Charles DeLano Hine

“ Comparisons of costs in construction work are much more difficult than in operation. This inability to control disbursement through the discipline of statistics should be met as far as possible by the most careful organization. Extravagance and waste in maintenance and operation are bad enough. In construction they are worse, because capitalized and bearing an interest burden for innumerable years to come. ”

“ Partly because of better intellectual training, partly because of the rush to complete additions and betterments and partly because of the inborn tendency of human nature to over-specialize, the construction men of most railways have frequently put it over on the so-called operating men. Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war. As civilization advances the struggles of a railroad are less against physical nature and more against sociological and political conditions. ”

“ The construction people may be awaiting material or men. Meantime my work train cannot be used by the superintendent for maintenance purposes. The chief dispatcher has so little sympathy with new construction that the young assistant engineer dare not let go of my engine lest au revoir may mean good-by. Another delightful but expensive duplication occurs frequently in the matter of stores. Look around and see how many separate stores your construction bureau is maintaining, some of them within a stone’s throw of a well stocked permanent store. ”

“ Let it be understood that the work will be under the direct charge of his maintenance assistant, that the equipment will be looked after by his mechanical assistant and the material and supplies furnished by his supply assistant. Throw the whole official momentum of the division on the side of the new work. Under the old order of things the division people do what they are told in helping out the construction, but no more. The proposed organization will beget that extra individual effort which is relatively as profitable as the farmer’s extra bushel per acre. ”

“ Bold have been their conceptions, faithful their performances and great their achievements. Their work has developed those splendid types of manhood which are characteristic of the futile struggle of nature against art, of the wilderness against civilization. ”

“ When a resident engineer in charge of a party desired such authority he called up the tent of the division engineer and gained the desired information from the latter’s chief clerk, who was receiving a smaller salary than the resident engineer. ”

“ The railroad would organize a department of wagons, a department of plows and a department of scrapers, and the foreman who kicked the hardest would have the most grub, even though somebody else was short. ”