Official Proceedings Saint Louis Railway Club Volume 7 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1902 Excerpt: ...to my idea of that matter is the present St. Louis Per Diem Association, except I think it should go farther and clear the interchange reports. The interchange between roads, I believe, could be handled more accurately if the receipts were handled on the plan of the Chicago interchange--namely, on narrow switching lists made out in duplicate. Receipts given thereon by the foremen in charge of the engines and crews of yard clerks authorized. Two methods suggest themselves: first, both copies (receipted or exceptions taken) going to the clearing house, where they are entered after discrepancies are straightened out. Interchange reports made to Car Accountant and slips sent to agents for record or file; second, receipted slips, one kept by receiving line, one returned to agent of delivering line after taking into record and interchange report sent to Car Accountant. Thus instead of every road keeping a reclaim or switching account, send slips to bureau to take record of switched cars, let the bureau keep the whole thing, eliminating all this duplicate, triplicate and quadruplicate work as is done under the present per diem. Here is the Big Four keeping a record of its cars switched by other lines to check their reclaims. The Wiggins Ferry and every road in St. Louis is doing the same thing. My idea is to let one record be kept, on which will be kept the entire switching history. At present we have cases here in St. Louis where in transit switching there are five intermediate lines. I defy any railroad agent or clerk to check the transit switching on any such proposition as that, without getting some sort of a report or record from the intermediate lines--and then they would be unreliable. En Chicago, there may be transit cases probably as high as three interme...