Railway contractor

“ According to the contract signed by Mr Hordern for a railway of two hundred and twenty miles between Albany and Beverley, the contractor engages to introduce within seven years five thousand adults to the country. ”

“ Under a converse aspect, all the stages of this development have been within these few years exemplified in our railway contractors. There are sundry men now living who illustrate the whole process in their own persons—men who were originally navvies, digging and wheeling ”

“ The most gigantic project which private enterprise has yet dared, originated with a distinguished contracting firm. In some cases this mode of procedure may, perhaps, be advantageous; but in far more numerous cases its results are disastrous. Interested in promoting railway extensions, even in a greater degree than engineers and lawyers, contractors habitually co-operate with these, either as agents or as coadjutors. Lines are fostered into being, which it is known from the beginning, will not pay. ”

“ It is not necessary for us to decide whether an engineer may suddenly and without notice quit the service of a railway company at an intermediate station or between stations, though cases may be easily imagined where a sudden abandonment of a train load of passengers in an unfrequented spot might imperil their safety, and even their lives. ”

“ Whether the railroad should do its repair work in its own shops, or in those of another, is a question of railroad management. It is petitioner's determination to make its own repairs which has brought its relations with shop employees within the purview of the Railway Labor Act. It is the nature of the work done and its relation to interstate transportation which afford adequate basis for the exercise of the regulatory power of Congress. ”

“ So far as the wage-earner is concerned, it is, therefore, this portion of the force of a railroad company which may be called distinctively "the service." If good relations exist between the men employed in its operating department and the company no [374] serious trouble can ever arise in the operation of the road. The clerks in the financial department, or the engineers in the construction department, might leave the company's employ in a body, and their places could soon be filled. In point of fact, they never do leave it; but should they do so, the public would experience no inconvenience. ”

“ We agree with them in holding-and the present case requires no further decision-that the conductor of a railway train, who commands its movements, directs when it shall start, at what stations it shall stop, at what speed it shall run, and has the general management of it, and control over the persons employed upon it, represents the company, and therefore that, for injuries resulting from his negligent acts, the company is responsible. If such a conductor does not represent the company, then the train is operated without any representative of its owner. ”

“ The rule which applies to such agents of one railway corporation must apply to all, and many corporations operate every day several trains over hundreds of miles at great distances apart, each being under the control and direction of a conductor specially appointed for its management. We know from the manner in which railways are operated that, subject to the general rules and orders of the directors of the companies, the conductor has entire control and management of the train to which he is assigned. ”

“ Considering, therefore, that not only the ability necessary for the general management of a railway, but the intelligence and vigilance requisite at every station and on every portion of the line are found practically to increase according to the demand, and vice versâ, it is evident that nothing would prove more fatal to the public as well as ruinous to proprietors than to split an efficient remunerating great railway into two or more inefficient and unremunerating small ones. ”

“ This is a difficult problem, but when enough big men give it attention it will be solved. It probably means more elasticity, more inter-changeability between train service and the various kinds of maintenance, between the locomotive and the shop, between the railway and allied contiguous industries. ”

“ When Government inspectors were first appointed by the Board of Trade to examine and report upon the working of railways, they were alarmed by the number of trains following each other at some stations, in what then seemed to be a very rapid succession. A passage from a Report written in 1840 by Sir Frederick Smith, as to the traffic at “Taylor’s Junction,” on the York and North Midland Railway, contrasts curiously with the railway life and activity of the present day:—“Here,” wrote the alarmed Inspector, “the passenger trains from York as well as Leeds and Selby, meet four times a day. ”

“ The balance is built and operated on private right of way, and goes around, rather than through, the cities. The tracks are standard gauge and of standard railroad construction, were, at the time they were laid, of higher class than those of the Southern Railway Company in the same territory, were intended for handling substantial interchange freight traffic in connection with steam railroads, have the same ruling grades as the latter in the same territory, and are of 80-pound rail. ”

“ All orders are given to the engineer as well as to the conductor. Every order sent to a conductor in a train is made in duplicate, and one copy of it is given to the conductor and the other to the engineer. It is a rule with railway companies that if anything should happen to disable the conductor, or in any way prevent his proceeding with his train, the engineer is to immediately take charge of the train and handle it into the terminal. ”

“ The company might be merely the owners of a highway and toll takers for the use of it by other people with their own carriages and locomotives. That state of things would be worked out by the railway company possessing the mere line of railway from end to end, and by the persons making use of it, buying or renting contiguous land whereon to keep their rolling stock, and have their offices, availing themselves of the powers of Section 76 of the Act of 1845, and getting on to the railway by means of sidings connected with the railway. ”

“ The evolution of the so-called store department on most railways has been a striking instance of one-sided development. A railway exists to manufacture and sell an intangible commodity, transportation, not necessarily to carry either a large or small stock of material and supplies. The purchasing agent tells us in good faith how much money he has saved the company by time spent in driving good bargains. He is not in a position to know how many men have been worked to poor advantage, or have been idle, while waiting for proper tools, materials and supplies. ”

“ Import duties averaging 41.22 per cent were levied in 1911. The advocates of the system claim this is done to protect American Labor. Our manufactures are protected as a matter of national policy. Transportation costs the public from one-third to one-half as much here as in Europe. This cheapness is not purchased at the cost of the workingman. In 1910 the average daily earnings of railway employes in the United States were more than twice as great as in the United Kingdom, and two and three-quarters times as much as on the Prussian-Hesse system in Germany. ”

“ Frequently a railroad as a plant is adequate to manufacture more transportation than it can sell. The other fellow is getting too much of the competitive business. Investigation often shows that railroad solicitors can sell a shipper no freight or passenger transportation, because his salesman receives no orders from the railroad's purchasing agent. The industrial bureau of a traffic department works to create new business which is fostered by discriminating freight rates. ”

“ It would be in the highest degree disadvantageous to all interested in the railroad company, as well as to the public having occasion to do business with it, if the same power which the company possessed to make special contracts for transportation should not be given to and exercised by the receivers of the company in continuing to run the road in substance as a going concern, so far as these kinds of contracts are concerned. ”

“ It may be remarked that neither of these acts confers on the Board of Trade any power to inspect a railway after it has once been opened, unless and until some addition or alteration, such as is defined in the last-named act, has been made. When a line has once been inspected and passed, it lies with the company to maintain it in accordance with the standard of efficiency it originally possessed, but no express statutory obligation to do so is imposed upon the company, and whether it does so or not, the Board of Trade cannot interfere. ”

“ At first it was assumed that competition in rail transport would be assured, and the dangers in question proportionately reduced, by different carriers using their own locomotives, coaches and carriages on the railway lines, which alone, it was thought, would be owned by the railway companies constructing them. In some of the earlier railway Acts there was even a provision that the railway companies could lease their tolls, as turnpike trustees were doing. ”

“ The O.R.C. asked the court to instruct its trustees not to displace road conductors and to enjoin them permanently from taking such action so long as O.R.C.'s contracts with the road were not altered in accordance with the provisions of the Railway Labor Act. ”

“ The work upon the eastern division has been retarded from the scarcity of labor. Time seems to be required to collect the necessary force upon the line. With the exception, however, of the [41] Susquehanna bridge, the grading will be prepared for the superstructure, to Lewistown, this year. The masonry of that important job was first allotted to contractors. The principal of the firm, though highly recommended by the officers of the Reading Railroad, proved unequal to the task he had undertaken, and their contract was abandoned. ”

“ They are managing not merely a piece of property, but a vast and complicated organization of men, and an instrument of public service. In all these capacities their cares are equally great. The operating and the traffic departments are not less important than the financial department. The relations of the railroad to its employees, and to the business community at large, are even more perplexing than its relations to the investors. ”

“ The supply cars are only a beginning. The evolution must be a supply and inspection train run exclusively for company business, and to do every practicable kind of company business. It should supply every department and pick up the surplus and scrap in each. It should run over as many divisions as feasible, giving it time to return and restock so as to cover its territory at prescribed intervals, say every thirty or sixty days. This train should be manned by monthly company men, preferably of the semi-official class. ”

“ Moreover, a part of the company's roadbed is appropriated mainly to a special use, even if it be supposed that the side track would be available incidentally for other things than to run cars to and from the elevator. Now it is true that railroads can be required to fulfil the purposes for which they are chartered and to do what is reasonably necessary to serve the public in the way in which they undertake to serve it, without compensation for the performance of some part of their duties that does not pay. ”

“ They have to face competition and to cater for the markets, while railway companies, being both the producers and consumers of their wares, can afford to choose their own way of manufacturing them. In addition to this, the heads of small firms usually have an interest in the concern whereas the managers of railway works are otherwise placed; it makes no difference to them what they spend or waste, and they are always able to cover up their shortcomings. ”

“ Sometimes these are in the form of a duplication of work train service; sometimes in idle equipment in which the construction bureau retains a proprietary interest on days of idleness. 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. ”

“ The Act was intended to strengthen the so-called Anti-Trust Act and to prevent collusion between directors and officers of railways and directors and officers of manufacturing and other concerns dealing in railway equipment, coal and other supplies. It requires that contracts for supplies which will cost more than $50,000 must be open to competitive bids invited by advertisements. A railway company is prohibited from having dealings in excess of $50,000 per year with a concern having a director, officer or agent who is also a director, officer or agent of the railway. ”

“ The present greatly increased efficiency of the railroads as compared with 1920, their greatly improved credit, and their present prosperity, are, in large measure, due to the advances made toward introducing the improved instruments of rail transportation which have become available. ”

“ In France the railways owned and operated by the State are only a comparatively small section of the whole; but successive Governments have advanced immense sums for railway construction, and the State guarantees the dividends of the companies; while in France as in Germany railway rates are controlled absolutely by the State. ”