1958 - Should the Rails Blame Themselves?

NW Mailing List nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org
Sat Mar 29 23:12:02 EDT 2008


Roanoke Times - March 30, 1958

From the Christian Science Monitor

Should the Rails Blame Themselves?

In all of this discussion of the plight of American railroads it
is fair to ask whether there is some measure of trouble to be charged
against the industry itself - both operators and employes. Indeed
there is. But much is the harvest of past failings and much so woven
into the fabric of the railroad's operations that quick and sweeping
reforms can hardly be looked for.
In the past railway management was notoriously conservative. It
was slow to adopt mechanical improvements (the air brake, for
instance), safety devices (automatic couplings, for instance), and
when significant competition appeared it first tried to fight the
battle in the legislatures instead of by enterprise. Of late years
the roads have done much to catch up. But it has been a catching up.
The role of railway labor has been much misunderstood and its sins
exaggerated. But it, too, has had a part in weighing th railroads
down. In seven decades railway employment has taken on the aspects of
a civil service with its merits in regularization and stability and
its disadvantages in the rigidities of seniority and job definition.
It is true that in railway operation responsibility, knowledge,
and experience are the key values rather than the hours of actual
labor. It is true, also, that vested interest in seniority may have
saved the roads from being stripped of skill and experience in times
of booming employment elsewhere.
Bit it has been difficult for management to adapt its operations
promptly to technological progress and to make economies quickly
where circumstance demand - difficult for one reason, because the
factor of safety is often present in practices which may appear only
to fatten work pay envelopes.
However, board members, superintendents, engineers, rate clerks,
and track walkers are in the same boat on the same stormy sea. They
must all be willing to forget the past and revise "train orders" for
the future.

-----------------------------------

- Ron Davis, Roger Link







More information about the NW-Mailing-List mailing list