Page:Hine (1912) Letters from an old railway official.djvu/175

 and the road operated in seven divisions. In these days of overtime and complex working schedules, a timekeeper should check the time slips against the original train sheet, not against a copy, a transcript or an excerpt. A division accounting bureau handling all that it should handle has also much other use for the train sheet.

Second only in importance to the train sheet as a record, and with which it should be closely related, is the conductor’s car and tonnage report; what the men call the wheel report. This important report made by a division man is sent to a remote general office in disregard of the responsible head of such division, the superintendent. The result is that a distant authority, the superintendent of transportation, is telling the superintendent that certain cars are being delayed on the latter’s division. This profuse correspondence is often foolish, because meantime the cars have actually gone. Some roads now have a carbon copy of the wheel report made for the use of the accounting department. Why not send this carbon to division headquarters and let the division accounting bureau make up the ton miles and the car miles, subject to proper check after the