PROCEEDINGS.

The object of this Association is the advancement of knowledge pertaining to the scientific and economic location, construction, operation and maintenance

of railways. Its action is not binding upon its members.

TUESDAY, MARCH 18, 1913.

MORNING SESSION.

The convention was called to order by the President, Mr. Chas. S. Churchill, Chief Engineer of the Norfolk & Western Railway, at 9:15 o'clock.

The President:-Gentlemen, please come to order.

The Fourteenth Annual Convention of the American Railway Engineering Association is now declared in session. This convention will witness the work of the Association under an improved Constitution and organization of committees, and this meeting will be held under very favorable auspices.

The Committee on Arrangements and our Secretary have arranged a program after several months' work that will, we think, prove very interesting.

The Railway Age-Gazette and the Railway and Engineering Review will publish daily issues of the proceedings, which will add greatly to the interest and enthusiasm, and I am sure they will have the thanks of the members.

The privileges of the floor of this convention are, as usual, tendered to railway officials and to Engineers who may not be members of the Association, and to others who are interested in the subjects under discussion, and they are invited to add to the interest of the meetings in any way they may think desirable.

It is requested that when gentlemen rise for recognition by the Chair they will announce their names and the name of the company with which they are connected, and in case they are not members of the Association, they will indicate their business or the college they represent.

The first business before the convention is the reading of the Minutes of the last annual convention. These Minutes have been in print for a long time and a copy furnished to each member, and unless there is objection, they will be accepted and considered approved as printed. There being no objection, the Minutes stand approved as printed.

The next order of business is the customary address of the President.

PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS.

ASSOCIATION AFFAIRS.

To the Members of the American Railway Engineering Association: On January 1, 1912, our membership aggregated 1,004. During the past year there has been an increase of 62, making a total of 1,066. The number of printed pages issued during the year was as follows:

The aggregate to date issued by this Association is therefore. 30,366

The various methods reported upon at the last convention for increasing revenues, especially those procurable by economies, have been carried out, with the result that on January 1, 1913, our cash on hand was $3,183.11 in excess of what it was on January 1, 1912. One of the economies that have contributed to this favorable showing is the present method of binding and printing. The two parts of Vol. No. 12 of 1911 contain about the same number of pages as the single issue of Vol. No. 13 for 1912.

The total saving of Vol. 13 as compared with Vol. 12 was $1,128.28, to which should be added other reductions in cost of mailing.

Another advantage of the present method of printing is the securing of our Proceedings in one volume of convenient size upon a date nearly six months earlier than heretofore. In fact, our Secretary estimates that the Proceedings of this convention, Vol. 14, will be issued about May 1st. The credit for this result belongs to your Secretary, your Committee on Publications and to your Editor, Prof. W. D. Pence.

The American Railway Association have made the following appropriations on account of the investigations of the Rail Committee: In 1910, $5,000; 1911, $6,000; 1912, $10,000; total, $21,000; and in November, 1912, a further appropriation of $10,000 was made for the work of 1913, bringing the total up to $31,000. Against this appropriation there had been expended up to November, 1912, $21,011.41.

Attention is called to the valuable work of the Standing and Special Committees during the year as evidenced by their careful reports, and commendation is due to the various chairmen and committee members.

The Association was invited to be represented at the Fourth National Conservation Congress held at Indianapolis in September, 1912. Messrs. McNab, W. G. Atwood, Ferriday, Fisk and R. C. Young were appointed as delegates to attend that congress.

As the years pass along it becomes also necessary to record the names of those members who have completed their work, the death of whom has deprived our Association of their aid. We have thus lost during the year F. H. Bainbridge, formerly Resident Engineer of the

neer,

Chicago & Northwestern Railway, who was a well-known Bridge Engiand was a valued member of our Committee on Wooden Bridges and Trestles; D. D. Colvin, Engineer Maintenance of Way of the National Railways of Mexico, who was at one time connected with the Panama Canal Construction before entering railway service in Mexico; and J. C. Young, Signal Engineer of the Union Pacific Railroad, a valued member of the Committee on Signals and Interlocking.

THE ASSOCIATION'S WORK-PAST AND FUTURE.

With the completion of another year in the existence of the American Railway Engineering Association, it is well to review its accomplishments and to point out the work before it.

Its first notable accomplishment has been: The standardization of materials, designs, specifications and records used in the construction and maintenance of the various parts of a railway.

Second-Progress has been made in the specifications governing the making of such complex materials (so largely used by railways) as concrete and steel.

While the first of these items relates almost wholly to materials, the proper use of these materials is largely dependent upon, labor, skillfully and economically directed; and the second item-namely, the manufacture of such materials as concrete and steel, is very greatly dependent upon the quality of the labor and upon the honest and thorough use of it. This Association has had before its committees instances of the short life of concrete, due more often to faulty or dishonest labor used, than to the materials themselves composing it; yet so far, more concern has been given by this Association to the materials than to the labor. The discovery of voids in concrete, or of portions where adhesion is lacking, or again of the misuse or damage by laborers of reinforcing materials, has resulted in the gradual increase in the amount of skilled labor and of supervision employed; because, after all, a mass of concrete is only as strong as its weakest part.

Hence, a record of the very best means of economically constructing and supervising this product seems important at this time.

The manufacture of steel likewise demands employment of skilled labor in every step of the process.

The time was when certain ores of generally known quality when handled and reduced to steel by a method in general practice was all that was necessary; and the product received its name and often its rated value from the record of the individual manufacturers. That time is gone. Labor used instead of being small in numbers is both large and changeable. So, skillful labor and the efficient use of it, as well as of the extensive mechanisms under its control, is the only surety for a steel that will be uniform in good quality.

The Rail Committee of this Association has brought out this point very forcibly to railway people and to the manufacturers of rail, as well as to the public.

It has been found that it is those mills which have sought for scientific care on the part of their men, and which have discharged others for carelessness, or for a misguided loyalty to their employer in their effort to produce quantity at the risk of slighting quality, that are to-day producing rails of the more uniform grade. It is by this method of extreme watchfulness that further improvement will be obtained.

The Rail Committee has shown so far:

First-That while rail failures in the past have had as many explanations as there were manufacturers, with no means of proving or disproving any of them, we now know the general causes, and the remedies are being worked upon.

Second-Many negative results of the investigations prove that good or bad mill work produces good or bad rails, and in many cases overcome the advantages or disadvantages of any particular rail section.

Third-That the amount of discard from the top of ingots does not set a gage on either the high standard of the rail produced, or on the number of rail failures; but rather indicates the relative skill of some mills in controlling the chemical content, casting ingots and rolling rails.

Fourth-That some mills continuously produce better or more uniform material than others; and that this uniformity is largely the result of greater care and skill at the mills, which has been considerably developed by the publications of this Association.

Fifth-And now we are finding that the use of thick base rails of the A. R. A. "B" type is reducing base failures to an insignificant number; and also that care in handling and using rails is productive of both longevity and safety. In fact, that careful labor should follow the treatment of rails until they are removed from main tracks.

To explain one type of watchful labor in detail: About two years ago a broken wheel nicked the rails of over a mile of track on an important railway. These nicked rails began to break under following trains before their replacement could be completed. It seems important, therefore, that track supervisors should promptly remove rails nicked by broken wheels whenever discovered in main tracks.

It is proper here to place on record the fact that Mr. James E. Howard, of the United States Bureau of Standards, has personally complimented the work of this Association on the subject of rails, and it seems well also to call your attention to a recent report of the National Association of Railway Commissioners, by its Special Committee, to whom was assigned the question of Equipment and Rails. In this report many quotations are included from the Proceedings of the American Railway Engineering Association, and the following statement is made:

"The best general information obtainable on the subject for the country as a whole will be found in the reports of the Rail Committee of the American Railway Engineering Association. The care which has been used in obtaining statistics of rail failures by this Committee, in analyzing these figures, and in fearlessly reporting its conclusions, justifies high praise."

It is certainly clear from what has been stated on this subject of rails, that human care and skill will furnish the measure of future beneficial results. In all important successes I have known, the concentration of many minds upon the subject in hand has brought about that happy conclusion.

This problem is a complex and difficult one, but its solution is approaching; and very fortunate will be that mill, or group of mills, that first prove that they are delivering tougher and more uniform rails than are now produced.

As stated in the beginning of these remarks, there is a vast amount of labor employed directly by railways in carrying out the standard specifications and methods that have been approved by this Association. Your committees have this year been requested to note and to report on this matter. This important study is therefore started, as will be seen from the reports of some of the committees.

This Association should keep up to date in labor-saving machinery and devices, and should discover and compile records of the best practice in handling labor with and without their use. It should also refer to its quality and the economical seasons for its employment, as well as to its best supervision in all branches of railway construction, maintenance and operation.

One of the best ways for securing efficient results from labor is to freely recognize any improvement that its intelligent use produces. An employer that always points out the fault only, without commending the gain, soon discourages even the most skilled of artizans. Humanity in general needs incentive and encouragement in addition to wages.

I think you and I can recall instances from school or college days when a simple word of incentive or commendation formed a turning point in our lives on some specific subject. Which is better for a teacher to say, "John, you are behind badly-you failed in two problems"; or, "John, you solved eighteen out of twenty of the problems given-you can succeed with the others also"?

Those of us who have handled tunnel work under old as well as new methods of machinery and labor, know how under the old method the darkey drill force was kept together and made to turn out 50 per cent. more work than any other kind of labor through the incentive song of their leader.

We, in America, have made great strides in methods of getting work done; but we cannot afford to overlook the song of the leader of the boat crew on the Mediterranean who keeps the men at vigorous stroke by his frequent exclamation "Glory to Allah." These are both examples of good "team work."

Some railways adopt a prize system in one or more branches of service. There is no single department that will answer more readily to this system than the labor employed upon the maintenance of track.

Many railways have used this system for years. The Pennsylvania Railroad, for example, has a Special Committee of Maintenance of Way