SUGGESTIONS AND INVENTIONS

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 42, 13 November 1926, Page 14

SUGGESTIONS AND INVENTIONS

NEW RAILWAY DEPARTURE 1500 PROPOSALS CONSIDERED Since its inception in June of last year (says the “New Zealand Railways Magazine’’), the Suggestions and Inventions Committee of the Railway Department has dealt with fifteen hundred proposals, each one of which lias aimed at producing improvements in railway operations. ” These have come freely both from the public and the staff. The vast range of subjects chosen by those with improvements to propose is such that it would tax the imagination of a Wells to think of a single practical particular in regard to which no suggestion has yet been put forward or invention submitted. Track, signals, and rolling-stock; locomotives and railcars; time-tables; the equipment of yards, stations, cabins, workshops, and sheds; devices for safety, comfort, and convenience in travel; the handling of goods; carding methods; ways to increase business; advertising and publicity schemes; these constitute the principal headings under which the various ’ matters submitted to the committee mav be classified. Some proposals are old or impracticable; others have already been weighed in the balance and found wanting; but many are obviously useful, others are intricate and require close study, while others strain clearly show the rare working of genius. When the information possessed by the committee is not sufficient to enable them to judge the value of a suggestion, thev do not hesitate to call in specialists in the subject under review, or to refer the matter for trial to the bead of the branch concerned. Every suggester is assured that his idea will obtain full consideration on its merits. The arrangement by which members of the committee are kept in the dark as to the identity of every suggster lends an additional assurance that the suggestion shall receive the unbiased consideration of the committhe effect of providing this outlet for suggestions and inventions has been to place at the disposal of the Department manv devices winch have facilitated operations. It has set members thinking how to produce improvements in their work. It Has scotched manv foolish notions, and made operative a scale of awards sutlieientlv attractive to induce cnternrise alon- right lines in all grades of the service.