Page:The Working and Management of an English Railway.djvu/35

 Railway are printed at Newton-le-Willows, where the contractors for printing and stationery, Messrs. McCorquodale & Co., have their headquarters. To that town, within a few days of the train alterations having been decided upon by the Officers' Conference, there repairs a clerk from each of the ten districts who is called the "time-table clerk," and with these ten clerks comes an official from the office of the Superintendent of the line to supervise their labours and assist them with his experience. Taking the minutes of the Officers' Conference as their guide, these clerks proceed to revise the time-table, each working out the times for his own section of the line, but all comparing notes as they proceed so as to ensure a harmonious result. As they progress, the results of their labours are placed in the hands of the printers who are on the spot, and the proof-sheets are afterwards revised and corrected by the clerks who have prepared them, and this is how the time-table of the North-Western Railway is produced.

It is extremely difficult to lay down any hard and fast rules for the efficient management of the whole or a section of a large undertaking. If the man who is called to the task has a talent for organisation and administration, he will be a law to himself, and if he does not possess these qualifications, no stereotyped rules will avail to supply their place. There are, however, certain maxims which are elementary and upon which it may be worth while to insist, and these may be briefly summed up as follows:—

(1.) Every man should be chosen with special reference to his suitability for the duties he is called upon to perform. To use a familiar aphorism there should be no "round pegs in square holes."