The Waxahachie daily light. [volume] (Waxahachie, Tex.) 1894-current, 1906-09-27
PLAN NOT A SUCCESS
TAe Ssasei Sysism Is 10 Diseaiiaae The
Service Of Trs,a Asenfs.

Probably within the coming month
but assHrcdly hy Jan t. 1907. all
train agents Of the Sunset and allied
lines Ia Texas Will be taken out Of
service and the system will be abol
ished so far as Texas is concerned
Since the installation of the service
II has not proven RS effective a. II
might. and In unofficial circles il is
an open secret that the agents are
merely bidins their time until the
orders are issued disseminating their
work They were put on TO ac-
complish certain results. principally
the elimination of bogus or scaiped
tickets, and 1t is declared that the
system has failed through lack of
conditions which would make II
success. With this result to almost
a years work the men are every day
expecting orders either transferring
them back 10 the Pacific division OF
the Southern Pacific or else abolish
out OF occupation. Within the past
two weeks at least three of the men
running on the Galveston, Harris
burg and San Antonio and Texas and
New Orleans Lines dave accepted en-
ployment al something else because
they believed that their train agents
position would not last much longer.
Early last spring the force of in
spectors was brought to Texas from
the Pacific division of the Southern
Pacific, and it was announced that
J all the Hartman lines of the United
! States would be given train agents.
The duties of these agents were more
| in the line of an auditor, they being
required to precede the conductor and
inspect all tickets, punching an 0 X
mark on tickets known to be good
and lifting tickets suspected to be
| fraudulent This in a measure re-
| lieved the duty and responsibility of
the conductors, practically leaving to
them only the work of pocketing the
tickets and, incidentally. running the
train.
| AS a result of this encroachment
as it was termed, upon the duties OF
the conductors, there has never beel
the cooperative effort between con
ductors and trainmen that woul
make the system a success. No ma
| ter how much it was iterated an
: reiterated that the agents were mere
ly sort of bookkeepers, the conduc
: tors forever retained the idea tha
they were being spied upon by thu
agents This, to a certainty did no
conduce to the efficiency of the ser
vice The train agents were left tt
do their allotted task while the con
ductor attended perfunctorily to his
duties
During the early part of the train
agents regime there were some cost
ly mistakes made. Auditors receive
bonus for every bogus or scalped
ticket they pick up, and this leads tC
their occasionally becoming too zeal
Gus and lifting tickets belonging
rightfully to passengers
Taken all in all, the consensus OF
opinion among unofficial railroad
men is that the agents are too costly
TO maintain for what little good is
achieved The dozen agents running
ON the Sunset-Central combination
cost in the neighborhood of $4,000
per month and the prevention OF
scalpiug or usage of bogus tickets is
practically nil. For this and other
reasons. even officials of the line,
lare not aversc 90 declaring thar m,
day of the train agent is drawing q
"a close and that the end of this veal
will see the end of the system ON th,
Texas Hartman lines