The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-03-28

penses and net earnings can imagine the
amount of work and the number of differ
ent amounts which make up the totals I'M
der those heads. When a road is under
construction different accounts-haye to be
kept of every class of work, from that OF
the engineers down, and for every class of
material, such as rails, ties, bridge tim
bers. Then when the road is put in oper-
alton separate accounts are kept for every
class of service, engineers, fremen, con-
ductors, cleaning cars, ETC., and for every
class of material, such as fuel, oil, station
cry. When articles are taken out of the
store they have to be charged to these va
rious accounts, and often nice points arise
as to what account shall be charged with
them. When new work is done on the
road it is often q question whether the cost
shall be charged to maintenance or new
construction.
Railroads have their peculiar methods
of handling correspondence. On most
roads all letters, both those sent and those
received, are preserved at headquarters,
the subordinate officers retaining no let
tiers received and having only copies of
those sent out. Thus, when any question
arises, letter will be sent from head
W SOiIt lllOEtutlluu
The receiver will attach his reply to the
letter received and send both back to the
inquirer. These two may be sent to an
other official with a further request for
information, and By him referred to an
other, every letter received being added to
the bundle. together with the reply. This
system makes bulky correspondence, but
it keeps the record in the question at hand
complete and saves long explanations.
The whole correspondence can be enclosed
with letter simply asking for any light
Mr.. Blank can throw on it, and thus each
man to whom it comes is saved the trouble
Of telling the whole story again.
One fruitful source of correspondence
among railroad men is the necessity of fix
ing responsibility for certain expenditures
in order that it may be known by whose
authority they were made. An instance
has recently occurred in this city. A rail
road official, who holds a dual position,
ordered some work done which involved
an expenditure OF about $25, and mad
vertently omitted to write his title under
his signature. His authority was ques-
toned, and a voluminous correspondence
resulted. The bundle of letters travelled
to and fro. east and west, growing as it
Travelled. until nnaIly IL was as timex as
mans hand. Before the question was
settled the amount of time and stationery
spent upon it equaled in value probably
ten times the amount involved.
In another case a rail was picked up by
the side of a recently constructed road. 1t
bore the mark of the rails used in the con-
struction of the road and had probably
been knocked off a car or lost in tracklay-
ing. 1t was only worth about $40 and
might easily have been disposed of in any
other business where one mans word
goes. But there was a question whether
it belonged to the road over which it had
been shipped or the road to which it had
obviously been consigned, and this point
must be settled IN obedience to the invio-
liable system. So the mails began to be
burdened with correspondence and week
after week the bundle grew bigger until at
last the ownerless rail was, at an expense
of many times its value, set at rest in the
proper account and the requireme of
the sacred system were met.
The system involves an immense amount
of work, but it comes as near working
with mathematical exactness as any hing
human can.