Visual Education (Jan 1923-Dec 1924)

March, 19 2 3 79 Motion Pictures in Business HOW THE SCREEN HELPS THE ILLINOIS CENTRAL TO REDUCE "LOSS AND DAMAGE" A LITTLE over two years ago, the loss and damage bill of the Illinois Central Railroad, on carload and less-thancarload shipments, averaged more than $2,500,000 for a single year. Seven months after motion pictures were adopted to educate employees in proper methods of freight handling, in connection with a vigorous campaign to improve the record, that expense was reduced a cool million dollars ! The reduction has averaged approximately fifty per cent for the year. Best of all, the bill is still on the down-grade. "It did little good to tell the switchmen and the freight handlers that their rough and careless methods of switching box cars and handling the merchandise were responsible for most of the 'bad order exceptions' which were costing the road such huge sums every month in the payment of claims," said John K. Melton, official photographer of the Illinois Central Railroad, to a representative of Visual Education. "Protests and advice would merely call forth some such reply as, 'Say! We've been in this business all our lives. You can't tell us anything like that.' "You couldn't make them believe, for instance, that a hard bump which might have been prevented had the engineer used his air-brakes or the yardman given the signal to come ahead slowly instead of at full speed, could cause crates and boxes to tumble about to the tune of several hundred dollars' worth of damage. Clearly, it was up to some one to stage a Missouri demonstration, and a spectacular one at that, if any improvement was to be expected." The Film to the Rescue Accordingly, Mr. C. G. Richmond, Superintendent of Stations and Transfers, decided to do a little visual education work right in the bosom of his own railroad family. He outlined a comprehensive set of reels -eighteen in all — taking up every possible angle of the loss and damage question. The direction of the films was entrusted to Mr. E. A. Barton, Inspector of Stations and Transfers ; the camera work was assigned to Mr. Melton. The result -was a set of pictures THE TELL-TALE IMPACT REGISTER A pencil attached to an oscillating; weight makes a graphic record of the treatment the car received during its journey. Responsibility for damage done is thus easily fixed upon the crew in charge at the time. that are proving to the most illiterate employee the costly damage due to improper handling of freight and careless switching of cars. But they do not stop even there; they teach constructive lessons also, showing the men the right ways of doing things, picturing methods that insure against breakage and spoilage. Visualizing Damage from Impact One of the ingenious features of this motion-picture series is a dramatic test that graphically pictures the various degrees of damage done to merchandise by high-speed switching in train and yard service. In staging this test a specially constructed box car was used, with the roof and one entire side removed. A wire screen of large mesh covering this open side prevented the freight from falling out and permitted the cameraman to show exactly what happened to the contents as the car was subjected to impact shocks of greater and greater severity. In order to record the degree of impact shock at different rates of speed, they placed in the loaded freight car a device which registers jars of anything above normal, making its record on a continuous roll of paper which passes over a cylinder and is ruled off into four zones : Safe — Rough ■ — Violent ■ — Destructive. To form an immovable bumper, a string of loaded coal cars, with brakes set, was run onto an empty switch track. A switch engine then bumped the onr VIEWS OF THE SPECIAL CAR USED IN FILMING THE TESTS Side and roof were replaced by heavy wire screen, allowing the cameraman to photograph the behavior of the car's contents under various degrees of rough handling... The view at the left shows a closeup of a bulkhead in proper position to prevent shifting of the load.