Letters From A Railway Official
Of course, the matter of terseness can be run into the ground. Clearness should not be sacrificed to brevity. There is a happy medium between the off agin, on agin, gone agin, Finnegan, of the Irish section foreman and the regretsky to reportsky of the Russian general. The point to be gained is to avoid repetition and unnecessary words. When wiring your office that you will go east on Number Two, the word east is superfluous for the reason that on your road Number Two can not possibly run west. For years in our train orders we used the phrase, right of track. Then somebody was bright enough to think that as Stonewall Jackson is no longer hauling locomotives from one line to another over the Valley turnpike in Virginia, the words "of track" might be cut out. Similar amputations have been made in the morning delay reports of many roads.
Human nature is so prone to grasp at the shadow rather than the substance that men cling to words rather than to ideas. When you have written a bulletin directing something to be done, do not discount your faith in its effect by the introduction of our good old friend, “Be Governed Accordingly.” We
50
