A TREATISE DESIGNED TO AFFORD USEFUL KNOWLEDGE, IN A POPULAR STYLE, TO THE HOLDERS OF THIS CLASS OF PROPERTY EN FIRED according to Act of Congrem, in the year reclĄ BY PHINNEY, BLAKEMAN & MASON, Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Scurtern Digmaa PREFACE. THE following pages have been written with a view of giving to railway proprietors, in a popular form, the character of their property. In this I have aimed to give some impression of the public importance of railways, but have mainly discussed the methods of business involved in their construction and operating management. In regard to construction, it has been my design to give so much of parodars as will enable an intelligent business man to form a judgment of the propriety of the several proceedings, and enable him to decide on their wisdom and expediency, and at the same time afford the junior engineer hints and outlines that may be useful for his consideration. At this time, the operating management, providing as it does for the care of near thirty thousand miles of railway, is far more important than that for construction, in which there is comparatively little doing. The care of more than one thousand millions of dollars invested in this kind of property, all must admit, is of very great importance to the proprietors. In addition to tracing out, and presenting the order of business, it has seemed to me necessary to point out the danger to which the property is peculiarly exposed, from infidelity to trust. Though I regard the ordinary and current management of railways as very far from perfect-far from what it will be by and by, still there can be no doubt that the failure of railway property to remu in nerate the proprietors, has, to a large extent, resulted from unfaithful management, and therefore I have endeavored to show the working of this evil, and, so far as practicable, the remedy. If, in the following discussion, the prospects of this class of property do not look as encouraging as could be wished, it must not be attributed to any desire on my part to disparage it; but to the evils that environ it, and the difficulty of wholly removing them. It will be seen that I do not regard this kind of investment as well suited, in general, to small proprietors, so situated that they can exercise no control, and who are exposed to the danger of having their property managed by unfaithful men, who seek to make the institution subservient to their own interest, rather than to that of the proprietors. All that is solicited from the reader of the following pages, is a candid and impartial survey of the subject. Doubtless I have advanced some opinions that will not harmonize with much of the existing management on many railways; but it is confidently believed that time and experience will fully demonstrate the soundness of these opinions, and ultimately introduce a practice that will greatly economize transport, and extend the usefulness of this eminently beneficent improvement in the means of intercommunication. The proficient in railway management will find much that may appear to him commonplace; but he will readily see, that I have written to give useful information, chiefly to those who have had less experience than myself, and who, I hope, will derive some benefit from the labor I have bestowed a subject of general, as well as of individual interest. |