A RESCUE
With the packet of envelopes in his hand, Allan descended the stair
and came out upon the grimy platform. Just across the yards lay the
low, dark, brick building which was the freight office, and he made
his way toward it over the tangle of tracks and switches, where the
freight-trains were being "made up" to be sent east or west. After some
inquiry, he found the freight agent gazing ruefully at a barrel of oil
which had just been smashed to pieces by a too vigorous freight-handler.
Allan gave him the letters addressed to him and hurried away to deliver
the others.
Farther down the yards was the office of the yardmaster, a little,
square, frame building, standing like an island amid the ocean of tracks
which surrounded it. Here was kept the record of every car which entered
or left the yards--the road it belonged to, its number, whence it came,
whither it went, by what train, at what hour. This dingy little building
was one link in that great chain of offices which enables every road in
the country to keep track of the cars it is using, to know where they
are, what progress they are making, and what service they are performing.
Every one who has seen a freight-train has noticed that it is almost
always composed of cars belonging to many different roads, and must have
wondered how these cars were kept accounted for. Every road would prefer
to use only its own cars, and to keep them on its own system, but this is
impossible. A car of sugar, for instance, sent from New York to Denver,
must pass over at least two different lines. It can go from New York to
Chicago over the New York Central, and from Chicago to Denver over the
Santa Fé. Now, if the car belonging to the New York Central in which the
sugar was loaded at New York be stopped at Chicago, the sugar must be
reloaded into another car belonging to the Santa Fé, a long and expensive
process to which neither the shipper nor the road would agree.
To avoid this loading and unloading, freight in car-load lots is always
sent through to its destination without change, no matter how many
roads the car must traverse, and when it reaches its destination and is
emptied, it is usually held until it can be loaded again before it is
sent back whence it came. When the traffic is not evenly balanced,--when
there is more freight, that is, being sent one way than another,--the
"empties" must be hauled back, and as "empties" produce no revenue, this
is a dead expense which cuts deeply into the earnings. The roads which
use a car must pay the road which owns it a fee of fifty cents for every
day they keep it in their possession, whether loaded or empty; hence the
road holding it tries to keep it moving, and when business is slack and
it is not needed, gets it back to its owner as quickly as possible. If it
is damaged in an accident on a strange road, it must be repaired before
it is returned to its owner; if it is totally destroyed, it must be paid
for.
It is the duty of the conductor of every freight-train, as soon as he
reaches a terminal, to mail to the superintendent of car service at
headquarters, a report giving the initial and number of every car in his
train, its contents, destination, and the hour of its departure from one
terminal and arrival at another. These reports, as they come in from
day to day, are entered in ledgers and enable the superintendent of car
service to note the progress of every car, and to determine the per diem
due its owner. These accounts are balanced every month.
The books at headquarters are always, of necessity, at least three days
behind, since the conductors' reports must come in from distant parts
of the road; but reports so old as that are of small service in tracing
a car, so it is the duty of the employees of the yardmaster's office to
keep a daily record of the movement of cars, which shall be up-to-date
and instantly available. Every train which enters the yards is met by
a yard-clerk, book in hand, who makes a note of the number and name of
every car as it passes him. The men who do this gain an amazing facility,
and as the cars rush past, jot down numbers and initials as unconcernedly
as though they had all the time in the world at their disposal. Allan had
observed this more than once, and had often wondered how it was possible
for a man to write down accurately the number of a car which had flashed
past so rapidly that he himself was not able to distinguish it.
There was a train coming in at the moment, and Allan paused to watch the
accountant with his note-book; then he went on to the office to leave the
two letters addressed to John Marney, the yardmaster, a genial Irishman
with bronzed face and beard tinged with gray, who knew the yards and the
intricacies of "making up" better than most people know the alphabet.
Allan knew him well, for many an evening had he spent in the little
shanty, where conductors and brakemen assembled, listening to tales
of the road--tales grave and gay, of comedy and tragedy--yes, even of
ghosts! If I stopped to tell a tenth of them, this book would never be.
finished!
"How are ye, Allan?" the yardmaster greeted him, as he opened the door.
"So ye've got a new job?"
"Yes, sir; official mail-carrier," and he handed him the letters.
"Hum," grunted Marney; "this road never was over-liberal. You're
beginnin' at th' bottom, fer sure!"
"Just where I ought to begin! I've got to learn the ropes before I can
begin to climb."
"Well, it won't take ye long, my boy; I know that," said Marney, his eyes
twinkling. "You'll soon begin t' climb, all right; they can't kape ye
down!"
"I fully expect to be superintendent some day," said Allan, laughing.
"Of course ye will!" cried the other. "I don't doubt it--not fer a
minute. Yes--an' I'll live t' see it! I'll be right here where I've
allers been; an ye mustn't fergit old Jack Marney, me boy."
"I won't," Allan promised, still laughing. "I'll always speak to you, if
I happen to think of it."
"Let me give you one piece of advice," went on Marney, with sudden
earnestness. "You'll be knockin around these yards more or less now, all
th' time, an' if ye want t' live t' be suprintindint, you've got t' kape
your eyes open. Now moind this: when you're crossin' th' yards, niver
think of anything but gittin' acrost; niver step on a track without
lookin' both ways t' see if anything's comin; an' if anything _is_ comin'
an' you're at all doubtful of bein' able t' git acrost ahead of it at an
ordinary walk, don't try. Give it th' right o' way. I've been workin'
in these yards goin' on forty year, an' I've managed t' kape all my
arms an' legs with me by allers rememberin' that rule. Th' boys used t'
laugh at me, but them that started in when I did are ayther sleepin' in
th' cimitery, or limpin' around on one leg, or eatin' with one hand. A
railroad yard is about th' nearest approach to a human slaughter-house
there is on this earth. Don't you be one o' th' victims."
"I'll certainly try not to," Allan assured him, and went out with a
livelier sense of the dangers of the yard than he had ever had before;
and, indeed, the yardmaster had not overstated them, though the crushing
and maiming and killing which went on there were due in no small degree
to the carelessness and foolhardiness of the men, who grew familiar with
danger and contemptuous of it from looking it every day in the face, and
took chances which sooner or later ended in disaster.
The person Allan had next to find was the master-mechanic, whose office
was a square, one-storied building behind the great shops which closed in
the lower end of the yards. He knew the shops thoroughly, for he had been
through them more than once under Jack Welsh's guidance, and had spent
many of his spare moments there, for there was a tremendous fascination
about the intricate and mammoth machinery which filled them, almost
human in its intelligence, and with which so many remarkable things were
accomplished.
So on he went, past the great roundhouse where stood the mighty engines
groomed ready for the race, or being rubbed down by the grimed and
sweaty hostlers after a hundred-mile run; past the little shanty with
"21" in big figures on its door--headquarters of Section Twenty-One, and
receptacle for hand-car and tools,--the hand-car which he had pumped
along the track so many times, the tools with which his hands had grown
familiar. The door of the "long-shop" lay just beyond, and he entered
it, for the shortest path to the master-mechanic's office lay through
the shops; and Allan knew that he would probably find the official he
was seeking somewhere among them, inspecting some piece of machinery, or
overseeing some important bit of work.
The "long-shop," so named from its peculiar shape, very long and narrow,
is devoted wholly to repairing and rebuilding engines. Such small
complaints as leaking valves and broken springs and castings may be
repaired in the roundhouse, as the family medicine-chest avails for minor
ailments; but for more serious injuries the engines must be taken to
the experts in the long shop, and placed on one of the operating-tables
there, and taken apart and put together and made fit for service again.
When the injuries are too severe--when, in other words, it would cost
more to rebuild the engine than the engine is worth--it is shoved along
a rusty track back of the shop into the cemetery called the "bone-yard,"
and there eventually dismantled, knocked to pieces, and sold for
"scrap." That is the sordid fate, which, sooner or later, overtakes the
proudest and swiftest empress of the rail.
In the long-shop, four or five engines are always jacked up undergoing
repairs; each of them has a special gang of men attached to it, under a
foreman whose sole business it is to see that that engine gets back into
active service in the shortest possible time.
To the inexperienced eye, the shop was a perfect maze of machinery.
Great cranes ran overhead, with chains and claws dangling; shafting
whirred and belts rattled; along the walls were workbenches, variously
equipped; at the farther end were a number of drills, and beyond them
a great grindstone which whirred and whirred and threw out a shower of
sparks incessantly, under the guidance of its presiding genius, a little,
gray-haired man, whose duty it was to sharpen all the tools brought to
him. There was a constant stream of men to and from the grindstone,
which, in consequence, was a sort of centre for all the gossip of the
shops. Once the grindstone had burst, and had carried the little man with
it through the side of the shop, riding a great fragment much as Prince
Feroze-shah rode his enchanted horse; and though there was no peg which
he could turn to assure a safe landing, he _did_ land safely, and next
day superintended the installation of a new stone, from which the sparks
were soon flying as merrily as ever.
And even if the visitor was not confused by this tangle of machinery,
he was sure to be confounded by the noise, toward which every man in
the shop contributed his quota. The noise!--it is difficult to give an
adequate idea of that merciless and never-ceasing din. Chains clanked,
drills squeaked, but over and above it all was the banging and hammering
of the riveters, and, as a sort of undertone, the clangour from the
boiler-shop, connected with the long-shop by an open arch. The work of
the riveters never paused nor slackened, and the onlooker was struck with
wonder and amazement that a human being could endure ten hours of such
labour!
Allan, closing behind him the little door by which he had entered, looked
around for the tall form of the master-mechanic. But that official was
nowhere in sight, so the boy walked slowly on, glancing to right and left
between the engines, anxious not to miss him. At last, near the farthest
engine, he thought that he perceived him, and drew near. As he did so,
he saw that an important operation was going forward. A boiler was being
lowered to its place on its frame. A gang of men were guiding it into
position, as the overhead crane slowly lowered it, manipulated by a lever
in the hands of a young fellow whose eyes were glued upon the signalling
hand which the foreman raised to him.
"Easy!" the foreman shouted, his voice all but inaudible in the din.
"Easy!" and the boiler was lowered so slowly that its movement was
scarcely perceptible.
[Illustration: "'LOOK OUT!' HE CRIED, AND SEIZING HIM BY THE ARM, DRAGGED
HIM SHARPLY BACKWARDS."]
There was a pause, a quick intaking of breath, a straining of muscles--
"Now!" yelled the foreman, and with a quick movement the young fellow
threw over the lever and let the boiler drop gently, exactly in place.
The men drew a deep breath of relief, and stood erect, hands on hips,
straightening the strained muscles of their backs.
There was something marvellous in the ease and certainty with which the
crane had handled the great weight, responsive to the pressure of a
finger, and Allan ran his eyes admiringly along the heavy chains, up to
the massive and perfectly balanced arm--
Then his heart gave a sudden leap of terror. He sprang forward toward the
young fellow who stood leaning against the lever.
"Look out!" he cried, and seizing him by the arm, dragged him sharply
backwards.
The next instant there was a resounding crash, which echoed above the din
of the shop like a cannon-shot above the rattle of musketry, and a great
block smashed the standing-board beside the lever to pieces.