 
 this great fact which does not always strike the observer, but which is well 
 deserving of a thought. We have already said that on the railway staffs 
 of the United Kingdom there are some three hundred thousand persons 
 employed. What an enormous aggregate of bread-winners in a special 
 industry — this creature of the last 56 yeai-s ! The vast majority of these 
 are the rank and file of this great army ; the few are the officers holdmg 
 staff appointments, and their lieutenants. The common business of these 
 hundreds of thousands is, in its character, like no other employment. 
 It is a special branch of industry, and requu-es special training in every 
 grade to secure efficiency. In its most unskilled work it is different from 
 all other employments, and requires some degree of apprehension of its 
 special requirements ; and as we ascend the scale of office, in any depart- 
 ment, the technical difficulties increase till, the highest grades being 
 reached, we discover that the qualities requii^ed are those of the financier, 
 the general, the astute diplomatist, the legislator, the lawyer, or the 
 merchant. We hope, in the chapters which follow, to prove this, and to 
 show, in our review of the work of the principal officers, that efficient 
 railway management requires skill of a special and a high order. When 
 railways were in their infancy their management and working were 
 crude, and yet from their very nature they must have presented difficulties 
 which can scarcely now be conceived of. Men were new to the work. 
 The officers had everything to learn. It redounds to the credit of these 
 pioneers, however, that they successfully mastered those difficulties, and 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 [^NIVERSITYJ 
 
 founded that great railway college in which so many have since graduated 
 and taken honours. Until the year 1842 the working of through traffic 
 — that is, traffic originating on one line and passing over one or more 
 continuous, but separate hne or hnes, was cumbrous and vexatious, each 
 company collecting its own tolls, and keeping its own accounts. In that 
 year the late Mr. Kenneth Morrison propounded and successfully 
 inaugurated his clearing system, by which the foreign or through traffic 
 of the companies is accounted for by the terminal companies interested 
 to the Clearing House, the companies receiving their relative proportions 
 through that channel. A part of the clearing system also is to keep the^ 
 mileage accounts of the various companies — in the matter of rolling 
 stock of one company passing on to another territory, looking after 
 demurrage for detention, and generally acting as standing arbitrator 
 between them. By means of this institution of Mr. Morrison's the 
 public, both as freighters and passengers, are saved much trouble and 
 annoyance, in being able to book for a journey — say from Land's End to 
 Thurso — once for all, though passing over several separate and absolutely 
 distinct railway properties. In cases of extremity — such as those of 
 invalids — they may even ride in the same carriage right through. The 
 travelling pubHc scarcely know how much they owe to the clearing 
 system ; and the railway companies have grown so much accustomed to 
 its operations that they, also, are apt to become forgetful of the great 
 advantage it confers. Yet there it is, performing a kind of work which 
 could not have been performed by the companies, no matter how ami- 
 cably disposed they might have been, and maintaining perfect accord 
 among so many confficting interests, where that seems so impossible of 
 attainment. Once a party to the clearing system, a company knows it 
 must abide by its decisions. Protest, when a case goes against a com- 
 pany, implies loss of character, and therefore of influence, when the 
 case seems to be in that company's favour. 
 
 The railway system, then, as we have already said, is a most 
 extensive employer of labour of a more or less skilled kind, and is always 
 unique in the character of the work demanded. We propose to describe 
 the work performed in the various departments ; and we hope to present 
 such a picture of the whole as to show the young cadet what may be 
 expected of him in the department he has selected, and to offer the pubhc 
 an insight into the working of the varied machinery by which the carry- 
 ing traffic of the country is conducted. Here we repeat that a chief 
 
12 OUS RAILWAY SYSTEM, 
 
 reason for the publication of these papers has been to create, in the 
 minds of the younger members of the service, such feelings of respect for 
 the work they are performing as may help to keep up the intellectual 
 tone of the service, and so render it still more capable of advancing the 
 good of the nation at large. 
 
 Before entering upon our subject, we may be permitted to offer 
 a few remarks on the general question of clerkly employment, as the 
 departments to be described are chiefly clerkly in the character of 
 the work required. The question has frequently been discussed, but 
 it is growing more important day by day as the population increases, 
 and it seems to us to deserve consideration here. It has become 
 the fashion in modern times to regard all occupations by which the 
 coat is soiled and the hands hardened as ungenteel, and therefore to 
 be avoided. Many fond parents and guardians, whose sons and wards 
 come to be disposed of, find a pecuUar fascination in the idea of obtain- 
 ing a place among the well-dressed gentleman-like knights of the pen for 
 their darlings. This feeling is also shared by many young women who 
 favour the addresses of gentlemen in broad-cloth in preference to their 
 brethren in serge or fustian. The question which occupation pays best 
 does not appear to vex these fond hearts much ; the glory and the glitter, 
 real or supposed, satisfy them. They pay homage to appearances, that 
 well-known nineteenth century deity. The clerk, in olden times, was, if 
 •often poor and despised, almost always a man of learning. As learning 
 came to be respected, the man of learning became a man in request, a 
 member of '' Society." With the march of civilization that clerical or 
 learned order branched off into the professions of Law and the Church, 
 with their modern sister, the Press. For the two former a somewhat 
 strict censorship or test of fitness was found, and that has preserved 
 them in some odour of culture, while, if no special scholastic test is 
 applied to journalists, we know that only men of singular intellectual 
 gifts succeed without considerable breadth of attainments. 
 
 Commerce, with its rapid developments and its wonderful ramifica- 
 tions, could not afford to wait for this thoroughness of scholarly 
 -quahfications, and seized on what it could get. Young lads just leaving 
 school, and barely able to do more than write and cipher decently, have 
 been, and still are, in demand for mercantile counting-houses — no tests 
 applied. They serve the merchant's purpose, and are inexpensive. They 
 seem to see a career before them in a calling which offers no barrier to 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 13 
 
 their entrance upon it, and which accepts them and offers them emolu- 
 ments at an age when their education is in reality but beginning. It is 
 not surprising, therefore, to find that of commercial clerks the supply far 
 exceeds the demand, and that such raw material does not often develop 
 into anything specially superfine in the process of manufacture. The lad 
 who has grown tired of school and its restraints and intellectual 
 exercises, and finds companions earning wages and wearing broad-cloth, 
 is readily seized with a longing to begin life also. If he has any real 
 capacity he soon discovers his routine desk-work easily mastered, and, 
 is apt to lose all stimulus to improve himself. In such a case he 
 degenerates into a mere writer and figurer, and closes his career as a 
 clerkly drudge. He finds nothing in his work to quicken his wits beyond 
 the qualifications necessary to retain his desk, and he settles down into a 
 manhood guiltless of ambition beyond newspaper-reading or gossip 
 during his leisure hours — a very cipher in society. A new generation of 
 youths, we are pleased to know, is being stimulated to higher ambitions 
 by the spread of mechanics' institutions, athenaeums, and evening classes 
 for all branches of liberal culture (literary, scientific, and artistic), with 
 the stimulus to exertion afforded by the Society of Arts' certificates 
 awarded in the local and general examinations, and many young men are 
 being drawn under these happy influences to the benefit of posterity. 
 
 The employment of railway clerks, as a class, is only a matter of 
 some fifty-five years. In its present magnitude it is of daily growth. The 
 evils which we have pointed out as existing in mercantile offices — such 
 as perfunctory and aimless performance of duty, with no outlook towards 
 any higher excellence — are also to be found in railway offices, but there 
 is much less reason for such indifference in railway service. In mercan- 
 tile life, unless a young man chooses to be continually changing from one 
 employment to another, there are few opportunities for promotion. 
 In railway life it is far otherwise. There is an infinite variety of duty and 
 of office, and a correspondingly great variety of salary. Every clever 
 and industrious little boy in railway service carries a possible general 
 manager's baton in his knapsack, and, even if he fail of the first prize, the 
 earnest lad who, without showing discontent with, or disappointment at, 
 his present position, works with his whole heart in office, and in his leisure 
 hours '< burns the midnight oil " in study, in the endeavour to broaden 
 his capacity for work of a higher grade, is sure of the attainment of 
 eminence of some sort. Without this spirit of ceaseless aspiration, and the 
 
14 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 unquencliable love of working for it, there are grooves aucl deep ruts in 
 the service into which the neghgent and the listless are certain to sink 
 inextricably. These latter are they whose places are easily filled; men 
 who have mistaken their vocation, who never can hope for promotion, and 
 all such too often sour the aspiring young souls by their invectives against 
 an employment for which they are themselves unfit. The market is over- 
 stocked with such men. Possibly many of them would have found a more 
 fitting sphere as mechanicians. Possibly another career would have called 
 forth qualities which would have led to honourable position and good 
 fortune. The first quahfication for possible success is a careful selection 
 of the most fitting career, without reference to the vulgar notion of 
 gentihty, with all its pettiness. 
 
 Again, we say, it is the purpose of these papers to incite in the young 
 lad who has chosen a railway career, after due deliberation, an honest love 
 for his work as part of a great scientific, commercial, and professional 
 whole, and a determination to prepare for the highest places. If he be so 
 fired, delay and apparent neglect will not quench his ardour — they will only 
 add fuel to his energy. Let who will enter the service, the most capable 
 will force their way to the front. Promotion goes by merit. No public 
 service offers such advantages in this respect, and no service outside the 
 Government offices makes such provision for constant employment or 
 for old age. As a rule, as good salaries are paid by railway companies 
 as are to be had for similar classes of work anywhere ; and the advan- 
 tage of permanency and provision for declining years are attractions 
 sufficient to invite young men from commercial clerkships, where little is 
 learned, to a branch of industry the ultimate possibilities of which are 
 many. There is hard work in it, and long hours ; but who that has 
 health and strength, and a desire to better himself, will flinch at these ? 
 We should like to see some such test applied to aspirants for admission 
 to railway employment of a clerkly character as the Government applies — 
 some comprehensive examination of educational fitness. Then we should 
 have a high class of lads offering themselves — lads well furnished, and 
 with trained capacity, ready to receive fresh ideas and to work them 
 out. Some of the companies apply a test of qualification, and, we beheve, 
 with some benefit. If all the companies adopted some uniform rule on 
 this subject the intellectual quality of the service would be kept at a 
 higher general elevation. Further — as young lads enter, seeing that they 
 require to be trained in any case, and that their training costs the 
 
THE SECRETAKY's DEPARTMENT. 15 
 
 companies the time of the trainers and of the training — it might be 
 arranged that they should be made aware of the kind of work that is 
 performed in each department, so as to select that for which they feel 
 best suited ; and that requirement we shall endeavour to meet in the 
 chapters which follow. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE SECRETARY'S DEPARTMENT. 
 
 In continuing the consideration of the subject we shall take leave to 
 repeat our earnest desire to maintain something like fair culture among 
 the officers of the staff, both junior and senior — culture which includes 
 not only the basis of a good education, but implies a keen relish for the 
 acquisition of knowledge, and the student's habit of bending the will and 
 training the faculties. Without this the service is certain to degenerate 
 into a vast army of possibly disciplined but unintelligent penmen and 
 figurers, who can do as they are told, but who cannot improve upon any- 
 thing they see or do. Men such as this will, and often do, pass the 
 better portion of their lives in uninteresting drudgery, the almost mechan- 
 ical routine of daily office work, unaware of anything beyond their own 
 desks, and unfit to be entrusted with duties requiring the exercise of 
 brains. Among this class will be found the men who grumble at un- 
 toward fortune, at slow promotion, and the difficulty of " making ends 
 meet." We are far from saying that clever, intelligent, and thoughtful 
 men are certain to advance in the ratio of their merits. Experience often 
 tells a different tale. Many men whose talents point to better things are 
 left to toil unseen, and 
 
 " Waste their fragance on the desert air." 
 
 We are equally far from alleging that fretfulness and repining are un- 
 known among men of "parts ;" but we do affirm that the really deserving 
 are, as a class, free from noisy outcry at tardy recognition of their ability ; 
 they more frequently possess their souls in calmness, waiting, with at 
 
16 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 least the outward semblance of patience, the almost certain confidence of 
 a coming reward. It is to this competent class tliat we must look for the 
 gradual development of the service into one which the educated pubhc 
 will wish their sons to enter, and from which that public will look for 
 work which will be honourable to the performers, and tend to the good 
 of the whole commonwealth. Railway work is a great national work, 
 and, when well done, must promote the well-being of the nation. 
 
 Turning from these general observations to the practical side of the 
 subject, we feel it incumbent to remark that in dealing with the work of 
 departments there is a clear duty and obvious danger. Anyone at all 
 acquainted with railway management will appreciate both these. If our 
 labours are to be of soHd value they must indicate as clearly as possible 
 the general character, without entering too much upon the details of the 
 work of each office. Any attempt at showing how each company pro- 
 ceeds towards the working out of the same problems would overload our 
 purpose, proving only that there are various modes of reaching the same 
 end. In our endeavour, therefore, to open out the subject for our young 
 recruits, we shall avoid the description of any special system or practice, 
 contenting ourselves with a brief outline of principles, and stating the 
 requirements of each office generallij, so that the reader may have as broad 
 a view of the duties required, and the qualities called for in any depart- 
 ment, as will be equally applicable to all systems. 
 
 And, firstly, we shall look in upon the secretary's office. This is 
 the principal statutory office. In a general way it may be said that Par- 
 liament, in passing railway bills, contemplates the need of a secretary and 
 treasurer only; the former to keep the records and the registers, the 
 latter to keep the cash. In its wisdom it has seen fit to suppose that 
 a general management, a general superintendence, a locomotive superin- 
 tendence, an engineer of the permanent way, and a goods manager, are 
 quite unneeded for the development and working of traffic. It has nothing 
 to say for, or of, these offices ; but it clearly defines the general functions 
 of the secretary and the treasurer. The board may appoint what other 
 officers it needs ; and the variety of these non-statutory officers which the 
 exigencies of working has called forth on all lines will appear anon — these 
 two, by parhamentary usage and sanction, are the only necessary depart- 
 ments. As the name indicates, the secretary's office implies the keeping 
 of secrets. The incumbent must, therefore, be a non-conductor — ready to 
 hear, but slow to speak. His staff acquire — if they are " to the manner 
 
HS^^ LiBf?, 
 
 OPTHF 
 
 THE secretary's departj*;^?^ ^ ^^^RSI T "53J 
 
 born" — the same faculty of unimpassioned attentionTTEey practice 
 reticence, which is next of kin to silence, and become adepts in diplomacy. 
 The secretary attends all board meetings, and makes record of the busi- 
 ness done — keeping minutes of decisions upon every question discussed. 
 In many matters of pohcy and all matters of finance, he is adviser as 
 well as recorder, and the importance of his office may be judged of by 
 his being, with the general manager, and sometimes the sohcitor, the 
 sole custodier of undeveloped schemes long before they are ripe for 
 hatching. To occupy a position so onerous with credit to himself and 
 benefit to his company requires capacities which fit men for diplomacy 
 and state-craft, and the most efficient secretary is he who combines these 
 with a good sound knowledge of finance, which is the science and art of 
 " making ends meet." As we write there rise before " our mind's eye " 
 the famiUar features of not a few such officers — gentlemen who confer 
 distinction on the service by the possession of the finest qualities of 
 head and heart and manner, and who are silently but effectively training 
 their assistants by the influence of example no less than by precept. 
 
 The business of financmg, in its most comprehensive sense, usually 
 devolves upon the secretary personally. We do not, therefore, purpose 
 to deal with it. There are, however, certain details which, in a greater 
 or lesser degree, fall to the staff. Every special Act of Parliament 
 authorising new works carries a share-creating and a borrowing power. 
 So soon as the new works are begun, money is required for their 
 construction, and the shareholders' sanction to raise the money— of a 
 specified and restricted amount — is taken at a proprietors' meeting. The 
 mode of issue of the new shares is also there resolved upon. Then begins 
 a portion of very onerous work in the share office. Under some systems 
 that office is administered by the secretary's staff, in others by the assistant 
 secretary and staff, while in others it is under the superintendence of the 
 registrar. In all cases it is under the direction and control of the 
 secretary. 
 
 The issue of allotment letters, the receipt of these when returned 
 with acceptance or renunciation of the shares allotted, the register of the 
 payment of calls and issue of certificates, with the registration of all 
 transfers of stock from one name to another, and the careful custody 
 of the registers of proprietors — these are the duties of the share office 
 staff, and need not be enlarged upon here. Excepting in special cases, 
 detailed in special acts of particular companies, borrowing powers cannot 
 
18 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 be exercised by a company until the whole of the share capital has been 
 subscribed for, and one half thereof actually paid up, and these facts 
 must be proved before a sheriff, or other crown officer commissioned to 
 grant a certificate ; when such a certificate is obtained a company may at 
 once proceed to issue mortgages or debenture stock to the amount 
 stipulated in any special act. Mortgages are a terminable debenture, 
 the rate of interest offered being in proportion to the term of years 
 during which the mortgage runs. On the expiry of that period a 
 mortgage may be renewed for a further period, or debenture stock may 
 be given in exchange for it, or the money may be wanted by the lender 
 for investment elsewhere. Debenture stock bears a fixed perpetual rate 
 of interest. The negotiation of these loans and the correspondence 
 which leads to the issue of that debenture stock is the work of the 
 secretarial staff, and these demand care and precision. Sometimes this 
 work devolves on the treasurer or cashier. Zeal without discretion in 
 manipulating the loan and debenture stock books may easily result in 
 over-borrowing — that is, in accepting more money than the company has 
 power to issue bonds for; or, which is a lesser evil, will entail difficulties 
 with the registrar's, the accountant's, and the treasurer's offices when the 
 half-yearly balance comes to be struck. When all this responsibiUty is 
 considered, it will be seen that a trustworthy and capable staff must be 
 provided. The leading principles which regulate the negotiations must, 
 of course, emanate from the secretary, and receive sanction of the board; 
 but the details must be left to be worked out by the staff. 
 
 During sittings of the board and committees the secretary's office is 
 hvely. There is a constant hurrying to and fro, from board or committee 
 room, of directors who have some one to see privately, some question to 
 ask, some busmess to be transacted for them. The board has sudden 
 need of information, or wants papers, on some subject not before thought 
 of, and there is an exciting search for one or the other. That is to say, 
 that sudden and unexpected demands tax the careless and undisciplined. 
 In well organised offices, however, the junior clerks, whose duty it usually 
 is to keep the registers of letters received and despatched, are trained to 
 such method and regularity, that there is no confusion, no bustle — when 
 papers are called for, whether peremptorily or more leisurely, they can 
 readily be found. If the subject is still under correspondence, or in any 
 way unexhausted, a reference to one special index traces them ; if the 
 matter has been finally dealt with, there is equal facility in bringmg them 
 
THE secretary's DEPARTMENT. 19 
 
 back from their obscurity and retirement. It is the young man of some 
 breadth of education — who is accustomed to thinlc — who can be most 
 safely entrusted with the keeping of such registers. The secret of their 
 usefulness is in the skill shown in writing them up. The subject of a long 
 correspondence does not always appear at a glance on the surface of 
 the papers; it may have to be searched for, and when found may be 
 capable of a variety of settings, according to one's particular point of 
 view. To Tcnow what the subject is, and to be able to turn it over and 
 over, and see it from everybody's standpoint, and so to register it, that 
 any one of a variety of people looking for it under his own heading, 
 might find the papers, is not an easy task, nor one to be despised as 
 menial. Compared with the duty of merely writing letters to dictation 
 the register keeper's is highly intellectual. 
 
 With the growth of the railway system, the work of the depart- 
 ments has greatly increased, and in many cases it would scarcely be 
 possible to overtake all that has to be done without the aid of short- 
 hand. With its help the heads of departments and their principal 
 assistants are enabled to compress the routine work of an office within the 
 early hours of the day, leaving them leisure to overlook the working-out 
 of detail, to make new and cancel old systems of working as circum- 
 stances suggest, to meet inquirers, &e. An educated youth, accustomed, 
 as we have said, to think for himself, is of infinite value in all the principal 
 offices of the service ; but in none more than in the secretary's, in this 
 respect, that, except on very important occasions, when the turning of 
 a phrase in a letter, or an official document, may be the touchstone of the 
 company's policy, and the fullest and maturest experience must be called 
 in to advise, he may safely be left, with a simple hint of what is 
 to be said, to amplify it, in the most suitable words, in correspondence. 
 To those who have much letter-writing to do, along with other routine 
 office work, the great advantage of such intelligent help as that must be 
 evident. There is, in such cases, no need to dictate verbatim all 
 we would say ; and what a saving of time that implies ! In the exercise 
 of such faculties as this art of letter- writing then, our youth have 
 excellent opportunities of improvement in the department under con- 
 sideration. They must learn the wisdom of those words of Robert 
 
 Bums — c( Aye free, aff han' your story tell, 
 
 "When wi' a bosom cronie, 
 Yet still keep something tae ye'rsel 
 Ye'd scarcely tell tae ony. " 
 
20 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 With practice, they acquire the abiUty to weigh the niceties of 
 meaning between synonymous terms, and to guard against the chance of 
 being misunderstood. If a youth on entering this important department 
 of the service has not already graduated in grammar in its higher 
 developments in analysis, and precis writing, he cannot better equip him- 
 self than by a course of such study. By means of the mental power 
 which such culture imparts, our youth can be trained for the highest 
 offices, with the fullest confidence of success. Without it they will never 
 be anything but indifferent copying clerks. If, in starting upon their 
 career, they are capable of seizing upon the root-subject of a long 
 correspondence, where no distinctive title appears, and setting it clearly 
 down in a variety of forms, on as many different pages of a letter index 
 or register for future reference, or of "boiling down" the contents of that 
 correspondence into the form of a precis, they give token of the possession 
 of faculties requiring scope for their excercise, and are invaluable. 
 
 A most important function of the secretary's office is the drafting 
 of minutes of the meetings of the board, the committees, and the 
 proprietors. Some of these are routine, many are only a remove above 
 routine, but the most numerous require care, and some literary skill, as, 
 apart from the need to be accurate as to fact, about which the board 
 before passing them are sure to be critical, there is always, to a man of 
 cultivated tastes, a desire to crystallise his thoughts into their compactest 
 form. The staff have no responsibiUty in this matter, excepting always 
 the assistant secretary, who does duty at one or other of the committee 
 meetings, and who, therefore, drafts his own minutes. If, however, the 
 staff are not required to draft minutes, they have occasion to read them, 
 and to issue extracts from them to those whom they concern, and the 
 stamp of young assistants we have just been commending are most 
 unhkely to allow such an educational process to pass unimproved. 
 
 Stock certificates are signed by or for the secretary; mortgage 
 bonds, debenture stock certificates, agreements, and nearly all manner of 
 deeds to which the company is a party, must also be signed by him. 
 These signatures devolve no care or trouble on his clerks however. 
 
 Half-yearly and extraordinary general meetings are a great test of 
 the value of the secretary's staff. The issue of the half-yearly report 
 and statement of accounts is left to them, the accountant and the auditors 
 with the secretary and the board having first decided upon the proper 
 charges to revenue or capital on all debateable questions, and resolved 
 
THE secretary's DEPARTMENT. 21 
 
 upon the dividend to be recommended. From the time of issue of this 
 statutory document, which must take place within eight days of the half- 
 yearly meeting, until after that meeting is held, shareholders, both male 
 and female, write or call " wanting to know, you know," why this is thus, 
 or curious to have an explanation of some difficulty. It need not be 
 wondered at if ladies find cause for such inquiry, since gentlemen, other- 
 wise clever and experienced in accounts, think it necessary, as so many do, 
 to show their careless glance at the items of charge and discharge, by 
 putting questions which, in the light of the accounts, require no answer, 
 but a simple reference to the document itself. At such a time the 
 secretary's staff need have temper in complete subjection, and the faculty 
 of " turning away wrath " with " a soft answer." And that we take it 
 is a considerable part of the special drill of the department. Under a 
 chief whose manner is courteous and obliging the infection of manner is 
 catching, and works wonders upon proprietors of a troublesome and 
 fault-finding disposition. Though there is a natural inclination to con- 
 sider inquirers as nuisances, the fact remains that they have a tight to 
 inquire, and also a right to expect fair civiHty in meeting them. It is, at 
 all times, a mark of the absence of true culture to exhibit temper, and 
 he who has a natural tendency to feel annoyed has a discipline to undergo 
 which is of the greatest possible value — if he would only see it in that 
 light. The half-yearly meeting time is, therefore, even when dividends 
 are good, a trial to some, and an education to all. The secretary's 
 office is, as a rule, the chief of the in-door or book-keeping, as the general 
 manager's is of the out- door or traffic department. 
 
 In this hasty glance at the secretarial section of the subject, we 
 have tried to indicate something of the nature of the work done in that 
 office as a general rule. We are aware that few secretary's assistants 
 may find an exact transcript of their own office work in our description. 
 We believe, however, we have embraced the most general items of duty 
 performed in the aggregate. 
 
 We have now to offer a few words of advice to aspirants for 
 honour in the department. There is such need for a careful and 
 educated literary style, for clear apprehension, for quick and vivid 
 perception, if the aspirant would render efficient service, command 
 attention, and deserve promotion, that we think those who give no 
 promise of these mental qualities, and have failed to acquire the 
 necessary style, should be deterred from entering upon an unsuitable 
 
252 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 career. To those who have any leaning towards the work, a 
 desire to acquire the needful culture, or having passed fairly forward 
 in a generous education, are attracted to the duties of the office, for 
 the opening they offer to an honourable career, in which there are 
 occasional prizes worthy of men of high intelligence, we say, look 
 onward hopefully, cultivating the graces of a well-balanced and 
 gradually ripening intellect by the study of English literature and 
 history, current history— the higher arithmetic and algebra Avill be 
 found extremely useful — a little French or German, and a Httle law. 
 Such knowledge of the latter as is needful may be easily attained by 
 careful reading and annotation of any of the best authenticated digests 
 with which the press now teems. If this seems at all a severe course 
 of training for the eflBcient discharge of the duties of the secretarial 
 department, we submit it will only appear so to those who lack the 
 qualification for advancement in the ofiice, for the really capable are 
 just those who will regard such difficulties as so many stepping stones 
 to success. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE GENERAL MANAGER'S DEPARTMENT. 
 
 The general manager is the company's chief administrator. Equally 
 with the secretary, he sits at all board meetings to advise. His opinions 
 are always needful to the direction in matters affecting the policy of the 
 company, in its relations with its competitors, and in the development of 
 its resources. To be successful he must be a man of vigorous intellect 
 and of active habits, and should combine firmness of purpose with the 
 grace of a concihatory spirit. In his administrative capacity these invalu- 
 able quahties are inestimable. The officers and servants under his com- 
 mand, with various capacities and endowments, and with infinite shades 
 of disposition, must ever, even in the most exceptional circumstances, be 
 a source of worry to the manager ; but that difficulty may be greatly 
 mitigated if the office is held by a man who has the gift of persuasion. 
 
THE GENERAL MANAGER'S DEPARTMENT. 23 
 
 Autocratic rule is neitter pleasant nor profitable ; and it surely tends to 
 degenerate the staff. If ofl&cers or servants feel that the will which 
 governs them is unsympathising, unflinching, quick to punish, and slow 
 to commend, a doubtful and haK-hearted obedience is the result ; and 
 resignation in disgust is the almost certain corollary. In the army and navy, 
 where implicit, unquestioning obedience is necessary to discipline, and 
 where the nature and conditions of the service render breach of discipline 
 a punishable offence, the superior officer who wields his authority with 
 humanity and kindness compels a superior order of obedience to his will, 
 and commands respect instead of fear. If, then, it has been ascertained 
 and established in such autocratic services as those of the army and navy, 
 that popular rule, with needful firmness, is the best, how much more 
 necessary is it in a voluntary service like the railway service that the 
 management should be entrusted to those who have the power to attract 
 as well as command. It requires little demonstration to prove that a 
 constantly changing staff cannot be an efficient one ; and that harshness 
 and implacability are almost certain to produce dissatisfaction and de- 
 sertion. 
 
 The office of general manager, to be efficiently discharged, requires 
 certain attainments and certain gifts in the incumbent. The gifts are : 
 this power to administer without severity to which we have alluded ; a 
 genial address — the outcome of a pleasant disposition ; a clear brain — 
 apt to perceive and to generalise from complicated details ; and ready 
 and persuasive speech. The quality of good address is needful in the 
 numerous negotiations in which a manager is certain to be engaged with 
 traders, public corporations, &c., and a conciliatory spirit conquers oppo- 
 sition and secures easy terms. Unclouded brains command respect every- 
 where ; but nowhere more certainly than in positions of power and 
 responsibility such as that of the ruling spirit of a great railway com- 
 pany. " Time is money" to the trading classes, and to the hard- wrought 
 railway officer ; and the man who is quick to apprehend all the intricacies 
 of every project which is submitted for his consideration, is a most valu- 
 able, or rather invaluable, acquisition to a company with much important 
 work to do. Persuasive speech works wonders in the board-room, and 
 in more private, but not less important, consultation with the departmental 
 heads, with deputations of the travelling public with grievances to redress, 
 or with the thousand-and-one outsiders who want things their own way, 
 and mean to have them. In such cases the power to say * ^ No,*' an d yet 
 
 XTNIVERSITY 
 
24: OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 send his " deputations " and other troublesome and time-killing visitors 
 away as well pleased as if he said " Yes," is a gift of the highest order 
 in a general manager. Such a man can make his demands upon a cheese- 
 paring or short-sighted directorate with the almost certainty of having 
 his own way, and may thus be at once a powerful advocate for his staff 
 and the truest friend of his company. The attainments which should 
 distinguish such an officer are those which he has acquired while gradu- 
 ating in more humble office. Having an efficient body-guard of officers 
 in charge of the departments, each fitly furnished in his own sphere, it is 
 not required that he should have exact knowledge of the working out of 
 detail in each. He will generally be found to know enough of all, how- 
 ever, to be able to sympathise with the difficulties of each, and to be con- 
 sulted with intelligence in emergency ; and he will, moreover, while taking 
 an independent view of each case which is submitted for judgment, be 
 ready to set a proper value upon the opinion and advice of the officer 
 consulting him. The responsibility of his office— he being, with the 
 secretary and solicitor, a custodian of the company's unpublished policy 
 — makes him reticent and cautious, and he finds it prudent on occasion, 
 to practice the virtue, the golden virtue, of silence. To a man who must 
 necessarily mix much with public men, and is thus liable to insidious 
 and specious flank movements to reach the whole truth of his company's 
 intentions, this must be a trying ordeal, and he who has acquired the art 
 of so answering such attacks as to cover his own retreat without giving 
 anything up has graduated in a good school. We can remember some 
 general managers, of a past age, who carried this to the verge of secre- 
 tiveness, keeping even their brother officers in ignorance of the *' reason 
 why " in issuing their manifestoes. That this was a mistake we need not 
 stay to prove. An intimate acquaintance with the system of railways, 
 sidings, canals, depots, &c., placed under his charge, if not absolutely 
 necessary, is, at least, of great importance to the general manager, who, 
 by such knowledge is able at all times to judge for himself more readily 
 in cases affecting the working of traffic which may be submitted for con- 
 sideration. Something of the nature of an acquaintance with the special 
 traffic or produce of each district is useful to him who has its transit to 
 regulate and provide for, although the departmental officers may be pre- 
 sumed to make that a special study, and to be able to advise him. Next 
 to this branch of information, which the manager of inquiring habit is 
 certain to cultivate, is a somewhat similar acquaintance with the character 
 
THE GENERAL MANAGER'S DEPARTMENT. 25 
 
 and products of his neighbour's territory, and specially with the points 
 of junction with his company's lines ; and this will occasionally lead him 
 to the projection of fresh feeders, now into untrodden regions lying into 
 his own lines, then into unthought-of corners of his neighbour's ground. 
 The former is easy, comparatively, and, if conceived in a generous spirit, 
 is certain to receive support from the district to be traversed, if not from 
 the board. The latter requires j^wesse, to carry conviction to those pro- 
 posed to be scheduled for land or " amenity," and to keep the secret of 
 the intended invasion from the company in possession until they have no 
 other resource than to oppose the bill in Parliament. When his project 
 reaches that stage, and the decision of a committee of Parhament is soli- 
 cited, the general manager of the highest order of capacity and attain- 
 ment finds his favourite arena. He surrounds himself with his most 
 trusted witnesses, has his confidential consultations with counsel, arranges 
 his evidence, and waits his turn to be examined. In the witness-box he 
 yields himself to a careful and well-prepared examination in chief, 
 cautiously fencing in cross, and offering nothing but what is extorted 
 from him. During the hearing of evidence for the opposition he is untir- 
 ing in his watchfulness, prompting questions and calling attention to the 
 joints in the enemy's armour at which to point attack. At this time his 
 evenings in the vicinity of Westminster are devoted to consultation, or to 
 preparation for the next day's campaign and the arrangements needful for 
 success. If our general managers are highly-paid officers they are not 
 " the right men in the right place " if they do not deserve it. They sleep 
 not on beds of roses, nor often leave official cares behind them when they 
 lock up their cabinets and betake them to the family dinner-table and the 
 quiet joys of home. We know of no class of men so weighted with 
 heavy responsibilities, and we are pleased to think that the railway service 
 has reared so many whose qualities are statesmanlike, and who are worthy 
 of the highest honours in the gift of the Crown. We have endeavoured, 
 we fear very inadequately, to describe them and a few of their functions 
 and responsibilities, and to hold them and their high office before the 
 eyes of the young as deserving of their highest regard, and of their most 
 careful imitation. The general managers of the future are in our offices, 
 cultivating their faculties, and acquiring knowledge and experience. Let 
 them look around them and above them for living examples of what they 
 ought to be. 
 
 Now, we shall see what kind of work the general manager requires 
 
26 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 of Ms office staff ; and on this subject we have again to explain that it is 
 not our intention to picture any one office, but to give as comprehensive a 
 sketch of the requirements of the office generally as may include the 
 whole. We may begin this section of the subject with the observation 
 that on some of the most extensive systems the service of an assistant 
 manager is requu-ed. To that officer the general manager relegates a 
 portion of the details of management. As, however, the assistant 
 manager's duties are, practically, the manager's, we need not dwell upon 
 them separately, satisfying ourselves with this one remark, all the more 
 needful here that we have not mentioned it in speaking of the manager 
 — that the assistant frequently takes the place of the manager at the 
 quarterly and other meetings at the Clearing House and elsewhere. Our 
 readers will be aware that Clearing House business is regulated by com- 
 mittees of the traffic officers of the various companies— -the general 
 managers, the goods managers, and the superintendents, who sit once a 
 quarter in the Clearing House premises, Seymour Street, Euston, London, 
 and in the case of Ireland, in the Clearing House premises, Kildare Street, 
 Dublin. The two latter classes of officers sit in the same week on separate 
 days, the former a few weeks later, to revise and approve the minutes of 
 their proceedings. To be a thoroughly competent assistant manager, 
 then — that is, one who, upon occasion, can take up any of the manager's 
 functions, and fulfil them satisfactorily — requires abilities and qualifications 
 of the same order, and the subordinate office is frequently the stepping 
 stone to the superior. Besides the assistant manager, there is, necessarily, 
 a principal assistant, whose duty is to regulate the office work, distributing 
 it among the members of his staff, and having a general oversight of its 
 performance. This post is usually held by a junior officer of some experi- 
 ence and educational quahfications — one who may be trusted to apprehend 
 clearly and rapidly what is wanted from a few general hints, and who 
 possesses tact, manner, method, and arrangement. He is the manager's 
 right hand, knows everything, hears everything, has a place for every- 
 thing, and is unfailing in readiness and accuracy. The manager's 
 time is constantly occupied, and is, therefore, of great value. People 
 call for him. Some must see him. A clever tactician will readily 
 discern whether they ought to see him, and act accordingly, without 
 giving offence. Directors' meetings for special traffic purposes are 
 sitting, deputations of traders, or of daily travellers, have audience at 
 pre-arranged times, or the manager calls the departmental officers 
 
THE GENERAL MANAGER'S DEPARTMENT. 27 
 
 together in conference. On all these and similar occasions the principal 
 assistant arranges the business, and has all needful papers at hand. In 
 order to be always ready, this officer must have a capable and orderly 
 staff ; but he must know everything himself. He must often be his own 
 index to everything in the office, and that can only be achieved by having 
 " a place for everything, and everything in its place ; '* and by training 
 his juniors to habits of method and orderliness. He should command the 
 respect of those placed under him by the thoroughness of his know- 
 ledge, and will find it lessens his difficulties if he secures their esteem by 
 amiability of temper and disposition. He should add to practical skill 
 in the discharge of his official duties the graces of as broad culture as 
 possible, as the whole tone of the office will probably be influenced by his 
 example. In the hands of a really capable, clever, and amiable man, this 
 important office may be administered with incalculable benefit to a wide 
 circle of the young and the impressionable in the ranks. 
 
 The working staff of the manager's office should be, like the 
 secretary's staff, fairly, if not hberally, educated. They should also, 
 looking to future promotion, be studious in their habits, occupying their 
 leisure in building up and strengthening the fabric of their earlier educa- 
 tion. None of us know too much, even in our present spheres, and we 
 cannot predict what may be required of us, or what tests applied to us 
 in the future when promotion offers. The youth who, on leaving school 
 or college, throws aside his books with a relish, and never looks at them 
 again, will never be anything but a machine, a mechanical clerk, destined 
 to be governed, never to hold the reins. Next to this general culture, 
 this yearning after improvement, every clerk in a general manager's 
 office should be a shorthand writer. The enormous quantity and the 
 quality of the work devolving upon the manager, and upon the principal 
 assistant render it necessary to employ shorthand to save time. The 
 manager frequently dictates important letters and papers in rapid suc- 
 cession to a shorthand clerk for immediate transcription and signature, 
 and the principal assistant would rarely get along without similar aid. 
 In many of the greater services the directors have established classes for 
 instruction in the art, at the company's cost. Where that has not been 
 done, however, earnest lads will be able to help themselves and each 
 other by the use of Mr. Pitman's most excellent books. A neat and 
 swift handwriting, and a taste for making out statements, are also 
 needful quahfications for a desk in the general manager's office ; while a 
 
28 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 fair acquaintance with arithmetic, and, as we have already shown, a dis 
 position towards orderliness and method are indispensable. 
 
 The youngest members of the staff learn to use the copying-press, 
 and are taught how to copy neatly and clearly, and to take double im- 
 pressions. These latter, they learn, are required to complete the regular 
 sequence of correspondence which has to be filed past. They also learn 
 to keep the index and the journal of letters received. In our last 
 chapter we indicated how the index should be kept to be really useful 
 and ready when wanted. The journal is a book in which every letter, 
 every document coming into the office should be entered as received. 
 Opposite each entry in this book — where such a book is kept — is a con- 
 secutive or running number which, with the date, is either stamped or 
 marked upon the document before it is dealt with by the principal as- 
 sistant. Whatever is done with that document, if it leaves the office, is 
 recorded in the journal, and we may say that the careful and accurate 
 keeping of that book saves much time and vexation. We are aware that 
 the practice of the companies varies greatly as to this book — some of 
 them relegating it to the office-keeper's department, and leaving the duty 
 of keeping it for all departments to one person. That system is not, 
 however, so extensively practised as that which .we have described. The 
 reports of accidents on the line, in the workshops, on the station plat- 
 forms, etc., involving loss of, or injury to, life, either of passenger or 
 official, damage to plant or machinery, etc., are sent by the heads of the 
 departments interested to the general manager, who deals with the men 
 who caused them, summarily, if the offence or consequence is trifling, or 
 by submitting the matter, after official investigation, to the directors for 
 their decision. The Board of Trade has suppHed a form for reporting 
 all accidents, of whatever kind, to " the Lords of the Privy Council for 
 Trade," and it is the duty of certain members of the manager's staff to 
 make these reports. In acknowledging receipt of these documents, the 
 Board of Trade intimate having appointed one of their inspectors — 
 naming him — if they think the accident worthy of inquiry, and asking 
 that suitable arrangements may be made for his gaining access to the 
 place, and to the men involved. By the time the Board of Trade issues 
 its report, after this inquiry, the papers on the subject in the manager's 
 office are voluminous, including the reports of the company's own officers, 
 and the correspondence passing between these, and between the Board of 
 Trade and the manager. That correspondence, equally with all other 
 
I 
 
 THE GENERAL MANAGER'S DEPARTMENT. 29 
 
 sets of correspondence and masses of documents, should pass through 
 the index to be easily accessible. In the case of damage to goods in 
 these accidents, the matter of settlement of claims is left with the goods 
 manager ; but where passengers have been injured, the arrangement of 
 compensation questions is by one company left to a special officer, 
 attached to no particular department ; by another to some member of 
 the general manager's staff, while in other cases the secretary or the 
 soUcitor, or assistant secretary, has charge of the arrangements. While 
 the initiative in train arrangements, and the making up of the company's 
 time tables, is taken by the general superintendent and the goods 
 manager, the general manager is, in all changes, consulted, and his 
 sanction has to be obtained before the arrangements can be carried into 
 effect. This, however, devolves no work upon the manager's staff, and we 
 mention it merely as an item of the managerial responsibility. All agree- 
 ments with traders and others emanating from the manager, his prmcipal 
 assistant and staff require to keep these numerous and varied documents 
 carefully arranged and docqueted, if not, indeed, as is most frequently 
 done, posted up in books prepared for the purpose. These are so often 
 wanted for reference that accurate and full indexing is indispensable, and 
 the most painstaking, methodical, and intelligent members of the staff are 
 usually detailed to this duty, and also to the work of seeing that the 
 company's Acts of Parliament are at all times set in order. A young 
 man anxious to become useful will do well to make himself familiar with 
 the special provisions of each Act and its date, and that acquaintance 
 can readily be acquired by a little occasional reading and a few notes. 
 The general manager, with so many constantly changing distractions, 
 cannot be expected to remember every detail ; so that such special 
 knowledge as this must prove a young oflBcer's interest in his work, his 
 aptitude, and his thoughtfulness, and be of incalculable service to his 
 chief. 
 
 Reports are sent to the general manager by the superintendent of 
 the locomotive department from time to time of the depreciation of 
 rolling stock, and the necessity for renewals, repairs, and additions, 
 together with regular statements showing cost of locomotive working, 
 train mileage, &c. ; by the resident engineer of the condition of the 
 line under special weather conditions, such as floods, frosts, snow storms, 
 &c., and calling attention to the need for special powers to meet special 
 emergencies. The general superintendent or the telegraph superintendent 
 
30 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 reports proposed alterations or additions to the block-signalling 
 arrangements, and to the company's telegraph wires. The stores super- 
 intendent complains that the departments cannot use certain material 
 which he has had instructions to order for them. The goods manager 
 reports deviation of traffic by a competing company, and produces a 
 mass of correspodence to prove that the enemy has stolen a surreptitious 
 march. The company's superintendent of horse presents a black list of 
 deaths in the stalls, on the streets, or in the '* convalescent home." 
 Everybody reports to the general manager, whose staff must, if they 
 are equal to their positions, learn to lessen his burthens, and help him to 
 overtake everything by earnest^ intelligent^ prompt, and united action. 
 
 CHAPTEH IV. 
 
 THE GOODS MANAGEE'S DEPARTMENT. 
 
 The goods manager is, facile princeps, the chief traffic manager, for, 
 while railway companies are expected by their obligations to ParHa- 
 ment and the public to provide for the comfortable and safe transit of 
 Her Majesty, Her Majesty's lieges, and the respected " foreigner," every 
 one knows, and those interested in railway property better than any, that 
 goods and mineral traffic pay best, and are, therefore, the chief sources 
 of a company's revenue. They require no first-class accommodation, with 
 warming-pans ; no sleeping and drawing-room saloon cars ; no first-class 
 waiting-rooms ; no elegantly equipped station superintendents ; no expen- 
 sive, illuminated posters, to invite or attract them ; and no flying squadron 
 of ticket collectors to intercept them at unexpected stations with 
 '* Tickets, please ! " Excepting in the case of five stock, which also 
 comes under the goods manager's care, there is no need of " cleaners." 
 Live stock trucks, it is true, require washing out and disinfecting after 
 every trip, as do the cattle pens and sidings, but goods waggons and 
 vans, and mineral trucks, demand no attention except the inspection of 
 wheels, axles, and buffers for the safety of the line. If goods are " soft," 
 
I 
 
 THE GOODS manager's DEPARTMEt«t^^y|PORNC^;^^,^^ 
 
 or seriously damageable by water, they require stowage in covered vans 
 if less susceptible to injury by the elements, they ungrumblingly put up 
 with open waggons, and are content, even in mid-winter, with a water- 
 proof sheet tied over them. They pay fair freights, and yet never 
 complain of travelling in mixed company, and are as well pleased to 
 make a long journey among straw or sawdust as if they had lain upon 
 handsome Brussels rugs, with the company's crest or initials wrought 
 into them. And, lastly, it seldom matters, except in the case of ill- 
 natured, short-grained castings, whether the buffers are " dead " or 
 " spring," whether the couplings are tight or loose, or the bearing- 
 springs easy or rigid. The traffic, as a rule, comes out at the end of the 
 journey looking marvellously fresh — much fresher, indeed, than the man 
 who consigned the merchandise would be likely to appear after a similar 
 amount of travel under circumstances so much more costly to the carrying 
 company. All this is to say that, earning in many cases — nay, indeed, 
 in nearly all — more revenue, at infinitely less cost, the goods and mineral 
 traffic is the most important to the carriers, and, therefore, the first in 
 value to the companies. 
 
 Unlike the general manager, the goods manager is purely an 
 administrator. Eeceiving instructions from the general manager, or 
 direct from the board, he sets all the machinery of his department moving 
 to perform their behests. We have said there were, at the initiation of 
 railways, pioneers, who had to form their own precedents and to invent 
 their own machinery. The systems they inaugurated have done splendid 
 service, and there still are traces of these in the modus operandi of modern 
 management. 
 
 The half century of railway life which has passed since steam loco- 
 motion became a fact has, however, created new wants, laid bare the 
 defects and deficiencies of original methods, and offered scope for the 
 thoughtful teaching of experience, of which ample advantage has been 
 taken. The mantle of the pioneers has fallen upon the shoulders of 
 capable men who have benefited by experience, and who have been 
 founding a college of instruction in railway science most invalaable to 
 their young successors. The present generation of goods managers has 
 almost entirely graduated in this school, and its constituent members are, 
 all unconsciously, the professors of a later school. Their assistants, of 
 all grades, are silently but effectively catching inspiration and deducing 
 lessons from their conduct of affairs ; and thus, year by year, the solid 
 
32 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 fabric of a noble public institution is growing towards greater usefulness 
 and higher perfection. These remarks apply to all departments of the 
 service, but they seem to us specially appropriate when considering 
 the goods manager and his office. 
 
 In administering his office as chief of the goods, mineral, and live 
 stock departments, the goods manager, it will readily be understood, has 
 heavy responsibility. It is true, he must be, and is, assisted by a staff of 
 junior officers with sectional oversight, but that very division and sub- 
 division of responsibility increases his own — for that is always best done 
 which we do ourselves. This feeling of anxiety as to everything being 
 done as he wishes, together with the constant reference to hun for advice 
 or instruction in difficulty, and the hindrance to exhaustive consideration 
 of the various subjects with which he must deal personally, are a serious 
 strain upon the physical power of the man. He had, therefore, needs 
 begin with robust health and temperate habits. If he adds to these those 
 other almost indispensable gifts, activity and energy, much of the worry 
 which wears out the nervous system will be avoided, as work disappears 
 rapidly before both, and bores and stupids learn to respect his estimate 
 of the value of time. It is amazing how little provocation some people 
 require to induce them to intrude upon a busy man's time, and how diffi- 
 cult it is to awaken them to a sense of then: thoughtlessness. We have 
 known men of the rarest sweetness of disposition tried most severely in 
 this way, and Jiave admired the grace of manner with which their tor- 
 mentors have been received; but we have frequently thought that a little 
 wholesome gruffness would have prevented repetition of the offence. 
 There can be no doubt, however, that a kindly, courteous, and amiable 
 temperament illuminates intellectual gifts, and elevates its possessor 
 supremely above his fellows. In railway work of any kmd it is extremely 
 difficult to cultivate this ; but it is always desirable to aim at it. Among 
 personal qualifications for the high office of goods manager, one of the 
 chief is that of a good address. He has to urge his views upon the 
 acceptance of the board, or to defend his administration before them, to 
 explain his company's poMcy with reticent caution at conferences, to 
 excuse his company to angry traders in cases of neglect of their wishes, 
 or when compelled to say " no " to their demands ; possibly all the while 
 conscious of offending either, or all. Clear views, fulness of knowledge, 
 quickness of perception and apprehension, and the activity and energy ta 
 which we have alluded, are the characteristics of the best of our goods 
 
THE GOODS manager's DEPARTMENT. 33 
 
 managers. Some of these are gifts, and may not be bought, in their 
 highest excellence, by practice or experience. We think, however, that 
 much headway in all may be made by even dull men, willing to attain to 
 the highest perfection, and — trying. 
 
 These observations are directed to the foundations of the intellectual 
 character of the man, according to our estimate of his needful culture, 
 and he who possesses these, in any degree, will easily overcome all other 
 difficulties of his office. That is to say, such a man may have been 
 trained for his profession in any of the services, and his knowledge of 
 details may be local to the particular system or line of railway on which 
 he graduated. He may have spent many years in his first school, and 
 its system may seem to colour his forms of thought — for there is infinite 
 variety in the unity of the modes of workmg out in detail among the 
 companies — yet, if he is transplanted from one company's service to 
 another, he readily masters the little geographical differences. To serve 
 a high railway office after this fashion, and with such capacities is to bend 
 the faculties to the will, and is an important factor in that culture after 
 which we should like to see our youth striving. It is the distinguishing 
 glory of our profession, among all but the most learned — and, indeed, it 
 is little if anything behind these — ^that the greatest rank is not to be 
 deservedly attained in it without the cultivation of the highest intellectual 
 gifts. Comprehensiveness, clearness, readiness, discrimination, decision, 
 and firmness— the capacity of thought^ concentrative, yet easily diverted, 
 without loss of concentration, to a thousand and one grave responsi- 
 bihties. If a young man enters the service with the full knowledge of 
 such lofty purpose and possibility in his career, he will only require 
 opportunity., and even if opportunity comes not, or arrives too late for 
 long enjoyment, he, will have his reward in a higher enjoyment of what 
 he has. 
 
 An essential to good management is a full and accurate knowledge 
 of the geographical position of the particular company's lines and 
 branches, with a fair acquaintance with those of neighbouring and 
 competing companies. Allied to this, there should be a careful study 
 of the products of each district, its mineral, agricultural, and manu- 
 facturing wealth, and the markets for these : also some attention to the 
 needs of the population hving in the districts served by the lines, and the 
 sources of their supply, will be found useful. Whenever opportunity 
 offers, the same kind of study of a neighbouring company's territory, its 
 
 I 
 
34: OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 possibilities and requirements, should prove beneficial, because, apart 
 from aggressive or competing measures which such knowledge may 
 foster, each company may be helpful to the other in fair barter of traffic. 
 Next to an acquaintance with the districts over which he rules, the goods 
 manager must possess some knowledge of the various classes and scales 
 of rates scheduled in his company's special Acts of Parliament, without 
 which he would not be able to encourage trade over his lines. In these- 
 Acts Parhament gives the company certain powers to levy tolls upon 
 all kinds of traffic, classifying it, and restricting the company to a 
 maximum rate in each class. In fixing these rates Parliament had in view 
 the cost of working the traffic ; and it is not often that the maximum rate- 
 in any class is found unremunerative. Indeed, we may say that perhaps 
 none would be more blameworthy in such an event than the company 
 themselves, since the various rates scheduled are their own figures, or at 
 least agreed to by them in pressing for their bill. It is not always expe- 
 dient, even where there is no competition, to charge the maximum rate ; 
 and, when competition steps in to share the chances of the traffic, it is 
 often found necessary to reduce an already existing rate. Rates are also 
 frequently modified to encourage a larger traffic, or because a large traffic, 
 like a large wholesale order, demands a wholesale rate. The goods 
 manager must know something of the cost of working — what it takes to 
 make locomotive, waggon, and waggon-cover earn their right to exist. 
 With such data, and a consideration of the mileage and the work: 
 required in handling the goods at each end of the journey, he is in a 
 position to say how much less than the highest rate allowed he may fix 
 with a fair profit to the company, and a hope of encouraging traffic. 
 So far as purely local traffic — that is traffic passing from one station to 
 another of the same company's territory — so long as neither station is in 
 a town in which a neighbouring company has a footing — is concerned, 
 the goods manager is his own arbiter — within the limits of his company's 
 powers. If, however, the traffic is to pass to a town common to two or 
 more companies, although it is sent from one to another station of the 
 same company's system, the rate asked for can only be adopted on all 
 the companies interested agreeing; the company taking the initiative 
 completing the arrangements for the formal adoption and issue of the 
 "rate. In such cases — as in all matters affecting the interests of more 
 than his own company — the goods manager has an excellent guide in 
 the " Clearing House Eegulations," a httle book published annually b^ 
 
THE GOODS manager's department. 35 
 
 that most wonderful product of the railway system, the "Railway 
 Clearing House." That little manual, every year growing more bulky, 
 contains the essence of all he ought to know with regard to the inter- 
 change of traffic and the rights of competition ; and it is essential that 
 he should be master of its leading principles — his assistants, in their 
 several departments, will keep him right on points of detail. 
 
 In virtue of his office this gentleman is a member of the Goods 
 Managers' Conference, which sits in London, in the Clearing House 
 premises, periodically, for the discussion of all questions affecting the 
 general railway traffic of the country, England and Scotland are 
 represented in the institution in Seymour Street, London, while Irish 
 business is transacted — as we have already indicated — after the same, or 
 a nearly similar form, at the Irish Railway Clearing House in Kildare 
 Street, Dublin. In the intervals of the meetings negotiations as to 
 alterations in rates may be carried on with the companies interested. 
 Prior to each meeting the companies supply the Clearing House with a 
 list of subjects which they propose to submit for discussion, and,' in 
 return, the goods managers are furnished with a printed copy of the 
 agenda, or hst of subjects to be brought before the meeting by the 
 various companies, with the names of the proposers attached, so that 
 each knows his neighbours' proposals, and goes up prepared to discuss 
 them. This necessity for attending the periodical meetings tests the 
 quality and fibre of the man; and, according as he conducts his 
 business, in urging the acceptance of his own suggestions, or criticising 
 those of others, he makes or mars his legislative^ his only legislative, 
 reputation. He is also, in virtue of his office, liable to be appointed 
 upon the Claims Arbitration Committee, which sits in the same premises, 
 and is in session m the same week. This committee decides in all 
 disputed claims between the companies interested, and also in cases of 
 claims paid in alleged infringement of Clearing House rule, to make 
 favour with traders in the hope of securing traffic from a competing 
 route. The decision of the conference and committee are final and 
 binding after they have passed the revising tribunals of the General 
 Managers' Conference, the Clearing House Committee — consisting of 
 delegates from the various boards — and has received the approval of 
 those boards. 
 
 Some skill in arranging trains, and in the distribution of plant, is 
 also called for in a model goods manager, although, so far as the latter 
 
36 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 is concerned, most of the companies have a responsible officer detailed to 
 the duty, who has a quasi independent position, always, of course, subject 
 to the command of the goods manager, who alone can know where plant, 
 either goods, mineral, or live-stock, is most in demand. If not indispens- 
 able, it is a material advantage to the goods manager to have some 
 slight general knowledge of manufactured goods, as he will then be in a 
 position to judge of the fairness of claims made for their value when 
 damaged — a most important function to exercise. This knowledge, Mke 
 much else which an energetic man accumulates in his path through life, may 
 be acquired by habits of observation, and the constant use of the faculty 
 which is ceaselessly inquiring. We do not promise that by such a 
 process he can become a merchant or manvfacturer ; but we do say that 
 he will learn as much of many articles of manufacture, many products of 
 the loom, as will often enable him to put the manufacturer to rout in 
 cross-examination. He should have same practical experience of 
 accounts, in order to be able to see clearly and rapidly where it is 
 needful to call the special attention of the traffic auditor, or audit 
 accountant, to the examination of station accounts. And it is almost 
 an indispensable characteristic of the goods manager that he should 
 have the faculty of discerning character; without this he cannot well 
 trust himself in the selection of his staff. 
 
 If the picture we have drawn be a fair one — and we leave it to our 
 more advanced readers to say whether they cannot apply the leading 
 features to men of their acquaintance in the railway service — may we 
 not proudly hold the portrait before the eyes of our young friends as 
 examples of what they may become by efficient study, and as incitements 
 to the attainment of such possible capacity? He who aims at the moon 
 may shoot one of the stars. 
 
 A goods manager, be he ever so capable, is like a great general 
 without a well-selected and well-appointed staff, if he is not flanked by 
 capable assistants. And every able man will feel his ability increased 
 rather than lessened by the consciousness of having a l)ody-guard of young 
 officers of education and attainments at his command on every occasion. 
 He must have some one particular assistant, who is ready and able to 
 take his place in his frequent absence. If such an officer is carefully 
 selected, he will manifest most of the quahfications of his chief, in being 
 conversant with the wants of the traffic on the line, and the best means 
 of fostering it. He will have good address, be at home among the 
 
THE GOODS manager's department. 37 
 
 Clearing House rules, will be *' guide, philosopher, and friend " of the 
 subordinate heads of departments in all matters of difiBculty, and have 
 discretion enough to know when to yield a point for policy-sake. Having 
 the office staff under control, and the responsibility of the official ma- 
 chinery working smoothly resting upon him, he will discover in his 
 management, the happy blending of firmness with suavity, of " justice 
 tempered with mercy." He will be a good correspondent, a man of 
 rapidity of thought, and of decision of character, be methodical in habit, 
 and a good supervisor and administrator. With respect to the staff of 
 the goods manager's office, there is probably as great diversity in the 
 mode of distribution of the work as in the style of its performance among 
 the companies. We can only indicate, therefore, such general features 
 as are common to all. "Rates " and "general correspondence" are the 
 principal divisions, the latter including everything not comprised in the 
 former. The head of each of these divisions should be a capable admini- 
 strator, and he should chiefly be a specialist in all that concerns his own 
 department most particularly. The really efficient chief-rates clerk knows 
 his company's parhamentary limits and obligations, and those also im- 
 posed by the Clearing House ; and if a new rate is wanted, or a modifi- 
 cation of an old one is desired, he is the man to apply to. His books 
 would form a fair library in the number of the volumes, but they would 
 be liable to be neglected by the " general reader." The constant changes 
 to which rates are subject, and the enormous variety of them, must render 
 it, even to him who has to do with these changes, an almost perplexing 
 puzzle to say which is the correct rate in any case. How much mere 
 perplexing must quotation of one, in answer to the inquiry of a trader, 
 be to the ijovice ! Changes are not merely numerous, they are in some 
 instances frequent, and unless every one of them is carefully engrossed, 
 quotation is difficult, and reference to the book unsatisfactory. That 
 there should be anything unsatisfactory about the matter may be due to 
 want of care on the part of the chief clerk in arranging the rate, or in 
 issuing instructions to his assistants. It is most frequently due to care- 
 lessness or want of method in the assistants. In any case it may lead to 
 confusion among the stations, and to infinite trouble with the traders. In 
 this matter of rates the goods manager must depend upon the head of 
 the department, who should know the line and its connections, and have 
 some knowledge of its general traffic. This departmental head should 
 also be conversant with the classification of goods — a kind of information 
 
88 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 supplied in a handy form by the Clearing House. Furnished with such 
 important data as this, together with that familiarity with the company's 
 special powers to which we have referred, he is in a position to quote 
 new rates where traffic is being developed, or to modify old where these 
 have proved prohibitory, and he will, wisely, be allowed a large discretion 
 in this, so far as purely local traffic is concerned, and often in the case of 
 foreign traffic also if he is judged to be capable. Where two or more 
 companies are concerned in the quotation of a new, or in the alteration 
 of an old rate, it will be his duty to correspond with the interested 
 companies for their sanction. If these companies and the special traffic 
 are amenable to Clearing House rule, and the rate is to be recorded on 
 the Clearing House minutes, it will be necessary for the company pro- 
 posing the change to report the agreement between the engaging companies 
 to the Clearing House for record. If, however, the traffic is local to a 
 company, but that company's neighbours have a right to acquiesce or 
 object to an alteration as being competitors for the traffic, the company 
 proposing the change need only receive the sanction of those companies 
 to the adoption of the change. If the man in charge of such negotia- 
 tions is of the right fibre, he may, as we have said, be safely left to carry 
 out these arrangements without reference to the manager. Of course 
 there are constantly arising great crucial questions between competitive 
 companies, involving much more than the single quotation upon which 
 such issues are raised. Then the manager conducts the discussion at 
 the Managers' Conference as council, his rates clerk attending as agent, 
 and advising. In all cases the manager attends the quarterly meetings 
 at the Clearing House, when he can, in person ; sometimes he is prompted 
 and assisted by his heutenant, the rates clerk, and sometimes that invalu- 
 able assistant attends for him. When a rate is arranged, the first duty 
 is to engross it in the goods manager's book, and, from that, to issue it 
 to all stations concerned. That duty must be left to junior assistants, 
 and, as we have said, it is most important that none but careful lads 
 should be entrusted with it. The amount of correspondence involved in 
 the arrangement of rates is enormous, and, although it is often of a 
 formal and stereotyped character, its very voluminousness must tax the 
 energy and capacity of all concerned. There is not merely the quantity 
 of penmanship to be got through ; there is, previously, for the informa- 
 tion of the clerk in charge, a certain amount of information to be collected 
 from the books as to existing rates, for that or some similar class of 
 
THE GOODS manager's DEPARTMENT. 39 
 
 goods, or for that of some adjacent place, with consultation as to the 
 proper group of stations, with which the stations in question should be 
 classed. All this occupies time, and it is no uncommon occurrence that 
 men and lads, who have been straining every nerve to keep pace with 
 the hours during the day, should, by force of such pressure of enquiry 
 and investigation into a basketful of cases, be compelled to work late at 
 night — nearly every night — to overtake the comparatively manual labour 
 of writing the letters involved ! Moreover, who is unfamiliar with the 
 well-worn despatch-bag which the chief clerk of the rates department 
 carries home full of papers which he has had no leisure to digest during 
 the day, and brings back with him in the morning, the papers all dog- 
 eared, with shorthand jottings for his assistants ? But for shorthand, it 
 would be impossible now-a-days to get through the mass of correspon- 
 dence. By its means the goods manager dictates, and, almost immediately, 
 signs the most important letters ; and the hard-working and almost 
 overpowered heads of departments indicate in a few slight strokes of the 
 pencil, for one and another of the staff, the gist of the reply each may 
 make, after his own manner, to this and that letter from the pile. 
 
 In the question of the value of shorthand in saving time where that 
 is so precious, the department of "general correspondence" may be 
 readily understood to be equally interested. Here, also, the head is the 
 almost hourly recipient of such heaps of letters, reports, &c., upon such 
 a variety of subjects as the uninitiated have no conception of — claims, 
 complaints, reports, and returns, of so heterogeneous a character as, if 
 catalogued, would weary the reader. Among these the claims bulk most 
 largely in quantity, and demand a single word of notice. They are made 
 for loss, or damage, or delay, and are founded on any or every pretext. 
 The sender makes claim, or the receiver makes it. The claims clerk 
 often having a separate responsibility from that of the "general" 
 department, has a staff of his own. He has to get at the particulars of 
 entry and the stations' report of affairs. This his assistants do. If the 
 damage is clearly traceable to his company the claim has to be 
 admitted, and the only question is then the fair amount chargeable. 
 If it is not so clearly traceable to his company, the claims clerk reports 
 the claim to the connecting companies in the linked transit of the 
 goods, and thereafter ensues a correspondence, which occupies time 
 and delays settlement, to the disappointment and impatience of the 
 •claimant, who, not understanding the causes of delay, and declaring he 
 
40 OUR RAILAVAY SYSTEM. 
 
 has nothing to do with the dispute between the companies, not un- 
 frequently drags the company nearest him into court and gains his case. 
 Then comes an appeal to the " Claims Arbitration Committee " of the 
 Clearing House, which is prepared by the company compelled to pay, 
 and, as we have said, that committee's decision is final. The claims clerk 
 has usually a staff of inspectors of goods damaged in transit, who, in 
 time, come to be very fair assessors of values, and are a most invaluable 
 adjunct of this arm of the goods manager's corps. The head of 
 the "general correspondence" department has supervision of stations, 
 in their accounting, so far as goods traffic is concerned, and in the 
 carrying out of instructions as to special traffic agreements and arrange- 
 ments. He is expected to arrange the changes of goods train runnings, 
 to have charge of goods guards and inspectors, to look to the working 
 of the goods trains, the causes of decrease of traffic, if any, to receive 
 canvassers' reports, and prepare the results for the goods manager's 
 consideration, to keep the staff book, and to check the pay-bills ; and, 
 generally, to look after everything which affects the working of the 
 goods traffic. Not unfrequently, in the case of companies having very 
 wide districts, with divided roanagement or superintendence, there is a 
 periodical meeting of district goods managers or superintendents, and 
 the head of the "general" department is often the clerk of the periodical 
 conferences, calling the meetings, and keeping minutes of the pro- 
 ceedings. The work which he has to perform is multifarious and 
 onerous, and he and his staff must be intelHgent, energetic, and efficient. 
 In such a department as that of the goods manager, with so much 
 responsibihty and such various duty, a splendid field is open, and a 
 young man entering upon such service has an honourable, if not learned, 
 profession before him, the rewards of which are as fair as in any walk 
 in life. 
 
THE GENERAL SUPERINTENDENT'S DEPARTMENT. 41 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE GENERAL SUPERINTENDENT'S DEPARTMENT. 
 
 The office of general sujjerintendent, or superintendent of the line as 
 it is variously styled, is one of the most responsible in the gift of a 
 board of directors. He has the most expensive plant under his charge, 
 and the lives of the travelling pubhc in his control. Even when sur- 
 rounded by highly competent assistants, a conscientious man in adminis- 
 tering that high office must feel an ever-present dread of possible cata- 
 strophe from a thousand and one causes. It may seem a simple matter 
 to the man who looks at a time-table that, even in the case of the most 
 complicated systems, those who have been trained to the work should be 
 able to construct one, and so, no doubt, it is ; but when that has been 
 most carefully arranged and due margin has been left for contingency, 
 active though not nominal responsibility passes from the officers to 
 the working staff — stationm asters, conductors, guards, engine-drivers, 
 stokers, pointsmen, signalmen, crossing-keepers, goods and mineral 
 drivers, and brakesmen, workmen in charge of the permanent way — 
 everyone of these has the power of stultifying the most perfect arrange- 
 ments for working over the line, and rendering them abortive, if not 
 disastrous. Shakspeare represents Henry lY. as exclaiming in his dis- 
 tress, " Uneasy hes the head that wears a crown." There are few of our 
 general superintendents who are free from a similiar uneasiness, though 
 the crown they wear be but the bays they earn for their capacity. How 
 many of them can leave the cares of office locked up in their bureaux 
 when they retire to the quiet of then- firesides, and the merry prattle of 
 their children's voices ? Does not every ring of the door-bell suggest 
 possible calamity, and a call to scenes of dire disaster ? Who among 
 them can avoid the thought, as he lies down to well-earned sleep, that 
 the midnight mail train, whose progress from point to point has been so 
 carefully calculated, or the express goods train, whose shunts to clear 
 
42 OTTR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 the line for its more rapid neighbour have been arranged so accurately, 
 may not to-night, from some slight overlook, one thoughtless act, one 
 moment's want of watchfulness, plunge unsuspecting souls into instant 
 and irrevocable death ? This dreadful thought, we say, must sometimes 
 visit the most able and conscientious of our superintendents ; and, visiting 
 them amid the happy influences of home, will doubtless imbue them with 
 a finer sensibility to the dangers to which the splendid fellows who plunge 
 through midnight darkness, flashing past myriad unseen risks, on engine 
 foot-plates, or in luggage-piled brake-vans, are subject, and will help to 
 produce that fine esprit de corps between officer and servant which should 
 always subsist in the service, and by means of which the best work will 
 certainly be done. 
 
 The general superintendent is responsible, as we have said, for the safe 
 conduct of all traffic on the hne. He drafts the time table — goods and 
 mineral trains being arranged subject to his approval ; he compiles the 
 book of " rules and regulations " for the working of the traffic ; has the 
 charge of, and supreme control over stationmasters, porters, pointsmen, 
 signalmen, crossing-keepers, and guards, and, with the exception of a 
 very few of the higher class of stationmasters, he has, most generally, 
 the appointment of the whole staff of his department. On some of the 
 more important hues he has district officers with delegated powers, and 
 is then relieved of much of the detail of the work ; but on all lines he is 
 the undisputed chief administrator over the hne staff. To his office every- 
 body reports upon everything. He must be fully informed of all that 
 transpires in working the line. Guards send in their train journals, 
 stationmasters their complaints, and their reports upon casualties of all 
 kinds, and upon claims made for detention or loss, together with sugges- 
 tions as to train arrangements, increase of accommodation, &c. Inspectors 
 report the result of investigation into the complaints we have just re- 
 ferred to, of their inspection of signal boxes, and the working of signals, 
 points, &c. ; of the working of trains, and especially of the manipulation 
 of excursion and other extraordinary traffic. The company's pohce ap- 
 prise him of their movements for the detection and punishment of offenders 
 against the letter of the eighth commandment and of the company's bye- 
 laws. The audit office advises of all cases of incapacity or carelessness 
 in the keeping of station accounts, or the result of special investigation, 
 where fraud or default is suspected or discovered. The telegraph brings 
 the first faint echo of breakdown, collision, or other obstrnction of the 
 
THE GENERAL SUPERINTENDENTS DEPARTMENT. 43 
 
 line, and the post or next mail train bears confirmation, and gives form 
 and substance to the report by fulness of detail. The uninitiated can form 
 no fair conception of the quantity of sheets of writing paper, foolscap, 
 tea paper — the latter used by guards in writing up their train journals, 
 and by inspectors, pointsmen, signalmen, and often stationmasters — all 
 this necessary reporting to the superintendent's office implies, or, of its 
 huUc^ when it all lies open upon his assistant's desk for distribution, 
 morning, noon, and rosy afternoon, as it comes in by every train. Its 
 bulk, and often its greatest troublesomeness, is mightily increased by the 
 necessary correspondence with other companies. Indeed, so great is the 
 volume of this delivery of paper, all day and every day, at the Superin- 
 tendent's office, that it almost invariably falls to the duty of one member 
 of the staff to divide it among the departments as it comes in, each 
 department having a distinctive mark as a reference. While routine is 
 carried forward in the departments without reference to the superin- 
 tendent direct, there are always a great many subjects with which the 
 superintendent alone can deal. In the course of the day, therefore, apart 
 irom the necessary consultation with general manager, goods manager, 
 locomotive superintendent, engineer, secretary, or solicitor, the general 
 superintendent has frequently more than enough to occupy him in deahng 
 with specially knotty questions. He can usually keep a confidential short- 
 hand clerk writing constantly to dictation ; his grasp of subjects, each of 
 which is diverse, being, in the case of really capable men, perfected by the 
 habit of concentration of thought and attention upon what is immediately 
 'present. If he travels he cannot leave this ever-pressing correspondence 
 behind him, or his deputy, with limited authority, is in difficulty as to 
 what to do with it. He therefore often carries his shorthand clerk and 
 his papers and note-books with him on his journeys, and, while fellow- 
 travellers are conning the day's news, skimming the latest novel, or 
 comfortably napping in a corner, this busy officer is reading, and pondering, 
 and dictating, while the clerk is practising the difficult art of writing 
 legible shorthand in an express train at full speed. So thoroughly 
 -hemmed in is the superintendent with walls of reports and endless corres- 
 pondence, and so constantly interrupted when busiest by an inquiring 
 public, that we can scarcely wonder if he seeks his holiday recreation — 
 short-lived and unfrequent as it too often is— among Scottish, Irish, or 
 Welsh mountain solitudes, where post, carrier, news5ia»5^^Bi^fel6gi:a,gh 
 boy are alike unknown. 
 
44: OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 The general superintendent must be often from home visiting his 
 stations. Notwithstanding his staff of intelhgent and active inspectors, ever 
 at his disposal to get at the whole facts of a difficult case, and the fulness 
 of detail of reports prepared for him, a conscientious and energetic 
 superintendent will feel the moral advantage of station visiting. He will feel 
 that if this duty is performed in a kindly spirit his visits will be regarded 
 as comphmentary to the stationmaster's skill in management, or his care 
 and orderliness in his arrangements. If station discipline is harsh, he 
 hears of it, and can reduce chaotic elements to at least comparative 
 harmony. If disciphne is loose, he cannot fail to see it, and his periodical 
 or incidental visits will prove to be beneficial checks. An observant 
 officer will always travel with his eyes and ears open, and will often learn 
 more in the course of a single glance along a platform while his train halts, 
 or in a casual remark among fellow-passengers, of the character of the 
 service given to the public, than he could ever hope to glean from reams 
 of correspondence. By the exercise of this same faculty of observation 
 he will also satisfy himself as to whether due prominence, in the most 
 accessible places, is given to the company's time bills, and whether the 
 latest are duly posted. He will often find it necessary to make incidental 
 halts at stations for personal investigation of causes of complaint— the 
 pubhc versiLs the stationmaster, or the stationmaster versus some member 
 of his staff — in cases where the statements made in writing to the office 
 are conflicting. In addition to these he always holds a court of inquiry 
 on the spot into the causes of accidents or casualties. These inquiiies 
 are usually made with the assistance and co-operation of the locomotive 
 superintendent, and the permanent way engineer, and in certain cases the 
 goods manager and mineral superintendent lend the aid of their counsels. 
 The results of such inquiries are usually reported to the general manager, 
 and are private and confidential. There is besides, however, a class of 
 accidents into which the Board of Trade order investigation, and their 
 inspector is sent down for that purpose. The superintendent has, on such 
 occasions, to accompany the inspector to the scene, and to produce all who 
 were in any way concerned in the accident, or who can throw any clear 
 fight upon its causes. 
 
 Subject to the approval of the general manager, the superintendent 
 arranges all train runnings, both as to speed and stoppage, their working 
 from main to branch fines, and vice versa, the goods manager conferring 
 with and advising him as to goods and mineral train changes. He 
 
THE GENERAL SUPERINTENDENT'S DEPARTMENT. 45 
 
 compiles the time tables and posters, and has charge of their distribution 
 among the staff and the companies, and where through booking and con- 
 tinuous train-working with competitors, or more friendly companies, 
 exists, he must consider and consult these before fixing hours of arrival 
 or departure. He has, further, the arrangement of rates and fares, pre- 
 cisely the same rules guiding him to which we made reference in treating 
 of the goods manager. For purely local traffic his company's special 
 Acts alone limit his powers; but, wherever other companies are interested, 
 they have to be consulted, and the Clearing House sanction to be obtained. 
 On some of the more extensive systems there is, as we have already said, 
 an officer, comparatively independent, to whom the distribution of car- 
 riage plant is entrusted ; but the duty is frequently left to the superin- 
 tendent. Where the latter is the practice the work he has to oversee is 
 greatly increased. 
 
 The general superintendent is a member of the superintendents' 
 conference which sits periodically in the Clearing House, in London or 
 Dublin, as the case may be. He has his company's vote on all questions 
 under discussion. As a rule he goes up to these conferences unattended; 
 but, in his absence, he is represented by an assistant, usually his chief 
 rates and fares clerk. When questions of detail on a large scale arise, 
 such as the alteration of groups of stations, there is generally a meeting 
 of these chief rates clerks summoned for the Clearing House Rooms, or 
 some other convenient centre, and the details fully and freely discussed 
 and minuted for the next superintendents' conference, where further dis- 
 cussion ensues and a decision is taken. At the conference meetings the 
 superintendent exercises his sole legislative function. 
 
 This is, mayhap, a rapid and incomplete sketch of the general 
 superintendent ; but who shall peruse it and ponder the variety of the work 
 he has to supermtend, and its engrossing responsibility, and not feel that 
 the office cannot be held efficiently by a man without wit and culture, 
 who is also accustomed to be firm, with sauvity? The control of such 
 an army, with its linked inter-dependence, implies the need of much and 
 competent assistance. Accordingly a general superintendent's office will 
 be found to embrace, as a rule, a duly qualified deputy, and such a variety 
 of departmental clerks as there are important functions to be performed 
 by the chief. And, firstly, let us glance at the office of deputy — he is 
 often only chief clerk. Being in charge of an office into which reports 
 and correspondence pour incessantly, he must be a man of energy, 
 
46 OUK RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 physical and mental, ready in resource, quick to apprehend, with force of 
 character to enable him to decide promptly, and that ripe information 
 which is needed to prevent that ^'repentance at leisure" which sometimes 
 follows hasty decision. He is the administrator in the office, and must be 
 apt in his administration — like his chief, gaining respect for his exercise 
 of authority by its simple justice and its manifest humanity. He will 
 often require to decide upon questions outside the office, to arbitrate in 
 difficulties along the line, and that upon written information. He has 
 reputation at stake in these cases also, and a good and true man will 
 seek to do his duty in that on the strictest principles of justice without 
 fear or favouritism. There is a high function to be fulfilled by all in 
 authority, in this respect, which lies at the very root of all wholesome 
 management. The stern rebuke of a really just and humane man tells 
 with infinite force on all dispositions. The deputy must be a skilful dis- 
 ciplinarian, with this in view, for he has a large staff under his control, 
 and efficient service will be won or lost according as he has tact, or wants 
 it. He must be conversant with all the details of office work to be able 
 to advise and instruct. Next to these high quahfications, he ought to 
 be fairly cultured, and possessed of some native parts ; as he should give 
 tone and style to the correspondence issuing from the office, sending back 
 for correction or re-writing, whatever is offensive to good taste. It may 
 be urged that in a correspondence so voluminous it is idle to look for the 
 graces of style and the higher courtesies ; but we maintain that to the 
 cultured it is as easy to be gracious as to the uncultured it is to be boorish ; 
 and we are desirous of holding up this view to the rising generation all 
 the more that this is an age of cheap and effective intellectual drill. If 
 the deputy is a man of the right stamp, he will know how to meet the 
 pubhc when they come with complaints, or to make inquiry. Some 
 knowledge of what is needed in the construction of time-tables, and the 
 arrangement of special trains, is indispensable, and also an acquaintance 
 with the principles on which rates and fares are calculated. He should 
 also keep a look-out upon the department having oversight of the running 
 of trains, so that he may direct attention to the improvement of some, 
 and suggest the discontinuance of others. His capacity as deputy will be 
 best illustrated in relieving his chief of all matters with which he can 
 honestly and rightly deal, and in drawing up sufficiently succinct precis of 
 everything upon which the superintendent's opmion and instructions may 
 be necessary to be taken. It should be his province so to manage that 
 
THE GENERAL SUPERINTENDENT'S DEPARTMENT. 47 
 
 the superintendent shall have time to devote to the more active duties of 
 his oflSce ; and, if he is a really competent lieutenant, he should have 
 plenary powers. The chief rates clerk, for the due discharge of his office, 
 should be well read in the geography of the railway system, and have an 
 accurate knowledge of his company's powers, and of the Clearing House 
 rules. He will be supplied with the Clearing House minutes from time to 
 time, the details of which it will be his business to master, while he will 
 find it advantageous to inform himself of the terms of agreement between 
 his company and its competing neighbours. His books should always be 
 kept so closely up, by the careful and prompt posting up of changes, that 
 " he may read who runs." Indeed, in all railway offices no rule is more 
 wholesome than this. The claims clerk should be chosen for a judicial 
 quahty of mind, not one who would too readily yield and pay, but one 
 who, seeing that difficulties increase, by preventible delay, should have- 
 prescience to yield ere it be too late to effect compromise. The work in 
 this department is not surrounded with such difficulties as in the goods 
 department. It is, however, sufficiently onerous to call for skilful manipu- 
 lation. The most serious of all claims in the passenger superintendent's 
 hands are those made for compensation for personal injury. The tim& 
 table department is a most important division of the superintendent's 
 office work. The superintendent or his deputy indicates that certain trains- 
 are to come off or to be put on. Trains go in pairs, one up and one 
 down, each corresponding with the other. If an up train is discovered to 
 be running unremuneratively, it cannot be interfered with unless a down 
 train can be dispensed with also, as the engines and carriages must return. 
 It is accordingly no easy task so to arrange that the maximum of work 
 may be got out of the engine and carriages with the minimum of work- 
 ing expense. That, however, must enter into the calculation of the 
 superintendent and of his time table clerk. When the weather or time of 
 year are not offering inducements to travellers, traffic by passenger trains 
 is light. These purely temporary incidents cannot, however, be allowed 
 to affect the efficiency of a good staff of guards, whose services will sooa 
 again be in full requisition. So, when trains are discontinued for a time, 
 these men are drafted off to some other duty, to be ready, at call, to 
 assume their old pla,ces. In the matter of merely changing the times of 
 departure and arrival of trains the superintendent simply indicates the 
 leading times, and leaves the passing and stopping times to be calculated 
 by the time-table clerk. The duty of finishing and printing these fresh 
 
48 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 monthly or incidental time tables is very onerous, the safety of the line 
 being dependent upon their accuracy. The severest critics of the time 
 tables are the drivers and guards — whose experience of running is so 
 thoroughly practical. If the alteration ordered or contemplated meets 
 with their approval it may be said that its success is ensured. The time 
 table department has also the preparation of time tables for all special 
 traffic, special goods, mineral, and passenger trains, and in the case of all 
 such, separate slips have to be issued 'Ho all concerned." "When the Hne 
 is under repair at any point, and single line has to be worked, special slip 
 notices are printed and distributed to all engaged in working traffic over 
 the section, informing them of the special regulations, made. The issue 
 of time tables and posters is a very important matter, and involves much 
 experience, tact, and care. The chief companies, besides serving copies 
 upon every man concerned — even the platelayers requiring to be supphed 
 — are in the habit of sending them out to all hotels in the country, to 
 steamship proprietors, and also to each other. The chief clerk of such a 
 department must, therefore, be a painstaking, careful man — methodical in 
 habit— and his assistants equally so. The men upon whom devolves the 
 work of examining the train journals as they are deUvered — and guards 
 and brakesmen are expected to make these out and dehver them as soon 
 after they reach the end of each double journey as possible—must also be 
 careful and smart. The chief object of examining these is to ascertain 
 whether trains are keeping time, and the causes of obstruction, and to 
 endeavcm' to arrange for improved working. These are the principal 
 departments into which the superintendent's staff is divided. The main 
 body of the clerks must be accurate, swift, and neat penmen. They should 
 be fairly educated; the higher and broader and more liberal their education, 
 the better fitted are they for promotion, and the more useful in their 
 several spheres. A knowledge of shorthand is now almost indispensable 
 in the office of the superintendent, and, as we have said, it is easily 
 acquired, where it is unknown. No novice is now engaged, who is not in 
 some degree familiar with its signs. 
 
 J 
 
THE DEPARTMENT OF PER3IANENT WAY AND WORKS. 49 
 
 CHAPTER Yl 
 
 THE DEPARTMENT OF PERMANENT WAY AND WORKS. 
 
 The engineer is the head of this most invaluable scientific, designing 
 branch of railway service. He is charged with the construction and 
 maintenance of the line and all relative works, and is responsible for the 
 safe condition of bridges and station premises, and also for the smooth 
 working of points and signals. If he is active and conscientious, it is 
 not difficult to perceive that he is a busy man, and that official cares 
 must frequently press heavily, following him home and disturbing his 
 rest. This we have had occasion to say of other officers ; and we may 
 say here, that all railway officers engaged in working the traffic over the 
 line, or in keeping that line in good working order, are more or less 
 subject to anxiety, by night even more than by day, lest something 
 should go wrong. The engineer is, as we have said, no exception to 
 this rule, as, even when his personal supervision is close and constant, 
 unexpected flood may imperil, if it does not carry away, a bridge here, 
 or wash away an embankment there. In times of frost rails are in 
 danger of fracture. Sudden thaw after severe snow and ice endangers 
 embankments on the sides of mountain ranges by splitting boulders on 
 the heights and precipitating huge masses of rock on the line, or it 
 cracks the rocky walls of deep cuttings and renders the passage of 
 heavy trains at high speed perilous. Heavy rains overload sand and 
 clay embankments, and they slip and block the line. Snow drifts in 
 open moorland or mountainous districts have the same effect. The 
 'inner walls and roofs of tunnels, whether built or formed of the natural 
 rock, from the same or relative causes give way, often without warning, 
 and not only impede traffic but render travelling unsafe. These and a 
 thousand-and-one minor accidents, only looked for in a general way, and 
 all possible, as we have said, under the most careful supervision, are 
 cause of special anxiety to the engineer, and he is happily constituted 
 
 4 
 
50 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 if he can maiutain au ordinarily cheerful disposition and divest himself 
 of bogus terrors, possessing his soul in calmness till the hour of trial 
 arrives. 
 
 On all railway systems the initial duty of the engineer is to make 
 survey of the ground over which a line is proposed to be laid; to 
 advise the promoters as to cost, and as to the cheapest, because the 
 most serviceable route for catching traffic, looking also to ease of con- 
 struction ; to prepare plans and sections, with maps for Parliamentary 
 warfare ; and to be in his place, as a principal witness, before ParUament, 
 when the Bill becomes before that tribunal — all this he does in concert 
 with the company's solicitor, and, in the later stages, with their Parlia- 
 mentary agent. In the earlier stages the utmost care is required lest 
 the " standing orders " should be in the smallest detail neglected. The 
 Parhamentary plans and sections must be prepared with the greatest 
 accuracy in detail, and this often in the face of much opposition when the 
 landowners or farmers are hostile to the scheme. All the preliminary 
 field work has to be done at the risk of being treated as a trespasser or 
 worse, and many good stories are told of the expedients which have to 
 be resorted to for outwitting irate agriculturists. Carelessness in the 
 initiatory stages is certain to prove fatal to the project, and to the 
 engineer's opportunity of proving his quaHty as a witness, because the 
 Bill runs the risk of being rejected by the examiner. If he is lucky 
 enough to have performed his work cai-efully, his plans and sections 
 precede him to the committee room, where he meets them in enlarged 
 form on the walls, and he passes examination and then cross-examination 
 on them. Here he is happy if he escapes without loss of temper, since 
 he is certain to be assailed from all points by counsel anxious to make 
 good the opposition views of their clients, and their reputation as sharp 
 fellows. Some of our engineers are witnesses of the first water. Full 
 of their case, they offer nothing that is not wanted, and sometimes baffle 
 the chaffing counsel on the other side by their coolness, firmness, and 
 self-possession. The Bill having been obtained, the engineer's next duty 
 is to draw out detailed specifications, with working plans, for the con- 
 tractors who may be selected for the construction of the fine. It is matter 
 of considerable satisfaction to the companies, and cause of just pride on 
 the part of our engineers, that so little discrepancy occurs, as a rule, 
 between the estimated and the actual cost of making our lines, and it proves 
 the care and the technical skill of these officers that results so nearly 
 
THE DEPARTMENT OF PERMANENT WAY AND WORKS. 51 
 
 accurate can be arrived at, as it were, hypothetically. Parliamentary 
 committees are not prone to pass the preambles of bills for the con- 
 struction of expensive works, so that there is a tendency on the part of 
 promoters to prove that their lines are to be constructed for a mere 
 bagatelle, and their engineers are, therefore, prompted to prove this by a 
 process not unUke that of undervaluing. That it should, under such a 
 system, therefore, so seldom be necessary to apply for further money 
 powers in subsequent sessions, is, as we have said, in the highest degree 
 creditable to our engineers. 
 
 The " Act " being passed, the engineer has to set out the line on 
 the ground, and as he is now no longer subject to be treated as a 
 wandering vagabond, being protected by statute, which imposes heavy 
 penalties on any one molesting him, or interfering with his work, he has 
 the opportunity of making a more careful study of the route, and of 
 adopting such modifications, within certain limits, on his original line 
 and levels as he may deem advisable. In preparing plans for the works, 
 the engineer has among other things to design station premises at road- 
 sides and at termini. Those at the latter in the nature of things require 
 more expensive treatment than roadside stations, so that our officer, 
 skilled in lineal and cubic measurement, must develop equal knowledge 
 of, and skill in the art and science of architecture. He has to prepare 
 working plans of the whole works, to design the bridges — stone and 
 ironwork — to consider the strain the latter may be required to bear, and 
 to make provision; to specify the quantity of excavation needful, to 
 indicate, where he can, whether that be of rock or earth, also the 
 quantity of earth required for filling up, where low ground has to be 
 embanked ; to indicate the weights, and give sections of the rails to be 
 used, and to work out the plans of all crossings, and through shunts ; 
 to lay out all mineral and goods yards, and to arrange the working of 
 points and signals — all this, and probably much more which we may 
 have overlooked, the engineer has to do, preparatory to the issue of 
 advertisements for " tenders " for the works. When these latter are 
 received and opened they are handed to the engineer for his report upon 
 them, and the directors or promoters usually act upon his advice, and 
 accept the offer which he recommends. The contract for works having 
 been adjusted and signed, and the work of construction begun, the 
 engineer and his assistants become inspectors for the nonce, taking over- 
 sight of the work at various points in order to its being faithfully 
 
52 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 performed, and also in order that they may be able to certify for the con- 
 tractor's periodical payments. All ironwork, girders, pillars, brackets, 
 rails, upon which there is likely to be strain, is carefully inspected while 
 under construction, and is tested by the engineer's staff before being 
 accepted, so that the risk of slop work, where so much life and property 
 are at stake, is reduced to its minimum. When the whole works are 
 completed, and the government inspection passed, a process, by the way, 
 not so easy as might be expected, after such care in planning and con- 
 structing, but one in which the officer appointed by the Board of Trade 
 has to satisfy himself that the construction is sound, in theory and in 
 fact, that signals are properly seen at certain distances, and that 
 travelling on the line is theoretically safe, the company receives from the 
 Board of Trade a formal sanction to open the line. For twelvemonths 
 after the completion of the works it is the duty of the contractor, under 
 stipulation of most deeds of contract, to maintain the works. After the 
 expiry of that period, their care and up-keep, hitherto a capital charge, 
 being now transferred to the company and the company's engineer, 
 or permanent way and works department, become chargeable upon 
 revenue. The works being completed, the duty of measuring the work 
 done, and of adjusting the accounts with the various contractors, 
 devolves upon the engineer. On extensive works this is a very tedious 
 matter, involving the examination of all details where there have been 
 alterations on the work from that shown on the contract drawings and 
 described in the specification. It is usual to make provision in the 
 contract for any difference arising in these matters to be settled by 
 arbitration, and it says much for the fairness, tact, and capacity of our 
 engineers that resort to an arbitration is of comparatively rare occurrence. 
 When the line has been opened, and traffic is yielding revenue, and 
 in its passage is finding out the weak places in the materials or faults iii 
 construction, or is developing beyond expectation, the engineer and his 
 staff are, as we stated in the beginning, fully employed with sufficiently 
 engrossing and anxious work. Conditions of the weather affect some of 
 the materials. Some portions of the line are more liable than others to 
 get out of order, either by reason of there being a greater rush of traffic 
 between certain points, or because of something faulty in the nature of 
 the ground over or through which those portions have been laid, or, as 
 in the case of tunnels, the roofs, walls, rails, and sleepers are subject to 
 constant deterioration by water dripping or oozing through. 
 
THE DEPARTMENT OF PERMANENT WAY 
 
 Charged with such duties, and laden with so many and grave 
 responsibihties, it seems needful that the engineer should be a man 
 fertile of resource. To this end he must be master of the theory 
 of his profession, and have a thorough experience of its practice. 
 In a great engineer these are as inseparable as the Siamese twins. 
 Theoretically, he may be able to calculate strains and deflections 
 to a demonstration, but that which looks well on paper does not 
 always, or necessarily, turn out well in working. It will therefore be 
 manifest that an engineer, to be successful, should be master also of the 
 practical part of his profession. He must know enough of the manu- 
 facture of ironwork of all kinds needful to the construction and repair 
 or replacement of works, to enable him to judge of its fitness for its 
 purpose. He must have sufficient experience of mason and joiner work 
 to check the use of insufficient materials, or the employment of fair 
 materials in a way not provided for in the specification. If he is not 
 an architect he must employ one to design stations and offices ; and it 
 needs no demonstration to prove the great value of an accurate and 
 scientific knowledge of that branch of his profession to an engineer. 
 The man who possesses it is much more hkely to do satisfactory work 
 than he who has to delegate it to a specialist, and he will do it with 
 greater pleasure to himself. The employment of an architect implies 
 many consultations with one who has no technical or special acquaint- 
 ance with railway requirements, and consequently cannot design so 
 accurately ; and it also supposes possible conflict of opinion, and there- 
 fore delay and worry. Most of our handsome station premises in the 
 country are the work of our engineers, and, in their taste and complete- 
 ness, are a memorial of their capacity. In the work of laying out new 
 lines, an engineer who is a geologist will derive much practical aid from 
 that science. He will know something of the sub-superficial condition 
 of the country through which his line is projected. The solid contents 
 of its mountain ranges will be comparatively famihar, and the causes 
 and character of the undulations on its valleys will be an open book to 
 him. From this scientific standpoint he will be able to avoid projecting 
 his line through ground which would require hard or heavy excavation, 
 and where that is unavoidable he will be better able to estimate the 
 cost of excavation through rock or clay, the character of which he is in 
 a position to describe without the expense of boring. Geology is of 
 still greater use to the engineer in spanning rivers and arms of the sea, 
 
54 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 as, the character, the depth, and dip of the sub-aqueous bed being to a 
 certain extent familiar to him, he can the more readily ascertain and 
 gauge the difficulties to be encountered in sinking his piers. We do 
 not say it is necessary he should be a geologist, we simply affirm that he 
 who is one, is a much more valuable engineer — other things being equal, 
 of course — than the man who is not. The broader the culture, as 
 we have remarked, the greater the chance of success, the greater the 
 independence, and the higher the authority. The engineering mind is 
 essentially scientific, so that all science, especially such as has any 
 bearing upon his profession, must be attractive ; and it would be more 
 wonderful to find him neghgent than well furnished in that direction. 
 
 In describing the engineer, we are to be understood as including the 
 district engineers of the more extensive systems, and the principal 
 assistants. The same high and broad capacities must be there in full 
 operation, or only waiting opportunity for display. Otherwise the 
 enormous and onerous work of the department could never be overtaken. 
 In their districts the district officers conduct all operations which do not 
 materially affect the dividend-paying capacity of the line, such as 
 repairs, slight alterations, and general maintenance. Where there 
 are district engineers, the chief engineer acts as a consulting officer, 
 whose head and hands are free from the worry of petty details of 
 ordinary maintenance. Where there is no such sub-division of 
 responsibility, the principal assistant takes charge of all but the 
 greater questions of extension, remodelling, &c. He superintends 
 the whole staff, both of assistants and of workmen out of doors. He 
 trains the apprentices, distributes the work to draughtsmen, inspectors, 
 &c., and supervises the technical work of the office generally. There is 
 one qualification in which he should excel. He should be a correct and 
 ready draughtsman. His influence over the staff in the office will be 
 greatly increased if he possesses this undoubtedly useful accomplishment 
 in common with those others to which we referred in describing the 
 engineer. He should also be a wise and prudent administrator, capable 
 of selecting the best men for every class of duty, and of commanding 
 their esteem. It is from the ranks of these junior officers that the 
 engineers who initiated the railway system, and are dropping out of the 
 muster-roll, are from time to time replaced. That is their incentive to 
 hearty work. Equally, it is from the ranks of the junior assistants, 
 usually all quahfied engineers, and the apprentices, as the latter complete 
 
THE DEPARTMENT OF PERMANENT WAY AND WORKS. 65 
 
 their course of studies and their period of active service, that the 
 principal assistants' successors are draughted, and that is their expecta- 
 tion, if, indeed, by great dihgence and application, they do not hope to 
 reach the highest place. The work of the engineer's office demands a 
 variety of accomplishments in the members of the staff. They must be 
 students, but they must not grudge to be workmen also. They have to 
 undergo fatiguing work in the fields, surveying and levelHng in all 
 weathers. They must be able to sustain vigorous life, ever and anon, as 
 occasion requires, on such food as moor and moss and mountain-side 
 offer, and they require to bend themselves nearly double over their 
 drawing boards, straining their eyes over the drawing of plans with lines 
 of most trying compactness, or they have occasion to go on hands and 
 knees on the floor over drawings on a larger scale, till knees and back 
 and eyes are fain to complain. Many of these fine fellows are to be 
 found at the arduous field or office practice of their profession during 
 long terms, and yet find time and brain for study of its science, its hard- 
 headed theory. These are the men who cleave their way to eminence. 
 The laggards rarely rise above the level of scarcely very rehable 
 draughtsmen. Mathematics, engineering, and drawing are among the 
 essential studies of an apprentice who would excel, and these may be 
 €onducted either simultaneously with the practical office and field work 
 or, better still, when it can be done, before entering upon the practical. 
 
 The department requires a staff of clerks and book-keepers for 
 necessary correspondence and the due care of the expenditure. This 
 portion of the staff is presided over by a principal commercial assistant. 
 
56 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE TELEGRAPH ENGINEER. 
 
 What the railway system would be without the powerful aid of 
 electricity, it is difficult to realise at present. Familiarity with the 
 combination produces in the minds of all a spirit of happy carelessness 
 of the condition of things prior to the introduction of the science of 
 telegraphy. Even those who can recollect its introduction rarely 
 consider under what serious disadvantages railways were worked in the 
 old days, while the younger railway men — always excepting the 
 thoughtful and curious — accustomed to its aid accept that aid as a matter 
 of course, and think nothing about the "old time before them." Of 
 course when railways were in their infancy, trains were fewer, with lower 
 rates of speed. As that great enterprise took a firmer hold on popular 
 favour it shot out arms everywhere. New and competing lines were 
 constructed. Near the great manufacturing and commercial centres, 
 intersection on the level began to be introduced. Greater distances 
 were run over by-and-bye ; competition begat speed, and this again, with 
 the growth of innumerable intersections, created danger, or delays hitherto 
 not experienced. It was then that the electric telegraph came to the front 
 and developed its marvellous resources. To quote from a most 
 interesting and instructive paper on "Telegraphy : Its Rise and Progress 
 in England," by Wilham Henry Preece, C.E. and T.E., Divisional 
 Engineer, Postal Telegraph Department, a paper read at the Royal 
 Albert Hall, London, on July 18th, 1872 :— " Prior to 1837," he says, 
 " the telegraph instrument was but a scientific toy. The first practical 
 form of instrument in England was invented by Messrs. Cooke and 
 Wheatstone. On the 25th July of that year, a trial was made from Eustoa 
 to Camden Town, through wires 1| miles in length, placed underground. 
 It was tried on the Great Western Railway from Paddington to West 
 Drayton in 1838. Mr, G. P. Bidder introduced it practically on the 
 
THE TELEGRAPH ENGINEER. 67 
 
 Blackwall Railways in 1840, in working the rope system on that line ; 
 and in 1841, Mr. Locke ordered a short line from the Queen Street 
 Station, at Glasgow, to Cowlairs, In 1842-3 the Great Western 
 telegraph was continued from West Drayton to Slough, to illustrate a 
 new and cheap method of suspending wires in the air. The first form 
 was called the 'Hatchment' telegraph, from its resemblance to those 
 strange objects on the fronts of our mansions which provincials gaze at 
 with so much wonder. Many will remember the intense excitement 
 produced on the pubhc mind by the apprehension of Tawell, the mur- 
 derer, by means of this very telegraph. A young woman had been 
 murdered on January 1st, 1845. The following message was sent from 
 Slough: — 'A murder has just been committed at Salthill, and the 
 suspected murderer was seen to take a first-class ticket for London, by 
 the train which left Slough at 7.42 p.m. He is in the garb of a Quaker, 
 with a brown greatcoat on, which reaches nearly down to his feet ; he 
 is in the last compartment of. the second first-class carriage.' " 
 
 Tawell was apprehended, convicted, and executed. Few know how 
 nearly the ends of justice were frustrated. The instrument makes no 
 *' Q " or *' Z." The word '' quaker " could only be spelt " kwaker," and 
 it was with the greatest difficulty that the orthography could be compre- 
 hended. The message had to be repeated several times, and in conse- 
 quence it was considerably delayed. 
 
 In 1843 a short fine was erected in Ireland (Mr. Preece does not 
 say where), and another upon the Leeds and Manchester Eailway in 
 England; but in 1844, the first line of any length was constructed from 
 London (Nine Elms) to Gosport, upon the London and South- Western 
 Railway. 
 
 It was not till 1846, however, that it took root, and that a company 
 was formed in England for its estabhshment as a commercial under- 
 taking. 
 
 These extremely interesting historical facts we have thought well 
 worthy of a place in this chapter, and we make no apology for inserting 
 them. We must, however, offer Mr. Preece an expression of our great 
 indebtedness to him for them. 
 
 Some eminent electricians, among them Sir Wm. Thomson, hold the 
 opinion that electricity will be the motive power of the future. We have 
 seen such marvels of science during the past fifty years, that to deny the 
 possibility of this theory becoming fact is to repeat the incredulousnesa 
 
68 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 of our fathers at the inception of railways. We cannot limit the 
 possibilities of science. We wait the development of research with a 
 calm hopefulness that there are many things — many forces in Nature of 
 which we wot not — only biding their time to yield their secrets to the 
 earnest truth-seeker. Whatever electricity may yet do for man one 
 thing is certain. It has already, in conjunction with the railway, advanced 
 civilization, commerce, international community of interest and good 
 feeling, and sweetened the cup of life, for all, incalculably. The tele- 
 graph wires — which are spread overhead in our large cities, and stretch 
 from pole to pole along our highways, and on our railway banks, 
 like seoHan harps of giant dimensions — are constantly, during the 
 night as well as in the busy day, charged with tidings of joy or of 
 woe to myriads. They carry the message which summons the medical 
 man to his patient's couch, or flash the news of his death to sorrowing 
 relatives. By their agency the operator on stocks in the Exchange 
 is advised of dividends on which he is speculating, and on which 
 success or the reverse may be depending. So, also, is the merchant 
 of modem times indebted to it for early news of the success of trading 
 speculation abroad, or he may, by its aid, advise his foreign representatives 
 when and what to sell, and at what price. Its extension by submarine 
 cable across thousands of miles of ocean has been an incalculable boon 
 to the merchant and manufacturer in the direction just indicated. And 
 the development of the science of meteorology owes much to the 
 telegraph cable, both aerially-stretched and submerged, for by its 
 assistance those patient and indefatigable men of science, who are in 
 charge of meteorological stations in this country and on the continent of 
 America, have been able to decide to an almost certainty the laws of 
 aerial currents, then* rates of speed, and their force, and to predict the 
 day, and almost the time of day on and at which a particular storm 
 will reach our shores, and what special point it will attack. In this way 
 the telegraph wire is an agent for good whom the sailor must recognise 
 with intense deHght. It puts up the block-signal against his leaving his 
 station, and thus saves him the desperate chances of a collision with the 
 elements. This reference to UocTc-signals brings us back to the railway 
 and the telegraph. Such wonderful immunity from serious accident as 
 we enjoy — and undoubtedly there is great immunity, considering the 
 hundreds of thousands who travel by rail daily — we owe to the telegraph 
 system. Long distances are run by competing companies, often over 
 
THE TELEGRAPH ENGINEER. 59 
 
 intersecting lines, by day and by night at high express speed, and with 
 such a sense of security, that passengers go to sleep, and sleep soundly, 
 without even thought of risk. This would be impossible, as we have 
 already hinted, but for the aid of the telegraph wire. At the suggestion 
 of inspecting ofiScers of the Board of Trade, who have been sent to 
 investigate into the causes of accidents as they have occurred, the system 
 of block-signalling and interlocking points has been very generally 
 adopted. The block-signal is simply an application of telegraphy to 
 railway train working by which the approach of every train is signalled 
 from cabin to cabin along the route, each signalman being responsible 
 for the safe passage of trains over his section of the line. Since the 
 adoption of this system the number of serious accidents on our great 
 trunk lines has very sensibly diminished. 
 
 In the year 1870 the State took over the telegraph property of the 
 various commercial companies who had hitherto conducted the business 
 of telegraphy. Under State management many changes were effected in 
 the public interest, to which it is no part of our subject to do more than 
 refer. The telegraph companies' interests in the wires stretched along 
 the railway routes were, of course, bought up, and the State came in the 
 place of these companies as tenants of the railway companies for 
 " way leave." The companies have each special arrangements with the 
 telegraph department of the Post-office for maintenance of the State 
 wires, a duty which they perform in conjunction with the maintenance of 
 their own. A company's wires are used for traffic purposes, and for 
 speedy transmission of instructions, or of reports that will not wait the 
 delay of writing in the first instance, such as accidents, requiring the 
 aid of gangs of workmen, or the skilled advice of engineer or passenger 
 superintendent. 
 
 The superintendent of a railway telegraph department has many 
 and onerous duties to perform. He has charge of the erection, main- 
 tenance, and working of the whole telegraph system on his company's 
 lines. These duties include, as we have already said, the erection and 
 maintenance of all Government and private wires running upon his 
 company's poles. The duties of his department may be classified under 
 two heads — viz., the engineering and the commercial. Under the first 
 are included the erection and maintenance of poles, wires, supports, 
 instruments, batteries, cables, piping, boxing, leading-in, earth-wires, &c., 
 necessary for keeping up speaking, block, and other telegraphs. He 
 
60 OCR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 arranges for the fitting-up and erection of telegraphs upon new lines, and 
 also arranges the necessary circuits and connections for the traffic 
 requirements, and for extensions upon existing lines, as the working may- 
 necessitate from time to time. 
 
 When a new line is about to be opened the superintendent goes over 
 the route, to make a careful survey, taking special notice of the nature of 
 the ground, and the general exposure of the road, for the purpose of 
 choosing the most suitable side for erecting the poles. This done, he 
 walks over and measures the ground, marking out the place for each pole, 
 choosing the most suitable points, conformable with regularity, so that 
 each pole or support may be able to bear its share of the strain to be put 
 upon it. He decides upon the number and varied heights of the poles, 
 according to the number of wires each has to carry, and the peculiarities 
 of the line, making the necessary allowance for additional height at level 
 crossings, junctions, and bridges, and for guarding the wires at certain 
 places, so that, in the event of a breakage, the road or rail may not be 
 fouled. In this walk over tlie new route the telegraph superintendent 
 marks out the positions of instruments and batteries at the various 
 stations and cabins, and he arranges for leading-in and earth wires. 
 
 This being done, the requisite materials are calculated and 
 provided for the work, and, in due course, forwarded to the nearest point 
 on the scene of operations, and the erection proceeded with under the 
 care of a qualified inspector. The ground, during the work of erection, 
 is walked over by the superintendent from time to time as the work 
 progresses, until completion. Then the wires are tested, and the speaking 
 and block circuits are connected, each station on the older circuits being 
 advised of his code, and supplied with a list of corresponding stations. 
 
 The extension of sidings, station yards, buildings, and cabins make^ 
 continual claims upon the telegraph superintendent's attention — these 
 extensions and alterations frequently entaihng the removal of poles and 
 wires out of the way of contractors' operations, as it is imperative that 
 the wires be kept clear of the shghtest contact with each other, or with 
 the earth. This work, moreover, requires to be performed with the 
 greatest caution, so that the continuity of a wire may not be interrupted 
 in any way, and thereby cause a break in the communication. 
 
 Continual supervision, requiring the frequent walking of the lines,. 
 has to be exercised in the maintenance of poles, wires, insulators, &c., as 
 even the breakage of one wire may interrupt a number of others, and thus 
 
THE TELEGRAPH ENGINEER, 61 
 
 seriously interfere with communication until repaired. Instruments 
 require to be regularly tested and cleaned, and, when necessary, renewed. 
 The elements are always a source of anxiety to the superintendent, 
 whether on duty or off, sudden frosts causing contraction and breakage ; 
 while heavy gales often play sad havoc, blowing down the poles, and 
 breaking the wires ; but the most dreaded storm is that of snow, followed 
 by a gale, for while the wires are coated, and heavily weighed down 
 with snow, and tossed to and fro by the ruthless wind — no matter how 
 strong they may be — they are often unable to resist the weight and strain 
 cast upon them, and are liable to be levelled to the ground. In such cir- 
 cumstances immediate repairs are absolutely necessary ; neither wind nor 
 weather are allowed to interfere. The work of repair must be performed 
 in some way, and through communication restored as speedily as possible. 
 For not only is railway traffic seriously interfered with the while, but the 
 Government telegraphic or public wires are stopped. This latter is 
 serious enough ; but so also is the interruption of the company's tele- 
 graphic communication, for, as we have said, it is only since the use of 
 the telegraph that it has been possible to keep up the multitudinous rush 
 of trains in such constant succession, and at such rates of speed, with 
 such wonderful immunity from accident. 
 
 The quality of wire insulators and materials generally requires to be 
 carefully examined and tested before being sent out, in order to the 
 greatest efficiency in working. 
 
 The superintendent generally has the assistance of capable 
 inspectors, whose duty it is to take charge of certain lengths, these 
 lengths, again, being divided into sections in charge of resident linemen 
 at the most accessible stations. These linemen report to the super- 
 intendent daily, by wire, after ascertaining the condition of their circuits, 
 letting him know where they are to be working for the day. Every 
 fault on the Government system of wires is also reported by wire to the 
 superintendent, so that he has the condition of the wires and apparatus 
 of the whole system on his office table daily. Test boxes are placed at 
 certain stations, so that a fault may be localised quickly within a given 
 area. 
 
 At head-quarters there is usually a workshop, under the charge of 
 a competent instrument maker, for the construction and repair of instru- 
 ments, and for the making and renewal of batteries and other materials 
 necessary for the upholding of the apparatus generally. The instruments 
 
62 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 DOW in use on the railway systems are exceedingly varied and complex^ 
 comprising speaking, block-instruments, repeators, bells, route indicators, 
 train and dock indicators, and many other special appliances for 
 particular work on various lines and branches. 
 
 Under what may be called the commercial department of the 
 telegraph system is included the business of carrying telegrams for traffic re- 
 quirements, which, on an extensive system of railways, requires considerable 
 care and arrangement. Upon instruments devoted to signalhng messages 
 devolves much of the commercial correspondence of a railway staff, 
 for, by the aid of these speaking instruments, ii-regularities are avoided,- 
 time is saved, and plant is moved about expeditiously and judiciously, the 
 greatest amount of work taken out of it, and money is earned and saved. 
 To effect this, however, a carefully-organised system of working the 
 telegraph is required. A rule book is compiled from which every 
 necessary instruction may be gleaned. By means of the telegraph 
 *' time " is circulated once a day over a whole railway system — stations 
 and cabins aUke. The superintendent arranges the circuits m the way 
 best suited to the working, taking care to place the principal stations in 
 direct communication with head-quarters. Central transmitting stations 
 are arranged at convenient and busy points so as to circulate messages 
 in the most expeditious manner. It can easily be imagined that on a 
 railway extending over hundreds of miles a staff of clerks is absolutely 
 necessary — good telegraph operators all — careful, steady and attentive. 
 These clerks, men and women, are, of course, controlled from the centre 
 of operations by the superintendent. At many stations the railway 
 companies act as agents for the Postmaster-General in the collection and 
 delivery of pubhc telegrams, and in the transfer of these messages to 
 and from the postal system. For this purpose handing-over circuits are 
 connected between the local post-office and the railway at convenient 
 points. 
 
 The telegraph superintendent is, it will be judged from all this, 
 a hard-working railway officer. Like the passenger superintendent and 
 the permanent way engineer he is apt to find that, no matter how fully 
 occupied his day has been, his cares are certain, now and again, to find 
 him out at home, and to drag him from the family circle. Whatever 
 else may stand over till to-morrow, and whatever the condition of the 
 weather, the telegraphic communication, on which everything that con- 
 cerns the working of the line and the traffic depends, must be kept up, or 
 
THE TELEGRAPH ENGINEER. 63 
 
 restored where interrapted, and without loss of time. He is a great 
 traveller. By rail when he can, but perhaps no other officer— excepting, 
 perhaps, the permanent way engineer — ivalks the lines so frequently. 
 He must, therefore, be a man of good physique. His primary pro- 
 fessional qualification is, however, that he be an electrician. A 
 thorough mastery of electricity — as applied to the telegraph — is a 
 sine qua non. Without this scientific knowledge he could not arrange 
 the strength of his batteries, could not charge them, repair his 
 instruments, arrange his circuits, plant his signal cabins, decide as 
 to the best means of insulating earth cables, or perform the thousand- 
 and-one duties of supervision of the scientific part of his work 
 of construction and repair. He is the fountain-head of advice in all 
 emergencies — both scientific and mechanical. And this leads us to 
 observe, further, that he is nothing if not also an engineer. He must 
 possess sufficient mechanical skill to know how and where, most safely, to 
 erect his poles, and to support them; what weight of wire each can 
 carry; what strain the wires are likely to stand in stretching. And he 
 must be able to judge of the value of the several wires in testing them, in 
 order to economy and efficiency. Having many assistants, he does not 
 necessarily perform much manual labour, either mechanical or scientific ; 
 but as we have said, he should possess sufficient knowledge and skill to 
 be able to apply his hand to anything ; and, therefore, in supervision of 
 others, to be in a position to instruct as to the best methods. He will be 
 surrounded by electricians and engineers, who will receive instruction 
 and advice, and profit by example in following the daily round of their 
 duties. His most efficient assistants will, like himself, be imbued with 
 scientific enthusiasm — students of chemistry, who are never satisfied that 
 they know enough in the domains of that most wonderful of the sciences. 
 It will be a source of pleasure to him to help them in their eager pursuit 
 of his own favourite study ; and they in turn will render him earnest 
 work and whole-hearted zeal. It is inconceivable that either he or they 
 can be content to be men of one idea. Being practical scientists they are 
 certain to reach forward into cognate science, and to broaden their 
 vision by wide culture. 
 
 The telegraph operator is not necessarily a scientific man. His 
 special duties, as operator, make no demand upon him but that of skill 
 in manipulating his instrument, and a thorough grasp of his code of 
 signs. He should never be satisfied to remain ignorant of the science 
 
64: OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 which gives life and energy to the instruments he works, however, 
 because he becomes by so much the more a valuable telegraphist, and, 
 when least he thinks it, he may be observed, and bidden " go up higher." 
 There is no altitude beyond the reach of the painstaking and persevering. 
 
 The superintendent's office-work is managed by a principal in-door 
 assistant, and is carried on by a staff of clerks whose duties are, in the 
 main, much like those of the other departments of railway work. 
 
 Note.— Since writing the foregoing we have been put in possession 
 of this important fact, supplied by Mr. Edward Graves, Engineer of the 
 Post-oflBce Telegraphs, in his paper, " A Decade in the History of English 
 Telegraphy," recently read before the Society of Telegraph Engineers in 
 London : — " The apparatus used by the railway companies in the United 
 Kingdom is nearly four times greater than that used by the Post-office, 
 for while of message, block, and repeating-instruments the railway 
 companies use 46,847, the Post Office only use 12,000." 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE LOCOMOTIVE DEPARTMENT. 
 
 Our progress through the various departments discloses for us the 
 fact that each has its own intrinsic importance. Now and again we are 
 tempted, as we contemplate the responsibilities which devolve upon the 
 principal of the department then under consideration, to think that here 
 at last we have come upon the most important, the most indispensable 
 arm of the service. The ever-recurring thought, as fresh vistas of work 
 with a wrinkle-making anxiety in it open up before us, alone saves us 
 from the mistake that any department is intrinsically more honourable 
 than the others. Each has its native cares, its special usefulness. All 
 are essential and indispensable parts of one great whole ; all are alike 
 charged with the duty of looking to the general good, of working for 
 the common interest. We have said that it is difficult to avoid unduly 
 magnifying the relative importance of some of the departments in our 
 survey of their individual work ; but, on the whole, we feel that we are 
 
THE LOCOMOTIVE DEPARTMENT. 65 
 
 in a better position to estimate their intrinsic and relative advantages 
 than the respective and respected heads, or the members of their staffs, 
 for have they not a pardonable and natural tendency to -look at their 
 own duties through a magnifying lens, and upon their neighbours' 
 through the narrow end of a binocular. The excellence of any man's 
 work depends upon the thorough practical knowledge of its details which 
 he brings to bear upon it. This thoroughness cannot be acquired by 
 the dilettanti. It is only likely to be his who confines himself to one 
 pursuit, and tries to master it. This very absorption, this exclusiveness 
 of aim, so essential to fitness for good work, is, however, as everyone 
 knows, apt to lead us all to think our own occupation the most indis- 
 pensable, our own work the first in rank and importance. This is a fair 
 excuse for the partiality and self-complacency with which the capable 
 members of a departmental staff view their own labour and estimate its 
 value relatively to the whole ; but, as we have stated, our survey of each 
 with reference to that whole, should enable us more accurately to gauge 
 the value and pretensions of rival claims to superiority, and to priority 
 of place. It is, however, no part of our scheme to indicate distinctions 
 such as these ; it would not be to edification, and if it were, the general 
 result of our survey has been to throw distinctions of so invidious a 
 character into the shade, and to satisfy us that every department is 
 essential, and, therefore, most important in its own place in the system. 
 
 The primary objects for which railways have been constructed are 
 that the public and its merchandise may be served, and that profits may 
 be made, out of which the promoters may have dividends. To these 
 ends we must first have the engineer and his assistants to make the 
 road; then we discover the need of carrying capacity, we require 
 carriages, waggons, and engines, all which, as every railway emj^loye 
 knows, are technically designated the rolling stock. While the engineer 
 is laying down the line, the company is busy building this rolling stocky 
 or plant. This work is given out to various builders, by contract, with 
 the stipulation that it shall all be ready for dehvery by the time of 
 opening the line for traffic. Before this important work is contracted 
 for by the company requiring it, a most essential office has to be filled, 
 that, namely, of the locomotive superintendent. That officer is appointed 
 from among a host of capable, practical, and theoretical mechanical 
 engineers. He must be able to design carriages, waggons, vans, engines, 
 .&c., as the work of building these will be certain to be entrusteito him. 
 
 UTNIVERSITT 
 
66 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 Not that, in the case of a new company, he will construct the new plant 
 in the company's workshops, but that he will make the drawings and 
 specifications for the builders, and, when the contracts have been let, will 
 see that they are fully, fairly, and efficiently fulfilled. None but a 
 thorough theorist could design correctly, and with confidence of the 
 result, while the mere theorist would fail in discovering what, to the 
 practical man, would be patent, in mal-construction or defective work- 
 manship. The most useful locomotive engineer, then, is he who has 
 been thoroughly grounded in the theory and practice of his profession, 
 who has passed thi'ough the workshops, learning the art and science of 
 fitting and erecting, who can handle all necessary tools, work at the 
 various machines, and make designs. He must have skill in drawing, 
 taste and facihty in design, and be a mathematician and algebraist, in 
 order to be able to work out quantities accurately and rapidly, and to 
 calculate strains. If during his graduation period he has used his eyes 
 carefully, and made observation a branch of his study, he will have some 
 useful knowledge of materials, and be able to test their quaUty and 
 fitness for his purpose. In this way he will have acquired skill in 
 selecting materials, so that, with a moderate degree of certainty, he 
 may choose this and reject that from the mass. With the exception 
 of mathematics and algebra, the locomotive engineer gains his know- 
 ledge in a practical way throughout the years of his apprenticeship, in 
 his passage through the shops to the di'awing office. The exceptional 
 branches of study must be pursued in the usual way, by attendance at 
 classes, and no efficient work can be done without close application. It 
 has not unfrequently happened that much has been acquired by patient 
 men with the genius of earnestness, in mastering the abstruse problems 
 of the mathematician and algebraist, by self-culture; and we honour 
 most highly the men who have conquered difficulties in that hard and 
 thorny way. We set no limit to the breadth of culture, esteeming those 
 most worthy of promotion, and most likely to illummate the highest 
 offices, who have used their leisure in enlarging their knowledge, if they 
 are careful not to allow collateral reading to interfere with the most 
 thorough equipment for their special duties. The wisest among 
 ambitious men are they who confine the range of their studies to such 
 as throw additional light upon their more immediate pursuits, and 
 enable them to follow these with a higher inteUigence. Among 
 collateral studies in which a locomotive engineer would do well to 
 
THE LOCOMOTIVE DEPAKTMENT. 67 
 
 embark, there is probably none so intrinsically and relatively interesting 
 as that of chemistry. Apart from its special adaptability to the wants 
 of his profession, that branch of science has attractions innumerable, and 
 yields rewards to the patient and industrious which encourage him on 
 the very threshold. Its advantages to the mechanical engineer are, 
 however, very great. With a knowledge of its principles, he is in a 
 position to test, with precision, the value of metals, both in respect of 
 the price charged for them, and their suitableness for his purpose. He 
 knows the proportions of the various alloys necessary, can speak to the 
 qualities of the primary metals, such as tin and copper, and can tell 
 whether iron and steel have been properly produced, and are likely to 
 bear the theoretical strain. 
 
 These are at least some of the quahfications which the locomotive 
 engineer acquires during his graduation period in the shops, the drawing 
 office, the class-room, and the study. He has learned, besides, how to 
 drive an engine, to work it smoothly and cautiously, to keep it in good 
 working order, to repair trifling defects or damages by the way, and to 
 overhaul it when in " stable ; " while he is at home in more serious repair 
 and reconstruction in the art of turning it out of the shops when it has 
 become aged and worn, with new equipments and new vigour for a fresh 
 lease of life. There is another quahfication which the high office of 
 locomotive superintendent demands, which is neither to be acquired in 
 the shop nor the study, but which, if possessed by him in any degree, 
 may be cultivated to great advantage. That is the capacity to govern 
 large bodies of men, so that they shall feel that not only are they in the 
 hands of one who knows more than they, but also of one who, with 
 firmness, combines placability and justice. 
 
 This is a resume of the requirements which are looked for in the 
 locomotive superintendent. He is master of the situation, and, like the 
 heads of all the departments, is equal to all emergencies. A man 
 who has drawn his experiences from so many and varied sources, cannot 
 fail, with natural gifts, to illuminate his position, and perform the 
 functions of his office with acceptance to his company and credit to him- 
 self. The two great divisions or sections of his departmental duties are 
 the out-door and the in-door. Of these he takes a general supervision, 
 leaving the working-out of details to trained assistants. We are aware 
 that on some of the greater lines, such as the London and North- Western 
 and the Midland, the former of whom construct their own engines, 
 
68 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 carriages, and waggons, and both of whom have an unusually heavy 
 account of rolling stock, it has been found expedient to still further 
 divide the responsibiHty, and to separate the care of looking to the 
 maintenance of engines from that of carriages and waggons. These, 
 however, are not examples of the general division of the duties of the 
 office, and we prefer to look away from these exceptional cases to the 
 common practice. In the out-door section the superintendent has control 
 of the running of all trains, passenger, goods, and mineral. He is 
 consulted by the heads of the traffic departments in all train arrange- 
 ments in order that he may provide engine-power to work the traffic. 
 He arranges his engines so that the best and most powerful shall be 
 promptly in their places for the express passenger, and goods trains, 
 manned by the steadiest and most experienced drivers and stokers. He 
 keeps a staff of cleaners constantly in the running sheds, with a squad 
 of practical workmen, to see that the engines are in proper condition, 
 both as to cleanness and repair, before driver and stoker remove them. 
 He arranges that coaling and watering are fully attended to, that an 
 adequate supply of sand, oil, and waste are provided for the journey, and 
 also that the driver and stoker are in their places, and sober enough to 
 occupy them. In addition to the express trains, he finds engine-power 
 for all other main line and branch trains, for piloting purposes, for 
 shunting operations in the chief passenger and goods termini, and, where 
 it can be managed, he has a reserve of engines at certain points of the 
 system for cases of emergency. These he mans from the running sheds 
 with his best available resources. It is no easy matter to supply every 
 demand from all quarters, and yet keep down train and shunting mileage, 
 yet that is one of his special causes of worry. Equally difficult is it to 
 maintain economy in the employment of necessary material, and an 
 efficient staff at a minimum cost, in the presence of strong competition. 
 In this out-door department of his work he is assisted by professional 
 men who are training for the first places. His principal assistant is an 
 engineer who knows the practical part of the work, and can manage 
 the details as his deputy. This assistant must have a capacity for 
 organisation, as with him must rest the management of the running 
 staff. He must know what engines are available, and who are the most 
 reliable JJdrivers and stokers. He will have the task of working the 
 trains^ of arranging that the engines shall have full loads out and back 
 again, of timing them and recording the day's work of each. He will 
 
THE LOCOMOTIVE DEPARTMENT. 69 
 
 be charged with taking precautions against the chance of coals or coke 
 running short at coaUng stations, of seeing that all needful stores are 
 kept in proper quantity, and of testing the men as they come forward 
 for promotion. In this matter he has to pass cleaners to the rank of 
 firemen and drivers, first on mineral and shunting, then on goods, and 
 ultimately on passenger trains. In order to this he requires to 
 know what is necessary in a driver — capacity to read various styles of 
 handwriting, so that he may readily read the orders posted up, from 
 time to time, for his instruction, in the running shed ; knowledge of the 
 signals and whistles ; discrimination of colour, that he may easily and 
 accurately distinguish the various signals at night; and he must be 
 able to test a man's capacity for working his engine, and for setting it 
 to rights, by the way, in any number of possible cases of disaster. This 
 assistant will have the control of foremen of the running sheds, and of 
 the coaling and piloting stations, and also will direct the movements of 
 the inspectors in their various districts. In addition to this, he will 
 control the office staff, keep careful registers of work, stores, orders, 
 a staff-book, &c., and conduct all correspondence. With such and so 
 many various cares upon his head one would think the locomotive 
 superintendent would have enough to do. His assistants, of all grades, 
 lighten his hands of details, yet the whole responsibihty devolves upon 
 him; he, alone, will be called upon to excuse blunders, irregularity, 
 or increased expenditure, and these demands upon his mental resources 
 must inevitably tell upon him, unless he is a man of iron constitution. 
 We have yet another, and equally harassing section of his work to 
 notice, however, a glance at which will satisfy the reader of the heavy 
 charge which is laid upon the locomotive superintendent. 
 
 The in-door department which has to do with the mechanical 
 genius of the man, and exercises it in construction, reconstruction, 
 and repair of plant, is that, no doubt, upon the wise and creditable 
 administration of which our locomotive engineer plumes himself most. 
 The out-door department mai/ be administered by a good practical man 
 with a capacity for organisation and the management of men, and need 
 not call for fine-spun theories. Indeed, many such men have in the 
 history of the service attained to honourable distinction in that 
 department. In the in-door, however, the case is entirely different, none 
 but a professional mechanic can undertake the responsibihty ; and this 
 will readily appear. Even if we leave out of sight the necessity of 
 
70 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 construction we have that of rccoiistj-uction, or the removal of important, 
 but worn-out parts of engine plant, and their replacement by absolutely 
 new and sometimes improved parts. None but an expert could design, 
 and, in designing, alter and improve upon the worn out. Without such 
 knowledge and skill, a knowledge of the requirements and a skill in 
 adapting that knowledge, which could only be gained by graduated 
 experience, failure and disgrace would follow the attempt. Xot only 
 must there be desiffn in planning the reconstructed parts, there must 
 also be careful selection of suitable material. That selection must 
 be in the mind of the engineer in designing. He has to specify the 
 measurement, form and quaUty of the materials, to calculate strain, to 
 satisfy himself theoretically that the parts will, when fitted together, 
 perform the work intended safely and satisfactorily. Even when his 
 design is on the exact lines of the portion to be replaced, he has to 
 consider the question of piecing neio materials upon the old, of fixing a 
 new barrel upon an old stock, of putting new wine into old bottles. 
 Theory and practice go hand in hand here, and assist him in determining 
 whether extensive and radical replacements are safe, or even possible, 
 in some cases. Whether an engineer is entrusted with the construction 
 of his own engines, or has to contract for them, the work of design and 
 specification equally devolve upon him. A knowledge of the requirements 
 of the traffic will guide him as to size and strength. It will also affect 
 his adoption of a certain class of stock, one class being suitable 
 for express goods and passenger trains, another for ordinary main 
 line, and another for branch line traffic (shunting engines are 
 frequently second-class or partially used up, and repaired, engines). 
 A distinct proof of the practical capacity of our locomotive engineers is 
 to be found in the great diversity of design exhibited among the 
 companies. Each man has his own special theories, and endeavours to 
 embody these in the build of his own plant, /-indeed, the decease or 
 retirement of oneloiTan has nofselHom led"to something like a complete 
 revolution in the style, character, and capacity of that company's rolling 
 stock, his successor, with a wider experience, being anxious to adopt 
 jmprovements out of a liveher sympathy with growing needs.y The 
 history of the development of the~ldc6motive, since its infancy in George 
 Stephenson's time, is a history as glorious and honourable to the 
 inventive and unresting genius of our locomotive engineers as any 
 which will ever be emblazoned on any page, and that genius was never 
 
THE LOCOMOTIVE DEPART3IENT. 71 
 
 at a ivhiter heat than at the present time. We have spoken of construc- 
 tion and reconstruction as important and leading functions of the loco- 
 motive superintendent in the in-door department. In endeavouring to 
 estimate the professional value of that officer's services, it seems 
 unnecessary to distinguish between these leading functions — they appear 
 to us as practically indistinguishable. If he does not construct or build, 
 he designs, and he designs as one who could build if need be ; vfhile, as 
 we have shown, there are so many initial difficulties — in graftingjiew 
 materials and new designs upon old materials and old designs;/that the~~^ ^ 
 conclusion is driven home upon us that efficient reconstruction is as^/^ 
 severe a test of capacity as construction. r~BesIdes engine plant, there 
 are carriage and waggon stock toUe^provided and efficiently maintained. 
 These also may be built in the company's shops — they are in the shops 
 of some of the larger companies— or they are let out to contractors. 
 In any case they have to be designed, and these designs are constantly 
 being improved upon. This also is the work of the locomotive engineer, 
 who, if he is not himself an inventor, must be abreast of anything 
 known of the nature of improvement. Except in the matter of internal 
 fittings, there is considerable uniformity of design in carriages. We do 
 not, of course, shut our eyes to the recently introduced Pullman parlour 
 and sleeping cars, or the varieties of sleeping cars adopted on the long 
 routes. Nor do we thrust out of notice the many varieties of brake 
 power at present on trial. Still, with all this before us, we think we are 
 correct in saying that there is considerable uniformity of design in the 
 construction of our carriage stock, and we think that is well. Our 
 ^mmon carriage is British in design, and seems suited to our insular 
 /prejudices, and uniformity does not therefore mean paucity or sterility of 
 \ invention. With such work, then, as that of the construction and 
 reconstruction of engines and carriages, to say nothing of waggons, 
 which demand much thought, the locomotive engineer has his. hands full. 
 Manifestly he requires assistance, and that of a professional class. He 
 can only indicate, in many common instances, the leading idea to his 
 chief draughtsman, and leave him to work out the details of design. 
 He cannot be his own foreman of the erecting, fitting, machine, forge, 
 boiler - making, smith, pattern - making, carriage - building, trimming, 
 painting, and saddler's shops. These sectional operations must be 
 entrusted to specially skilled workmen, and these, again, must be per- 
 sonally supervised by a chief mechanical assistant, who, with the chief 
 
72 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 designer or draughtsman, should possess qualifications of the same order 
 as the superintendent, else their assistance would be a source of weak- 
 ness. On extensive systems it is always necessary to have shops for 
 repairs at certain great centres and distant termini. These are usually 
 governed by an assistant superintendent or superior foreman, who can be 
 trusted with the needful work of repairs, both trivial and important, and 
 who has the faculty of administration. At junctions with other com- 
 panies, at important junctions on his own line, and at stations at certain 
 distances apart, there are also stationed, under the control of the chief 
 of the nearest repair shop, a staff of inspectors, whose duty it is to 
 examine all carriages and waggons passing their junctions, and to send 
 the broken-down or the invaUded to the hospital, with their indication of 
 what is needed legibly chalked upon them. 
 
 In these days, when labour and capital are so constantly waging 
 war, and workmen are combined in trades' unions for their mutual 
 protection, the locomotive superintendent, who is, practically, an 
 extensive employer of labour, has a rough and unenviable time of it, 
 and had needs be a man of a peaceable and genial disposition if he 
 would steer himself clear of difficulties. We have said that suavity 
 with firmness is a grand qualification. It is nowhere more frequently 
 called into active exercise than in administering the office upon which we 
 have been enlarging, and it is creditable in the highest degree to the 
 gentlemen who hold that office on our various systems that conflicts are 
 of comparatively rare occurrence. 
 
 Apprentices to the profession are received on all the lines. There 
 is great variety in the mode of receiving them. Many pay premiums ; 
 the majority do not. But all must pass the probation of the shops — 
 the more thoroughly in earnest pass to the drawing office — graduate in 
 mechanics, algebra, and mathematics, and if they are ambitious, apply 
 themselves, during their leisure, to all collateral study. 
 
THE STORES DEPAKTMENT. 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE STORES DEPARTMENT. 
 
 The stores department, the next in the order of survey, is the 
 commercial arm of the service, and the chief store-keeper, or stores 
 superintendent, is perhaps the only officer in the service whose principal 
 qualification is that of merchant. He needs no special railway ex- 
 perience, and yet he can be trained nowhere else. An American general 
 store, where everything " from a needle to an anchor " may be procured, 
 seems to our mind the nearest approach to a training-ground, yet, trans- 
 planted from that Hkely soil to a railway store, the would-be store- 
 keeper would find himself confronted by multitudinous difficulties, for 
 overcoming which he had no ready resource. No great commercial 
 undertaking, however extensive the range of its operations, and no 
 branch of the public service makes such a variety of demands upon its 
 leading spirit as this department of railway enterprise ; and we hope 
 to show, by an examination of some of the details, that it is perhaps the 
 most interesting of the many departments into which railway manage- 
 ment is divided. We are aware that the practice of the companies in 
 the purchase and distribution of stores is dissimilar. In our treatment 
 of the subject, therefore, it is likely that no two companies will recognise 
 an exact picture of their special modus operandi. We think it better, 
 for the information of the uninitiated, to describe a stores department in 
 which every conceivable requisite for railway working may be found in 
 stock, or through which every department is supplied with these. 
 
 When a line of railway is projected, as everyone knows, its con- 
 struction is contracted for, the contractor finding all necessary material. 
 Immediately it is opened for traffic the company owning it begins to be 
 responsible for the supply of everything needful for working that traffic. 
 It procures all classes of rolling stock, engines, carriages, vans (luggage, 
 brake, meat, and fish), waggons, &c., of their several classes and capacities* 
 
74 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 Then the labours of the stores superintendent commence. Engines 
 will not move without coal, oil, and grease. They cannot be coaled 
 without shovels, oiled without tin vessels from which to drop the oil, or 
 greased without the grease-pan and the stick. The driver must have 
 tools for the accidents incident to constant running, nor can he keep his 
 fire-box clean without rakers, or his oily machinery sweet and in a con- 
 dition favourable to smooth working without "waste." When an 
 engine goes into hospital for repair, the locomotive foreman at the 
 " running shed " cannot set it up again without lengths of brass tubing, 
 fire-bars, castings of various fonns, nuts, bolts, screws, sheet-iron, brass, 
 valves, cocks, &c., and he cannot, if he possesses all these in abundance, 
 make any use of them without the needful tools. When carriages are 
 put upon the traflBc, they also must be greased and their wheels tapped 
 at the principal stopping stations, and the tapping calls for a special 
 hammer. In the daily traffic, carriages require exterior washing, and 
 that implies the need of pails and brushes — not to speak of water — 
 which, however, it is never the duty of the stores department to supply. 
 Unfortunately for the companies — though fortunately for workmen and 
 the manufacturers — carriage plant will deteriorate. The cloth covering 
 and cushions wear, become greasy, or get cut into holes, and need 
 repair. Without fine cloth or leather for the first, and coarser for the 
 second or third class, these repairs cannot be performed. Buttons and 
 binding are in constant requisition, new leather straps for the windows, 
 new bUnds, and now and again new glass. The parcel racks get out of 
 repair and call for new netting or new rods; the clean, light leather cloth 
 covering the pannelling, or the gilt beading, becomes the worse for wear, 
 and must be replaced ; so must the carpet with the company's motto and 
 crest ; and the perforated matting for the smoking compartment will not 
 last, for ever. Frequent tossing about from roof to platfonu, that is, 
 from the roof to the hands of the lampman on the platform, and much 
 rough usage in the lamp-room, tells, sooner or later, on the whole fabric 
 of the roof-light, and the glass gtobes get broken, the tinned work 
 battered out of shape, and the brass and iron mountings worn or 
 destroyed. A much enduring British public will not sleep in the dark 
 on a night journey on that account, however, and repair or replacement 
 follows damage or destruction. The exterior of the carriage has its 
 demands on constant attention also. It is first to sustain injury in 
 accid-ent. If the whole fabric is not smashed in disastrous colhsion, 
 
THE STORES DEPARTMENT. 75 
 
 panels are split or crushed in, door-handles are wrenched off, footboards 
 are torn away, springs, wheels, or axles, couplings, chains, drawbars, or 
 buffers are broken, or, in the ordinary wear and tear of everyday use 
 these latter give way, as does the paint, this last with frequent washing. 
 When a carriage goes into the repair shop for any or all of these repairs, 
 there must be a supply of everything requisite, a handy accessible stock 
 of needful materials. A different class of material is wanted for the 
 repair of goods and mineral waggons, coarser and stronger, and more 
 bulky as stock in store. Timber, bolts, spikes, screws, nuts, heavier 
 springs and axles, stronger drawbars, chains and couphngs, coarser 
 paints, &c., while waggons constructed to carry long timber and bar 
 iron, cattle and sheep trucks, horse boxes and fish vans, each demand 
 the keeping of a stock of articles peculiar to each, when sent in for 
 repair. The very tools required in the waggon repair shops, the 
 running sheds, &c., are suppUed, as required, from the store-keeper's 
 stock. If the stores superintendent had nothing to do but provide all 
 the material we have enumerated here, he might be admitted to have 
 enough and variety of responsibility. His view is not bounded by the 
 roHing stock, however. He has a look out upon the permanent way. 
 The elements and the constant passage of heavy traffic at high rates of 
 speed combine to wear out rails, sleepers, spikes, bolts, nuts, keys, fish- 
 plates, connecting rods, and the machinery of the signal box, its levers, 
 joints, chains, rods, &c. These are in constant demand at all points of 
 the system, the gangs of surfacemen or platelayers on their several 
 lengths being continually occupied in replacing the old and worn-out 
 with fresh material. The very tools they use, their shovels, picks, 
 hammers, crowbars, are supplied from the same inexhaustible source. 
 Then the telegraph staff must be supplied with telegraph instruments 
 batteries and chemicals therefor, with wire of various strength, insulators 
 poles, and all needful tools for stretching or tightening and joining the 
 wires, erecting the poles, &c. A special feature of the responsibility of 
 the office of store-keeper, or stores superintendent, in connection with 
 the provision of needful materials for the permanent way and telegraph 
 departments, is that he is charged with the collection and care of all old, 
 superseded material. We shall refer to this further on, however. 
 
 The particular stores department we have in view as we write 
 supplies stations with hand brushes for cleaning carriage seats and 
 sweeping carpets, brushes for sweeping the platforms, pails and mops for 
 
7 b OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 washing the outsides of carriages, chloride of lime for disinfecting water- 
 closets, cattle trucks, and pens, dusters and washing cloths for waiting- 
 room and office furniture and floors, oil or candles for the station signal 
 lamps, clocks and telegraph instruments, and it contracts for the supply 
 of time bills and other such posters. It supplies, repairs, and replaces 
 station lamps, burners, reflectors, extincteurs, and all that is necessary to 
 keep the station fire-engines in good repair and working order ; and at 
 terminal stations foot- warmers for the winter passenger traffic, tail-ropes,, 
 spare couplings, snibbles, screw-jacks, and all handy appUances for 
 getting carriages and waggons that have left the metals into position, 
 again, are also drafted from the stores, together with rope and twine,, 
 and all such useful articles ; and, of course, there is always a plentiful 
 supply of grease, oil, and waste for the cleaners on the station staff, and 
 soap and towels for the cleansing of the clerkly hands. Indeed, even in 
 the matter of supply of office furniture, and its repair from time to time,, 
 the stores department is charged with the responsibihty Waggon and 
 lorry or van covers are also made and repaired by that active and many- 
 sided department; while of course, books of all kinds, invoices, parcel 
 way-bills, audit office and Clearing House returns, inaccuracy sheets,, 
 over and undercharge forms, memorandum forms, letter and note paper, 
 envelopes, pens, ink, pencils, pins, rulers, ink glasses, indiarubber, 
 blotting paper, brown paper, foolscap, tickets, luggage, game and fish 
 labels, waggon labels, " engaged " and " smoking " labels, &c., &c., are- 
 provided from the same boundless stores. There is really no limit to the 
 demands made upon the department ; scarcely any branch of industry 
 with which it has not intimate connection. 
 
 We have referred to a special stores department,which wehave selected 
 as possibly representative of the practice of the most extensive systems. 
 In this special instance there is a large saw-mill in which timber of 
 various kinds, in logs, is cut to all sizes for every conceivable purpose,, 
 the scraps being utihsed for scotches, and other inferior purposes, or, 
 when not available even for such, are cut into firewood for office use. 
 There is also a tinsmith's shop, where the company employ a large 
 number of workmen and apprentices in the manufacture and repair of 
 foot-warmers, signal, station, platform, carriage, van, engine, and hand- 
 lamps of all descriptions ; reflectors, oil-cans, and other tin work of a 
 miscellaneous character. Ten minutes in that shop are enough to deafen 
 the unaccustomed for life, and yet the workmen hear each other speak !, 
 
THE STORES DEPARTMENT. 7< 
 
 But for the noise, a look round will interest even the stolid. We 
 walked into the building where the grease for lubricating the axles is 
 made. The process is interesting, but should not be witnessed before 
 dinner. The odour emitted from boiling palm oil and tallow is not 
 appetising. Still less is it conducive to the enjoyment of dinner to look 
 through the sheet-shop and watch the process of coating the waggon 
 covers, yet half an hour there will repay the inconvenient experience of 
 nausea. We found huge bales of canvas being cut into lengths and 
 sewed together firmly and rapidly at several leviathan sewing machines, 
 propelled by steam, and should judge it was hot work. Boys were busy 
 sewing in the brass and iron rings at the edges through which the 
 fastening cord is passed when the covers are in use. In another part of 
 the building an extensive floorage was occupied by men charged with 
 mending used sheets. These parts of the building resembled a large 
 sail loft. We were more interested in a new process for coating the 
 sheets. It would serve no object to describe the machinery — for the 
 process is one controlled and carried on by steam power — even if we 
 were capable of or entitled to do so ; suffice it to say that the machinery 
 is simple. One engine supplies power to the coating apparatus, the 
 preparation of the coating oil, and the sewing machines. When a cover 
 is made it is sent to be coated. We follow it and find that the coating 
 process consists of its being carried to a long table, alongside of which 
 there is a long tank containing the coating material. One edge of the 
 cover is passed under a rod lying on the surface of the tank. That edge 
 is then fastened to a movable rod suspended horizontally over the table. 
 The machinery is set agoing, and the cover is drawn tightly and strongly 
 through the tank, and in descending is folded lengthways as it falls on 
 the revolving table. It goes into the tank of a fair giraffe colour — it is 
 folded lamp or coal black. The process does not occupy over two 
 minutes, and it secures — much more than the old system of hand painting 
 — a thorough saturation of the canvas. The cover thus blackened is 
 then hung up to a lofty ceiling, the building being warm, and in a day 
 or two is dry and ready for a second plunge in the " black broth "—to 
 be folded and then hung up till dry enough to admit of stencilling the 
 company's name and marks, and its consecutive number, upon it. In 
 this sheet-shop there are upwards of 4,000 waggon, lorry, and cart 
 covers made annually, requiring about 150,000 yards of canvas. The 
 work is not siveet^ as we have said, and it is not clean : the workmen's 
 
78 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 hands and arms are plunged continually in a bath consisting of oil, 
 lamp-black, and other such ingredients, which, if cooling in hot weather, 
 as probably it is, requires hot water and soap, with a little persistent 
 friction, to remove its traces. Another interesting but not too pleasantly 
 odorous operation, conducted under the care and supervision of the 
 stores superintendent, to whom we have already referred, is that of 
 creosoting timber. Sleepers would not hve out half their days, nor 
 would telegraph poles stand up for themselves so independently if they 
 were not carefully waterproofed before being used. Creosoting has been 
 proved the best choke-damp, and the company in question, with some 
 others, have undertaken the experiment of creosoting their own sleepers 
 and telegraph poles, and each with some measure of success, although 
 the time, in their experience, has scarcely arrived when a decided 
 opinion may be offered as to the financial value of the experiment of 
 performing this work themselves. We looked in at the works, and were 
 at once seized by the nose, not by the manager or his assistants, but by 
 the creosote fumes, which are very pungent. Around us on every hand 
 were piles of fresh sleepers, and yet fresher were being unloaded from 
 scores of waggons. The process of creosoting was new to us, and 
 possibly may be so also to most of our readers, so we shall not apologise 
 for describing it shortly. In the first place, creosote oil is laid in in 
 tanks under the ground level. Large air-tight cylinders, made of stout 
 boiler plates, and of the form of an elongated egg, opening at both ends, 
 are placed conveniently to the tanks ; there is an engine at hand 
 communicating with the cylinders and the tanks ; the cylinders are filled 
 tightly with sleepers or poles, the ends are closed and screwed firmly, the 
 engine pumps out all air from the cylinders, sucks out all moisture from 
 the pores of the wood, and then, having produced a vacuum, the opening 
 of a valve in a communication from the tanks affords a passage for the 
 oil, which is sucked in till, filhng up all available space, it ceases 
 flowing, and the operation is almost at an end. The oil in this way not 
 only covers the surface of the timber, but is literally forced by a 
 natural law into the vacant pores. The workmen then unscrew the 
 bolts in the ends of the cylinders, throw the doors open, and proceed 
 to discharge them. Then it is seen that the timber, the last staves 
 of which but half an hour ago you saw built in dry and clean, has 
 been not only coated but literally pacJced with oil, and is, in all likeli- 
 hood, thoroughly "impervious to damp and internal decay." We 
 
I 
 
 f ^ CF THE '^ \ 
 
 ("O-niversitt;) 
 
 THE STOBES DEEARTMENT.V -^^ OF IW 
 
 were told that if the timber is fairly dry it takes but three hours from 
 the charge to the discharge of the cyhnder, as many as from 450 
 to 500 sleepers being creosoted in that time in each cylinder. If 
 the sleepers have not been thoroughly seasoned before the process, it 
 takes longer to expel the moisture and prepare for the ingress of the oil. 
 This will be manifest to our readers. We stood for some minutes at one 
 end of a cylinder while it was being discharged, and were warned not to 
 risk a longer exposure to the fumes, as they have the effect, when 
 escapnig from their confinement, of attacking the skin of the unaccustomed 
 and making it smart violently. We were also warned against treading 
 on the creosoted timber, or on the ground in its immediate vicinity, lest 
 we should carry away the odour to diffuse it unwelcomely in the railway 
 carriage, the office, or the parlour at home. The workmen change their 
 clothes every time they leave work. 
 
 We have thus shortly endeavoured to show the range of the 
 stores superintendent's duties and responsibilities, by describing the 
 indebtedness of all departments to his arrangement and forethought. 
 No railway work can be performed without his aid. All departments 
 are dependent upon his watchfulness and readiness. Walk through the 
 labyrinths of his repository, and say what you cannot find there. We 
 could fill a few pages with a bare list of the articles lying on his shelves. 
 All kinds of permanent way materials and tools, locomotive materials 
 and tools, waggon and carriage materials and tools, telegraph materials 
 and tools, candles for signals, soap and soap powder, sponges, clocks 
 and watches, india-rubber goods, crucibles, fittings for signals, spelter, 
 tin, and lead, spring balances, steam gauges, office and waiting room 
 furniture, carriage fittings and trimmings, cloth for uniforms, drysalteries, 
 gas and water fittings, glass goods, grain sacks, lamp furnishings, locks 
 for carriages, desks, drawers, &c. ; lamp-wick cottons, pressure gauges, 
 grindstones, oils for lubricating and burning, for paints, and for 
 creosoting purposes; ropes, cordage and twine, dressed flax, baskets, 
 felt, varnishes, timber, coals, coke, ironmongery, matches, needles, 
 dressing-combs, blankets, water columns, injectors, safes, stationery of 
 all conceivable kinds and quaUties, &c., &c., &c. These are but a few 
 of the wares you will find displayed in a most orderly chaos on the rows 
 of shelves, or stacked in the spacious timber yards and iron stores. 
 Look in upon the heads of departments and see how carefully the stock 
 books are kept : not a pound of goods or a yard of material comes in 
 
80 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 or goes out without a careful debit and credit entry, so that a reference 
 to any of these books at any moment reveals at a glance the quantity on 
 hand of any article, and warns the stores superintendent when and what 
 to buy. We have referred to the item of cloth for uniforms as among 
 those kept in stock. We have seen bales of cloth — superfine, for 
 station-masters, guards, and inspectors ; pilot, for goods and mineral 
 brakesmen, and corduroy for porters and pointsmen — together with 
 uniform caps of all kinds. We were carried from the raw material to 
 the tailor's shop, where something Hke 30 men were discovered busy at 
 work, making up uniforms of all classes, shapes, and sizes, and were 
 told that that was the permanent staff of tailors. Uniforms are only 
 dehvered once a year, but almost everything else is in constant demand. 
 Contracts are made annually with merchants and manufacturers for 
 the supply of goods special to them, the stores superintendent having 
 previously satisfied himself as to the utmost of his possible requirements 
 in all branches. Should the quantity contracted for be less than that 
 needed, he knows he must buy further at the market price then ruhng ; 
 if more, he must keep it in stock till wanted. There are several items 
 for which he cannot find room, demanding a larger stock than will 
 suffice for a few months' need, such as coal, coke, timber, and rails. 
 These, moreover, fluctuate so much in price that it is rarely expedient 
 to make long contracts. For these the stores superintendent must, 
 therefore, be frequently in the market, and he needs be a shrewd 
 observer of daily prices to know when to buy. In all his dealings with 
 the merchants and manufacturers his capacity is severely tested. None 
 of them claim a tithe of his knowledge of everything, but each is a 
 specialist. To be a successful purchaser, to be able to meet them all, 
 he must know not only something of everything he buys, but so much of 
 everything as will enable him to buy wisely. He must be a judge of 
 both quality and price. What buyer in the largest of our mercantile 
 establishments is required to profess a knowledge so diffuse ? The 
 .stores superintendent we have taken as our sample is not only this 
 capable merchant, this wise and careful caterer for every want of the 
 railway system, he is also a practical analytical chemist, keeping for 
 reference and for comparison a sample of every article contracted for, 
 and a correct record of its whereabouts when wanted. He is able to 
 bring almost every product purchased to an infalUble chemical test, 
 •detecting by that means the shade of inferiority of a spurious article, 
 
THE STORES DEPARTMENT. 81 
 
 and demonstrating that to a certainty. His laboratory is his touchstone 
 for fabrics and metals alike, and by means of it he has sharpened his 
 mercantile wits. The knowledge that he can test the materials he 
 purchases, and is, therefore, not easily duped, has helped to narrow the 
 circle of his contractors to those who wish to do honest business. 
 
 The stores superintendent not only huT/s for the railway company 
 of which he is a most invaluable officer, and distributes to the various 
 departments what they require to their several orders — he also sells. 
 All old materials — permanent way, locomotive, and telegraphic — are 
 collected by, or sent in to him, and he, watching the market, must 
 judge of the best time to dispose of these. Such is a short and 
 somewhat meagre account of the duties and responsibiUties of the stores 
 superintendent. He is a veritable admirable Crichton. It is not every 
 man who combines in himself so many high qualities — the quahty of 
 the merchant, the chemist, the almost omniscient administrator. The 
 man who serves the office efficiently is possessed of qualities of mind of 
 a high order, and is worthy of high consideration. His chief assistant 
 has a splendid field for observation and practice, and the heads of 
 departments should store up their experiences. If these may not all be 
 stores superintendents, they may become invaluable, because methodical 
 book and storekeepers. 
 
 \ 
 
82 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM, 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE ACCOUNTANT. 
 
 Hitherto we have been considering, with one exception (the secretary's 
 department), the offices and the men in which and by whom the out-of- 
 door's work of our railways is administered. Now we come to another 
 important arm of the service, without which it would be impossible to 
 get along. If a company, in the management of its business, went on 
 incurring debt, or paying away its revenues without keeping books, it 
 requires no expert to see that bankruptcy and ruin must ensue. There 
 must be a book-keeper and books. There must be accurate balancing 
 of profit and loss, and that on some well defined principle. The duties 
 of station masters are not confined to the attendance upon passengers, 
 the encouragement of traffic, by civility and attention, the ordering and 
 disposing of the staff. There must be booking of passengers and goods, 
 and the collection of cash, and the due and regular accounting for intro- 
 missions. Returns are therefore made to the audit office at stated 
 intervals, and equally regular though more frequent transmission of cash 
 to the company's treasury. These financial concerns are, directly,, 
 under the control of the company's traffic auditor, who is, to that 
 extent, one of the company's book-keepers. This, though an essential 
 and highly necessary and important feature of a company's accounting,, 
 has, however, to do only with its revenues, its receipts. The expendi- 
 ture, or that which must be set against the profits of working, in 
 arriving at the amount divisible among the shareholders, comes within 
 the special oversight and care of the company's accountant, who, in 
 order to give an accurate account of the actual profits during each half- 
 year, must be supplied with every infonnation affecting receipts and 
 expenditui'e, from every source. No item of the company's finance may 
 be withheld from him. No secret is too sacred to be entrusted to his 
 keeping. He is responsible for accuracy to the shareholders and the 
 Statey and want of diligence in the fulness of his investigation or care in 
 
THE ACCOUNTAKT. 83 
 
 the acceptance of information supplied to him, may be visited upon his 
 head by the strong and impartial hand of the law. He certifies the 
 half-yearly statements of accounts, and must justify the balance he 
 strikes before independent auditors, who will not be cajoled by mere 
 assertion, but must satisfy themselves of the strictest accuracy. 
 
 A company's accounts are divided under the two great general 
 headings of capital and revenue. The capital account embraces the 
 capital authorised to be issued under the sanction of the company's 
 various Acts of Parliament. Generally speaking, the capital consists of 
 stock, and shares, and loans on debenture or debenture stock. It may 
 be interesting to some of our readers if we step aside at this point and 
 describe the difference between the several classes of capital, and the 
 mode of their creation and issue. A company's ^rs^ creation is usually 
 that of shares, the nominal value of which is fixed at the date or time of 
 their creation, and may vary, according as is resolved, from £10 to .£50 
 per share. In the case of new companies the shares are offered to the 
 general public with a likelihood of those who are locally interested 
 taking them up. If a company is already in existence, and is creating 
 and issuing new capital, allotments of the new shares are offered, in the 
 first place, to present shareholders in rateable proportion to their 
 holdings of the company's ordinary stock, and under such conditions as 
 to price, whether at premium or par, and the amount of the first call as 
 the company's position and the state of the money market may warrant. 
 The allotment letter indicates the date beyond which the option of 
 acceptance of shares lapses. Up till that date those who intend taking 
 up their lots pay to the company's bankers the amount of deposit per 
 share, and are, thereafter, registered in the company's books as the 
 holders of these shares. In some cases the shareholder prefers paying 
 up in full at once, receiving interest on the amount paid in advance, and 
 also saving the worry and anxiety of calls of uncertain amount at 
 uncertain periods. Care requires to be exercised in the registration of 
 shares, and in the registration of deeds of transfer, that the proper con- 
 secutive numbers are noted, as it is not enough that a man be registered 
 as the holder of so many shares, the certificate must bear the particular 
 numbers, otherwise buying and selling and transfer would be next to 
 impossible. This is, however, too obvious to need urging. When the 
 shares are fully paid up, it is often expedient to consolidate them into 
 stock, which renders them less troubleseme to the holder, be he buyer or 
 
84 OUK RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 seller, and also to the company. For the purpose of consolidation, 
 which is simply the grouping of ten £10, five £20, or two £50 shares 
 into £100 stock, it is necessary, under the provisions of the " Companies' 
 Clauses Act,'' that the shares shall hQ fully paid itp. Three-fifths of the 
 shareholders present at a general meeting, of which due statutory notice 
 has been given, may then authorise the work of such consolidation. 
 Certificates bearing that the holder of so many shares, numbered con- 
 secutively and particularly, is now the owner of stock in relative pro- 
 portion to the nominal value of his shares, are thereafter issued, and 
 these stock certificates cancel and render void the paper which each 
 shareholder previously held of the company. Holders of stock may sell 
 in the market through recognised members of the Stock Exchange, but 
 the price received for the stock is regulated by various circumstances 
 from day to day, such as the company's present position or its immediate 
 prospects, the condition of the money market, or the operations of 
 speculators on the Exchange. A man may get, as in the case of some 
 of the best railway properties, as much as £140 to £150 for his £100, 
 or, as in the case of less fortunate companies, he may get so low as £60, 
 or even under that amount. The companies neither reap advantage from 
 the premium prices, nor disadvantage from the prices which are below 
 par — par bein": the term for stock at its nominal value. In either case 
 the stock is a £100 stock, and the holder entitled to dividend on that 
 amount. 
 
 The raising of capital under these heads involves the keeping of 
 separate accounts in each shareholder's name, and of a register of 
 mortgages and debenture stock, with an entry for every bond and 
 debenture stock holder. In the case of the more extensive companies, 
 these books are kept by the registrar, but in many cases the accountant 
 is charged with their management. In any case, the latter officer deals 
 with the aggregate debit and credit of these accounts as an element of 
 his half-yearly balance of the company's financial position. 
 
 The capital thus raised is expended on the lines and works for 
 which Parhamentary powers were asked and received, and the account- 
 ant's office is the centre to which all details of that capital expenditure 
 are sent for manipulation. These are there classified under such general 
 headings as " Lands and Works," which comprise all expenses incurred 
 in the construction of the lines and working stock, which latter includes 
 all plant. 
 
I 
 
 THE ACCOUNTANT. 85 
 
 The completion and opening of the parent line or new branches 
 involve the opening of the revenue account. This account is credited 
 with the receipts derived from all sources in working the traffic on the 
 one hand, and debited with all expenses incurred on the other, the balance 
 at the credit of the account at the end of the half-year being the profit 
 divisible among the shareholders. 
 
 The capital and revenue accounts, and also the company's balance 
 sheet, are made up half-yearly according to forms prescribed by the 
 " Regulation of Railways Act, 1868," and are audited and certified by 
 independent auditors appointed to the duty by the shareholders. In 
 their certificate these gentlemen must declare that, having carefully 
 scrutinised the accounts prepared by the accountant, and certified by 
 him, they find them contain a full and true statement of the financial 
 position of the company, and that the dividends proposed to be declared 
 are hona fide, after charging the revenue of the half-year with all expenses, 
 which, in their judgment, ought to be paid thereout. These half-yearly 
 accounts contain, in the first-place, a statement of " Capital authorised 
 and Created by the Company," detailing the various acts ; and the 
 amount of capital authorised to be raised under authority of each. In 
 the second place, a statement of " Stock and Share Capital Created, 
 showing the proportion received." This is made up from the company's 
 principal ledger, and shows the aggregate amounts received from share- 
 holders on account of the stock or shares created, the amounts, if any, 
 of calls in arrears, and the amount of the shares uncalled, with the 
 amount unissued, if any part of the total nominal value of the shares 
 remains to be called up, or any of the total number of shares created 
 remains to be issued at the date to which the accounts are made up. In 
 the third place a statement of " Capital raised by Loans and Debenture 
 Stock " — showing the amounts received at the end of the half-year im- 
 mediately preceding, classified under the different rates of interest 
 payable — and, similarly, the amounts at the date of accounting, and the 
 difference, either increase or decrease, during the half-year. In the 
 fourth place, the accounts show the "Receipts and Expenditure on 
 Capital account," as made up from the principal books of the company, 
 all of which are kept by the accountant. On the credit side of this 
 account we have the total amounts received on shai'es and loans, and 
 these, together with any other capital receipts, if any, not included in 
 the statements just referred to, constitute the capital receipts of the 
 
86 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 company. On the debit side we have the expenditure, showing sepa- 
 rately, that on lines open for traffic, on lines in course of construction, 
 and on working stock^ &c., &c., and the balance, if on the debit side, as 
 will at once appear, shows the amount of expenditure in excess of 
 receipts, or, if on the credit side, it shows the amount of receipts in 
 excess of the expenditure— a happy state of affairs for the company. In 
 the fifth place, a statement giving " Details of Capital Expenditure." 
 These details are classified under the following heads, viz. : — " Land and 
 Compensation,*' which includes the amounts paid to landed proprietors 
 for land purchased, for lines and works, and to their tenants for loss and 
 damage to crops, &c. : " Construction of Way and Stations," which 
 includes the amounts paid for engineering, for construction, and, gene- 
 rally, for rails, chairs, sleepers, and all expenses incurred in the formation 
 or construction of the line and stations : and " Law Chai'ges, and 
 Parliamentary Expenses, &c.," which includes all expenses not embraced 
 under the other two heads. In the sixth place there is given a " Return 
 of Working Stock," showing, under classified headings, the number of 
 locomotives, carriages, waggons, and, generally, the number of vehicles 
 used in the working of the traffic and owned by the company at the date 
 of accounting. This statement is, practically, a half-yearly inventory of 
 the company's rolling stock, and it is made up from returns furnished by 
 the locomotive superintendent, and other out-door officers in charge of 
 the company's plant. The seventh statement is an " Estimate of further 
 Expenditure on Capital Account," showing what is likely to be required 
 to be expended on new works during the immediately ensuing half-year, 
 and also how much may be estimated to be needed in subsequent half- 
 years. This statement is made up from information supplied by the 
 company's engineers and others. The eighth statement gives the 
 " Capital Powers and other assets available to meet further Expenditure," 
 and shows the amount of share and loan capital authorised but not 
 created, the amount of calls in arrears, uncalled and unissued shares 
 created, and any other capital asset which the company may possess 
 available to meet their further requirements. These eight statements 
 exhaust the capital account. 
 
 Next follows the revenue account, number nine of the half-yearly 
 accounts being the statement with which it leads off. The items on the 
 credit side of this account are made up from returns furnished to the 
 accountant, chiefly by the traffic auditor, and these show the revenue from 
 
THE ACCOUNTANT. 87 
 
 all sources daring the half-year. The items on the debit side show the 
 expenses incurred in working the line or in obtaining the revenue 
 credited on the other side of that account. The expenses are classified 
 under different headings, and show what proportion is chargeable to each 
 department of the service, together with such other revenue charges as 
 compensation paid to passengers injured on the hue, and the aggregate 
 of the sums paid for damage to goods in transit, parliamentary expenses, 
 incurred in protecting the traffic from projected competition, by the 
 opening of new lines and branches in connection with neighbouring 
 systems of railway, rates and taxes, passenger duty, &c. 
 
 These items are still further detailed under abstracts, in statement 
 number twelve, where they are sub-divided into the minor classification, 
 cost of wages and maierials incurred in working, and wages and materials 
 expended in repairing, &c. The balance of the revenue account is carried 
 to statement number tea, which deals with the net revenue account. On 
 the credit side of this account is brought forward, if there be any, the 
 balance from the previous half-year, the balance, already referred to, 
 transferred from the remnue account, and any other special credits 
 derived from the working of the line, but not credited to the revenue 
 account. On the debit sice of the net revenue account is shown any 
 special items of expenditure applicable to revenue, but not included in 
 debits to the revenue account is for working expenses, such as feu duties, 
 and ground annuals, interest &c. The balance of this net revenue 
 account is the balance availdDle for dividend, and is transferred to 
 statement number eleven, whch shows its proposed appropriation. 
 Number thirteen is the general balance sheet, in which are set forth the 
 assets and liabilities of the compmy at the time of accounting. Number 
 fourteen shows the mileage workei, while number fifteen, the last state- 
 ment supplied on the company's hilf-yearly statement of accounts, shows 
 the train mileage run during the haf-year. 
 
 From the foregoing explanatioi it will be seen that all accounts of 
 receipts and expenditure, and full ststements of the company's liabilities, 
 are sent to the accountant, who ises the materials as well for the 
 purpose of preparing these half-yearl^ statements for distribution among 
 the shareholders, as for the compary's financial rectitude. The half- 
 yearly statements of accounts are priited from the statements and the 
 balance-sheet prepared by the accomtant, and duly certified by the 
 chairman and himself, after these voliminous documents have received 
 
88 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 the imprimatur of the auditors as correct. These accounts are issued by 
 the secretary to each person whose name appears on the company's 
 register of shareholders at the time of closing that valuable record ; and 
 a copy must also, under a provision of the " Regulation of Railways 
 Act, 1868," be forwarded to the Board of Trade, while the company are 
 held under obligation to give a copy on application " to any person 
 holding shares, or mortgage, or debenture stock, or bonds of the 
 company." 
 
 A company's expenditure, being more particularly under the control 
 of the directors, is that which devolves the greatest amount of labour 
 upon the accountant's department. Generally, it comprises accounts 
 incurred to contractors for work done, to merdiants for materials 
 supplied, and to tradesmen and others for repairs and furnishings, &c. ; 
 salaries and wages paid to the company's officers md servants, rates and 
 taxes, interest, &c. These all fall to be dealt Tfith in the office of the 
 accountant, and to be so classified in the compai/j^'s books as to facilitate 
 the supply of information to the directors wb^n asked for, and for the 
 preparation of the published accounts in /the form prescribed by 
 Parliament. The amounts due to contractors for works are certified by 
 the company's engineers — those due to merciants for materials supplied 
 are certified by the stores superintendent ; Vhile those due to tradesmen 
 and others are certified by the heads of the departments on whose account 
 they are incurred. The salaries and wsges' bills are made up and 
 certified by the heads of departments. TAese, and all certified accounts, 
 are sent periodically to the accountan/s department, where they are 
 thoroughly examined, compared with contracts as to prices, &c., 
 calculations checked, and abstracts of in em made for submission to the 
 board or the finance committee for ii^tructions as to payment. They 
 are then handed over to the treasurer ir chief cashier, by whom they are 
 paid, the payments being entered vy him in a blotter or scroll cash 
 book, which, with the vouchers, or ijceipts, are sent to the accountant ;. 
 the payments to be recorded in the company's principal books, and the 
 vouchers to be filed past for future Merence. 
 
 The principal duty of the aiflitors is in the accountant's depart- 
 ment, and the great business of the half-yearly audit is to see that 
 receipts and expenditure are propeiw allocated to capital and revenue, so 
 that the revenue balance shown/to be available for dividend is not 
 increased on the one hand by qediting in any way to revenue what 
 
THE ACCOUNTANT. 89 
 
 should properly be credited to capital, or, on the other hand, by charging 
 to capital what should properly be charged to revenue, and the ease 
 with which the auditors may arrive at a full certainty as to this is 
 dependent on the arrangement and the care bestowed on the book- 
 keeping by the accountant and his staff. We know of one company, 
 and doubtless there are many such, whose books and accounts are so 
 arranged and so carefully kept that the auditors readily determine, to a 
 certainty, whether the aggregate amount of debits and credits to capital 
 and revenue respectively is the actual amount shown in the accounts 
 proposed to be issued to the shareholders. 
 
 Besides keeping the accounts, the department is charged with the 
 preparation of all financial statistics required by the Board of Trade, the 
 statements furnished to the assessor of railways for valuation roll 
 purposes, and those supplied to the income tax commissioners for 
 purposes of taxation, and, generally, the preparation of all statements 
 which in any way affect the financial concerns of the company. 
 
 In these somewhat voluminous observations, we have shown the 
 quantity and character of the work devolving upon the company's 
 accountant. There can be but one opinion of its supreme importance, 
 and it needs but few words to show that the man who directs and 
 controls a department with such responsibilities must possess certain 
 valuable qualifications. There is perhaps nowhere outside of railway 
 business so elaborate and intricate materials to manipulate. Certainly 
 no merely commercial book-keeper, however long and varied his 
 experience, could hope to be otherwise than confused among the 
 multitudinous details of this department of railway business. It is like 
 no other book-keeping system, except in its general principle. Nothing 
 but long experience will impart familiarity with its details and cross 
 entries. Hence the egregious blundering of men on 'Change and city 
 editors, so frequently manifested in dissecting the pubUshed accounts of 
 railway companies. Properly, to fulfil his high functions, the railway 
 accountant should be an expert of experts in figures. Sound arithmetic, 
 and a capacity to adapt its maily rules to his emergencies, are necessary 
 qualifications. A clear head and ready apprehension are equally 
 invaluable. A knowledge of the special requirements of railway 
 financing, and of the company's special powers and obhgations as 
 defined in its Acts of Parliament, and famiharity with the requirements 
 of the Board of Trade, are not less cardinal requi^t^^^'g-nj 
 
 /^ ^ OF THE 
 
 (XJNIVER 
 
90 OUB KAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 railway accountant. He must needs be also an administrator, since 
 much, indeed all, the detail work must be performed by his staff, who 
 will require subdivision in departments, and careful instruction and 
 supervision in the performance of their several duties. They will 
 further, and as an elementary fact, require to be carefully selected and 
 trained. The accountant must be a man of strict method, accustomed 
 to work by rule and spirit-level, and, in this respect, his staff will 
 insensibly follow him. His principal assistants must be such as he, in all 
 these respects, and they must be careful and painstaking referees in all 
 difficulties which stagger the members of the staff. Under such 
 instruction and oversight young men of necessary capacity steadily grow 
 like their officers, and are sensible, or the reverse if they do not profit 
 by their training. Nothing proves so valuable in the character and 
 quahfications of an accountant's clerk, next to neatness of hand and 
 lacihty in figures, as the qualities of accuracy and perseverance. 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE TRAFFIC AUDITOR. 
 
 Even to the fully initiated, railway accounting often appears, as it 
 in reality is, intricate and perplexing to a degree. Not even those 
 primitive little lines, which, beginning nowhere and ending in no place in 
 particular, and which are innocent of the complications of through 
 booking, can be made to pay dividend without an amount of account- 
 keeping which would seem to the outsider as almost inexphcable. It is 
 not, however, our intention in this chapter to discuss the general question 
 of railway accounting, which includes all the elaborate machinery called 
 into play in order to strike the half-yearly balance between revenue and 
 expenditure, between charge and discharge, and which results in the 
 declaration of dividend. Of that we have treated in the last chapter. 
 We shall here confine our attention to one special and distinct phase 
 of the question — that, namely, of the traffic audit. And, first let us 
 say, that by the traffic audit we mean simply the duties performed in 
 
THE TRAFFIC AUDITOR. 91 
 
 the audit office. In some cases these duties are laid upon the accountant, 
 and form a branch of his work. The audit office is so much more fre- 
 quently separate and independent, however, that we prefer to treat it as 
 if it were universally so, and we think that our readers will appreciate 
 the separate treatment. 
 
 The Clearing House system has rendered it possible to book pas- 
 sengers, or to despatch goods, from Land's End to John O'Groats, at 
 through rates and fares, the passenger or the trader having no need for 
 worry about re-booking, and the various companies whose lines form the 
 difiFerent links in the route being assured of their share of the profits of 
 carriage. A most important factor in working this out is the traffic 
 auditor, who is the medium through whom the Clearing House deals with 
 4;he companies in matters of division of receipts. Booking and parcels 
 clerks receive money in rates and fares, and give the passenger or trader 
 certain rights and privileges over their company's lines, and, in the case 
 of through transit, over connecting lines. The traffic auditor is, as a 
 •rule, advised of the receipts from these sources daily, by means of a 
 copy of the cash note which accompanies the remittances to the bank, 
 or to the company's cashier, and it is his province to see that these 
 -monies are duly accounted for. Goods agents or cashiers receive 
 "porters'" collections, ^'paid in'" freights, live stock and mineral charges, 
 and they collect weekly or monthly accounts, on the one hand, and pay 
 claims, "paid on" charges, &c., on the other hand, sending their cash to the 
 •^bank or the company's cashier daily, supplying the traffic auditor with 
 a copy of the cash note, and balancing the whole for that officer in the 
 monthly balance sheet. The traffic auditor examines these statements of 
 •^'charge" and ''discharge" as often as he pleases, and as minutely as 
 time and opportunity will admit. He is, practically, responsible for 
 correct and regular accounting between the stations and the company, 
 and is the only check upon carelessness or infidelity which the company 
 possesses in traffic matters. He is a very wholesome check, because the 
 radically dishonest cannot well escape detection, and, knowing that, are 
 often kept in the narrow but safe and comfortable groove of uprightness, 
 while the strictly scrupulous and careful find, in his periodical, or inter- 
 mittent audit of their accounts, and his approving initials appended to each 
 as it is examined, that confirmation of their conscious rectitude, and of 
 their painstaking regularity, which is its own rev/ard. We are far from 
 saying that a thorough and capable audit of station accounts always 
 
92 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 succeeds in preventing dishonesty. The history of every company affords 
 too frequent illustration that in spite of that care deception has been 
 successfully practised. But we thiuk it is due to the traffic audit, not 
 merely to say that it has prevented deceit and fraud in thousands of 
 possible cases, but it has the credit of discovering these in innumeral)le 
 instances, and of bringing the guilty to justice. And it is impossible to 
 believe that with ever-increasing experience, methods of station accounting 
 will not one day be devised whereby the morally weak will be protected 
 against themselves, and the work of the trafl&c auditor prove a yet more 
 salutary check upon those holding positions of trust. When cases 
 of incapacity or fraud are suspected a special investigation is made — by 
 the audit office — and a report prepared for the goods manager, or the 
 general superintendent and the general manager, in order that the person 
 or persons concerned may be dealt with. When a station master, 
 cashier, or booking clerk is removed, a special audit of the books is 
 made, so that the new incumbent of either of these offices may have a 
 clear start. When a new passenger station is about to be opened the 
 traffic auditor hands over the necessary books and tickets to the newly 
 appointed master, or, as in the case of superior stations, to the booking 
 clerk, giving him all needful instructions, and taking his receipt for the 
 property committed to his charge. 
 
 In the interests of his company, the traffic auditor is an observer of 
 routes. When rates or fares are arranged between two competing 
 companies for traffic which is to pass from one to the other company's 
 system ; and when these companies have more than one point of contact, 
 or exchange for that traffic, the receipts are usually divisible between 
 the companies by the most direct route. It sometimes happens that 
 the sending company, however, in its natural zeal for its own interest, 
 sends the traffic to the most distant junction, in order to secure, if 
 possible, the longer mileage. Under a watchful audit this is not likely 
 to be successful, however, as the department, bemg provided with a note 
 of the arrangement, is certain to check the irregularity, and to insist upon 
 a division by the shortest route. In connection with this, the traffic 
 auditor is always provided with copies of agreements made between 
 the company he represents, its competitors, aud its alHes. With the 
 various clauses of these agreements he must make himself acquainted, in 
 order that he may know his company's powers and obligations. A famous 
 orator of a past age once declared in his place in the Imperial Parliament 
 
THE TRAFFIC AUDITOR. 93 
 
 that he could ''drive a coach and six through any Act" the legislature 
 might pass. The saying was as true as it was witty, and it is as applicable 
 to the work of our senators of the present day as to that of the days of 
 the celebrated O'Connell. It is no less true of those documents so 
 frequently scheduled to railway acts of our time, and called agreements; 
 and it is perhaps still more true of those often less binding agreements 
 which are executed between companies, or between any of these and their 
 traders, or yet again between them and certain corporations for mutual 
 advantage. We do not say that the ambiguity of terms used in Acts of 
 Parliament, agreements, and such documents, is at any time intended. 
 We charitably blame our copious English tongue which is so full of 
 synonymous words and phrases that it is difficult to avoid the employ- 
 ment of some which may not mean exactly the same thing to everybody. 
 One of the special difficulties which beset the path of the traffic auditor 
 is the strict interpretation of debateable terms in traffic agreements, and 
 this is a Kterary and legal test which proves the quality of the man. Ke 
 is not, of course, left to read the riddle alone. He has probably had no 
 share in the construction of its clauses, and no responsibility in its 
 looseness of expression, consequently, he consults with the general 
 manager, the goods manager, or the company's solicitor, and it may not 
 unfrequently happen that, in his unclouded, unbiassed view, reading it for 
 the first time, and free from the mental fatigue and strain of drafting it, 
 he lets in a new light upon some faulty phrase which alters his company's 
 position with respect to the agreement, to the apprehension even of its 
 authors. 
 
 The traffic auditor has the adjustment of traffic accounts with 
 leased companies, and with those whose traffic is worked by his own 
 company — and that is always an onerous task, requiring much discretion 
 and tact. He is also called upon from time to time to make up state- 
 ments of traffic for the information of the Board — for the management, or 
 for Parliamentary warfare. There is, we may observe, about the very air 
 of the audit office a kind of privacy which seems to say " No admittance, 
 except on business." The department is of the nature of a detective force 
 whose operations none may know till the result is ascertained. This is 
 true of its investigations, whether periodical or special. It is much more 
 true of its care of the records of weekly traffic receipts. Possessing 
 summaries of all kinds of traffic working over his company's lines, and 
 being in constant communication with the» Clearing House, the traffic 
 
94 OUR KAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 auditor is in a position to indicate — once a week — by how much the 
 gross receipts have increased or decreased in comparison with the 
 corresponding week of the previous year. This he does in his traffic 
 return. The eager waiting for these weekly pubhcations, and the effect 
 they have on the prices of stocks on "^Change," are matter of common 
 observation, so that a speculating and investing public seem fully aHve 
 to the value of the information supplied through this important pubHc 
 medium, and no one will, therefore, fail to see that the utmost reticence 
 is needed on the part of the officer who wields a weapon so dangerous. 
 The problem of the week, about which there is so much breathless anxiety, 
 must be worked out by the traffic auditor personally, or with the aid of 
 a trusted assistant, lest many-tongued rumour, lynx-eyed and eaves- 
 dropping, should carry away even a hint of the secret before it is ripe for 
 divulgence. Passenger tickets are issued from the audit office to the 
 stations with a debit of their value ; and, being treated as cash, they 
 must be accounted for to the audit office. This arrangement includes 
 season and traders', or composition tickets, together with tourist 
 and pic-nic tickets, in their season. Parcels traffic, horses and dogs^ 
 with game and poultry — all are included in returns to the traffic auditor, 
 and come under his cognisance; while the ticket collecting staff forward 
 to his office daily all tickets, passes, &c., taken from passengers at their 
 several stations. 
 
 This is a hasty review of the chief functions of the traffic audit ; 
 but it may be sufficient to indicate, in broad outline, the scope and 
 requirements of the office. The man who would administer it thoroughly 
 must needs be no stranger to railway work, and must be a fair 
 accountant. There are many details of station accounting to which our 
 space offers no opportunity of even referring ; and, since the chief of the 
 department charged with seeing that everything is carefully accounted 
 for cannot be expected to investigate everything personally, it is obvious 
 that he should know how everything is done, and advise in cases of 
 complication. He cannot be too fully and broadly cultured — no officer 
 can — and he should, as we have already indicated, specially be so fair a 
 student of English as to be able to weigh the relative value of 
 synonymous terms. We are speaking to our youthful aspirants to the 
 office, well knowing that the present incumbents, in a majority of 
 instances, illustrate our high ideal with many graces of capacity. 
 Conscientiousness and industry are important qualifications, and cautious 
 reserve is indispensable. 
 
I 
 
 THE TRAFFIC AUDITOR. 95 
 
 Such an office as the audit demands one chief assistant — one 
 controUing head — one unfaihng, trustworthy confidant. As in other 
 departments, so here — this principal assistant should possess the same 
 qualifications as his chief. If he have them not, he is like a broken 
 reed — when most needed he fails. Where the traffic auditor is a man 
 of the proper brand, his assistants have opportunities of improvement 
 which only carelessness or incapacity would prevent them taking 
 advantage of. Give us the head and we will prophesy as to the hands.. 
 The chief clerk, or principal assistant, coming most into contact with 
 the head of the department, insensibly acquires style and tact from his 
 association with his superior; and, if he be a sensible man, will be 
 certain to discover through that very association the lurking ignorance- 
 with which the corners in his brain had been stuffed, and will gradually 
 build up experiences of his own. Besides the principal assistant, there 
 are heads of departments, the chief division of work in the office being 
 goods and passengers. In the former the chief duty of the staff is to 
 receive and check the abstracts or summaries of goods, live-stock, and: 
 mineral traffic, sent in from all stations ; to record them ; to pass them 
 on to the Clearing House ; and to correspond with the latter, and with 
 stations in cases of discrepancy; and to see that the company's due 
 proportion of the receipts is credited to it. There are minor details of 
 work, such as the keeping of " rope " and " sack " accounts, the check 
 of monthly balance-sheets, &c., which we need not do more than 
 mention. The staff in this department has frequent interruption, in its 
 monthly routine of work, in the constant demand for traffic statements, 
 a kind of special duty which requires some care and more smartness 
 There is also attached to the department a staff of travelling audit 
 inspectors, who go now here, anon there, dropping down as from 
 another sphere upon a station unawares, making investigation of books, 
 and reporting upon outstandings and irregularities. In the passenger 
 department the duties are as similar as the dissimilarity of the traffic 
 will allow. There are the travelUng auditors, making raid upon station 
 masters and booking clerks, examining ticket stock and cash remittances ;. 
 the office staff, taking account of station debits for tickets supplied, of 
 station credits for tickets sold, advising the Clearing House by monthly 
 abstracts or summaries of all foreign traffic, and taking care that the 
 due division is credited by the latter, receiving and duly checking 
 station summaries of parcel traffic, horses, carriages, dogs, game, and 
 
96 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 passenger live stock, recording the local and advising the Clearing 
 House of the foreign, for mileage division of the receipts. This is, in 
 brief, the work of the audit office. Its staff of clerks should be fair, 
 accurate, and expert figurers. They have few opportunities of acquiring, 
 in their routine duty, facility in composition, for the letters are chiefly 
 J ;^7itine and stereotyped. They have no chance of learning anything of 
 the changeful out-of-door work of active railway management. There 
 is a certain monotony about their daily labour which, at the first 
 blush, is repellant ; but to many mental constitutions there is a charm in 
 figures, and their infinite capacity of involution, and the audit office has, 
 therefore, an attraction for all such, which, allied with the consciousness 
 that the work upon which they are engaged is second to none in the 
 service in its importance, will always secure for it clever, clear-headed, 
 and painstaking men, whose labours are worthy of fair remuneration. 
 The travelling staff have responsible duties to perform, but should 
 always discharge them with suavity, and we believe they are exemplary 
 in that respect. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE SOLICITOR. 
 
 The powers and privileges enjoyed by the railway companies are 
 conferred, as our readers well know, by Parliament, in Special and 
 General Acts passed from time to time. The Special Acts are applied 
 for by the individual companies. The General Acts are usually pro- 
 moted by Government " for the better regulation of railway traffic." 
 These latter impose restrictive obhgations " in the public interest," as 
 the phrase is. Both classes of enactments affect the companies by 
 defining their rights and by setting forth their obhgations. It seems to 
 be characteristic of the English language— not specially so, we believe — 
 that many words and combinations of them are susceptible of such 
 varied meanings as to render the work of the Lawgiver pei'plexing. We 
 all know at least, that if a " coach and six " cannot be driven through 
 

 THE SOLICITOR. 
 
 an Act of Parliament, ingenious solicitors and counsel can find joints in 
 the armour through which to attack a rival, or loopholes for escape from 
 troublesome obligations. We do not think — as we have already said — 
 that this ambiguity of expression in the Statute Book is intentional, 
 though we have heard it broadly hinted that if the letter of the law were 
 more simple and easy of comprehension, there would be fewer lawyers, 
 and we know that the lawyers are the draughtsmen. We merely mention 
 this rumour by the way, inchning rather to blame the many-tinted 
 English tongue in which our laws are written ; and nursing the belief 
 that the legal profession feel aggrieved at the ambiguity of expression 
 which perplexes their clients. 
 
 Well, it will be evident that companies possessing power and 
 privilege in the conduct of their trade, sanctioned by special Acts of 
 Parliament, and bound down by restrictions and obhgations which, if 
 neglected, may be punished, by appeal to the courts of law, cannot 
 pretend to interpret the law for themselves without the aid of experts. 
 Hence it arises that each has to call in professional assistance ; each 
 has to employ its own lawyer. Many of the companies appoint a duly 
 qualified legal practitioner — in England and Ireland he is an attorney, 
 in Scotland a solicitor — to the office of soHcitor, who on his appointment 
 resigns his general practice, and, becoming an officer of his company, 
 devotes himself entirely to his company's interests. In some of the 
 smaller companies it is the rule to call in the aid of some well known 
 firm of attorneys or soHcitors to advise on occasion. This latter course 
 is, for the companies who adopt it, probably the cheaper and better one, 
 as, from the small amount of legal advice and assistance they require, it 
 would be more expensive to estabhsh a solicitor and his assistants on 
 their staff. For the greater companies, however, it is probably more 
 expedient, and also less costly, to add a law department to the 
 establishment. Everybody knows that " going to law " is a costly ex- 
 pedient, and well-advised people avoid it, when they can. Lawyers* fees 
 are proverbially heavy, not intrinsically, but in their aggregate amount, 
 as the profession knows how to protract a case, and heap on costs. 
 Apart from great questions of policy, which turn up continually, and 
 upon which, for the reasons given, it is necessary to have professional 
 advice, there is a constant crop of trifling little matters in connection 
 with claims, outstanding accounts, demurrage, rates and taxes, and such 
 like, upon which the heads of departments require to have legal 
 
 7 
 
98 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 assistance. If the company merely hires that from a firm in business 
 who will, Terj properly, charge for every such advice or consultation, 
 those heads will consider well whether the advice is worth the expense, 
 and probably decide for themselves, in equity, and oftentimes find them- 
 selves on the wrong side of an action in court. If on the other hand the 
 company has a soHcitor on the premises, that gentleman or his assistants 
 will be appealed to in every difficulty, with the consciousness of getting 
 what may fairly be presumed to be sound, responsible advice without 
 cost or favour. 
 
 In this chapter we have to do only with the solicitor as the head 
 of a department of railway business — a railway officer, in fact. It is 
 necessary to his appointment that the solicitor be a duly quaUfied legal 
 practitioner — that is, one who is quahfied to practise the profession of 
 law. He must be an experienced conveyancer, having all his company's 
 landed interests under his charge. He requires to be familiar with the 
 forms of procedure in Parliament, in the various courts, and in arbitra- 
 tions. And it is essential, as a qualification for his office, that he should 
 possess the readiness and concentration of thought necessary to grapple, 
 at will, with such diverse matters as a mass of traffic returns, an 
 engineering design, or a medical report. These are high and varied 
 qualifications, and they place the railway solicitor on a loftier pedestal 
 than his brother in general practice, for he must profess all that the latter 
 knows and can do, and mvch more. The soHcitor, as the company's legal 
 adviser, often has a seat, with the general manager and the secretary, at 
 the board. Equally with them, he is confidant of all the deep and 
 hidden things of policy which are incubated at board meetings. He 
 is versed in all the past, as he advises as to all the present schemes 
 of the company, and he keeps a watchful eye upon the schemes of 
 competitors. Not only so, to be useful, he makes it a point to master, 
 together with his own company's statutory powers and obligations, 
 those of neighbouring companies — allies as well as rivals. It is in his 
 capacity as legal adviser on matters of policy that the railway soHcitor 
 proves his quality most. In the discharge of this important function he 
 is consulted on all new schemes. If his company projects a new line, in 
 the natural development of its resources, he must advise as to its 
 possible interference with vested rights, pubHc and private, and the 
 likeHhood of opposition. If the new scheme invades the territory of a 
 competitor, he is expected to know whether the company is debarred 
 
THE SOLICITOR. 99 
 
 by obligations to that competitor, and, if so, whether there is no 
 loop-hole in any existing arrangements through which there mt^y be 
 a way of escape, and a chance of over-riding objection. This is, 
 manifestly, a most invaluable function to be called upon to exercise. It 
 is pleasant, when you have agreed with an adversary in black and white, 
 to find, when it is convenient to do so, that you may discard the 
 agreement because of some technical flaw. If there is no agreement 
 debarring the invasion, it becomes his duty to forecast and anticipate 
 the lines of his competitor's opposition, and to prepare for it. Having 
 advised as to the feasibihty of carrying a bill for the new scheme, he 
 has nothing to charge himself with on the question of its desirability or 
 necessity; his next duty is to carry the measure through Parliament. 
 In this he is assisted by the general manager, who has to do with the 
 policy of the scheme; by the engineer, consulting or resident, with 
 whom rests the responsibility for the plans; and by a parliamentary 
 agent in London, with whom he drafts the Bill. In connection with 
 this, his assistants make up the necessary book of reference, which, with 
 plans and other documents to be afterwards enumerated, must be lodged 
 in the Private Bill Office of the Houses of Parliament, on or before the 
 31st day of December, in compliance with the standing orders of 
 ParHament. The book of reference contains a description of the land 
 or tenements, with a list of the owners, lessees, or occupiers thereof, 
 proposed to be interfered with, and lying within the limits of deviation 
 of the proposed hue. From this book the soHcitor's staff copies the 
 requisite notices to owners, lessees, or occupiers, and these must be 
 served upon each person affected by the scheme, on or before the 
 fifteenth day of December. It is also necessary that, on or before the 
 thirtieth day of November, he lodge with the proper officer of the 
 county and township or burgh interested, a copy of the plans and 
 sections, together with the relative book of reference, for inspection. 
 Then he must prepare a hst of assents, dissents, and neuters from the 
 rephes of those who are interested, all for lodgment, with the book of 
 reference and plans, in the Private Bill Office of ParHament. There is 
 also a list of the labouring classes who are to be dispossessed of their 
 homes by the proposed scheme, to be prepared from the valuation roll, 
 and the affidavits of those who have served notices require to be sworn 
 to before the sheriff of the county, these affidavits proving that the 
 landing orders have been complied with, and the labouring classes 
 
100 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 schedule must accompany tlie papers already referred to as requiring 
 to be deposited in the private bill office already mentioned. We had 
 almost omitted reference to the publication of notices in certain news- 
 papers, including the Gazettes published in London, Edinburgh, or 
 Dublin, as the case may be. These notices are drafted by the solicitor, 
 and their publication is an essential part of the evidence of the strictest 
 compliance with standing orders. The first stage of the Parliamentary 
 proceedings is the passing of the bill by the examiners on standing 
 orders, who, if they detect the slightest technical flaw, have the power to 
 throw out the bill for the session on the very threshold of its progress. 
 It will be evident from this that at no time dare the solicitor trifle with 
 his preparations. 
 
 We must now assume that a Bill has passed to the House. The 
 inexorable standing orders require that petitions against the Bill shall 
 be presented within two, if in the House of Lords, and if in the House of 
 Commons, within ten clear days after its first reading. The solicitor 
 must look for these, and prepare his objections to the locus standi of the 
 petitioners, if he has any to state. He must also not only have an array 
 of witnesses ready, but he must have from each a precognition, or written 
 statement, of what each is prepared to say in favour of the Bill. From 
 these he prepares his brief for counsel, and the success or defeat of his 
 application will depend mainly upon the character and quality of his case 
 as indicated in the biief. Meanwhile there has been the appointment of 
 a select committee of the House for the consideration of a group of Bills, 
 our sohcitor's among the number, with the nammg of a day for the pro- 
 bable commencement of the hearing of each. According as his Bill is 
 placed on the group will the sohcitor's case come on sooner or later. 
 He must be ready — often at a few hours' notice — to start for London 
 with his witnesses and documents. Equally with the counsel and the 
 ParHamentary agent, but with a far greater sense of responsibihty than 
 either, he must watch the case closely, putting forward or keeping 
 back evidence according as he deems the exigencies of the case require. 
 In hearing petitioners against the Bill, he has an especially difficult task 
 to perform, as he knows nothmg definitely, until he hears the evidence 
 they are to offer. Then foflow consultations with counsel and the 
 Parliamentary agent as to how these witnesses are to be handled. The 
 reader may feel sure that when a Bill passes, after so much high pressure, 
 the sohcitor has earned a rest with his laurels. 
 
THE SOLICITOR. 101 
 
 When tlie required Act has been passed, and the operations which 
 it authorises are about to be begun, the solicitor prepares and adjusts 
 the contracts — in the meantime let — under which the various portions of 
 the work involved are to be undertaken. The proceedings for deter- 
 mining the amount of compensation to be paid for land and other 
 property to be acquired, or interfered with, are conducted by him, and in 
 many cases, where arbitration is necessary, he acts both as counsel and 
 agent. In a great majority of instances the settlement of these claims 
 is disposed of before an arbiter or arbitrators— appointed by mutual 
 consent under the Lands Clauses Act. When the question of amount of 
 compensation has been settled, it becomes the duty of the soUcitor to 
 convey the property to the company, and to have the company dischai'ged 
 of the claim. The convey ancing department of the sohcitor's office takes 
 cognisance of and investigates the title deeds, and prepares and adjusts 
 — with the professional advisers of the sellers — the documents conveying 
 the properties purchased from the seller by the company. As the sums 
 of money expended from time to time in acquiring property or lands 
 are necessarily great, it is always well to be satisfied that the property 
 or lands are not burthened with mortgages, annuities, or other similar 
 incumbrances, or to see that no title is accepted with a flaw in it. 
 Carelessness in this, or a lack of professional skill, may involve heavy 
 loss to the company. In this connection it is necessary to examine the 
 whole of the titles with care, and to obtain from the public records 
 corroborative evidence. This department also deals with all disputes 
 arising with the feudal superior, with respect to his reserved rights in 
 the land, and the annual or other periodical payments claimed by him on 
 that behalf. It further adjusts all differences arising with co-terminous 
 proprietors regarding boundaries and such matters. It may be well to 
 state here that the soHcitor has the custody of all the company's title 
 deeds and muniments. 
 
 We have already hinted that the soHcitor advises the traffic and 
 other departments on all matters involving questions of law. He or his 
 quahfied assistants are at all times accessible, and, having such an 
 adviser, the company is not, nor need ever be, at a loss to determine 
 whether a claim for compensation for personal injury, or for loss 
 of goods or market, is one which they ought to resist, or whether 
 they have a good case against a trader for demurrage, a passenger 
 for breach of bye-law, or against a trespasser on the line. The 
 
102 OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 
 
 department which manages this branch of the company's sohcitor's 
 business is the writ or process department, and it looks after all court 
 transactions. We need not say that this is a very onerous and exacting, 
 and, too often, disagreeable part of the work of the solicitor's office. 
 He cannot attend court personally, nor can his assistants, if, as in all 
 large companies, the actions raised are numerous and in various courts. 
 Where it is possible a qualified assistant appears in court for defence or 
 prosecution, as the case may be ; but in a large number of instance?, it 
 is necessary to call in the aid of local practitioners to look to the 
 company's interest in special cases, these gentlemen receiving their briefs 
 from the solicitor. The labour of getting up these petty cases is very 
 great, and much skill and ingenuity is required, and the paucity of defeats 
 in court in railway cases is a standing proof of the capacity of 
 the sohcitors' staffs. The public who raise the actions are often 
 relentless, and it is not their fault if they do not prevail. Some very 
 intricate cases arise, from time to time, in the superior courts, calhng for 
 much finesse in the management of witnesses drawn from all points of the 
 compass, to speak to what appears, at first sight, trifling technicality. We 
 have known more success than failure result from such skilful tactics. This 
 department is uivariably in the hands of a duly qualified assistant, a 
 gentleman who, like his chief, is entitled to practise as a solicitor, and, if 
 he is as industrious as his duties demand, he is a tower of strength to 
 the head of his department. 
 
 The solicitor has his book-keeping department also, in which there 
 is an accurate account kept of all the business done, and of all cash 
 transactions, and through which all accounts for payments and all cash 
 statements are checked and certified. 
 
 In the foregoing remarks we have endeavoured to give a short 
 sketch of what is required of the railway company's sohcitor, from 
 which it will be seen that, while trained for a learned profession outside 
 the railway preserves, he insensibly acquires a large railway experience, 
 and becomes as thoroughly a railway officer as any of those who eat his 
 company's bread. We have made out a strong case, we think, for 
 estabUshing his title to be regarded as a very busy man ; and we think, 
 moreover, that he is entitled to be regarded as a most invaluable railway 
 officer. 
 
 He cannot do everything himself, no matter what his intellectual 
 and physical energy. He cannot even superintend every detail. The 
 
THE SOLICITOR. 
 
 103 
 
 departments we have described are therefore placed under the charge of 
 assistants, who, to ease him properly of detail must be trained and 
 cultured as he has been, self-reliant, capable gentlemen, with ripe know- 
 ledge, and receptive, ready brains, accustomed to form dispassionate 
 opinions, based on ample knowledge of the principles of law, and a 
 genuine love for their profession. With such assistance the solicitor 
 is free to be at the disposal of his brother officers in advising 
 on weighty matters, and to be counsel and confidant, as we have said, of 
 the board. With such examples before them, the juniors miss golden 
 opportunities of improvement if they do not keep steadily bent on 
 imitation. 
 
 VWIVERSITT 
 
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