From GEO. C. MCMICHAEL, Roadmaster Louisville & Nashville Railroad. Events of the last ten days have been of such a character as will prevent my attendance at the St. Paul meeting on the 12th-14th insts. I have accepted the position of superintendent of the Nebraska, Iowa & Wisconsin Railway Co., with headquarters at Marshalltown, Iowa, and must report for duty on Tuesday, 11th. I regret to inform you of the severe sickness of our Mr. W. H. McClintock, superintendent of the Louisville Division, and of his inability to attend on that account. I to-day send to Mr. McQuiston the copy of the Constitution and By-Laws for him to take to the meeting, or, in the event of his not going, to mail you at St. Paul. I hope to see you some time in Chicago. My best wishes for the success of the Association, as well as yours personally.

From R. H. CHAMBERLIN, Div. Supt. Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway.

Yours of this date at hand, and in reply would say, that I will have a train ready at 8 o'clock to-morrow, A.M. Would be pleased to accompany the delegates of Roadmasters' Association to South Chicago and Pullman. Mr. A. Kimball, Genl. Supt., will leave on train 11 for Davenport, and the Raymond special train, that I will have to see to the transferring of at Grand Trunk Crossing, Blue Island, I am sorry to say, will prevent me from doing so. My regards to the delegates, hoping they will have a pleasant trip.

From H. G. FLEMING, Supt. and Chief Engineer Memphis & Little Rock Railroad.

I have your circular of August 20th. Will you kindly advise me where to obtain a copy of the proceedings of your convention, to take place at St. Paul, September 12th, 13th and 14th? I shall be greatly interested.

From E. A. BOARDMAN, Roadmaster Union Pacific Railroad. Your circular, dated August 20, 1883, at hand. Glad to hear there has been interest taken to establish something for the interest of those employed as roadmasters, and for the welfare of companies, etc., employing them, and don't see why an association of the kind would not prosper, as well as other like organizations of different kinds throughout the country, and as for my part, I have heard only now and then of an association being formed, but never seen or heard anything further. Would like very much to hear from the officers of it, and to understand more fully their object, and would take an interest in it to promote its growth. As to the meeting taking place at St. Paul, I am sorry to say my wife and I have arrangements all ready for a trip west, but anything I can do for the interest of the Association I will gladly attend to. Hoping to hear from you again, Mr. President, further, as to the Association, such as By-Laws, etc., I remain very respectfully, yours truly.

From E. B. WAKEMAN, Ass't General Superintendent St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railway.

Replying to yours of the 13th inst., we will be pleased to furnish special from St. Paul to the lake and return, complimentary, and will arrange to have as many of our men attend as possible.

To the Officers and Members of the Roadmasters' Association of America:

GENTLEMEN,—The Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Ry. have kindly tendered to me a special train for your use from St. Paul to Minneapolis and west, on their Hastings & Dakota Division, to see the exhibit and practical working of the Case, Long & Pattee Ditching Machine.

THE PRESIDENT: I will say to the Association that I wrote Mr. Fleming that if the proceedings of the meeting were published, and that they undoubtedly would be, I should take great pleasure in sending him a copy.

Gentlemen, you have heard the invitation of the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba people, tendering us a train to Lake Minnetonka, also the invitation of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul road. What will you do in regard to them?

MR. MOLL: I make a motion, gentlemen, that we accept the invitation of both companies, taking the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul train at say eight o'clock to-morrow morning, and the Manitoba road on Friday morning, at the same time, for Lake Minnetonka, leaving St. Paul from the main depot.

MR. SLOAN: Mr. President, as Mr. Moll has been Chairman of our Committee of Arrangements, I move that we let him arrange our excursions for us.

The motion was amended by inserting the name of Mr. Brennan with that of Mr Moll, constituting them a Committee on Excursions, and in that form carried.

THE PRESIDENT: Gentlemen, the next business in order will be the reports of committees, and as I was a committee of one to procure a seal and a certificate of membership for the Association, I have done as well as I could, and as I was not limited, I procured some stationery also.

MR. MCQUISTON: I move that this be adopted as the seal and certificate of membership of this Association, and that the Committee be discharged. Motion carried.

MR. Cox. I move that these By-Laws be published in book form, and that each member be furnished with a copy. Carried.

MR. SWINNEY: Mr. President, I will ask if there has been any arrangement made toward securing a room for our meetings. THE PRESIDENT: None that I know of, with the exception of which Mr. Bronson has kindly tendered us.

this

one,

MR. SWINNEY: Then I move that a committee of three be appointed by the Chair to secure a room, and that it report to this meeting before an adjournment. Carried.

Messrs. J. B. Moll, D. Wright and I. Brennan were appointed as the Committee.

DRAINAGE.

THE PRESIDENT: Discussion of questions adopted for consideration at our meeting in Chicago is next in order, and the first one is "Drainage, Tools and Appliances." This question will have to stand by itself, and I think it would be well for us to appoint a committee of three to act as a jury, as it were, who shall sit and hear the views expressed, and then make a report, and then that report can be either accepted or rejected by the Association.

MR. SLOAN: I move that a committee of three be appointed by the Chair to report at our meeting to-morrow, the best form of ditch, distance from the rail and degree of slope for mud, gravel and stone.

Carried.

THE PRESIDENT: I will appoint as such committee Mr. Swinney, Mr. P. J. Kelley and Mr. James Sloan. We would like to hear from Mr. McQuiston.

MR. MCQUISTON: On the subject of ditching, I will relate an anecdote told of one of the old engineers of the Pennsylvania Road, which is supposed to be one of the best railroads in America to-day, and perhaps in the world. A young man came to him to learn the business of engineering. He told him to go over the line and see that the road was ditched, and in about six months the young man came back and said that the road was properly ditched. He said to the young engineer, "Go back and ditch the road again."

The ditching of a road properly is something that is never finished. In our ditching we fill out two feet beyond the end of the ties, straight, dress top, and then run to the ditch, seven feet from the rail. That is our method. We would be very glad to learn of anything that is better. Our trains are running fifty

miles an hour, and we have forty-one ton engines hauling our passenger trains, and we have curves and grades and all that sort of thing, and have come up here to learn from some of these gentlemen a better method if we can. It puzzles us wonderfully to know just exactly what is the best method.

MR. PRESTON: Do we understand that you run the ditch out to a slope on the back side?

MR. MCQUISTON: Yes, we go two feet from the rail and then we run out. Seven feet is the edge of our ditch.

THE PRESIDENT: What is the depth of it?

MR. MCQUISTON: As deep as we can get it. If our cuts are narrow and will not admit of a deep ditch, we do with what we can get.

THE PRESIDENT: Where you can, you get it seven feet from the rail.

MR. MCQUISTON: Seven feet if we can, one and a half to one, and a foot deep, and slopes on both sides. We make both slopes alike.

THE PRESIDENT: Do you have any trouble with your banks sliding sloughing off?

MR. MCQUISTON: Whenever they slide, we dig it out and haul it away.

THE PRESIDENT: What I wanted to ask you was, if it runs off your bank, as it will in wet weather, and you can't touch it, do you find that it fills up and turns the water up to your track more than a box ditch?

MR. MCQUISTON: We dig it right out and haul it away truck it if it is possible. We never tried a box ditch.

MR. SLOAN: The natural rattling and falling of the bank through the summer, providing it does not make a general slide, does not that naturally crowd the water toward your track, and does not your space lessen all the time?

MR. MCQUISTON: Yes; but we take it from the cuts and use it in the fills, where we need it.

THE PRESIDENT: You make your ditch one and a half feet to one in slope. Where do you commence with your ditch? How far from the end of the tie? In other words, how much berme do you leave outside of the end of the tie?

MR. MCQUISTON: We leave three feet from the rail before we start the ditch. We fill out two feet from the rail, and from

there we have a flat place of a foot, and then we start this one That is what we consider our best style of

and a half to one.

dressing up.

MR. SLOAN: Where it is dirt ballast?

MR. MCQUISTON: No; we have stone and gravel.

MR. HAYWARD: Mr. President, on the subject of ditching I would state, that I have never known a road that was ditched sufficiently. There is not enough ditching done. If you have drainage you have a good road, I don't care whether it is stone, gravel, or mud. We have some of all kinds.

MR. PRESTON: It appears, Mr. President, that the first question here is, "Drainage." I suppose that means ditching. Now, my practice has been this: To leave four feet that is, where we have what we call mud track to deal with we would commence four feet from the rail and slope; go down gradually so as to have at nine feet from the rail a two-foot ditch; cut the opposite side of the bank very nearly straight down, unless it is a sliding bank; if so, give it a little more slope. In that way I have very good success.

MR. KELLY: Do we understand that when you get your nine feet, you have a ditch two feet below the berme?

MR. PRESTON: Two feet below the top of the tie, which we always take as a grade line. I am talking now about a mud country like Indiana and Iowa. You might do differently in Illinois.

MR. SWINNEY: I understand that in a mud track you dig your ditch two feet below the top of the tie at nine feet from the rail.

MR. PRESTON: Nine feet from the rail.

THE PRESIDENT: What sort of a ditch do you approve of when you have a ballasted track?

MR. PRESTON: We commence four feet outside of the rail. That fixes a solid berme for your ballast to lay over, and you can cover your ties up.

MR. SLOAN: Then you commence four feet outside of your rail for your ditch.

MR. PRESTON: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: And what is your slope from there?

MR. PRESTON: The slope is about one inch to one foot for the first two feet, and then I commence to go down so as to get two feet at nine feet from the rail.