Confessions of a Railroad SignalmanFagan, James O. (James Octavius)
History
Confessions of a Railroad Signalman
Fagan, James O. (James Octavius)
Railroad accidents; Railroads; Railroads -- United States -- Employees
The Baltimore & Ohio plan for pension payments, in vogue for the past
twenty-three years, is in conjunction with the Relief Department, but
is not, as that is, maintained by the contributions of employees. The
pension system is maintained entirely by the company, which contributes
for the purpose about $90,000 annually. During the year 1906-1907 the
fund paid in pensions was over $95,000, to about 400 pensioners.
Since its inauguration in 1884, there has been paid out in pensions,
$1,008,000.
Again, the foundation of two other features--Savings and Loan--in the
Baltimore & Ohio dates back a full quarter of a century. The Savings
is strictly a trust fund, around it being thrown the unequivocal
protection of the United States government in the decision handed down
by its courts. Of course this is understood by employee-depositors;
consequently there is absolute confidence. There are no runs, no
anxiety as to savings, and no fear that what has been laid aside for a
rainy day will be risked. Meantime, upon it the company is guaranteeing
four per cent and earnings; the interest and dividend returns thus
amount to never less than five and sometimes five and a half per
cent. The total of the savings deposits to June 30, 1907, reached
eight and a half million dollars, and interest and dividends paid to
employee-depositors to that time came to a million and a half dollars.
The Baltimore & Ohio loan feature is still more remarkable. The object
is to enable the employees to own their own homes. All are real-estate
transactions, and it is a remarkable fact that the administration
of this feature, throughout twenty-five years, has been entirely
without appreciable loss on any single investment. Employee-borrowers
have entered into personal obligations representing the building of
two thousand houses and the purchase of three thousand homesteads.
The transactions of the loan section to June 30 represented six and
three-quarter millions of dollars, when there was also a million and a
quarter in the treasury, upon which the company’s guarantee of four per
cent held good.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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