George Leonard Vose was born in Augusta, Maine on April 13, 1831 to Richard Hampton Vose, a politician and Governor of the State of Maine and Harriet Greene Chandler Vose. Vose was educated at home in Salem, Massachusetts. From 1849 to 1850 he studied at the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard College. After Harvard, Vose started his career as an assistant engineer on the Kennebec and Portland Railroad, and until 1859 was engaged on various railroads. From 1859 to 1863, he was associate editor of The American Railway Times in Boston, and then for three years, he resided in Salem, Massachusetts. In 1866, he moved to Paris, Maine, and was occupied with railroad projects in Maine and New Hampshire. Vose was a professor of civil engineering in Bowdoin College from 1872 until 1881 and Hayward Professor of Civil and Topographical Engineering as well as department head for civil engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1881 until 1887. In 1854, Vose married Abba Valentine Thompson Vose and they had four children, Harriet Lenora Vose, Mabel Vose, Elizabeth Chandler Vose Torrey and Richard Hampton Vose. In 1872, Vose married Charlotte Buxton Andrews. Vose's daughter Harriet married Arlo Bates.
The subtitle of the "Handbook of railroad construction: for the use of American engineers. Containing the necessary rules, tables, and formulæ for the location, construction, equipment, and management of railroads, as built in the United States." already explains the purpose and content of this work. It wants to offer rules, tables, and formulæ for the location, construction, equipment, and management of railroads. In the Preface Vose further explains that: Vose further explains that the work is written as "handbook" and not a "treatise", more meant as office companion than as a text-book for students. Fifteen years later he renewed this work, entitled "Manual for railroad engineers and engineering students: containing the rules and tables needed for the location, construction, and equipment of railroads as built in the United States". This work had the similar table of content but was prepared for both railroad engineers and engineering students.
Management
The last chapter of the 1857 handbook was devoted to management. In there Vose started explaining that railroad management can be divided into two major sections:
Maintaining the road-bed, superstructure, bridging, masonry, buildings, and fixed stock in working order
Making all repairs, renewals, enlargements, and alterations
Purchase, inspection, maintaining, and operating of the rolling stock.
Vose further goes into the general principles for efficient operation; a part extracted from McCallum. The rate and direction of subordination are presented with a functional organization structure, in which the General Superintendent is in charge. Vose had notified earlier, that financial management does not properly come in his days. And indeed, the financial management function is not incorporated into the organisational structure pictured. A special feature of the 1857 Handbook, were two classification charts of the organization and the costs of a railroad given in its last chapter on management. After explaining the duties of employees, the number of trains to be used, and the amount of service of engines, Vose goes into expenses, receipts, and profits. He presents another classification chart of the whole cost of operating and of maintaining a railroad.
