Page:Hine (1904) Letters from an old railway official.djvu/45

 me, “You will not bring all these reforms about until the old fogies die off, and by that time you will be an old fogy yourself and it will not make any difference.”

There is almost no limit to the number of matters in railway administration that can be made standard and uniform for all roads. A great deal has been done, but to a coming generation the present stage of accomplishment will seem to have been only a fair beginning. The hopeful feature is that roads now meet each other in a much broader spirit than ever before. The fortress that parleys is half taken, and when negotiations looking to uniformity are once begun a long stride forward has been taken. Take the wage agreements of a dozen roads at a large terminal. All twelve are intended to mean practically the same thing, yet the wording of no two will be found alike. This probably is not due so much to a disinclination to get together as to a lack of time for working out uniform details.

Some roads are noticeable for the clearness, conciseness and brevity of their instructions. Others employ a lot of surplus words which are as expensive and annoying in operation