Page:Hine (1904) Letters from an old railway official.djvu/27

 of the positions from which to promote trainmasters, and seldom have such appointees fallen down. However, there are hardly enongh promotion loaves and fishes to go around. Men get tired of living on skimmed milk on earth for the sake of promised cream in heaven. Every switch engine worked costs the company several hundred dollars per month, and the yardmaster whose good figuring can save working even one engine is more than earning his salary.

The closer you can get your yardmasters to your official family the better your administration. Pick up a yardmaster occasionally and take him to headquarters with you so that he will keep acquainted with the dispatchers. This will hold down friction and save the company’s good money, A dispatcher naturally wants to get all the trains he can into a terminal, while a yardmaster is doing his level best to get trains out. With such radically different points of professional view there is a big opportunity for the superintendent and the trainmaster to do the harmonizing act, to keep pleasantly before employes the fact that all are working for the same company, that all do business with the same paymaster. Blessed