Page:Hine (1912) Letters from an old railway official.djvu/173

 defined that comparison of individual performance is not so difficult. The intense conditions of a terminal complicate such differentiation as among yard conductors.

Another factor of prime importance in determining the size of an operating division is the location of train dispatchers. The dispatcher’s table should always be considered an integral part of the superintendent’s headquarters offices. The train sheet is perhaps the best record on a railroad. It is never fudged by being made up in advance. It is a history usually unimpeachable because it is so close to the actual transactions which it records. It deals with the essence of railway operation, train movement. Few are the important records on a railway that do not derive their primary data from the train sheet. The sheet may be graphic, like a daily time card chart, or may be cut up into card strips, as under the A B C system. In any form, it is a fundamental of operating history.

The number of dispatchers to which a division is limited is, like the number of miles, variable. With headquarters at the hub, one superintendent and one chief dispatcher may comfortably handle three or four sets of