1958 - Should the Rails Blame Themselves?

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Roanoke Times - March 30, 1958

 From the Christian Science Monitor

Should the Rails Blame Themselves?

   In all of this discussion of the plight of American railroads it 
is fair to ask whether there is some measure of trouble to be charged 
against the industry itself - both operators and employes. Indeed 
there is. But much is the harvest of past failings and much so woven 
into the fabric of the railroad's operations that quick and sweeping 
reforms can hardly be looked for.
   In the past railway management was notoriously conservative. It 
was slow to adopt mechanical improvements (the air brake, for 
instance), safety devices (automatic couplings, for instance), and 
when significant competition appeared it first tried to fight the 
battle in the legislatures instead of by enterprise. Of late years 
the roads have done much to catch up. But it has been a catching up.
   The role of railway labor has been much misunderstood and its sins 
exaggerated. But it, too, has had a part in weighing th railroads 
down. In seven decades railway employment has taken on the aspects of 
a civil service with its merits in regularization and stability and 
its disadvantages in the rigidities of seniority and job definition.
   It is true that in railway operation responsibility, knowledge, 
and experience are the key values rather than the hours of actual 
labor. It is true, also, that vested interest in seniority may have 
saved the roads from being stripped of skill and experience in times 
of booming employment elsewhere.
   Bit it has been difficult for management to adapt its operations 
promptly to technological progress and to make economies quickly 
where circumstance demand - difficult for one reason, because the 
factor of safety is often present in practices which may appear only 
to fatten work pay envelopes.
   However, board members, superintendents, engineers, rate clerks, 
and track walkers are in the same boat on the same stormy sea. They 
must all be willing to forget the past and revise "train orders" for 
the future.

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- Ron Davis, Roger Link