The man who did more than any other person to develop traffic
associations and to promote the co-operation of competing railroads
was the late Albert Fink. It was his master mind that organised and
put into successful operation in 1876 the Southern Railway and
Steamship Association. The following year Albert Fink succeeded in
organising the great trunk lines connecting the North Atlantic
seaboard and the States north of the Ohio River. Though smaller
traffic associations similar to these two organisations had been
previously established where but few obstacles had to be overcome, it
was Fink who first organised traffic associations including all the
competing railroads serving large sections of the country.
In discussing the work of traffic associations, which are to-day
concerns of really enormous magnitude, railway pooling and the
classification of freight especially demand consideration.