CHAPTER V.

THE MANIFOLD.

Under the common practice there must be prepared at least three copies of each train order received for delivery. The conductor and engineman are each supplied with a copy, and the operator retains one. To make three several copies by pen and ink, as heretofore practiced by some, takes a good deal of time, and there is danger that they may not be all alike, and the time and risk are increased if more than three copies are required. To obviate this, the manifold system of writing has come into general use and with very great advantage. As used by many, however, it has serious defects. The tissue paper frequently used is very objectionable, especially the yellow variety. Messages written on it are quite difficult to read, especially in a poor light; it is easily crumpled, rendering it still more indistinct; it is difficult to handle in the wind, and it is easily damaged by wet. In the use of the manifold for some seventeen years the author found it entirely practicable to use an opaque white paper, of sufficient body to be free from the above objections and yet capable of giving seven distinct copies with a good pencil of the hardness of No. 4 Faber. This is now recognized as the best and is prescribed in the specifications connected with the Time Convention rules.

Operators should not be permitted to receive orders on separate slips and copy them on the manifold, but should take the order down at once in the manifold-book. A sheet of tin placed in the book enables them to make all the copies perfectly distinct. Of course none but "sound" operators can do this. It takes but little more time and application to make a "sound" than a "paper" operator, and the advantage of the former is so great in this as well as in other respects in this service that it should always be required. Operators readily become able to take the requisite number of copies in manifold without the use of intermediate slips, and the risks of copying are thus avoided. When more copies are wanted than are made at the first writing they should be traced from one of the original copies. In the case of a general order, as in annulling a train, operators would usually make but one copy, and others required for delivery should be traced from this. Careful supervision should be had as to the actual practice of operators in the proper use of the manifold, and as to frequently changing the carbon paper to secure distinctness.