Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

and concrete tube will have no other duty to perform than that of forming, as we have said, a protective envelope for the trains.

The tunnel, particularly that portion of it beneath the rivers, has been planned with a view to the prevention of accidents to trains, or mitigating the dangers, should an accident occur. In the first place, the sides of the tunnel are filled with a mass of concrete up to the level of the car windows. This will reduce the damage due to derailment or collision to a minimum, and will provide a means of egress from the tunnel in case of accident. Should a train be held in the tunnel for any reason, it would be possible for the passengers to climb out upon these footways, and escape by them to either end of the tunnel. Moreover, should a car jump the track, it would be impossible for it to slew out of line, and it is probable that the whole train could be brought to a stop before any more serious injury than the breaking of windows had been done. The electric cables will be carried in conduits and embedded, as shown in our engraving, in the concrete mass of these side benches. At stated intervals there will be refuge niches formed in the concrete for the use of employes, and, lastly, the whole tunnel will be thoroughly lighted from end to end. Scientific American.

Efficiency in Railway Accounting.

Mr. S. M. Hudson, Auditor of the F. W. & D. C. Ry., in the Railway Age of January 15, 1904, has the following to say regarding efficiency in the railway accounting department:

"The efficiency of the railway accounting department is a matter of wide interest. To the accounting officer, as a matter of professional pride; to the management as a matter of getting correct information; to the capitalist for protection; to all for clear exposition of facts. For accounting is simply the expression in bookkeeping language of facts, whether those facts belong to the business of finance, manufacture, transportation or distribution. To this statement of facts is added the necessity of so arranging the data so developed that 'work done' may be compared with 'cost,' and 'cost' with 'revenue.'

"It seems hardly necessary to say that accounting principles should be always the same, that they do not differ with

the different kinds of business; but as the sources from which the material on which the accountant works differ, the methods to be used will be largely conditioned by those sources.

"No manufacture, or other process, has reached perfection until the product is perfectly adapted to its end, nor even then if there is any waste in the process. The railway accounting department probably has not yet reached perfection, and the point of interest is to ascertain its deficiencies and suggest possible remedies.

"An outsider would be amazed could he see the woeful mass of inaccurate, wasteful, senseless data thrown upon the accounting department for it to sift, correct, adjust, before it can even begin its work of tabulating and study. As everyone reporting expresses it, 'It will all come out in the wash,' and the accounting department is expected to do the 'washing.' The result is lack of promptness in furnishing information and utter lack of accuracy in the comparison of work and cost, cost and revenue.

"It is not intended now to discuss general accounting principles, though well to note in passing that there seems to be occasional confusion in the minds of some between accounting principles which should not be infringed upon and questions of legitimate policy which properly belong to the corporation to choose. The only duty of the accounting officer is to know and apply the proper principles in the expression of the policy decided upon; what policy shall be chosen does not interest him officially.

"This confusion undoubtedly existed in the mind of Mr. Adams, of the Interstate Commerce Commission, or he would not last year have asked the accounting association his questions in regard to charges to income.

"Our general principles may need further investigation, revision and clearer exposition, that they may be better understood and their force and meaning more generally appreciated, especially in reference to the public understanding of railway reports. In this work the Association of Accounting Officers should be foremost, and its decisions should be the standard measure of correct work.

"The methods we use in our work are more likely to be at fault than the general principles on account of the sources from which we get our materials to work up, on account of the form in which this data is furnished, the time, and possibly

also on account of generally adopted methods recommended by our association which have proved unsuited to the necessities of the case.

"Our possible deficiencies can only be shown by comparing our actual performance with what we are supposed to do. What we are expected to do is to furnish 'work done as against cost,' and 'cost as against revenue,' but we do not show 'work done;' we show it partially, but not against the cost of that workand the cost we show has no reference to the revenue, at least so far as particular intervals of time are concerned. A month's results are not even approximately correct; a year's only tolerably so. Yet we are trying to translate this imperfect data so as to give 'valuable information,' so-called, to our employers for their guidance. Furthermore, we give it to them a month late, ignoring the ancient saying, 'Bis dat qui cito dat.'

"Our monthly reports of earnings and expenses and ton miles are issued a month late, too late for prompt and efficient control; they are also inaccurate from the standpoint of comparing work done with cost, and cost with revenue. Our monthly reports should be ready within a few days of the close of the month, and each day's results, both expenses and revenue, should be in the hands of the management as promptly as our estimates of daily earnings are now. A suggestion that we need a system of daily accounting for work, cost and revenue, and that it can be accomplished, will no doubt be received with a grin of incredulity, as was the offer I once made to furnish daily estimates of expense to correspond with the daily estimate of earnings; yet we are progressing that way, for the last association meeting looked with favor on the proposition for daily station accounting.

"Our results, besides being published about 30 days late, are inaccurate, for we take into account revenue when reported, not when earned. The expense side is somewhat better, so far as operation is concerned, but even that is not what it ought to be. Has anyone tried to check the train sheet against the engineers' and firemen's roll, i. e., the mileage and overtime as reported on the train sheet against the payments? I have, and I have little respect for a train sheet and hardly more for a time slip. If you want to see the operating department squirm, get it to balance its different kinds of

[ocr errors]

mileage, at the varying rates of pay, and the overtime, for each man, against his pay check and the total mileage and overtime against the total roll.

"Maintenance results are still wider. There are two different theories in vogue, either of which is good, according to point of view. One is to charge expenses with repairs as made. The other to appropriate a certain sum for expense of renewals during a given period and expend it when needed or as opportunity offers. We now charge expense with the repairs of a locomotive, a coach, a freight car, when the work is performed, and compare this cost with the mileage made by some other equipment running during the month when the repairs were made, instead of against the mileage which made the repairs necessary. When business presses we have big mileage of equipment against light repairs, and when business falls off the exact reverse, unless the unfortunate superintendent of motive power is required to cut down his force because gross earnings have fallen off. Should we not, so far as the performance of equipment is concerned, charge each mile made with the agreed cost of repairs? Will we not thereby get a truer statement of cost than by our present methods? Then, too, we should not charge expenses, as against mileage, with repairs made necessary by wrecks which have nothing to do with mileage this expense being the cost of our carelessness or our misfortune.

"An error on the part of a dispatcher, who is paid out of transportation expense, may result in a wreck costing thousands of dollars in repairing equipment; this swells the total of expense for repairs, and the management takes credit for 'full maintenance.' In that same wreck there may be loss of lives, settlement for which is charged to transportation expense. The cause of the expense is the same, yet the cost is charged to different accounts.

"In maintenance of way and structures we have a like inaccuracy, a like deficiency in logical method. Our charges for any given month have no relation to the actual 'wear and tear' of that period. In actual practice repairs are made at the period most favorable or according to the desire of some official to make a record. Rail and tie renewals are rarely spread equally over the whole year, nor is it desirable that they should be, but the cost can and should be equally distributed.

"None of our annual reports shows data from which to estimate, except approximately, the maintenance proper which has been done during any given year. Why do we not show remaining life of ties in track estimated on a standard basis? To illustrate, assume 10 years as the average life of a tie. With the statement of annual renewals for ten years we can readily calculate the remaining life, and can see whether next year's demands are in excess of onetenth of the total ties in line. An accrual each month on the basis of onetwelfth of one-tenth of the total ties in line would accumulate a fund to take care of some year when an excessive number gave way, without any strain on the company's resources. The same thing should be done with rail and bridges. From study of results on the basis above outlined we could soon obtain data which would give us very accurate measure for our daily charge to expense. The effect of such a plan of action would be to prevent starvation of property to the detriment of the owners; would cut a clear line between expenses and betterments; would place all contingent expense resulting from wrecks, washouts, etc., in a class by themselves; would give more accurate comparison for cost versus performance.

"Of the above deficiencies how much is chargeable to the accounting department, and what to the real railroad, that is, the traffic and operating departments? In a measure it may all be charged up against the auditors because they have not made the necessity for better methods felt by the managements and because even in their own territory they have been too much inclined to stick to the patient hack that carries them safely rather than attempt to break in some noble steed that may carry them better and further. At the very threshold of this investigation we run up against a very deadening influence in the modern tendency to indiscriminate 'standardizing.' A standard is in many ways a great help, but unless judiciously used becomes also a great drawback in that it is liable to kill progress. The investing public calls for a standard railroad report, all must be along the same lines, the public wants to compare, it does not want to take the trouble to study. Yet conditions are so different that no two reports can be compared with profit, especially if made on exactly the same lines.

"The result is that the study of the thousand different auditors is of little avail; in fact, there is hardly any incentive to study, except possibly in the endeavor to save money by utilizing old wrappers for scratch paper, and the omission of the dot over the i and cross from the t, and other like economies. If science had been standardized we would not have had a Faraday, a Pasteur, an Edison.

"Working under this blighting influence, the accounting association has not accomplished as much as it should. It has been too difficult to modify the distribution of expenses. The association has failed to discriminate as to when to apply standards and when not to. Also for some reason it has failed to make its decisions obligatory. In the matter of interchange relations, the action of a sufficient majority should be obligatory, but, for the sake of progress, in all else, the greatest liberty and diversity of method should be allowed and encouraged.

"Various methods have been advised at different times by the association, and more or less adopted, and others have been proposed, turned down, and more or less adopted also. There are two in particular which I will notice, which were fought for, adopted by the association and recommended to the members, and partially accepted; they are through billing and the change from the forwarded to the received basis. One in particular turned down-'the Amorous waybill.' Let us look at these from the standpoint of efficient accounting.

was

"A through bill is issued carrying a shipment over two or more lines, involving, it may be, several weeks of carriage and delay at terminals. Revenue earned on this shipment is taken into account when the delivering line reports, and probably very often not in the month the shipment was handled. From the point of accuracy, is that an improvement over the forward basis? Yet the complications of a transit account with connecting lines is a decided and expensive disadvantage to the forwarded basis. The Amorous waybill was turned down, yet it made the billing line responsible for correct rates and divisions, as against our present theory, which throws all responsibility on the delivering line. shooting a rifle at a target a thousand yards away you would hardly expect some power to correct the initial force and deliver the bullet properly, yet we

In

invoke that idea in billing. The adoption of the principle that the delivering line shall be responsible for correct rates, weights and divisions is the cause of more shiftlessness and expense than can be well estimated. I know roads whose sole idea seems to be to turn a shipment loose by any route, at any rate and weight, with only consignee and destination shown; anything so they get rid of it, and expect it to come out all right in the wash' of delivering line's accounting department; the subject of endless corrections to be noted by all parties in interest. If the initial work is correct

tion only on the initial line, and labor would be reduced and accuracy increased. The line issuing billing should see that its billing is correct in every particular before leaving its line, and should be held responsible for such correctness. Would its liability be any greater than it is now? What, then, can be the objection to a principle which costs no more yet promises better results? Throwing responsibility on the delivering line is a premium on shiftlessness and costly incompetence.

"How our practice differs from correct theory is also shown in our handling of

[graphic]

WRECK OF THE "METEOR" ON THE FRISCO RAILROAD

Showing the largest portion left of the smoking car

there is little else to do. Yet the 'Amorous waybill' was turned down cold. Through billing has its advantages and junction settlements also, at least junction settlements get revenues into the month in which service is performed. Through billing stops extra work at junctions and also prevents delay to shipments. The Amorous waybill, if it should show weight, rate, divisions, junction points, so that the waybill should go through, yet settlements be made by agents at each junction on divisions as shown, would combine advantages of both then each individual road in revising its copy of the waybill could make its demand for correction of its propor

passenger revenue as taken from foreign coupon ticket reports. A coupon ticket carries simply one or more orders on foreign lines to furnish a stated amount of transportation at the expense of the issuing line. Why should the issuing line report the transaction? Why should the honoring line wait for report before crediting earnings when the transportation is furnished, or if the report comes in first, credit earnings from the report before the service is performed? Is this accuracy? Has the time we collect the money anything to do with the time we earn it? "But any attempt on the part of the accounting department to attain greater efficiency will prove of no avail unless

supported by the operating and traffic departments. The railroad in its dealings with the public and other roads is represented chiefly by its traffic department. From this department come the rules and regulations governing its revenue, and any tabulating and study of this side of the accounts is modified very largely by those rules. A coupon from a foreign ticket is turned in by a conductor, and before its value can be ascertained the report of the issuing line must be received. We do not know from the coupon the rate at which the ticket was sold, and often know neither route nor destination. Why does the traffic department allow such a state of affairs? Why do not all the traffic departments get together, formulate and adopt a set of rules which will be just to all parties and which will do away with half the labor of both traffic and accounting departments in accounting for the business handled?

"The same thing may be said of the freight side, though rates and divisions are better agreed upon, but in other matters, modifying rates especially, the same uncertainty exists, this notably in the 'in transit' privileges.

"The operating department performs the service and maintains the property: from it comes the bulk of the expenses; from it also should come prompt and accurate reports of what was actually done. Somehow the idea seems to exist among operating men that the ability to tell accurately what it has done indicates poor executive power. But to do and to say what has been done are not necessarily incompatible, and when a report is lacking in clearness and accuracy, I am inclined to doubt the value of the work of the party making the report.

"Correct reports largely presuppose a careful planning of work in advance, a preparation for all contingencies. These are necessary to aid the auditor in his work, but they are needed far more in operation itself, as they insure economy and accuracy of operation.

"To increase the efficiency of the accounting department so that it may thus be more helpful to the other departments in their work, the roads as represented by each department should get together and adopt fair general principles of government, and should then live up to them. And in considering these principles and endeavoring to arrive at that which is true, we should shut our eyes to the matter of ownership; for the laws which

should govern railroading as a public utility are the same, whether the property is owned by the people, through their governments, or by individuals, or by syndicates.

"Just now the greatest menace to railroad interests seems to be lack of selfcontrol, and this is a very grave danger. If the railroads of this country can not control themselves some outside power will step in and take the reins. There are only two theories to warrant government ownership of railroads. The one is to tax the more prosperous portions of the nation for the benefit of those less favorably situated, as is done in postoffice work; the other the ground that the roads are too weak to control themselves and so are dangerous to the public welfare. That lack of self-control which gives the demand for government ownership ground to stand on is also in large degree that which interferes with accounting efficiency."

Wreck of the Frisco "Meteor."

On the morning of December 21, 1903, the northbound passenger train on the Frisco Railroad, known as the "Meteor," was wrecked five miles south of Fort Scott, Kan., by running into an open switch. From the newspaper reports it is learned that at the time of the accident the train was late and was running at a high rate of speed. It seems that a freight train had intended to take the siding at this point for the passenger train, but through lack of water the engine was unable to get the train into the siding, whereupon a man was sent to flag the passenger train and have it take the siding and pass the freight. For some cause or other the Meteor was not flagged, and it rushed into the open switch, turning every car of the train over with the exception of two sleepers, and killing the engineer, fireman, conductor and five others, fatally injuring three and severely injuring a number of others.

The damage to the train, with the exception of the two sleepers, was almost total. It is said that when the wreck occurred the baggage and express cars leaped entirely over the engine and landed in a cornfield forty feet from the right of way, and, strange to say, the three men in that car escaped death, being found on top of the trunks and pieces of baggage. Remarkable presence of mind was displayed by the three mail clerks, who escaped death by grabbing the iron bars

« ZurückWeiter »