ma

Offices, and we also have on the Terminal thoroughly equipped chine, boiler makers, pipe, blacktinsmiths, carpenters, paint and smith shops which handle all Our general repair work.

New York Harbor is one of the "The marigreatest in the world. time commerce of New York, coastwise and foreign, exceeds that of any other port in the world," according to Johnson & Huebner in their book on Ocean Transportation. It is studded on all sides with piers. Along the East River front there are approximately 80 piers; along the North River side, 100 piers, the Brooklyn water front houses about 90 piers, Staten Island has others and there is vast number along the Jersey shore and in the numerous coves and inlets that mark the shore line of the general bay.

a

In addition to the above facilities there are the Atlantic and Erie Basins with piers, dry docks, ship yards and storage facilities for many ships. The Municipality has recently constructed 12 new piers at Stapleton, Staten Island, which measured 1000 to 1184 feet long and 125 to 209 feet wide. Of these, four are covered with two-story sheds and eight with one-story sheds, representing 1,800,000 square feet of pier space.

Thirteen Ferry Lines

Thirteen ferry lines ply between Manhattan Island and the Jersey shore and eight lines operate between the city and Long Island. Communication with these two points, however is not confined to water. Across the East River are four famous bridges, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Williamsburg and Queensboro and five tubes are under the East and Harlem Rivers. Three tunnels are operated under the North River between the island and the Jersey side.

New York Harbor is entered through two bays, Lower and Upper, which are connected by The Narrows. The entrance to Lower Bay is between Sandy Hook and Rockaway Point and is about seven miles wide. Upper Bay extends from The Narrows to the Battery. Ambrose Channel is the principal entrance channel. It is 38,000 feet long, 2,000 wide and has a depth of forty feet at mean low water. Several channels connect different sections of the Harbor.

In Upper Bay, Kill von Kull forms Staten Island Sound. Into this flows Newark Bay which forms the inland waterway between New York and New Jersey. The Arthur Kill which separates Staten Island from New Jersey is about twelve miles long. There are a number of small waterways in and around New York where a vast amount of tonnage is transported in and out during the course of a year.

The Hudson River, also called

Death Calls C. M. Secrist, Vice President, P. F. E.

C. M. SECRIST, Vice Presi

press Company, the refrigerator car line owned jointly by Southern Pacific Company and Union Pacific Railroad Company, died December 19th at the San Joaquin hospital in Tulare, California.

Mr. Secrist was prominent in western railroad circles and was an authority in the transportation of perishable products. He was credited with having done much to build up the citrus and deciduous fruit business in California and the West.

He began his railroad career in 1884 as a Clerk in the Freight Department of the Union Pacific System at Council Bluffs, Iowa. In 1894 he was promoted to Chief Clerk, Freight Department, at Omaha, and in 1902 he became Chief Clerk to the Traffic Director of the Harriman Lines with headquarters in Chicago.

When the Pacific Fruit Express Company was organized in 1906 to handle the transportation of the rapidly growing perishable business of the Pacific Coast, Mr. Secrist was appointed General Manager and later Vice President and General Manager. In January, 1912, he moved his headquarters from Chicago to San Francisco, where he resided at the time of his death.

He is survived by a wife, a daughter, Mrs. J. B. Fry, of Hinsdale, Ill., and a son, C. C. Secrist, of Chicago. His remains were interred at Franklin Grove, Illinois.

North River, empties into Upper Bay at the Battery. The width of the stream between the Battery and the Jersey shore is 3900 feet and gradually decreases to 2750 in width opposite 14th Street and 2725 opposite 59th Street.

East River is about sixteen miles long and from 600 to 4000 feet in width. It extends from the Battery to Throg's neck, at the head of Long Island Sound. A through Channel to Long Island Sound is thirty feet deep and varies in width from 500 to 100 feet.

Harlem River, dividing Manhattan Island from the Bronx or the mainland, is a waterway eight miles long and extends from the East River to the North, or Hudson, River.

In 1921, according to figures of the United States Customs authorities, 5260 vessels bearing 17,950,586 tons

the

entered the port of New York and 4834 vessels bearing 16,599,671 tons cleared. One authority states that the shipping in New York harbor, in one year, amounted to over 60,000,000 short tons of an approximate value of $7,000,000,000. Passengers to number of 84,470,659 were carried through the harbor in the same time. Southern Pacific's Morgan Line maintains regular freight and passenger service between New York It and New Orleans and Galveston. makes connection at the Gulf ports with Southern Pacific train service.

Two sailings to each of the Gulf Ports are regularly made each week from New York and there are two arrivals from New Orleans and Galveston each week. During periods of heavy traffic as at present the number of sailings is increased. This route is widely known as the "One Hundred Golden Hours at Sea."

NINE SAFETY MEETINGS HELD DURING MONTH

During November nine Safety Committee meetings were held, which were attended by 263 committeenen and visitors; a total of 526 safety suggestions were discussed; and reports received to the effect that 2550 employes were talked to personally on safety matters by safety committeemen. Talks at the meetings were made by the following:

Sacramento General Shops and Stores, Superintendent Motive Power, A. D. Williams; Portland_Division, Assistant Agent, B. D. VanCourt; Tucson Division, Trainmaster, J. J. Cowin; Stockton Division, Engineer, O. F. DuRee; Salt Lake Division Terminal and Shop, Assistant Superintendent, H. W. Wistner; Los Angeles General Shops and Stores, Assistant Superintendent, W. A. Rogers; Sacramento Division, Assistant Superintendent, W. M. Stillman; Western Division, Section Foreman, John Kenny; Steamer Division, Foreman, Geo. W. Harris.

Supervisor of Safety J. B. Monahan talked before the Sacramento, Western, Portland and Steamer Divisions, the Salt Lake Div. Terminal and Shop and the Sacramento and Los Angeles General Shops and Stores Safety Committees.

EXTRA BULLETINS WANTED

In order to supply a rapidly increasing demand from various offices of the Company, eastern agencies, and friends of the Southern Pacific, for copies of the Bulletin, the Bureau of News, General Office would appreciate receiving all extra copies available of recent issues, particularly October, November and December. Extra copies should be sent to the Bureau of News by railroad mail.

"Men who work with their hands. and those who find work for hands to do should feel that the ties that bind them together are stronger than temporary day wages.”—Carlyle.

What R. R. Men Should Read

Accurate Information Gained by Reading Helps Ambitious Men Make Progress

The following article from the Railway Age is reprinted solely for the sound and helpful idea it carries and not as a solicitation for subscriptions to that magazine. There are several good railroad publications which carry much valuable information for the railroad man.

A great struggle regulation over which involves the entire future of the railways is going on in this country. It directly and vitally concerns every railway officer and every man who hopes to become a railway officer. They should be better informed regarding the railroad question and every fact and argument bearing upon it than any other class of people. They should be equipped and ready to discuss it whenever it becomes the subject of conversation in any group of people in which they find themselves. If railway officers and men who aspire to be railway officers will not take the time and trouble to read enough to inform themselves regarding the merits of such important questions as whether the rate-making provisions of the Transportation Act should be repealed, whether the valuation of the railways should be arbitrarily reduced one-third, whether the railways should be consolidated into a few systems, and whether the Railroad Labor Board should be abolished, how can they expect other people to inform themselves regarding these questions? Nobody can get informed about them except by reading the addresses that are being made, and the articles and editorials that are being written about them by persons who are competent to discuss them.

Fund of Information

It would require only a comparatively small amount of time devoted to reading each day for every railway man in the country to become well informed regarding the railroad question. It may sound immodest for us to say so, but it is a fact that there is not a point involved in the controversy over railroad regulation that is not being elucidated and discussed in articles and editorials being published in the Railway Age. Take, for example, the issue of this paper for September 15. Do you want to know the facts about the present wages of railway employes? A large amount of information concerning them was given in an editorial beginning on page 456 of the isssue mentioned. you want to know something about the surcharge on sleeping car tickets? Hearing before the Interstate Com

Do

merce Commission on this subject were published in the same issue, beginning on page 471. Do you want to inform yourself regarding the ques tion of railroad valuation? The two most important reports of the Interstate Commerce Commission on this subject yet rendered were reviewed and summarized in the same issue, beginning on page 489.

These are but a few examples of discussions of various phases of the railroad problem that are constantly made available in these columns.

Experience of These

more

es

Every railway man should not only desire to inform himself regarding the facts and arguments bearing upon controverted points with respect to regulation, but also, and pecially, regarding important problems affecting the development and operation of the railways. Every railway man can learn to do his own work better by profiting by the experience of men on other railways. A few railway men occasionally get oppor tunities to visit and study what is being done upon other roads. of them, however, if they are to profit by the experience of men on other roads must do so by reading what is published regarding what is being done on other roads. In the issue of the Railway Age for September 15 al

Bulletin "Dead Line"

Most

ALL photographs and news

items for the Bulletin must be in the Bureau of News office by the 15th of the month. Material received later will be held over for the following month's issue.

It has been necessary to adopt this "dead line" in order that the Bulletin may go to press in sufficient time to allow for general circulation about the first of each month.

Do not hold up photographs or copy until the last minute. Send them in as early in the month as possible.

The Bulletin is anxious to receive stories about employes actranstivities, promotions and fers-information on unusually good work, on socials, musical or athletic events. Good clear photographs are always welcomed. Material may be conveniently transmitted through the Division Superintendent's or Shop Superintendent's office.

ready mentioned there were published four papers by practical railway men regarding methods that can be successfully adopted to increase the amount of traffic handled by a line without increasing its facilities. Surely, that is a subject in which every transportation man should be interested at a time when the demands of traffic are so great and the ability of the companies to raise capital for new facilities so limited. In the same issue of this paper there was published an article showing how a substantial saving has been made on one road by the installation of automatic signal protection. There was a description of a new freight station which has just been built by one of the best managed railways in the country. There was a report of the recent convention of the Traveling Engineers' Association which included discussions of the economy of long locomotive runs, of the results of feedwater treatment and of automatic train control. Are you interested in knowing how much traí fic the railways are handling? The detailed car loadings of all the rail ways of the country by regions are published in every issue of this paper

There are railway men who pride themselves as being "practical" and who say they "haven't time to read. We met one of them a short time ago. He is about 55 years old and is still chief clerk to the general freight agent of a very small railway. A large majority of the higher executive officers of our railways are men who always have been able to find time to read since they were clerks, telegraph operators, brakemen. firemen, rodmen with engineering gangs, etc. One of the principal rea sons why they have been able to rise is that they always have bee able to find time to read.

Reading the literature of his business or profession is an essential part of the education that every man mus! get if he is really to succeed. A man must be "practical" to succeed. He must in addition however, learn much that the "practical" man cannot learn in his daily work. "Experience is the best teacher," but the man who learns only by his own experience will never know much or go far Reading is the best available way of learning much by the experience of other people.

Goat Gets an Earful

A man "butted in" at a waiting line before the ticket window at the railroad station the other day, and the men who were in a hurry glow ered.

"I want a ticket for Salem," said the man, and put a fifty cent piece in the window.

"You can't go to Salem for fifty cents." returned the ticket seller. "Well, then," said the man," "Where can I go for fifty cents?"

And each of the fourteen men in the waiting line told him where he could go. Contributed.

S

to

OUTHERN Pacific Company's Group Life Insurance Plan became effective January 1, 1924. On December 15, figures on the insurance taken by employes received just before the "Bulletin" went press, showed that seventeen out of every twenty Southern Pacific employes enrolled for the additional insurance. They appreciated the fact that under no plan before developed was insurance at such a low rate available to them, and they decided to protect themselves and their families.

A gratifying thought in connection with Southern Pacific's group insurance is that probably fully 15 per cent of Southern Pacific employes were able to obtain insurance which, for physical reasons, they could not otherwise have obtained. Of the remainder a very large percentage, because of the occupational standards of the insurance companies, would have been compelled to pay rates for the insurance even higher than the average commercial rates. Southern Pacific's group plan offers a certain amount of insurance free and additional insurance at rates much lower than the commercial rates.

On December 15, eighty-three per cent of the employes on the Pacific System had taken out the additional insurance to which their rates of pay entitled them. Ninety-three per cent of the employes at the General Office, San Francisco, took out the additional insurance. The two highest divisions were the Tucson and Sacramento Divisions with 85 and 83 per cent respectively. Sacramento General Shops had a percentage of 97 per cent and the Los Angeles Shops were close behind with 94 per cent. Ninety-eight per cent of the Commissary Department employes took out the additional insurance and the employes in the General Stores came through 96 per cent for the additional insurance. Eighty-three per cent of the employes in the Telegraph Department took the additional insurance.

gineers, 39 per cent; and firemen, 23 per cent.

Southern District: Conductors, 67 per cent; brakemen, 70 per cent; engineers, 44 per cent; and firemen, 31 per cent.

Statement to Employes

General Manager J. H. Dyer on December 6, issued a statement to all employes on the insurance plan, announcing that it would become effective January 1, 1924. He said that a number of employes had not yet signed, and that these were evidently holding off because they had either been misguided or did not understand the plan. He called the attention of employes who have been in service one year or more to the fact that unless they signed application for insurance before January 1, 1924, the insurance company would require medical examination at the employe's expense, for any insurance they might wish to buy under the group policy after that date.

To correct any doubts that might be in the minds of employes regarding the details or motives underlying the insurance plan, Mr. Dyer quoted a letter addressed to him by Mr. Sproule and which reads as follows:

"The Company holds the Group Policy, but each employe taking this insurance is issued a Certificate of Insurance, by Insurance Company, and is insured thereby so long as he or she is listed as an employe, whether on duty or off duty, or on leave of absence allowed by the Company.

"An employe taking this insurance does not have to stop his brotherhood insurance or any other insurance. In offering this Group Insurance, we are simply aiming to provide easy insur ance for all employes who wish it. and include those who are not able to get it in any other way, because of their age or condition of their health.

"There is no secret about this in surance, and the employe does no lose any of his rights by adopting it The terms and conditions are briefly stated in Mr. Kruttschnitt's circula dated New York, November 10th, issued as a pamphlet, which the em ployes have received in with letter of November 14th. It is simply a mai ter of welfare between this Company and the employes, to whom it desires to be useful, and we believe our insurance plan is a step in advance o anything that has been done so far.

"About our Group Insurance Plan now before the employes for their acceptance.

"This insurance is bought by the Company in wholesale amount and at wholesale price. The only purpose of the Company in buying this wholesale insurance is to place it at the service of the employes. If employes want it, they get it at rates much less than cost.

"As to the employe who leaves the service, it is true the Group Insurance Plan will then cease. but Insurance Company will, upon the request of the employe within thirtyone days, carry on the insurance upon favorable terms. The employe can in that way continue the insurance, but the Company ceases to pay any part of the cost after em ploye is out of our service

"We hope, therefore, that the employes will avail themselves of the benefits offered, namely:

1. Insurance regardless of age, condition of health. or occupation.

(a) Payable for face of policy at death.

(b) Payable in monthly installments in case of total and permanent disability before age of 60.

2. Insurance at a cost so low as to make it easily cared for. 3. Free visiting nurse service on call at points where large number of employes are located.

4. Free instruction on health. hygiene and disease prevention for improvement of health and the lengthening of life.

"These points should not be overlooked:

a. This Company has maintained

for many years a superior hospital. service at small cost to its employes.

b. Has maintained for many years a liberal pension system at no cost to its employes.

c. Now proposes to maintain a high class insurance system at small cost to its employes.

"This Company has never defaulted on an obligation to its stockholders, to its security holders or to its employes. Its aim is good security, good faith and good service.

"This insurance is the result of long study by the responsible officers of the Company. It is no hasty or recent matter. It is based solely on the desire to make the Southern Pacific service more attractive and comfortable than ever before for those who make it their life work."

Questions Asked

Among the questions that have been asked concerning the group insurance plan, the following seem to be asked more frequently:

1. What technical points may be raised by the Insurance Company before payment of policy is made by Insurance Company upon death of employe? Answer is that the policy is not contestable so there can be only two questions, first, is the policy holder dead? If dead payment will be made. The only other question is to identify the person to whom the amount of policy is due. Upon proper identification the money will be paid. There is no question of how the insured met death. The fact of death makes the payment due.

2. What is the effect of this insurance on other insurance the employe holds. Answer is the Company does not ask or advise any employe to drop whatever insurance employe already carries.

Now that the group insurance plan is in effect the nursing service provided by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company is available to employes. If an employe lives in communities where the Insurance Company has established the nursing service, and becomes ill enough to be in bed and require the care of a physician, the employe's department head or the local office of the Insurance Company should be notified. The nurse will then call on the employe and will do anything that she can to make him comfortable.

Metropolitan Insurance Company nurses are available at the following points on the Pacific System: Ogden, Utah; Fortland and Brooklyn, Oregon; Sacramento, San Francisco, Bay Shore, Oakland, Stockton, Fresno, Bakersfield, San Jose and Los Angeles, California.

The Boss-"I'm afraid you are not qualified for the position; you don't know anything about my business."

Applicant-"Don't I, though! I am engaged to your stenographer."-Boston Transcript.

T

By H. POLLARD,
General Fire Inspector

HE Southern Pacific Company
is endeavoring to do all pos-

sible to reduce fire hazard.

One of the latest accomplishments is the installation of a floating roof on the storage oil tank located in Los Angeles general shop yard. roof is completely made of steel. It floats on the oil, in the same manner as a board floats on water.

This

An equalizing space of eight inches is left between the inside wall of the tank, and the outer edge of the roof. This is protected by collapsible steel baskets filled with gravel to hold them in normal position.

In filling the tank the roof raises with the surface of the oil. When the roof encounters a splice in the sheets of steel or rows of rivet heads or a bulge in the tank, the gravel in the baskets is displaced and the baskets collapse towards the center of the tank enough to ride over the irregular surface. When the rough surface has been passed the gravel crowds the baskets back to the normal wall of the tank.

The entire roof weighs about 112,000 pounds. It settles into the oil enough to overcome displacement. Being partly submerged in the oil, the air is completely cut off from the oil, making it impossible to set the oil on fire. The roof being partly submerged shuts off all pockets in which gas can accumulate. Shutting off the air from the oil greatly reduces evaporation, almost eliminating the production of gas.

Probably 95 per cent of oil fires are started from an explosion of gas located inside the tank from some outside cause. With the gas and gas

pocket inside the tank abolished and the contact of air with the oil cut off, it is believed that it will be impossible for a tank so protected to be set on fire.

Water is drained out at the bottom of the tank through a pipe having flexible joints. One end of the drain pipe is fastened to the roof, the other fastened at the bottom of the tank.

The short pieces of pipe, shown in above photograph, set in a circle around the center pole, are intended to be used as legs for the roof to rest on in event the tank should need cleaning out. These pipe supports or legs, would hold the roof above the bottom of the tank about five feet.

The net work of rods need no explanation. Those at the top of the center pole, and extending to the outer rim of the tank, hold the tank in a round position. The lower set support the outer rim of the roof and prevent it from drooping downward.

In equipping the tank at Los Angeles in this manner it is believed the Southern Pacific has taken the last step in fire prevention of oil tanks.

LOANS PRICE OF TICKET

What is said to be but a common

type of courteous and thoughtful service rendered by Chas. Burdick, Conductor, Coast Division, happened recently when this genial conductor relieved a woman passenger's embarrassment by loaning her the price of a ticket, she having found herself aboard the train without tickets or money.

Lady (to friend, as elephants come on stage)-Oh, by the way, did you know Hattie was reducing?-Judge.