in the bureau organizations. Owing to division of territory and exchange of work, sometimes a job taken by one bureau will be executed by an inferior one.

Within the past five years the writer had occasion to do personally a considerable amount of shop inspection, and was impressed with the change in conditions and shop practice that had occurred within a comparatively few years. Certainly he had all along an "appreciation" of these new conditions, but that is quite a different thing from the actual, detailed experience of working with them. This recent experience is the basis of the suggestion offered above.

Company inspection is sometimes better, but often worse, than bureau inspection, and even with all the work for a system of allied lines does not consolidate sufficient tonnage to permit such an organization with division of work and specialization as the writer has in mind.

As to mill inspection, all who know the conditions agree that it is largely a farce. A well-known bureau man, in confidential conversation, has admitted this to be so. The test reports are only of value for file, to bring out if anything ever happens, or as exhibits in court. While more difficult to improve than shop inspection, consolidation of a great tonnage, as suggested, would permit of a very material betterment in the quality of mill inspection at little more than current costs.

There is this to say on the other hand, particularly as to shop inspection, but also as to mill inspection: The shop and mill practice and standards have been so greatly improved since inspection by or for the purchaser became customary that there is nowhere near as great need for rigid inspection in each individual case.. But unless the average inspection is kept up to a high standard and prevented from becoming a farce, there is danger of a lowering of the standard of quality for structural steel work and material. Not only that, but an incentive to further improvement will be lost.

The rules or instructions as drawn may be applicable to "company inspection," but it is not clear how they are going to be applied to bureau inspection, which represents the greater tonnage. They would be entirely inadequate for such a co-operative railway bureau as suggested above. It is the writer's opinion that they will only be useful for company inspection, and that even for this they should contain more detail of technical and practical kinds.

The ideas I have suggested with the purpose of improving shop and mill inspection may be expressed as follows:

First. That the shop and mill inspection of structural steel, to be efficient and satisfactory, should be done on a scale large enough to economically permit the employment at each shop or mill of a corps of men, who may be called checkers, each one of whom is specially fitted and trained for a certain part or detail of the work under a resident inspecting engineer, thoroughly familiar with all details of structural steel and its fabrication, competent to direct the corps of checkers and decide questions calling for the judgment of a man of experience and structural

engineering training. Resident inspecting engineers should report to the District Chief Inspector or Manager, who should be an expert in structural steel and its fabrication, as well as a competent Bridge Engineer, and he in turn should report to the executive head of what may be called the American Railway Inspection Association; except that on technical matters and with proper regulations, he may report to and receive instructions from the Chief Engineers and Bridge Engineers of the railway companies which are members of the Association.

Second. That the American Railway Engineering Association use its influence to induce the railway companies to delegate officials to meet and discuss ways and means and, if it appears practicable, to provide for establishing the American Railway Inspection Association as an organization to make a highly improved and standardized shop and mill inspection of structural steel, furnishing the same at cost to the railway companies which are members of or supporting such Association. As this can hardly become effective without the support of railway companies representing about 75 per cent. of the annual railway purchases of structural steel, it would seem desirable to have the official delegates empowered, under proper restrictions, to pledge the adherence of their respective companies to the support of the project.

The above outlines my ideas in as few words as the subject seems to permit. There are a number of details not mentioned at all which I should like to refer to in the following paragraphs.

Later on such an organization could be expanded to include the inspection of steel rails, but as this would require practically a separate corps-only the district chief and his office and probably a chemist, being common to the inspection of both structural and rail steel-it will no doubt be considered advisable to defer this question to a future time. However, as general officers and Chief Engineers are greatly interested in all matters respecting rails, it might aid in securing their co-operation to suggest the future possibility of the proposed American Railway Inspection Association taking up and standardizing rail inspection. The present status of rail inspection problems suggests that the time is hardly ripe to press this matter, but it would do no harm to refer to it as a future line.

The size of each shop corps should be about one man for each 10,000 tons' annual capacity of the shop; the number of independent inspectors at present employed is probably equal to or greater than that. This would require that the inspection of about 50 per cent. of the shop capacity be done by the proposed organization. Otherwise the cost of inspection would be greatly increased, and my object is to try to show that a very superior inspection method can be devised without greatly increasing the cost.

The District Chief, or Manager, ought to be a man worth at least $200 to $300 per month, depending on the importance of the district, and could cover a radius of, say, 100 miles from Pittsburgh, Chicago,

Philadelphia or Cleveland. Each resident inspecting engineer should be worth not less than $200 or $250 per month at the larger shops, down to a minimum of, say, $150 at the smaller shops. The wages of the other men in a shop corps would range from about $1.00 per day for the scale boy to $4.00 per day for the men checking field fits, templets and laying out. This will work out to between 40 cents and 50 cents per ton for shop inspection in average shops down to 30 cents per ton in the largest shops.

The following is a tentative outline of a shop inspection corps and an estimate of cost for a shop of 100,000 tons capacity per annum, in one unit. For shops of two units a somewhat different arrangement would be required, and in each case the organization of the corps will have to be adjusted to the plan and character of the particular shop concerned.

.$15,180.00

50 per cent. of 100,000 tons shop capacity-50,000 tons. 50,000 tons @ 30-36/1000

.....

There would, of course, have to be a general office to which the District Chiefs or Managers would report, but on technical matters I think the District Chiefs or Managers should report directly to and receive instructions from the Chief Engineer or Bridge Engineer of the railway companies, subject to proper regulations where extra expense is involved.

While it is practically impossible to secure individual inspectors with all the qualifications recommended in the report of Committee XV, the desired combination of attributes may be closely approximated in such an organization as that outlined above.

Respectfully submitted,

A. W. BUEL

Appendix C.

STUDY OF BUILT-UP COLUMNS.

The following report of Sub-Committee No. 3, Study of Built-up Col umns, showing status of the preliminary work of the Sub-Committee to date, is respectfully submitted: The Sub-Committee was named by the chairman on June 4, 1912, and the Chairman at once got into touch with the Chairman and Secretary of the American Society of Civil Engineers' Committee on Columns and Struts and ascertained the nature of the work being carried out under the direction of that Committee so that no duplication of such work would be made by your Sub-Committee.

The Chairman then took up with Mr. S. W. Stratton, Director of the Bureau of Standards, Washington, the question of the possibility of having several series of Column Tests made by the Bureau in its new 2,300,000-lb. Emery machine then being installed. Director Stratton kindly agreed to have such series made and agreed to begin the tests as soon as the machine was in commission. The Sub-Committee had its first meeting in Philadelphia on July 10th, and decided to make detail drawings for a preliminary series consisting of eight sections commonly found in the compression members and struts. A light and a heavy section of each type is to be made up in lengths giving three 1/r ratios (50, 85 and 120) and three specimens of each column to be fabricated, making in all one hundred and forty-four (144) test columns.

The detail drawings were made up by Mr. J. E. Crawford, member of the Sub-Committee, and presented to the General Committee for discussion at its meeting in Buffalo on September 9, 1912. Ten members having expressed their satisfaction with this preliminary series, with some minor modifications, the chairman went to Washington on October 18th and arranged with Director Stratton and Mr. J. E. Howard to have the eighteen (18) columns representing Column No. 1, Series No. 1, at once fabricated and the tests commenced as soon as the final adjustments of the weighing apparatus were completed, and it is hoped that the tests will be under way before January 1, 1913. Before ordering the fabrication of the remaining columns of Series No. 1, the Committee will examine the results of the first eighteen (18) tests representing Column No. 1 and will probably then proceed with a sub-series on this column, changing one variable at a time in order to determine the best arrangement of details for the section. After the results of these tests are studied, the testing of the remaining columns of Series No. I will be proceeded with, making such modifications as may be suggested by the results of the tests of Column No. 1.

(Signed)

Respectfully submitted,

W. H. MOORE, Chairman Sub-Committee No. 3.

To the Members of the American Railway Engineering Association:

Your Committee on Track respectfully submits its report to the fourteenth annual convention.

Meetings of the whole Committee were held at Chicago on May 17th and November 15th, in addition to the meetings of the several sub-com

mittees.

Each of the three subjects assigned to your Committee was re-assigned to a sub-committee of eight members.

The work of the year was characterized by the keen interest manifested in all subjects under consideration, particularly in the subject of economics in track labor.

In addition to the work assigned, your Committee has supplemented and completed the Table of Functions of the Ten-Chord Spiral on pp. 102-110 of the Manual.

(1) PRESENT GENERAL SPECIFICATIONS FOR TRACK BOLTS, NUTLOCKS, TIE-PLATES, COMMON AND SCREW TRACK SPIKES.

G. J. Ray, Chairman; Geo. H. Bremner, Garrett Davis, Raffe Emerson, E. G. Ericson, T. H. Hickey, J. R. Leighty and W. G. Raymond, Sub-Committee.

Your Committee presents statements of general principles to be followed in the design and manufacture of tie-plates, track bolts and anticreepers and specifications for steel tie-plates, malleable tie-plates, wroughtiron tie-plates, track bolts, spiral spring nutlocks, ordinary track spikes and screw spikes.