[Illustration]
Across the cold moonlit landscapes, while good folk are at home curling
their toes in the warm bottom of the bed, the Owl trains rumble with a
gentle drone, neither fast nor slow.
There are several Owl trains with which we have been familiar. One,
rather aristocratic of its kind, is the caravan of sleeping cars that
leaves New York at midnight and deposits hustling business men of the
most aggressive type at the South Station, Boston. After a dissolute
progress full of incredible jerks and jolts these pilgrims reach this
dampest, darkest, and most Arctic of all terminals about the time the
morning codfish begins to warm his bosom on the gridirons of the sacred
city. Another, a terrible nocturnal prowler, slips darkly away from
Albany about 1 A. M., and rambles disconsolately and with shrill
wailings along the West Shore line. Below the grim Palisades of the
Hudson it wakes painful echoes. Its first six units, as far as one can
see in the dark, are blind express cars, containing milk cans and
coffins. We once boarded it at Kingston, and after uneasy slumber across
two facing seats found ourself impaled upon Weehawken three hours later.
There one treads dubiously upon a ferryboat in the fog and brume of
dawn, ungluing eyelids in the bleak dividing pressure of the river
breeze.
But the Owl train we propose to celebrate is the vehicle that departs
modestly from the crypt of the Pennsylvania Station in New York at
half-past midnight and emits blood-shot wanderers at West Philadelphia
at 3:16 in the morning. The railroad company, which thinks these
problems out with nice care, lulls the passengers into unconsciousness
of their woes not only by a gentle and even gait, a progress almost
tender in its carefully modulated repression of speed, but also by
keeping the cars at such an amazing heat that the victims promptly fade
into a swoon. Nowhere will you see a more complete abandonment to the
wild postures of fatigue and despair than in the pathetic sprawl of
these human forms upon the simmering plush settees. A hot eddy of some
varnish-tinctured vapour--certainly not air--rises from under the seats
and wraps the traveller in a nightmarish trance. Occasionally he starts
wildly from his dream and glares frightfully through the misted pane. It
is the custom of the trainmen, who tiptoe softly through the cars,
never to disturb their clients by calling out the names of stations.
When New Brunswick is reached many think that they have arrived at West
Philadelphia, or (worse still) have been carried on to Wilmington. They
rush desperately to the bracing chill of the platform to learn where
they are. There is a mood of mystery about this Owl of ours. The
trainmen take a quaint delight in keeping the actual whereabouts of the
caravan a merciful secret.
Oddly assorted people appear on this train. Occasional haughty
revellers, in evening dress and opera capes, appear among the humbler
voyagers. For a time they stay on their dignity: sit bravely upright and
talk with apparent intelligence. Then the drowsy poison of that stifled
atmosphere overcomes them, too, and they fall into the weakness of their
brethren. They turn over the opposing seat, elevate their nobler shins,
and droop languid heads over the ticklish plush chair-back. Strange
aliens lie spread over the seats. Nowhere will you see so many faces of
curious foreign carving. It seems as though many desperate exiles, who
never travel by day, use the Owl for moving obscurely from city to city.
This particular train is bound south to Washington, and at least half
its tenants are citizens of colour. Even the endless gayety of our dusky
brother is not proof against the venomous exhaustion of that boxed-in
suffocation. The ladies of his race are comfortably prepared for the
hardships of the route. They wrap themselves in huge fur coats and all
have sofa cushions to recline on. Even in an all-night session of
Congress you will hardly note so complete an abandonment of disillusion,
weariness, and cynical despair as is written upon the blank faces all
down the aisle. Even the will-power of a George Creel or a Will H. Hays
would droop before this three-hour ordeal. Professor Einstein, who talks
so delightfully of discarding Time and Space, might here reconsider his
theories if he brooded, baking gradually upward, on the hot green plush.
This genial Owl is not supposed to stop at North Philadelphia, but it
always does. By this time Philadelphia passengers are awake and gathered
in the cold vestibules, panting for escape. Some of them, against the
rules of the train, manage to escape on the North Philadelphia platform.
The rest, standing huddled over the swaying couplings, find the
leisurely transit to West Philadelphia as long as the other segments of
the ride put together. Stoically, and beyond the power of words, they
lean on one another. At last the train slides down a grade. In the dark
and picturesque tunnel of the West Philadelphia station, through thick
mists of steam where the glow of the fire box paints the fog a golden
rose, they grope and find the ancient stairs. Then they stagger off to
seek a lonely car or a night-hawk taxi.