Does it? In the minds of a good many railroaders of the newer schools it seems to. Yet some of these very same railroaders were overjoyed a little time ago--when the half-baked Adamson eight-hour law was being jammed through Congress--to see out from the Middle West, from the rails of the Santa Fé, the Union Pacific, the Milwaukee roads, veteran conductors coming forward, who not only did not hesitate to speak their minds against the measure, but actually sought out injunctions against it. What it might cost these men in prestige and in the affection of their fellows, in possible punishments by the lodges of their brotherhoods, the outside public may never know. It can be fairly assured that the price was no small one. Would the railroad executives of the Middle West have preferred that these men be units, rather than individualists? I think not. The truth of the matter is, that in its very desire to stand straight, the new school of railroading sometimes leans backward. We will grant that in the coming of the great combinations of new-time railroads it was a mighty good step to eliminate the haphazard, wasteful, inefficient old school of personal railroading. Consolidation has effected some wonderful working advantages in the operation of our giant systems, and it is a grave question whether today, with the margin between income and operating cost constantly narrowing, if the eggs were unscrambled and the famous little old roads returned, they could be operated long and dodge the scrawny fingers of receivership. Yet it is a fact that if they have gained in many ways by consolidation and centralization, they have lost something definite in the personal feeling which used to exist between their men and themselves. It was an asset that could hardly be expressed in dollars and cents. After the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad had absorbed the famous Old Colony--down there in the southeastern corner of Massachusetts--it was five years before its conductors ceased to know it and to love it as the Old Colony. To older conductors the Panhandle and the Lake Shore are still as real and as vital as if those beloved names still appeared upon the rolling stock. Measure such an asset in dollars and cents if you can! You cannot, thank God, place a valuation upon such assets as affection and loyalty.