The passenger thanked the news-agent, for his problem had been lightened and started out for the other station. When he was gone, the ticket-seller summoned the newsman and threatened to have him fired.
But there is a new order of things coming to pass even in this hot rivalry for getting passenger traffic. Long ago, C. F. Daly, who is to-day vice-president in charge of traffic for the New York Central lines, was in charge of the city ticket-office of the Burlington, in Omaha. Those were days when no loyal traffic-man was ever supposed even to breathe the name of a competing road. But Daly held his loyalty firm, and still went straight against that absurd rule. If a woman came into his office and, after the way of some women travellers, finally decided that she wished to travel over the rival Northwestern, he would not let her get out of his office. He would give her a comfortable seat, and perhaps a magazine or paper to read, and send one of his office-boys over to the Northwestern office to buy a ticket for her. Sometimes before the office-boy could get out of the place the woman would change her mind in favor of the Burlington. If she did not, Daly did not worry. He knew that he was of the new order of railroaders.
Come back, for a final moment, to the travelling passenger agent. He may be forgiven an over-zeal for the line which employs him, for that has been his training from the beginning, and--which is far more to the point--he is being measured by the results that he accomplishes. The road does not pay him a salary and pay his heavy expense account (which the auditor generally permits to contain various unvouchered items for entertainment) without expecting results.
If he is a new man in the territory, he is measured against his predecessor. Afterwards, he is measured month by month, against the corresponding month of the preceding year. All tickets which were sold from his territory, and in which his road shares, are credited to his influence. It becomes a matter of cold calculations and of dollars and cents. If this April does not show an increase over April of last year, the T. P. A. must make a mighty good explanation to his chief. It will have to be famine or pestilence or something nearly as bad to justify the slump in ticket sales. An insinuation on his part that a reduction of the service of his road was responsible for the slump would never be accepted at headquarters.
[Illustration: THE NEW YORK CENTRAL RAILROAD IS BUILDING A NEW GRAND CENTRAL STATION IN NEW YORK CITY, FOR ITSELF AND ITS TENANT, THE NEW YORK, NEW HAVEN & HARTFORD RAILROAD]
[Illustration: THE CONCOURSE OF THE NEW GRAND CENTRAL STATION, NEW YORK, WILL BE ONE OF THE LARGEST ROOMS IN THE WORLD]
[Illustration: SOUTH STATION, BOSTON, IS THE BUSIEST RAILROAD TERMINAL IN THE WORLD]
[Illustration: THE TRAIN-SHED AND APPROACH TRACKS OF BROAD STREET STATION, PHILADELPHIA, STILL ONE OF THE FINEST OF AMERICAN RAILROAD PASSENGER TERMINALS]
So, all in all, the life of the travelling passenger agent is no sinecure.
It is easiest when he is in the home territory of his road, rather pleasant when that road is non-competitive. But when he is out in "foreign" territory, fighting for a road which is hardly more than a name to the folk with whom he comes in contact, his difficulties increase; when, if his road is one of the weaker fry, its trains slower and less frequent than some of the other trunk-lines, his difficulties increase.
The differential-fares by which the slower competing roads are permitted by their stronger brethren to charge a reduced rate between important distant traffic points were adopted to help to equalize this difficulty.
But the differentials do not count, neither do the differential lines now get their share of the through business. Last year fifty per cent of the passengers between New York and Chicago went on the eighteen-hour train, even though the regular full fare of $20 in each direction is increased by an excess fare of $10, aside from the Pullman rates. Twenty-five per cent more travelled on the limited trains, which makes an excess of $5, in addition to Pullman rates, in each direction. It begins to look as if the American public were willing to pay for added comfort and convenience.
Pullman operation has doubled within the past ten years. Pullman chair-cars are operated to-day on hundreds of miles of branch line railroads that would not have dreamed of such a luxury a decade ago.
In fact, we are moving toward first-class and second-class passenger service by leaps and bounds. Less than twenty years ago the New York Central established its Empire State Express between New York and Buffalo, and, by means of the almost marvellous resources of its advertising department, made it the most famous train in the world. Save for a single parlor car or two, it has always been a day-coach train, no excess fare being charged. Yet for many years (in recent years its running-time has been slightly lengthened) it was the fastest regular long-distance train in the world. Still, in the judgment of railroaders to-day, another Empire State would be a mistake, even though the original is, day in and day out probably one of the most popular and profitable express trains in the world. But the judgment is different: the Lehigh Valley, running the competing Black Diamond, between New York and Buffalo, has already found it advisable to make its equipment all Pullman.
Just as the travelling passenger agent forms the stock from which many of the general passenger agents are finally formed, so does the country agent aspire to the day when he will be given territory and sent out with his gripsack, to sell transportation upon the road. Sometimes, though, as in Daly's case, the road to traffic titles comes by way of the city ticket-offices. These form an important function of the railroad's passenger department. They are regulated carefully, through an inter-railroad harmony, as expressed in the great national passenger associations. We have already seen how they sell mileage-books and "scrip"
on their own account. For instance, a sort of tacit agreement specifies how many ticket-offices a railroad may maintain in a given city.
Otherwise, the biggest and richest road might completely overshadow its weaker neighbor in the number as well as in the magnificence of its agencies. So an unwritten agreement, which is as strict in its way as the law on cutting rates, states that this city may have so many offices for any road, and that so many. It has become an exact rule.
The city ticket-offices, situated at advantageous corners in the various busy centres of metropolitan towns, and towns having metropolitan ambitions, save the average man a long trip, perhaps, to the station. They will sell tickets, check baggage, answer innumerable questions. Answering questions remains one of the big functions of the passenger-man.
Only recently, a sign was hung in a city ticket-office of one of the large railroads in New York, which read:
"Remember that we are Here to Sell Tickets as well as Give Information."
That sign was a mistake. It was an affront to every person who entered that ticket-office, and remember that every person who enters a ticket-office is at least a potential passenger for the railroad that operates it. It is only charitable to believe that the agent meant to say: "Remember that we are here to give information as well as to sell tickets," for the giving of information is a function of a passenger ticket office. So important has this function become, that the railroads have established desks in the largest of these city offices at which no tickets are sold, but where questions are answered and railroad, steamship, and hotel folders given out. "Public Service stations," the New York Central has begun to call its city ticket-offices and, furthering this idea of courtesy and affability, its general passenger agent has opened a school for the training of its agents. They are taught to answer questions quickly and accurately, and to be, above all things, courteous to the persons who come before them and the potential travellers.
Just a final look before we leave this passenger department, at its equipment. Its complications are large. Take this matter of tickets, for instance. While the financial department of the road will receive the money that comes in for their sales, and the auditing department takes good care as to the accuracy of the agent's returns, the passenger department has charge of printing and issuing the contract slips by which it agrees to convey its passengers. There is a multiplicity of forms of these, each bearing the signature of the general passenger agent.
On smaller roads, the number of forms of local tickets is greatly reduced by writing or stamping the name of the destination on tickets. On a single branch line, with 25 stations, just 600 different styles of printed railroad tickets would be required otherwise; you can imagine the number of styles required for an average system of 1,000 stations. Fortunately, for the passenger department, the use of simplified forms of tickets, where adroit cutting and tearing makes possible the use of a single ticket form for an entire division, has reduced the big ticket-printing bills.
Only recently, a machine, on the order of a cash register, has been invented, from which a ticket, accurately stamped and dated, with the destination indelibly printed, can be delivered as demanded.
Still, with all these simplified forms of tickets, a big road will hardly carry less than 5,000 standard forms. Then there will be anywhere from a dozen to twenty special forms a week that will have to be printed--for excursions, conventions, and special train movements of every sort. The ticket-printing bill of a big road will easily exceed $40,000 a year. Its folders will cost not less than $50,000, while the twelvemonths' bill for newspaper advertising will more than exceed the combined figure of these two.
All these details come under the jurisdiction of that urbane general passenger agent. He supervises, in another department, the making and the readjustment of rates--this last a seemingly endless task.
To make up rate-sheets, either in the freight or in the passenger department, requires expert work. The fare between the same points on competitive railroads must, in the present order of things, remain equal.
To cite an interesting instance: The A---- railroad long ago established $6.00 as its passenger charge from N---- to S----. The B---- railroad, although charging a higher rate per mile over its line, is obliged to meet this rate of $6.00 in order to secure business from N---- to S----, even though that makes many perplexing problems in its local rates. The B----railroad mileage from N---- to S----, up its main line, is 288 miles--practically the same as that of its competitor. For the 146-mile ride to G----, the first large way-station, it charges $4.50, for the 208-mile ride to M----, the next, $5.00. If a man were to go over its line to S---- and stop off at G---- and M---- his fare from N---- to S----would be $8.80. That is a typical case, and one that is repeated in every corner of the country. Where a road comes into competitive territory its rates must adjust themselves to those of its lowest-priced rival, otherwise it could hardly hope for a fair share of the business. So the rates must shade here and there; the rate-clerk must take good care to see that wherever it is in any way possible, no combination of tickets can be formed that will sell at less rate than a through ticket. When the rate-sheet is completed and copies of it forwarded to the railroad commission, it is, indeed, a sensitive organization.
But no sooner will the cumbersome rate-sheet be completed, before some little road off in a distant corner of the country will send a printed announcement of some slight change in its passenger charges. In an instant, the whole mighty fabric of the rate-sheet must be torn apart and reconstructed. If the St. Louis Southwestern, by reason of a single change in the rates of the little Blissville, Bulgetown and Beyond (with which it connects) is enabled to charge a few cents less than the rival Transcontinental, its rate-sheet must be torn asunder and a new one adopted.
Beyond the long desks where the rate-clerks keep at their tedious jobs of constant readjustment of local and through rates, the passenger department has located its ticket redemption bureau. It announces publicly its willingness to redeem unused portions of its tickets, and the work of figuring out the amount due on a ticket, sometimes half or three-quarters used, requires a rate-clerk of ability and patience. The redemption clerk holds a ticket up to the light for your inspection.
"They tried to put this over on me," he says as he shows a local ticket which had been sent to him for redemption at full value. The pasteboard is filled with small burned holes. "The breezy young man who forwarded this exhibit to me claimed that he had used no portion of this ticket and then apologized to me for its condition. His small boy, he said, had burned it with Fourth-of-July punk.
"Punk? That was punk. The small boy did not do a thorough job. Every hole burned there was burned to hide a conductor's punchmark. You can see the edges of three of them; and those three punch marks show that the ticket issued from B---- to T---- was used 300 miles from B---- to A---- and not used from A---- to T----. When that young man threatened us with trouble on that ticket deal, we threatened him with arrest. After that he shut up."
So does the general passenger agent come in constant contact with the great American public. His outside mail is probably the largest at headquarters, and it contains letters of every sort, asking innumerable questions, praising and damning his road with equal interest and force.
One letter will commend a courteous conductor, the next will find some fault with the dining-car service. It is not so very long ago that a big Eastern railroad sent out a general order that the raw oysters on its dining-cars should be served affixed to their shells, because a woman from Sioux City had written a positive assertion that the shells were being used over and over again for canned oysters.
Some of the railroads have already begun to systematize this whole matter of complaints. One New York City line which sells a large amount of transportation in small packages every day (two million passengers is its average in twenty-four hours) has a Harvard man at high salary just to receive those letters and give diplomatic answer to each of them. Each complaint is first acknowledged and then investigated; the person who made the complaint is notified of the final action taken. If a matter of fare is involved (the complicated transfer systems of New York make such questions frequent), and the company is wrong, it cheerfully acknowledges its fault and forwards car tickets as reimbursement. Many times when a conductor or a motorman has forgotten his manners, he is sent to make a personal apology to the aggrieved passenger, as a price of holding his position. That street railway company has won many friends out of persons who had complained to it, because of this method.
But here is the general passenger agent of a big steam road, who holds a considerably different view of this very matter.
"We never get in writing on one of these complaints," he says. "We send a man every time to make the matter right, and the man must be a diplomat.
He must understand human nature, and so well does he understand it, that he makes the matter right in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred--turns an enemy into a friend, a liability into an asset, makes a firm patron for our road."
"Liabilities into assets!" That then is the work of the general passenger agent and his remarkable department. "Liabilities into assets!" In these days of cold judgments upon the managements of the big railroad properties, such a man is worth his weight in gold to a big system. He measures his worth in the assets that he brings to it.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE LUXURY OF MODERN RAILROAD TRAVEL
SPECIAL TRAINS PROVIDED--PRIVATE CARS--SPECIALS FOR ACTORS, ACTRESSES, AND MUSICIANS--CRUDE COACHES ON EARLY RAILROADS--LUXURIOUS OLD-TIME SLEEPING-CARS--PULLMAN'S SLEEPERS MADE AT FIRST FROM OLD COACHES--HIS PIONEER--THE FIRST DINING-CARS--THE PRESENT-DAY DINING-CARS--DINNERS, TABLE D' HoTE AND A LA CARTE--CAFe-CARS--BUFFET-CARS--CARE FOR THE COMFORT OF WOMEN.
If a man stops you in Nassau Street, New York, in the late afternoon, and you miss your favorite eighteen-hour train; if it is imperative that you be in Chicago the next morning at ten o'clock, and (this a most important "if") if you are willing to spend your money pretty freely, the railroad will accomplish it for you. If you are well known, and your credit accomplished with the railroad folks, it is highly probable that you will find your special, ready to accomplish an over-night run of nearly 1,000 miles, standing waiting in the train-shed when you hurry to the station.
Even if your credit is not so established, the sight of several thousand dollars in greenbacks will accomplish the trick for you. The train will be ready in any event almost as soon as you.
If you are planning a novel outing, you may ring for a railroad representative and he will bring to your house or to your office tickets on any train and to any part of the world, or he will be prepared to arrange a special train for a night's run or for a three months' swing around the country. Your train may be of any length you desire and are willing to pay for. You can hire a car and it will be handled either as regular express trains or with special engines. You pay the bills and you have your choice.
A run in a private car is the acme of luxury to the average man. These are used for a variety of purposes in these comfort-loving days, and the sight of one or more of them attached to the rear of a heavy train has ceased to excite comment. The average luxury-loving millionaire has one--possibly two--of these expensive toys attached to an entourage that embraces ocean-going yachts, complete stables, and dozens of motor-cars of every description. If he can claim some sort of responsible connection with a large railroad system, he is likely to have his car hauled free from one ocean to the other; and the millionaire likes these little perquisites. He is not so far removed, after all, from the man who huddles in the corner of the smoking-car and secretly hopes and prays that the conductor will forget to collect his ticket.
To appreciate the number and variety of these cars take a look at the passenger sidings at any of the large Florida beach hotels in midwinter.
Better still, run down to Princeton or up to New Haven at any large football game. You will see parked there at such a time from sixty to one hundred of these palatial cars, some of them private property, others chartered for the occasion.
Even in the middle of the night this branch of luxurious railroad traffic is still at your disposal. An emergency call summons you out of town for a distance, and the night train schedules do not meet your needs. The night train-master will meet your needs. He will act as the agent of the railroad and arrange, while you hold the telephone receiver in your fingers, the entire schedule for you. Trains will be held, connections made; the telegraph is capable of arranging the details. If you demand speed, the railroad will give it to you--if you are willing to pay the price and give a release against damage to your precious bones. Increased speed means increased risk to your railroader.
Maude Adams uses a special many Saturday nights to carry her down to her Long Island farm at Ronkonkoma. Her place is far out of the regular suburban district, and there are no regular trains that will enable her to reach it after the evening performance. For ordinary service she is quite content with a private car--the mania has its deathly grip on a good many of our prosperous theatrical folk.