Page:Hine (1904) Letters from an old railway official.djvu/17

 at night but usually omitted them in the morning. Her answer which so tickled you was, “I ask God to take care of me at night, but I can take care of myself in the daytime.” It is much the same way with a railroad. From your point of view it will take pretty fair care of itself as a daylight job, but at night that proposition loses its rights. The youngest dispatcher, by virtue of being the senior representative awake, is to a certain extent general manager. The least experienced men are in the yards and roundhouses. The ever-faithful sectionmen are off the right of way. The car inspector’s light and the engineman’s torch are poor substitutes for the sun in locating defects. The most active brains are dulled by the darkness just before dawn. Then it is that a brief hour may sidetrack or derail the good work of many days. It is this responsibility, this struggle with nature, this helping God to work out the good in men, that makes our profession noble and develops qualities of greatness in its members.

Next time I shall try to tell you something about helping your train dispatchers.

With a father’s blessing, ever your own, D. A. D.