"Those days are passed. It takes longer to-day to get a regular run on most roads than it takes for a lawyer or a doctor to complete his college course. Seven years is about the quickest time to a run that amounts to anything. The railroader of to-day takes his work seriously, settles down and tries to be a good citizen instead of the old-time 'boomer' [the slang phrase for the former itinerants] that once filled up the business, and not in any way to its credit. But it's pretty hard being a good citizen under the sixteen-hour law and the Adamson Law which was supposed to provide a real eight-hour day and really never did anything of the sort. If we get in at four o'clock in the afternoon we don't know whether we are going out again at eight o'clock the next morning or eight o'clock the same evening. The one thing is just as likely to happen as the other. And how can friend-wife count upon her evenings with us at the movies? "Let me be still more specific. "Let's stretch that sixteen-hour day of which I was just speaking into a good practical work-day. Let us say that we will call you on the first day of the month for First No. 401 bound west out of Havre here. We will slip you 2450 tons and Mallet articulated compound No. 1801, and make the start at sharp four in the afternoon. Our lad at the fire-box gets sick over at Gilford and we tie you up there, 'on credit.' In other words you were four hours and thirty minutes getting to Gilford and yet your time didn't count after getting your 'tie-up' message; not until you are called once again. If by that time you are hungry or sleepy it is not the Great Northern's fault. It is following the rules of the game, just as every other road across the land is following them. "Five hours later a train comes along and a relief fireman gets off. You make a fresh start at your trip. You still have eleven hours and thirty minutes to go, out of your sixteen hours of actual on-duty trick. Now see how you go it. While doing some switching at Chester you get a car off the track. After that your engine bursts a flue and dies. They release you once more, again on credit, and until four o'clock in the morning. At nine along comes another engine and you are called once again. You still have eight hours to work. Everything goes all right until you get to Shelby. You get a message there at two in the afternoon to do some switching. The conductor tells the despatcher that if he stops to do this work the sixteen-hour law will get him before he gets in. The division superintendent butts in and says: 'We will give you credit for being off the track two hours at Chester, and that will give you plenty of time.'