trains are scheduled so that the engineman must keep his locomotive
up to its very highest efficiency over every furlong of its
journey in order to arrive at his destination on time. A little
carelessness in firing, in letting cold water into the boiler
irregularly, or in slackening more than is necessary where the
right to the track is in doubt for a few rods; these and a score of
similar circumstances may make five minutes' delay in the arrival
at the terminus and necessitate an embarrassing interview with the
trainmaster. A trip on a crowded line may involve watching for
danger-signals every quarter of a mile and the maintenance of such
high speed that they must be obeyed the instant they are espied in
order to avoid the possibility of collision.[34]
The passenger runner finds himself now and then with a disabled
engine on his hands, and two or three hundred passengers standing
around apparently ready to eat him up if he does not remedy the
difficulty in short order. Often in such cases he is in doubt
himself whether the repairs necessary to enable his engine to
proceed will occupy fifteen minutes or an hour. This, with the
knotty question of where the nearest relief engine is, causes the
brow to knit and the sweat to start, and to the young runner proves
an experience which he long remembers.
[Illustration: A Breakdown on the Road.]
Stories of fast running are common but unreliable; and when
truthful, important considerations are often omitted. There are
so many elements to be considered, that usually the verdict can
be justly rendered only after a careful comparison with previous
records. Most regular runs include a number of stops, and are
subject to numerous slackenings of the speed, thus dimming the
lustre of the record of the trip as a whole. Frequently, quick
runs which have been reported as noteworthy have had favoring
circumstances not told of. The most remarkable single run on
record was that of Jarrett & Palmer's special train chartered to
carry their theatrical company from New York to San Francisco
(Jersey City to Oakland), June 1-4, 1876, which is well known to
all Americans. Perhaps the fastest long run ever made in this
country was that of a special train over the West Shore Railroad
from East Buffalo to Frankfort, N. Y., two hundred and one miles,
on July 9, 1885, which ran this distance in four hours, including
several stops. This train ran thirty-six miles in thirty minutes,
and ran many single miles in forty-three seconds each. An engine
with two cars ran over the Canada Southern Division of the Michigan
Central from St. Clair Junction to Windsor, Ont., on November 16,
1886, a distance of one hundred and seven miles, in ninety-seven
minutes; and this included two or three stops. The average rate
of speed was about sixty-nine miles an hour, and in places it
rose to seventy-five and over. The engineers and their firemen,
and all connected with the handling of the trains, certainly
deserve credit for performances like these, and they receive it;
but the supplying of the perfect machine, the smooth and safe
roadway comparatively clear of other trains, and other conditions,
is so manifestly beyond their control, while at the same time
constituting such an important factor in the result, that
praise should be given discriminatingly. An engineer who makes a
specially quick trip feels proud of his engine, and of the honor
of having been chosen for an important run, and he shares with the
passengers the exhilaration produced by such a triumph of science
and skill in annihilating space; but in the matter of credit to
himself for experience and judgment, patience and forethought, he
feels and knows that many a trip in his every-day service is worthy
of greater recognition. Many a runner has to urge his engine, day
after day, with a load twenty-five per cent. heavier than it was
designed for, over track that is fit only for low speeds, at a
rate which demands the most constant care. He must run fast enough
over the better portions of the track to allow of slackening where
prudence demands slackening. The tracks of many roads are rendered
so uneven by the action of frost in winter that with an unskilful
runner the passengers would be half-frightened by the unsteady
motion of the cars. This condition is not common on the important
trunk-lines, of course; but it does prevail on roads that carry a
great many passengers, nevertheless; and engineers who guide trains
over such difficult journeys, gently luring the passengers, with
the aid of the excellent springs under the cars, into the belief
that they are riding over a track of uniform smoothness, should not
be forgotten in any estimate of the fraternity as a whole.
[Illustration: Timely Warning.]
The engineer whose humanity is not hardened has his feelings
harrowed occasionally by pedestrians who risk their lives on the
track. Tramps and other careless persons are so numerous that the
casual passenger in a locomotive cab generally cannot ride fifty
miles without seeing what seems to him a hair-breadth escape, but
which is nevertheless treated by the engineer as a commonplace
occurrence. These heedless wayfarers do, however, occasionally
carry their indifference to danger too far, and they are tossed in
the air like feathers.[35] Doubtless there are those who, like the
fireman who talked with the tender-hearted young lady, regret the
killing of a man chiefly "because it musses up the engine so;" but,
taking the fraternity as a whole, warmth of heart and tenderness
of feeling may be called not only well-developed but prominent
traits of character. The great strike on the Chicago, Burlington &
Quincy road in 1888, which proved to have been ill-advised, would
have been possible only in a body of men actuated by the most
loyal friendship. Undoubtedly a large conservative element in the
Brotherhood of Engineers believed the move injudicious, but they
joined in it out of an intense spirit of fidelity to their brethren
and leaders.
* * * * *
[Illustration: The Passenger Conductor.]
The passenger-train conductor has in many respects the most
difficult position in the railroad ranks. He should be a
first-class freight conductor and a polished gentleman to boot. But
in his long apprenticeship on a freight train he has very likely
been learning how _not_ to fulfil the additional requirements of
a passenger conductorship. In that service he could be uncouth
and even boorish, and still fill his position tolerably well; now
he feels the need of a life-time of tuition in dealing with the
diverse phases of human nature met with on a passenger train. He
must now manage his train in a sort of automatic way, for he has
his mind filled with the care of his passengers and the collection
of tickets. He must be good at figures, keeping accounts, and
handling money, though the freight-train service has given him no
experience in this line. Year by year the clerical work connected
with the taking up of tickets and collecting of cash fares has been
increased until now, on many roads, an expert bank clerk would
be none too proficient for the duties imposed. The conductor who
grumblingly averred that "it would take a Philadelphia lawyer with
three heads" to fill his shoes was not far out of the way. Every
day, and perhaps a number of times a day, he must collect fares of
fifty or a hundred persons in less time than he ought to have for
ten. Of that large number a few will generally have a complaint
to make, or an objection to offer, or an impudent assertion
concerning a fault of the railroad company which the conductor
cannot remedy and is not responsible for. A woman will object to
paying half-fare for a ten-year-old girl or to paying full rates
for one of fifteen. A person whose income is ten times larger
than he deserves will argue twenty minutes to avoid paying ten
cents more (in cash) than he would have been charged for a ticket.
Passengers with legitimate questions to ask will couch them in
vague and backhanded terms, and those with useless ones will take
inopportune times to propound them. These are not occasional but
every-day experiences. The very best and most intelligent people in
the community (excepting those who travel much) are among those who
oftenest leave their wits at home when they take a railroad trip.
All these people must be met in a conciliatory manner, but without
varying the strict regulations in the least degree. The officers
of the revenue department are inexorable masters, and passengers
offended by alleged uncivil treatment are likely to make absurd
complaints at the superintendent's office. A conductor dreads an
investigation of this sort, however unreasonable the passengers'
complaints may be, because it may tend to show that he lacked tact
in handling the case. But after becoming habituated to this sort of
dealings, there are still left the occasional disturbances which no
amount of philosophy can make pleasant. These are the encounters
with drunken and disorderly passengers. The conductor, starting
at the forward end of his train, finds, perhaps, in the first car
one or two "toughs" who refuse payment of fare and are spoiling
for a fight. Care must be taken with this sort of character not to
punish him or use the least bit of unnecessary severity, for he
will, when sobered off, quite likely be induced by a sharp lawyer
to sue the railroad company for damages by assault. The conductor,
however, if he be one who has (in his freight-train experience)
dealt with tramps, is able to cope with his customer and confine
him to the baggage-car or put him off the train. But a tussle of
this kind is at best far from soothing to the temper, and the very
next car may contain the wife of a nabob, who will expect the most
genteel treatment and critically object to any behavior on the part
of the conductor which is not fully up to the highest drawing-room
standard. Experiences of this kind, it can be readily imagined, are
exceedingly trying. The conductor cannot give himself up completely
to learning gentility, for he still has need for his old severity.
The difficulty of always finding the ideal person when wanted has
led to the employment of men of good address who have had little or
no training on freight trains; so that we find some conductors who
are able to deal with all sorts of passengers with a good degree
of success, but who are far from brilliant as managers of trains,
technically speaking; while others, who from their early experience
have first-class executive ability, are slow in discarding the
somewhat rough habits of the freight train. While there are not
wanting those who strive faithfully to reach the ideal, and succeed
admirably, it may be said that the average conductor retains
more of the severe than of the gentle side of his character, at
least so far as outward behavior goes. The rigid requirements of
his financial superiors, which compel him to actually fight for
his rights with dishonest and stingy passengers, make it almost
impossible that he should be otherwise. Ignorant foreigners, poor
women and girls who have lost their way, and other unfortunates
are, however, encountered often enough to preclude the conductor's
forgetting how to be compassionate.
The heroic element is not wholly lacking in the conductor's
life. The temporary guardianship of several hundred people is
an important trust even in smooth sailing, but the conductor's
possibilities are entirely different from the engineer's. He has so
much to do to attend to the petty wants of passengers that their
remoter but more important interests are not given much thought.
The anxieties of a hundred nervous passengers who terribly dread
the loss of an hour by a missed connection are much more likely to
weigh down a conductor's mind than any thoughts of his duty to them
in a possible emergency that will happen only once in five years.
And yet the last-mentioned contingency is a real one. Only last
year, in the great Eastern blizzard, conductors risked their lives
in protecting their passengers. One spent three or four hours in
travelling a mile and a half to a telegraph-office; in consequence
of the six feet of snow, the blinding storm, and the darkness, he
had to constantly hug a barbed-wire fence to avoid losing his way,
and was on the point of exhaustion when he reached the station.
* * * * *
The term "station-agent" means, practically, the person in charge
of a small or medium-sized station. When one of these men is
promoted to the charge of a large city station, either freight or
passenger, he becomes really a local superintendent, his duties
then consisting very largely in the supervision of an army of
clerks and laborers who must, each in his place, be as capable
as the agent himself. The agent at a small station has a great
multiplicity of duties to perform. He must sell tickets, be a good
book-keeper, and a faithful switch-tender. He generally must be
a telegraph-operator and must be vigorous physically. He must be
ready, like the conductor, to submit to some abuse from ill-bred
customers, and should be the peer of the business men of his town.
He often encounters almost as great a variety of knotty problems
as the superintendent himself, though he has the advantage that
he can generally turn them over to a superior if he feels unequal
to them. The practical difficulties that most beset him are those
incident to doing everything in a hurry. People who buy tickets
wait until the train is about to start before presenting themselves
at the office. Then the agent has a dozen other things to attend
to, and must therefore detect counterfeit ten-dollar bills with
the expertness of a Washington treasury-clerk. Just as a train
reaches his station the train despatcher's click is heard on the
wires, and he must drop everything and receive (for the conductor)
a telegram in which an error of a single word would very likely
involve the lives of passengers. At a very small station the
checking of baggage devolves on the agent, his overburdened back
being thus loaded with one more straw. He is in many cases agent
for the express company, and so must count, seal, superscribe, and
way-bill money packages and handle oyster-kegs and barrels of beer
at a moment's notice. Women with wagon-loads of loose household
effects to go by freight, and shippers of car-loads of cattle, for
which a car must be specially fitted up, will appear just as the
distracted station-man is receiving a telegram with one side of
his brain and selling a ticket with the other. The household goods
must be weighed and tagged, the sewing-machine tied up, and tables
repaired; the cattle-shipper must be given a short lecture on the
legal bearings of the bargain for transportation which he is about
to make, and his demand that his live-stock shall be carried 500
miles more quickly than human animals are taken over the same road
is to be gently repressed. It is not every day that a small station
is enlivened by this sort of excitement, yet it is common, and is
familiar to every station agent. The variety in the duties of this
position is, however, a great advantage to the ambitious young
man, because it serves to give him a good lift toward a valuable
business education. He can learn about the methods and knacks and
tricks of many different kinds of business, and can profit by
the knowledge thus gained. Thomas J. Potter, the lately deceased
vice-president of the Union Pacific Railway, whose memory it is
proposed to perpetuate by a bronze statue, began his railroad
career as agent at a small station in Iowa. Others of equal ability
and perfection of character have risen from similar places and by
the same means.
[Illustration: In the Waiting Room of a Country Station.]
The agent at a small station catches his breath between trains.
There is then generally ample time for calming the nerves and
preparing for the next onslaught. If he is a telegraph-operator he
can chat with the operators at other stations--a common resource
if the wires are not occupied with more important affairs. In the
class periodicals of operators and railroad men, reference to
this phase of their life may be constantly seen, and incidents
of even romantic interest are not infrequent. Many of the men at
small stations are young and unmarried, while at places where the
business has increased enough to warrant the employment of an
assistant, a young woman to do the telegraphing is frequently the
first helper engaged. With this combination it is unnecessary to
tell what follows. If iron bars and stone walls are things which
Cupid holds in contempt, an electric telegraph wire is the thing
which makes him "snicker right out," if we may use the language
of the circus ring. A distance of 100 miles, instead of being a
barrier, is, under these circumstances, an advantage. There is,
to be sure, a slight disadvantage in the fact that any tender
communication confided to the wires will be liable to fall on
the ears of unfeeling persons at intermediate offices, but the
overcoming of this obstacle provides the agreeable incidental
excitement which is always necessary in genuine love-making. Young
persons (or old, either) can study each other's characters, in
important phases at least, at a distance better than at short
range. The telegraphic mode of sending communications discloses
one's disposition far better than does handwriting. Working on
the same wire with another for a few months enables one to form
judgments of that other's generosity or narrowness, serenity or
excitability, industry or laziness, refinement or boorishness,
kindliness of heart or otherwise, which are quite sure to be
correct judgments. Judgments ripen into attachments, and romances
of the wire are common.
At the railroad station next larger in size, the work is more
divided. One man sells tickets, another attends to the freight
office, another to the baggage, and so on. The ticket-seller must
make five-cent bargains with the same urbanity that is given to a
$100 trade, and must be able to toss off the latter in two minutes
if occasion requires, or to spend an hour in helping the passenger
choose the best route among a score of possible ones. The fusillade
of questions that must be met by the ticket-seller every time he
opens his window is familiar to everyone who has ever watched a
place of the kind for ten minutes. The inexperienced traveller
wants to be fully posted as to the exact hour of departure of a
tri-weekly stage with which he is to connect at a railroad station
a thousand miles away, and the more intelligent ones demand an
oral time-table covering the trains for the ensuing week on all
railroads within a radius of 50 miles. Those who cannot read or
understand the time-tables are too modest to ask aid, and their
misfortune is disclosed only after their train has gone and they
are found in tears; while those who can read the table ignore it
and ask questions simply to be sociable.
* * * * *
[Illustration: The Trials of a Baggage-master.]
[Illustration: Station Gardening.]
The station baggage-master has an important but rather thankless
place. He must handle 200-pound trunks with as much ease as though
they contained feathers, and, if he break a moulding off one,
must meet the reproaches of the owner, who imagines that the time
available for handling the trunk was five minutes instead of two
seconds. He must handle much dirty and otherwise unpleasant stuff,
and on the whole pursue a very unpoetic life. He has little to
do with train-handling, but he "keeps in with" the trainmen and
furnishes them with a share of their entertainment. They lounge
in his room sometimes and he keeps on tap a supply of jokes such
as that about the new brakeman who sent to headquarters for a
supply of red oil for his red lantern, and the engineer who lost
time with an excursion train on the Fourth of July because the
extremely hot weather had elongated the rails and thus materially
increased the distance to be travelled over. When "hot boxes"
(friction-heated axles) are given as the cause of a delay the
real cause of which is concealed (by the conductor who is ashamed
of it), the baggage-master gently punctures the deception by
suggesting that perhaps a hot _fire_-box (in the engine) is what
is meant. Whether the roguish clerk of an inexperienced general
manager, who slyly induced his chief to issue an order to station
agents directing that "all freight cars standing for any length of
time on side tracks must be occasionally moved a short distance in
order to prevent flattening of the wheels," had formerly been a
baggage-master, history does not state.
[Illustration: In the Yard at Night.]
* * * * *
The switch-tender, whose momentary carelessness has many a
time caused terrible disaster, but whose constant faithfulness
outweighs a million-fold even that painful record, is one of the
essential figures around a station. Nothing but eternal vigilance
will suffice to keep switches always in safe position, and the
conscientious custodian of these always possible death-traps
often takes his burden of care to his pillow. The mishaps which
do occur strikingly illustrate the practical impossibility of
holding the human brain always to the highest pitch. A conductor
in New Jersey (trainmen have to set switches at many places where
no switchmen are employed) recently caused a slight collision by
misplacing a switch, and on seeing the consequences exclaimed, "I
deserve to be discharged; my mistake was inexcusable." And yet an
honest man of that type is the kind demanded for such a place. The
interlocking of switches and signals (the arrangement in a frame
of the levers moving the switches and those moving signals in such
a way that the signal which tells the engineer to come on _cannot
be given_ until the switch is actually in proper position) is one
of the notable improvements of the last twenty years, and is a
great boon to switchmen, as well as to passengers and the owners
of railroads.[36] By the aid of this apparatus and its distant
signals, connected by wire ropes, the switchman's anxieties are
reduced immeasurably. By concentrating the levers of a number of
switches in a single room one man can do the work of several, and
to the looker-on the perplexities of the position seem to have been
increased instead of diminished. But the switchman's task now is
of a different sort. Under the old plan he was constantly on guard
lest he make a mistake and throw an engine or car off the track.
Under the new, his calculations are chiefly about saving time and
facilitating the work of the trainmen. Questions of danger rarely
come up, being provided against by the perfection of the machinery.
By long familiarity with the ground and the ways of handling the
trains, the switch-tender in an "interlocking tower" is enabled to
safely conduct a score of trains through a labyrinth of switches
in the time that the novice would take to make the first move for
a single train. Without this admirable apparatus, and skilful and
experienced attendants, the business of great stations like the
Grand Central at New York would be impossible in the space allowed.
[Illustration: A Track-walker on a Stormy Night.]
* * * * *