Back when John F Kennedy was President, Grade 4 kids in Montreal were being taught cursive writing using fountain pens. In each wooden desk, there was standard-sized hole for a glass ink bottle. When a fountain pen ran dry, a small lever built into the pen (or other methods of creating low pressure inside the reservoir) would be used to draw ink up into the rubber reservoir of the pen.
However, modern students in the post-steam-locomotive era ... were instructed to use a more recent form of nibbed pen which used disposable plastic cartridges. Threading the two halves of the pen back together caused a hollow needle to pierce the lower end of the cartridge and ink would flow down to the nib from there.
Like everything old timey, there are YouTube videos on all of this. Collecting and restoring old fountain pens has become a hobby for some and Amazon et al sell them new. After the invention of the feather quill pen, calligraphy never really went out of style.
The absorbent card cover of this booklet may have been a convenient blotter for a railroader sometime back in history (or a Grade 4 kid in Montreal) who was refilling a fountain pen from an ink bottle. The standards mention telegraph transmission of line-ups and we all know how railways like to hang on to old well-understood technologies if they have proven to be reliable and also cheap.
An additional article below, from September 1956, describes one of
'a special breed of men who spend their time looking for trouble'
... who would have been affected by rules such as those in this little booklet.
