HOW TO BECOME AN ENGINEER.
The boy who aims to become an engineer, if he desires success, must
make up his mind to two things.
First, that he will, all his life, have plenty of hard work.
Second, that he will, in spite of all obstacles become a good engineer.
A boy who looks forward to the honorable calling should be of robust
health and perfect physically. If these conditions do not exist, he
should abandon the thought at once, and turn his attention to something
else.
There is no royal road to engineering any more than there is to any
other honorable calling.
A position must first be obtained in the round house as general helper.
For a time the candidate must content himself with doing chores,
cleaning up and any odd jobs which are given him to do.
At this stage of the game he must cultivate habits of observation, be
an attentive listener and try to understand and remember the "engine
talk," that is going on about him.
Everything he learns in this way is going to be of service later on.
For the first few months, unless he is fortunate enough to gain favor
in the eyes of some obliging engineer, no one is going to stop to
explain matters and he need not expect it. Nevertheless there are a
thousand and one little things that he can pick up if he is shrewd, all
of which will come in play later on.
When the locomotive is taken out watch how they do it. When it comes in
keep your eyes open for points, and you will be sure to get them. When
it breaks down and comes in for repairs then is the very time of all
others to be on hand if you can and watch how they fix it.
Every day will bring its own information--the boy's work is to watch
and remember, but he must not ask too many questions, and never any at
improper times, unless he desires the ill-will of everybody in the yard.
By and bye he will be made an oiler, put to cleaning the big iron horse
and other work of similar sort.
After a time he will slip into a fireman's job, and then he must
understand that his chance has come. Now all depends upon himself.
Make friends with your engineer while you are acting as fireman, and
learn from him all you can.
The way to make friends is to be industrious, obliging and always
courteous, no matter how tired you are or how badly things seem to go.
The troubles and disappointments of one day should not be brought down
to the next.
Let every day be a new beginning in itself.
Don't drink.
Don't swear.
Don't lose your temper and flare out under reproof.
Don't shirk your work and try to do as little us you can.
[Illustration: BEHIND THE LOCOMOTIVE--LOOKING IN FROM THE CAB.]
Don't say to yourself so and so ain't my work and I ain't going to do
it. Do whatever your hands find to do and do it with all your might.
A model engineer is distinguished by the fullness of his knowledge of
the engine, and this must be learned while you are a fireman--not after
you become an engineer.
He should love his work--the locomotive should be his hobby--and
whatever contributes to enlarge his stock of information concerning
it should contribute to his happiness. Unless he can feel that way,
he should promptly step out of the cab and turn his attention to some
other business, for he can never hope to make a good engineer.
On the engine is the only place where one can learn to be an engineer.
During the time the engine is under steam with a train, everything
seen, heard, felt and smelt is capable of affording a lesson.
On the engine the eye is trained to distinguish different colors at
considerable distances. If one is color-blind he cannot be a good
engineer.
On the engine the ear learns to detect the slightest variation in the
beats and knocks about the machinery--to distinguish the difference
between the knock of an axle box and the knock of a journal.
On the engine the body learns to distinguish the shocks, oscillations,
etc., which are due to a defective road from those which arise from a
defective engine. The olfactory nerves became very sensitive so as to
detect the generation of heat from friction before any mischief is done.
It is only while an engine is in steam and going at good speed that the
rocks, coral-reefs and sand-banks on railways can be seen and learned,
and the value of and the rank acquired by an engineer are in exact
proportion to the pains he takes to find them out, and to remark their
dangerous position on his chart.
A model engineer can tell you all about any particular engine he
happens to see merely by glancing at it.
He will be able to say this was built by so and so. I know it by this
crank, that piston. "Look here," he says, "that rod was built when I
was a boy, it's all out of date now, consequently the engine must have
been built in such a year."
In short the model engineer should be familiar with the history of
locomotive engines from Old No. 1 down to date.
The model engineer is always a good fireman.
A man may be a first-rate mechanic, he may have worked at the best
class of machinery, he may have built engines and have read all the
published books on the locomotive, and yet, if he is not a good hand
at the coal shovel, he will never be a first-class engineer.
A good fireman knows when to put on coal, how and where and just how
much. A man may be the best mechanic the world ever saw and know
nothing of these things which are the very all essentials of a good
engineer.
A model engineer is clean himself, and his engine is cleaner.
Cleanliness is said to be next to godliness. Upon a railroad it may
with truth be said that cleanliness is next below the highest talent
and next above the length of service.
A clean engineer frequently scales the ladder of progress much faster
than a dirty one, although the latter may have everything else in his
favor.
A model engineer runs the most important trains, and he is never the
man who wore the greasy, dirty cap or the coat and trousers all smeared
with oil.
What is the secret of constant successful engine driving?
Not length of service, not because a man has served so many years on
freight trains and so many more on passenger trains, for the best
engineers are ever those who have been promoted over the heads of
others for their smartness.
Promotion according to merit should be the invariable rule on
railroads. Seniority should have nothing to do with it. The position
is too important, there are too many lives at stake, too much money
involved to make it right or proper to push one man forward beyond
another simply because of the length of his service. That sort of thing
is all right for ordinary business, but for engine driving it won't do.
Merit tells.
To the best engineer belong the best trains.
Chance never built an engine, and it should have nothing to do with
running it.
Yet the opposite way of doing things is the general rule.
Engineer A retires, dies or is killed, and Engineer B is promoted
because he happens to be next on the list. He may be a dull, stupid
fellow, and Engineer C as bright as a dollar, but in the chance death
of A, B gets the prize, and everybody that has any interest in the
successful running of his train becomes the loser thereby.
Engine driving, to be good, must be based upon rules and principles.
He who strictly observes them wins; he who don't, loses. With the
latter all is uncertainty; the hand trembles upon the regulator, the
eye watches with painful anxiety the needle of the pressure gauge, and
gazes into the fire to find out its deficiencies, but gains nothing
but blindness by the attempt.
With the engineer who has a reason for every act performed, either
by himself or his fireman, all is different. He works by rules and
principles that have proved themselves a thousand times over to be
safe, practical and certain in their results.
Sound rules and principles are absolutely sure in the effects of their
application--not right to-day and wrong to-morrow; not right in a short
trip and all astray on a long one; not right on one particular engine
and wrong on another; not right on the first part of the run and wrong
at the end; not right with one kind of coal and wrong with another, but
_always right, every time_.
Under the guidance of sound rules and principles, the mind of the
driver is full, and he is enabled, under all circumstances, to handle
the regulator with confidence, to travel with a boiler full of steam,
and to finish with success.
In a word, these are rules and principles which lead up to and make the
success of an engineer.