The Kalispell bee. [volume] (Kalispell, Mont.) 1900-192?, 1902-01-04
Niggardly Policy Of the Of
ficials Solely Responsible
TO PAY DIVIDENDS
Is the Only Desire, and to Do this Scant
Attention is Paid to the Welfare
of Passengers or Employees.

A passenger engineer who has seen
many years of scivice on the noun
tain divisions of the Great Northern
was asked by representa-; 5e of the
Bee to give his opinion OF the cause
OF the great number of wrecks that
are constantly occurring on the road,
and his reply was most interesting
ana Instructive:
The immediate causes" said he,
are many, but the underlying rea-
son is the niggardly policy of the
company brought about by its efforts
to pay dividends on watered stocks
and pay interest on an inflated bonded
| Indebtedness.
For some time past the company
has been increasing the capacity of it's
| engines and doubling up the work re-
quired of it's train crews without any
increase in the pay of the men,
Doubling the size of the trains has
doubled the local switching anu
handling OF cars that each must per-
! form, and the result is that train
crews are often on the road from "a
IL 20 hours at a stretch. 10 add to
their discomforts there is not a place
on the division, either east or west
OF Kalispell, where a cup OF coffee
| or a meal can be had, as all of the
section houses are occupied by Japs,
and the fireman who shOvels 25 tons
OF coal on a cold lunch is only a lit
lie worse off than other members Of
the crew. The result of all this is
that the men are constantly quitting
and new ones are taking their places,
and while most of the new employees
are competent railroad men, they
! don't know the track and are more
! apt to make mistakes. The old en-
| pIOyes never know what they are
running against and the whole force
is timid, discouraged and disor-
ganized.
Then, again, the roadbed is in bad
condition. White men don't like to
work with the Japs, especially as the
+ pay is niggardly, and it is difficult to
keep good section foremen on the
road The result is too many rotten
|
apt to be in bad order.
within the last few years the
weight of locomotives has been in
creased fully thirty per cent without
any corresponding increase in tie
stability of the track, and if you will
watch the track when one of the big
engines roll by and see the rails
bend like tin you will not wonder at
the large number of wrecks.
Another fruitful source of danger
is the long distance between tele-
graph stations. 1t is only a short
time ago that | had a narrow escape
from going into the ditch with No,
orders to pass a freight at Bolton.
The freight was in charge of a new
man and, through some mishap, was
running dangerously close to our
time. Bolton is on a sharp curve,
and man familiar with the track
would have run his train past the
station and backed onto the siding
dropping his rear brakeman off at
the first switch to flag No. 3. This
was not done, however, and as we
swung around the curve at forty
: mile clip the brakeman's red light
flashed out, with the caboose not YET
in the clear, just beyond. l tell you
| saw my wife and babies then, and
my cap was full of pricking needles
but the freight was moving rapidly
and the air and the man at the switch
saved us by scratch. The man al
the switch was an old employee anC
had the nerve to stick to his post
and turn the switch, with but few
feet between the flying trains. A
difference of five seconds would
have put us in bad miX-up
1t was a close. call and al
: experience tnat l do not care to have
repeated. With telegraph stations
closer together the dispatcher would
be in closer touch with the trains, anC
the chance of accidents considerably
diminished.
Another penurious custom which
: lessons the efficiency of the
e widely scattered telegraph sta
S lions is that of requiring the opera
0, tors to attend to the pumps used tt
fill the water tanks along the line
: One would suppose that the operator
: who must be on duty almost every
i hour in the twenty-four would have
enough to do without being compelled
l to perform the duties of pumpman
but this is one of the methods EN-