through the brick wall," and he pointed to a great semicircle of cold
engine-noses, ranged along not two feet from the round-house wall.
Later on, in the dimly lighted locker-room, I listened to round-house
men swapping yarns about accidents, and to threats of a fireman touching
a certain yardmaster set apart by general consent for a licking.
Finally an Irishman came in, James Byron, and for all his good-natured
face he seemed in ill humor. It turned out that he had just received a
hurry order to take 1201 out in Myers's place.
"Jake is sick," he said, "and they've sent for me. But I'm sick, too.
Was in bed with the grip. Just took ten grains of quinine. Say, I ain't
any more fit to run an engine than I am to run a Sunday-school."
Then he began pulling on his overalls, while the others laughed at him,
told him he was "scared" of the fast run, and said good-by with mock
seriousness.
But Byron showed himself a good soldier, and soon was working over 1201
with a will, inspecting every inch of her, torch in hand, and he assured
me he would take her through all right, grip or no grip.
And take her through he did. At 1.16 A.M. my old friend, locomotive 590,
brought the flier up from Chicago, six minutes ahead of the schedule.
Kelly had done himself proud this time. And six minutes later, on time
to the minute, we drew out behind 1201, with Byron handling her and
seventy tons of mail following after.
Our fireman was named Bellamy. He wore isinglass goggles against the
heat, and, in his way, he was a humorist, as I discovered presently,
when he came close to me (we were running at a sixty-mile gait), and,
grinning like a Dante demon, remarked slowly:
"Say--if--we--go--in--the--ditch--will--you--come--along?"
The first feature of this run was some trouble with a feed-pipe from the
tank, which brought us to a sudden standstill in the open night with a
great hissing of steam.
"What is it?" I asked of Bellamy, while Byron, grumbling maledictions,
hammered under the truck.
"Check-valve stuck; water can't get into the boiler."
"How did he know it?"
"Water-gage."
"What if he hadn't noticed it?"
Bellamy smiled in half contempt. "Say, if he hadn't noticed it for
fifteen minutes, we'd have been sailing over them trees about this
time--in pieces. She'd have bust her boiler."
Five minutes lost here, and we were off again, running presently into a
thick fog, then into rain, and, finally, into a snow-storm. Never shall
I forget the illusion, due to our great speed, that the flakes were
rushing at us horizontally, shooting upward in sharp curves over the
engine's headlight. And, as we swept on, the shadow of 1201 advanced
beside us on the stretch of white snow as smoothly and silently as the
tail of an eclipse. The engine itself was a noisy, hurrying affair, but
the engine's shadow was as calm and quiet as a cloud. And I recall that
the swiftness of our rush this night caused in me neither fear nor any
particular emotion, although this was practically the same experience
that had stirred me so the night before on 590. And I realized that
riding on a swift locomotive may become a matter of course like other
strange things.
III
SOME MEMORIES OF THE GREAT RECORD-BREAKING RUN FROM CHICAGO TO BUFFALO
THERE is a place in New York--the very last place one would think
of--where stories without end may be heard about locomotives and the men
who drive them; it is not a place of grime and steam, but a quiet and
luxurious club spreading over the top floor of a very tall building on
Forty-second Street, and here every day at luncheon-time railroad
officials gather: superintendents, managers, and various heads of
departments, men who may have grown prosperous and portly, but are
always proud to talk about the boys at the throttle, and recall
experiences of their own in certain exciting runs.
In the wide hall near the entrance of this Transportation Club is a
driving-wheel, green painted, from the De Witt Clinton, the first
locomotive that drew a passenger train in the State of New York. It is
scarcely larger than a wagon-wheel, though made of iron, and an
inscription sets forth how it made the historic run from Albany to
Schenectady on August 9, 1831. The walls show many pictures, famous
locomotives, scenes of accidents, and there are thrilling memories here
in abundance if one have with him some veteran of the road to recall
them.
"It's not always the most serious accidents that frighten a man most,"
remarked a high official on the New York Central, one day, while the
rest of us listened. "One of the worst scares I ever had was on a
freight train when there really wasn't anything to be scared about. We
had just pulled out of Ottumwa, Iowa, one dark night, with a caboose
full of passengers, when rump--ump--bang--rip! You never heard such a
racket. First one end of the car was lifted up off the rails and slammed
down again, and then the other end was treated the same way; up and down
we went, bump, bump, bump! and smash went the window, and out went the
lights. Now, what do you suppose it was?"
"Hog under the wheels?" suggested one of the group.
"More likely a mule," said another. "There's nothing so tough as the
hind leg of a mule. Isn't a car-wheel made that'll cut through one."
"It wasn't a mule or a hog, and it wasn't anything alive, but it got us
into a panic, all right. We waved a lantern like fury to the engineer
ahead, but he didn't see it for a good while, and we just bumped along,
expecting every second to be split into kindling-wood. We stopped at
last, and found it was a beer-keg; yes, sir, an empty beer-keg that had
got caught under the caboose between the rear axle and the bolster of
the truck, and had rolled along over the ties with the car balanced on
it like a man riding a rail. Wasn't broken, either; no, sir, not a bit;
and we had to chisel through every blamed hoop before we could get it
out. Talk about making things strong--that beer-keg was a wonder!"
"I had a more exciting experience than that," said another official--he
was in the freight-handling department. "It was a long time ago--yes,
back in '63. I remember getting out at a station near Cincinnati to look
at some soldiers, and before I knew it the train started. I was up by
the engine, and as the drivers began to turn I jumped on the
cow-catcher. You see, I had often ridden there, being a railroad-man,
and the engineer knew me.
[Illustration: "AS THE DRIVERS BEGAN TO TURN I JUMPED ON THE
COW-CATCHER."]
"Everything went well for a few miles, and I sat on the bumper enjoying
the rush of air, for it was a hot summer's day; but presently, as we
swung around a curve, the engine gave a fearful shriek, and just ahead I
saw a farmer's wagon crossing the track. There were two old men on the
seat and an old white horse in the shafts. The men were so busy talking
they never heard the whistle, or perhaps they were deaf. Anyhow, we were
right on them before they looked up, and then they were too dazed to do
anything. One of them made a grab for the reins, but I saw it was too
late, and I drew my legs up off the bumper and leaned back against the
end of the boiler (I must have made a picture as I crouched there); and
the next second--"
"Well?" said somebody.
"Well--I guess you wouldn't care to hear how things looked the next
second. We struck the white horse just back of his forelegs, and I had
him on my lap for a hundred yards or so. No, it didn't hurt me, but it
wasn't pleasant. The two old men? I don't think they felt anything, it
was so sudden; they just--passed out. No, I didn't see them; but I can
tell you this, I've never ridden on the cow-catcher of a locomotive
since that day."
There followed some talk about fast runs, and all agreed that for
out-and-out excitement there is nothing in railroading to equal a man's
sensations in one of those mad bursts of speed that are ventured upon
now and then by locomotives in record-breaking trials. The heart never
pounds with apprehension in a real accident as it does through imminent
_fear_ of an accident. And so great is the nerve-strain and brain-strain
upon the men who drive our ordinary fliers, that three hours at a
stretch is as much as the stanchest engineer can endure running at fifty
or sixty miles an hour.
"So you see," said one of the officials, "the problem of higher speeds
than we have at present involves more than boiler power and strength of
machinery and the swiftness of turning wheels--it involves the question
of human endurance. We can build engines that will run a hundred and
fifty miles an hour, but where shall we find the men to drive them?
Already we have nearly reached the limit of what eyes and nerves can
endure. I guess we'll have to find a new race of men to handle these
'locomotives of the future' that they talk so much about."
He went on to consider the chance of color-blindness in an engineer, and
told how the men's eyes are regularly tested by experts, who put before
them skeins of various-colored yarns, and make them pick out green from
red, and so on. It is not pleasant to think what might happen if an
engineer's eyes should suddenly fail him, and he should mistake the
danger light for safety and go ahead at some critical moment instead of
stopping. Nor does one like to fancy what might happen if an engineer
should go mad at his post.
"I know one case where an engineer _did_ go mad," remarked a
superintendent. "He was one of our most experienced men, and had held
the throttle for years on the fastest trains. Then, one Sunday, for no
reason at all, he went to the round-house, got out the 'pony'
locomotive--that's the one fixed up with a little parlor over the
boiler, and easy-chairs and polished wood--it makes a pretty
observation-car for big officials. Well, he got her out and started
lickety-split up the main line, running wild and without orders. He
stopped at Mott Haven, and told the men he wanted the 'pony' rebuilt and
silver-plated--crazy as a loon, you see. Yes, he's in the asylum now,
poor fellow; that was his last run."
After this one of the group gave his memories of the famous speed trial
on the Lake Shore road, when five locomotives in relays, driven by
picked men, set out to beat all records in a run of 510 miles from
Chicago to Buffalo. This was in October, 1895, and I suppose such
elaborate preparations for a dash over the rails were never made. All
traffic was suspended for the passage of this racing special; every
railroad crossing between Chicago and Buffalo was patrolled by a
section-man--that alone meant thirteen hundred guards; and every switch
was spiked half an hour before the train was due. The chief officials of
the Lake Shore road proposed to ride this race in person, and, if
possible, smash the New York Central's then recent world's record of
63.61 miles an hour, including all stops, over the 4361/2 miles between
New York and Buffalo. They had before them a longer run than that, and
hoped to score a greater average speed per mile; but they wished to come
through alive, and were taking no chances.
It was half-past three in the morning, and frosty weather, when the
train started from Chicago, with Mark Floyd at the throttle, and various
important people--general managers, superintendents, editors, etc.--on
the cars behind. There were two parlor-coaches, weighing 92,500 pounds
each, and a millionaire's private car, one of the finest and heaviest in
the country, weighing 119,500 pounds, which made a total load, counting
engine and train, of something over two hundred tons.
The first relay was 87 miles to Elkhart, Indiana, and the schedule they
hoped to follow required that they cover this distance in 78 minutes,
including nine "slow-downs." Eighty-seven miles in 78 minutes was well
enough; but the superintendent of the Western Division had set his heart
on doing it in 75 minutes, and had promised Mark Floyd two hundred good
cigars for every quarter of a minute he could cut under that time. But
alas for human plans! Between up grades and the darkness they pulled
into Elkhart at five minutes to five, which was 85 minutes for the 87
miles--not bad going, but it left them seven minutes behind the
schedule, and left Mark to console himself with his old clay pipe.
[Illustration: A RECORD BREAKING RUN.]
One hundred and thirty-one seconds were lost at Elkhart in changing
locomotives, and it was three minutes to five when big 599, with Dave
Luce in the cab, turned her nose toward the dawning day and started for
Toledo, 133 miles away. Great things were expected in this relay, for
about half of it was straight as a bird's flight and down grade, too, so
that hopes were high of making up lost time, especially as Luce had the
reputation of stopping at nothing when it was a question of "getting
there." He certainly did wonders, and five minutes after the start he
had the train at a 62-mile gait, and ten minutes later at a 67-mile
gait. Then they struck frost on the rails and the speed dropped, while
the time-takers studied their stopwatches with serious faces.
At ten minutes to six they reached Waterloo and the long, straight
stretch. As they whizzed past the station, Dave pulled open his throttle
to the last notch and yelled to his fireman. Here was where they had to
_do things_. Butler was 71/2 miles away, the first town in the down grade,
and they made it in 6 minutes and 40 seconds, nearly 68 miles an hour.
In the next 7 miles Dave pushed her up to 70 an hour, then to 721/2, and
let her out in a great burst which made the passengers sit up, and
showed for several miles a top-notch rate of 87 miles an hour.
Nevertheless, taking account of frost and slow-downs, they barely
finished the relay on schedule time, so that for the whole run they were
still seven minutes behind time; the schedule they had set themselves
called for such tremendous speed that it seemed almost impossible to
make up a single lost minute.
The third relay was 108 miles to Cleveland, and they did it in 104
minutes, including many slow-downs and a heart-breaking loss of four
minutes when a section-hand red-flagged the train and brought it to a
dead stop from a 70-mile gait because he had found a broken rail. The
officials were in such a state of tension that they would almost have
preferred chancing it on the rail to losing those four minutes. There is
a point of eagerness in railroad racing where it seems nothing to risk
one's life!
The train drew out of Cleveland 19 minutes behind the time they should
have made for a world's record. Every man had done his best, every
locomotive had worked its hardest, but fate seemed against them and
hopes of beating the Central's fast run were fading rapidly. The fourth
relay was to Erie, 951/2 miles, and some said that Jake Gardner with 598
might pull them out of the hole, but the others shook their heads. At
any rate, Jake did better than those who had preceded him, and he danced
that train along at 75, 80, 84 miles an hour, so the watches said, and
averaged 67 miles an hour for the whole relay.
"It's the kind of thing that makes you taste your heart, and packs a
week into ten minutes," said the superintendent, telling about it. "You
may take _one_ ride smashing around curves at 80 miles an hour, but
you'll never take another."
Still, in spite of these brave efforts, they pulled out of Erie 15
minutes late, and started on the last relay with gloomy faces. It was 86
miles to Buffalo, the end of the race, and they must be there by eleven
thirty-one to win, which called for an average speed of over 70 miles an
hour, including slow-downs. No train in the world had ever approached
such an average, and their own racing average since leaving Chicago was
much below it. So what hope was there?
There was hope in a tall, sparely built man named Bill Tunkey, whom
nobody knew much about except that he was a good engineer with a rather
clumsy ten-wheel locomotive not considered very desirable in a race. All
the other locomotives had been eight-wheelers. Still, the new engine had
one advantage, that she carried water enough in her tank for the whole
run, and need not slow up to refill, as the others had done. She had
another advantage--that she carried Tunkey, one of those men who rise up
in sudden emergencies and _do_ things, whether they are possible or not.
It was not possible, everybody vowed, to reach Buffalo Creek by eleven
thirty-one. "All right," said Tunkey, quietly, and then--
Within forty rods of the start he had his engine going 30 miles an hour,
and he pressed her harder and harder until 11 miles out of Erie she
struck an 80-mile pace, and held it as far as Brockton, when she put
forth all her strength and did a burst of 5 miles in 31/2 minutes, one of
these miles at the rate of 921/4 miles an hour, as the watches showed.
"And I never want any more of that in mine," said the superintendent.
The next town was Dunkirk, where a local ordinance put a 10-mile limit
on the speed of trains. Tunkey smiled as they roared past the station at
more than 80. A crowd lined the tracks here, for the telegraph had
carried ahead the news of a hair-raising run. That crowd was only a blur
to staring, frightened eyes at the car-windows. The officials were
beginning to realize what kind of an engineer they had ahead this time.
Whizzzzz! How they did run! Wahr! Wahr! barked the little bridges and
were left behind! H-o-o-o! bellowed a tunnel. And rip, whrrr! as they
slammed around a double reverse curve with a vicious swing that made the
bolts rattle in the last car. Men put their mouths to other men's ears
and tried to say that perhaps Mr. Tunkey was getting a _little_
overzealous. Much good that did! Mr. Tunkey had the bit in his teeth now
and was playing the game alone.
At eleven-six they swept past Silver Creek with 29 miles to go and 25
minutes to make it in. Hurrah! They had made up time enough to save
them!
At eleven-twenty they passed Lake View.
"Twelve miles more, and 11 minutes," yelled somebody, waving his hat.
"Toboggan-slide all the way," yelled somebody else. "We'll do it easy.
Hooray!"
They passed Athol Springs at eleven-twenty-four, all mad with
excitement. They had 7 minutes left for 8 miles, and were cheering
already.
"We'll make it with half a minute to spare," said the only man in the
private car who was reasonably cool. He was six seconds out of the way,
for they crossed the line twenty-six seconds before eleven thirty-one,
and won the race by less than half a minute, beating the New York
Central's record per mile on the whole run by the fraction of a second,
and beating the whole world's record in the last relay by several
minutes, the figures standing--_Tunkey's_ figures--86 miles from Erie to
Buffalo in 70 minutes and 46 seconds, or an average speed of 72.91 miles
an hour.
"Do?" said the official. "What did we do? Why, we--we--" He paused
helplessly, and then added, with a grin: "Well, we didn't do a thing to
Tunkey!"
IV
WE HEAR SOME THRILLING STORIES AT A ROUNDHOUSE AND REACH THE END OF THE
BOOK
IT was in the round-house at Forty-fifth Street, a place of drip and
steam and oil smears, that I listened to Bronson and Lewis, two good men
at the throttle, as they held forth on the subject of killing people
with an engine.
"After all, it's an easy death," said Bronson.
"I know," said Lewis; "but I don't like it, just the same--I mean
killing 'em."
"Last one I killed," observed Bronson, "was a woman, wife of a
congressman, they said, all done up in furs. 'Member her?"
"Up by New Rochelle?"
"Yes, sir, there at the platform end, where they've made a path over the
tracks. Too lazy to follow the road, those folks are. Take a short cut
and get killed. Well, this congressman's wife, she sauntered across just
as I came through with the express. Never turned her head. Never heard
the whistle. Queer about women, ain't it?"
Lewis nodded.
"Had four minutes to make up, and we were going good--fifty-five an hour
easy. Slammed the brakes on, but--pshaw! Congressman's wife she stopped
the last second, and that settled it. If she'd taken one more step I'd
have scraped by her, but she stopped. Had to kill her. What's a man to
do?"
"Why did she stop?" I asked.
"Oh, some idea. Prob'ly forgot where she was. Nice lady. Makes a man
sick."
"Tell ye what I think," said Lewis. "I think there's women start across
a track to take a chance. If they get hit it's all right, and if they
don't it's all right. Same as girls pull leaves off a flower to see if
some fellow loves 'em. There was--"
"She didn't do that," put in Bronson.
"I don't say she did, but some might. There was a woman up at Larchmont
walked across in front of me the other day. Had a baby, too, in her
arms. Now, why should a woman start over four tracks just as I was
coming, and walk slow, if she didn't want to take a chance? Mind you, I
was on the far side, and she had to cross three tracks before she got to
mine. And all the time I had the whistle wide open. Why, a dog would
have heard that whistle and got out o' the way."
"Did you--" I began.
"Hit her? I didn't know at the time, it was such a close call. Thought I
had, but I found out afterward she got past--by the skin of her teeth.
Bet you she'd had some trouble. Thought she might as well quit the game
and take the baby along. Then, mebbe, she was glad when she got across
safe."
"Can't tell," reflected Bronson.
"I b'lieve there's such a thing as people getting drawn to a train. I
don't mean by the suction, but drawn by the idea of its going so blamed
fast and being so strong, especially people sick or down on their luck.
Now, last year I was coming through Rye one morning, and as I struck the
bridge after that reverse curve I saw two young fellows running along
the No. 3 track away from me. I was on No. 1 track, so they were all
right, but as I came up they both swung over to No. 1, and I cut 'em all
to bits. Turned out they were a couple of lads that had tramped it down
from Boston, goin' to enlist. They were weak and hungry, and I think
they just gave up to the train because they couldn't help it."
"Might be," said Bronson.
"Tell ye who was the nerviest man I ever killed," went on Lewis. "Fellow
in West Haven. Say, but we were coming that night! Northampton express,
ye know, and a down grade over the salt meadows. First thing I knew a
man was standing at the side of the track, fairly close, but not where
he'd get hit. I thought he was some friend of mine in West Haven trying
to make me whistle. But when I got near him, say a hundred feet away, he
stepped out between the rails and stood there a few seconds with his
arms lifted and a smile on his face--quite a pretty smile. Then, just as
I was on him he turned and knelt between the rails. I got the brakes on
quick as I could, emergency and everything, but I couldn't stop her in
less than a length and a half, and--well, I guess you don't want to know
what that engine looked like when I went over her."
"I know," said Bronson, "they scatter something terrible. Say, I've
noticed that sort of pleasant look in their faces, too. Once I was
waiting on a siding, and a man came up and spoke to me very polite, and
wanted to know if I'd please give him a drink of water. I told him the
water in my tank was too warm to drink, but I let him have my cup and
showed him where there was a spring right near. He thanked me and walked
over to it, and I watched him bend down and take two good drinks, then
he brought the cup back and thanked me again.
[Illustration: "DRAWN BY THE IDEA OF ITS GOING SO BLAMED FAST AND BEING
SO STRONG."]
"'Any train along here soon?' he asked.
"'Which way?' said I.
"'Don't matter which way,' said he.
"'There's an up train due now,' said I; 'she's the one I'm waiting for.'
"'Is she a fast train?' he asked.
"'Fair,' said I; ''bout fifty an hour along here.'
"'That's good,' said he, and I wondered what he meant. He seemed like a
nice man.
"Pretty soon along came the up train, and I saw him run down the track
to meet her. Then he stopped, faced sideways, and let himself fall
square across the rails. Say, I was mighty glad I'd fixed it so he had
that drink of water. That was his last drink."