Page:The Working and Management of an English Railway.djvu/27

, the waggon works at Earlestown, and everything connected with the rolling stock of the railway and with the steamboats. There are also a "Fares and Rates Committee" of eight members, and a "Debts and Goods Claims Committee" of ten members, the titles of which sufficiently indicate their functions, and an important committee called the "Traffic Committee," composed of fifteen members, which approves changes in the staff and in the pay of the Company's servants, authorises expenditure upon new works, and deals, besides, with a variety of other matters connected with the discipline of the staff and the working and accommodation of the traffic. In addition to these there are smaller committees for the hotels and refreshment rooms, for legal and medical business, and for stores. At the meetings of the full Board, which are presided over by the Chairman of the Company, the minutes of all these various committees are submitted and approved or otherwise as the case may be, and the Board also deals with Parliamentary matters, questions of policy, proposals for new works involving large expenditure, and, generally, with all business of the first importance affecting the Company. The present Chairman of the Company, as is pretty well known, is an extremely hard worker, and has for many years devoted the whole of his time and his great talents for administration and finance to the service of the Company which he has done so much to place in its present position at the head of the railway enterprise of the country.

The executive management of the line is carried on by a General Manager, a Chief Goods Manager with two assistants (one for the outdoor working, and one for the indoor work, the making of rates, etc.), and a