A bit of AARS history—no doubt
many of the members, especially the younger ones, are not familiar with
the background of this organization and would like to know something
about its origin and history.
The railroad business is so exacting
that all of a railroad officer’s time is spent in meeting today’s
demands and trying to solve tomorrow’s problems. Hence little, if any,
thought is given to "water that has gone over the dam" and
history is relegated to the "switch shanty".
The American Association of Railroad
Superintendents is one of the oldest—if not the oldest—organization
of its kind on this continent. The parent organization, The Association
of Railway Superintendents, was organized in New York in 1881 and it
functioned in about the same manner as we do today. Another organization
known as the Central Association of Railroad Officers functioned
contemporaneously but as individual units in some six cities, Chicago,
St. Louis, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Louisville and Buffalo. The
individual units held separate meetings and at different times but their
Proceedings were consolidated and bound into one book. Each unit also
had its own staff of officers.
The present superintendents’
association in St. Louis and Kansas City are relics of this
organization, but have since become operating organizations supervising
the interchange of cars and other joint activities in those terminals.
In 1909, the Association of Railway Superintendents consolidated with
the Central Association of Railroad Officers. From that merger came the
American Association of Railroad Superintendents, and the secretary and
central office transferred from New York to St. Louis. The parent
organization and its offspring, the present organization have functioned
uninterruptedly since 1881—125 years, although annual meetings
have been cancelled for various reasons. For example, annual meetings
were cancelled from 1917 to 1922 because of World War I and in 1932
because of the Depression.
This organization has had a long and
honorable past, if not a glorious one. Action on moot questions being
recommendatory only instead of mandatory, the Association’s limits are
circumscribed, but it fills a much-needed field and is surely and
certainly doing a good job by keeping its members abreast of the times
and in this way is providing better educated operating officers for the
railways.
