There is quite an interesting account of 3 years in the life of one of these "secretaries" written by a man who started out for the ATSF around 1918 and worked for several managers through 1921 when he transfered to other work within the rr. The story is the last story in one of the Col. Rail Annuals probably about #10 or maybe #11. Maybe someone else has it at hand and can identify the one. It is truly a fascinating account of what went on behind the scenes traveling around parts of the system in various business cars. As John states the secretaries though officially without "command authority" for lack of a better term, could wield a great deal of power by invoking the name of the division chief to which he was assigned. As an example in the above mentioned story, the secretary and his boss are at the site of a large washout. The boss has requested the availibilty of a large number of $$ of bridge material via telegraph. The boss is gone out to the site of the washout on a motor car while the secretary is stationed back aways on the line at the business car. The telegraph mess. comes back to affirm the material can be shipped. The secretary takes a good guess and orders the material ASAP to the site using his bosses name on the telegraph. When the boss returned the material was in fact required, otherwise the secretary might have been out a job as I recall the story. By ordering the material when he did the secretary enabled the line to be opened perhaps a day sooner than if he had waited for the boss to come back. While the secretaries bosses were quite demanding, the secretary usually had his own room in the business car and the car had a cook/attendant assigned so the secretary had the benefit of meals and board on the car. Not a bad gig at all for the time.
