The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-02-10
THEIR OFFICES ON WHEELS.
HOW RAILWAY MANAGERS DO
 MUCH OF THEIR WORK.
Mall and TeIegrnms Sent Abroad, Com ferences Held, Officials Entertaine"
 and Life Made Generally COmfort"-

and Life Made Generally Comforta' | bie.
 A great many men spend most oi
 their time in walking, others in sltting
 while others roll around the greater
 part of their lives. The 8 eneral man.
 ager of r ailroad company IS on
 wheels more than half of his lifetime
 He feels more at home in his private
 car than he does at his hotel or house
 in the city. Ask nine out of ten rall-
 road officials, and they will tell you that they can do more aWork and Tar more
 thinking in their private cars thhh
 when in their offices, no matter now
 well they may be guarded rom the
 public by the faithful private secretary or watchful messenger, for, in spite or
 these defences, people will call, tele-
 grams and letters must be received anu
 given attention. Once on the road,
 however, they are separated to a cer- | tain extent from the world about them'
 and can plan schemes with the aid or a
 good cigar which cannot be thought out
 when at headquarters
 | Many a railroad official in his coun- ] try starts out in his private car, ana | never sees the inside of hotel or fcS- | taurant until he returns, although he | may be absent a week or ten days Sometimes he covers two or three thou
 sand miles without leaving it. When
 ever the car stops, those in the town
 who have business with him transact II | in his office. When the engineer oIeas | .I,a t,> rto ovtc fx o. sumes his correspondence or conference | with some other officila, which has been l postponed during the stop. Before De- | shining the trip the secretary hsa had an idea of the places which would he
 reched on certain days, and directs that the mail from headcuarter5 Ec Tor warded accordingly It may ts sen. t0
 the division superintendent or to he station agents. Ir change in the ar
 rangement is made, and no stop is mad at a certain point, the telegraph ope-
 rator at that place is notified ahead, and the mail sent on to the next stop
 ping point Although the average is
 not over one delivery a day on big
 system, it is enough to keep the otil-
 cial's staff busy in attending to 1t. Telegrams are, of coyrse, the most i'm
 portant and frequently the special
 train is Tagged for the purpose of delivering such messages. The conduc- tor only waits until the manager has had time to glance over the dispatch
 The answer is handed the operator, and on goes the train, the engineer pulling out little to make up for the unex- pected delay.
 The mail usually reaches the private car at the first stop in the morning. The secretary, with his paper cutter, goes through the stack of letters, rang ing from the manila envelopes with 'train mail'' in big black type printed in the corner, to the soiled white en- velope, containing an application for pass or request for job from some section hand, for the official receives all sorts of correspondence. Much of 1t he never sees for the secretary is young man selected for his knowledge of hu- man nature and what interests his supe- ror. Sometimes he is able to attend to one-half of it himself. What he wishes to show the manager is spread out in a pile, and possibly, after breakfast, the two sit down on one of the leather
 
 Putting away at his Havana the man. ager listens as the secretary puts the contents into as few words as possible At the close of each communication the dictates his reply, word for word If it is important and merely an outline If not.
 The average railroad official is a very rapid man; is fond of making fast time, and in dictation he wants to get through as fast as possible. From one hundred to one hundred and fifty words | a minute may be rattled off to the sec retary and the latter has to keep his | row of pencils busily engaged during | the time. By the time the cigar is fin- | ished, the batch of letters has been at | tended to and the secretary, and pos ! sibly an assistant, have enough to keep | them going for The balance of the fore noon. The manager then attends to some of the other hundred details | mapped out for this trip. Perhaps the ,ar of an assistant superintendent or di- vision freight agent has been hitched on 1t the last station, He sends for that official and for an hour or two they get their heads together over some special subject which cannot be attended to by Perhaps he desires to ook over improvements on the line and 1as the porter place chair on the back platform w here he can examine the rack as the car passes over it at the ate of forty-five or fifty miles an hour. special trains are generally noted for he fast time they make. One reason or this is the officials aboard get an dea of the condition of the track and 'oadbed. If the car runs smoothly at | high rate of speed and does not jolt IT rock, they know that it is well bal asted, the rail joints are even and that t is in condition. Experience has &C., ustomed them to note every jolt and ar and the reason for it. Many a sec ion foreman has been hauled up after
 trip of the superintendent over his ] art of the road and told to put it in ' 'etter condition. Railroad men have to do a great deal { f thinking, and in trips along the road l ihere the train may run two or three { ours without stopping they have an ! pportunity to get by themselves, which ( ; denied them even in the quiet of the t rivate office The car usually contains f
 half dozen stuffed easy chairs and a f ofa or two in order that the manager t r superintendent may fix himself com I ortably while his mind is at work It l as plenty Of little push buttons around (