A very humble class of railroad men, a class that gets poorer pay in
proportion to the work they do and the dangers they run than any other
upon a road, are the brakemen. Though perhaps less responsibility rests
upon them, they are placed in the most dangerous position on the train;
they are expected to be at their posts at all times, and to flinch from
no contingency which may arise. The managers of a railroad expect and
demand the brakemen to be as prompt in answering the signals of the
engineer as the throttle-valve is obedient to his touch.
Reader, were you ever on a train of cars moving with the wings of the
wind, skimming over the ground as rapidly as a bird flies, darting by
tree and house, through cuttings and over embankments? and did you ever
feel a sudden jar that almost jerked you from your seat? At the same
time did you hear a sharp, sudden blast of the whistle, ringing out
as if the hand that pulled it was nerved by the presence of danger,
braced by a terrible anxiety to avoid destruction? It frightened you,
did it not? But did you notice the brakeman then? He rushed madly
out of the cars as if he thought the train was going to destruction
surely, and he wished, before the crash came, to be out of it. No,
that was not his object. He caught hold of the brakes and, with all
the force and energy he was capable of exerting, applied them to the
swift-revolving wheels, and when you felt the gradual reduction of
the speed under the pressure of the brakes, you began to feel easier.
But what thought the brakeman all the time? Did he think that, if the
danger ahead was any one of a thousand which might happen? if another
train was coming towards them, and they should strike it? if a disabled
engine was on the track, and a fool, to whom the task was intrusted,
had neglected to give your train the signal? if the driving rain had
raised some little stream, or a spark of fire had lodged in a bridge
and the bridge was gone? if some loosened rock had rolled down upon
the track; or if the track had slid; or if some wretch, wearing a
human form over a hellish soul, had lifted a rail, placed a tie on the
track, to hurl engine and car therefrom?--if any of these things were
ahead and the speed of your train be too great to stop, and go plunging
into it, did he realize that he was the first man to be caught; that
those two cars between which he stood, straining every nerve to do his
share to avert the catastrophe, would come together and crush him,
as he would crush a worm beneath his tread? If he did, he was doing
his duty in that dangerous place, risking his life at a pretty cheap
rate--a dollar a day--wasn't he? And still these men do this every day
for the same price and at the same risk, while the passengers regard
them as necessary evils, who _will_ be continually banging the doors.
So they pass them by, never giving them a kind word, scarcely ever
thanking them for the many little services which they unhesitatingly
demand of them, and, if the passenger has ridden long, and the jolting
and jarring, the want of rest, or wearisome monotony of the long
ride has made him peevish, how sure he is to vent his spite on the
brakeman, because he thinks him the most humble, and therefore the most
unprotected man on the train. And the brakeman endures it all; for if
he answers back a word, if he asserts his manhood--which many seem to
think he has sold for his paltry thirty dollars a month--why, he is
reported at the office, a garbled version of the affair is given, and
the brakeman is discharged.
But have a care, O! most chivalrous passenger, you who fly into such a
passion if your dignity is offended by a short answer. You may quarrel
with a man having a soul in him beside which yours would look most
pitifully insignificant; one who, were the dread signal to sound, would
rush out into the danger, and, throwing himself into the chasm, die for
you, amid all the appalling scenes of the chaotic wreck of that train
of cars, as coolly, as determinately, as unselfishly as the Stuart
queen barred the door with her own fair arm, that her liege lord might
escape. And then, methinks, you would feel sad when you saw his form
stretched there dead, all life crushed out of it--once so comely, now
so mangled and unsightly--and thought that, with that poor handful
of dust from which the soul took flight so nobly, you had just been
picking a petty quarrel.
If you have read the accounts of railroad accidents as carefully
and with such thrilling interest as I have, you will remember many
incidents where brakemen were killed while at their post, discharging
their duty. Several have come under my immediate observation. On the H.
R. R. one night I was going over the road, "extra," that is, I was not
running the engine, but riding in the car. I heard a sharp whistle, but
thought it was not of much consequence, for I knew the engineer's long
avowed intention, to never call the brakemen to their posts when the
danger could be avoided; he said he would give them a little chance,
not call them where they had none. The brakemen all sprang to their
posts; the one in the car where I was I saw putting on his brake; the
next instant, with a shock that shook every thing loose and piled the
seats, passengers, stove, and pieces of the roof all into a mass in the
forward end of the car, the engine struck a rock, the cars were all
piled together, and I was pitched into the alley up close to the end
which was all stove in. I felt blood trickling on my hands, but thought
it was from a wound I had received on my head. I soon found that it
was from Charley McLoughlin, the brakeman with whom I had just been
talking, and whom I saw go to his post at the first signal of danger.
The whole lower part of his body was crushed, but he yet lived. We got
him out as soon as possible and laid him beside the track on a door,
then went to get the rest of the dead and wounded. We found one of the
brakemen dead, his head mashed flat; the other one, Joe Barnard, was
hurt just as Charley was, and as they were inseparable companions,
we laid them together. I took their heads in my lap--we did not try
to move them, as the physicians said they could not live--and there
for four long hours I sat and talked with those men whose lives were
surely, but slowly ebbing away. In life they were as brothers, and
death did not separate them, for they departed within fifteen minutes
of each other. But notice this fact--the brakeman who was found dead,
still held in his hand the shattered brake-wheel, and Joe Barnard was
crushed with both hands still grasping his. Yet these men were "only
brakemen!"