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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 7, Issue 3 (July 1, 1932)
Voluntary Business-getting
Voluntary Business-getting.
The German railwayman is generally recognised as being most efficient and
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painstaking, and for his keenness to aid the management in every possible way. From recent experience your correspondent can vouch for this. The German lines have their own staff of traffic canvassers on both the passenger and freight sides. The sole job of these canvassers is to seek out business and maintain friendly touch with traders and the general public. These regular canvassers are backed up by every one of the 700,000 employees, from divisional officers to track labourers, all of whom are ever on the alert to secure traffic and develop friendships with potential railway users.
A Peep At Present-Day Germany.
The commodious central passenger station of the German Railways, at Hamburg.
As an example of this, while the writer was standing recently in a Cologne street, admiring an attractive German railway poster, a well-dressed civilian approached, and after taking off his hat and apologising for the intrusion, began, in excellent English, to dilate upon the excellence of the particular railway service referred to in the advertisement. It turned out the man was a railway guard off duty, and the incident came as a striking object-lesson in the art of voluntary traffic solicitation.