Waterbury evening Democrat., 1905-03-27

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 MYASH every hour of the day and H0S2S never more than few N gNV hours in the same place
 aA how does a railway keep
 track of its equipment? How can it ever tell how many cars it has with which to handle its busi- ness and where it can put it's hands upon them?
 In many respects modern railway resembles a ranchman with enormous herds and dozens of cowboys con- stantly watching to see that there are no estrays.
 The handling of cars is system atized. This is the simple explanation of seemingly difficult problem. Some one at headquarters or division points is camping on the trail of every wan dering bit of rolling stock and tre- mendous system of records and tracers makes it practically impossible for cars to get lost.
 Let us take the Northern Pacific for an example. The handling of the equipment is delegated to separate branch of the service, the car service department, at the head of which is Ira B. Richards, formerly of Tacoma, and many years in the roads employ. Mir. Richards has grown up with nov ing cars. He knows them like book. Many of the distinctive features of the work of the Northern Pacific car ser- vice department have been worked out under his direction. Few railway lines have been able to make such department do more for the public and the organization of 55 clerks re- quired to transact the business of the department seems to be perfect. Each desk has a number which appears on each bit of correspondence originated or handled by it and which enables g rapid distribution of the thousands of letters arriving daily.
 The Northern Pacific railway has 990 locomotives moving practically day and night. It also has nearly 800 , means of system applying exclu- sively to this class of equipment, the details of which are looked after by . Chief Clerk Ballion and his force. But the important task is the handling of its 34,17S freight cars and the 4,000 to 5000 additional freight cars of for eign lines constantly moving between St. Paul and Portland.
 Asked what service his department performs for the public in locating shipments moving over the Northern Pacific MT. Richards said:
 "We undertake to furnish on request complete information showing the To- cation of any loaded car moving on our rails. We tell the shipper, when 1t will reach it's destination We find shippers consider such information valuable to them and a special tele- graph record is maintained for that purpose for all cars that move over more than one division.
 Given a car number we can in- stantly locate the car at any station  If standing or in what train if moving and the location of such train regard less of the class of freight. Also we furnish daily by wire information con cerning certain loads to our general agents at their respective headquarters. Consignees are advised of the location and progress of their shipments" ] This relates, however, merely to moving cars. To know what and where these cars are is differen! problem. Trains reaching destination instantly lose their identity and the 40 to 60 cars move in as many different directions.
 ! On the top floor of the headquarters ! building at St. Paul a small army of