Conductor (railway)

“ So I shall either pull the whole train into the yard or get permission from the yardmaster to cut off on the main, and like an orthodox conductor, leave them for the night men to switch out. We conductors feel that, as a switch engine lies around the most of the time, it can always do at least one more job, besides having time to shove us out of the yard and over the hill. ”

“ Such is the commanding cry which rings out in a Canadian railway-station when a train is quite ready to start. "All aboard!" shouts the conductor as he walks briskly alongside the train. In climb the waiting passengers, and without further warning the big, ponderous engine begins to move; and as it moves, the big bell which it carries begins to toll, and keeps on tolling until the train is well clear of the station. There is no string of guards and porters crying, "Take your seats, please!" and no ringing of a station bell, as in England. The conductor is the master of the train. ”

“ Remind your conductor that when he fails to read the orders to the engineman in person and sends them forward by the porter or the head brakeman, that is the very trip the orders get torn or smeared so that a fatal mistake results. When a passenger train breaks in two the air usually sets on both portions. It fails to do so when bums or misplaced safety chains have turned the angle cocks; and that is the time there should be a trainman riding in the rear car. Men will tell you so and so cannot happen, but next week it does happen just the same. ”

“ In the great English cities and towns, the stations are vast iron, glass-roofed structures, kept in excellent order. The waiting-rooms are divided into first, second, and third class, and the door opening upon the platform is not opened until a certain time before the train starts. Porters in uniform take the luggage to the train, and the "guard" who acts as conductor knows nothing about any railway train connections or line beyond his own. The passenger is supposed to know all that sort of thing, and he who "wants to know, you know," is at once recognized as an American. ”

“ You understand, of course, that we have no conductors who cannot run an engine. We will arrange, without money loss to you, for you to fire two or three years. When you assure us of your ability to run an engine we will begin to commence to talk about making you a conductor." Later on a man with this splendid all-around training could have specialized along the line of his greatest aptitude. We would not see freight tied up in terminals waiting for firemen, with a board full of extra brakemen. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The man in charge of the dining car should be called steward, because he cannot conduct a car even to a side track. He should be under the control of the train conductor, whom the superintendent can hold responsible for the entire train performing proper public service. A good, honest passenger conductor can secure and retain more business for the company than two traveling passenger agents. The conductor cannot do this if the dining car man is unwilling to send promptly a pot of coffee to the shabby little sick woman in the chair car whose daughters are going to buy tourist tickets next year. ”

“ At the end of the division, if a through train, it will be promptly transferred to another road crew with another engine, and so on. Each conductor takes the running slip for each car in his train. He also makes a report, giving the cars in his train by numbers and initials, whether loaded or empty, how secured ”

“ All men are students of practical psychology, whether conscious of the fact or not. The conductor found that to hold his job he must do well those things for which the superintendent and the division officials were responsible. So the bigger thief the conductor became the more careful was he about other duties. He was a crank on train rules, perhaps, or made courtesy to the public his watchword. All of this stood him well in hand. Sooner or later the spotter caught him and the auditor requested the general manager to order his discharge. ”

“ The brave station agent is an old man now, and one of his legs is shorter than the other,—the one that was shot that night. The baby, having recovered from her severe tussle with colic and paregoric, is now one of the most charming women in a Western city. The conductor of the soldier train is at this writing a general superintendent of a well-known railway. ”

“ It is also evident that it is absolutely impossible to make any accidental contact with any other conductor, or vice versa, or to imperil the lives of the public in any possible manner. The conductor having a continuous support, and always being parallel with the supporting rail, a safe contact under high rates of speed is insured, and as the guide-beam holding the conductor is readily bent to conform to the curves, all difficulty in forming or rounding curves is eliminated. ”

“ His duties are to keep the record of the train, the time, numbers of cars, etc.; to see that the brakemen regulate the speed when necessary, and to keep a general watch. The calculations necessary to make a 75-mile trip and get over the line without wasting time are often considerable, and an inexperienced conductor can easily keep himself in a worry for the whole trip. Often he cannot go more than ten miles after making way for a passenger train before another overtakes him ”

“ All orders are given to the engineer as well as to the conductor. Every order sent to a conductor in a train is made in duplicate, and one copy of it is given to the conductor and the other to the engineer. It is a rule with railway companies that if anything should happen to disable the conductor, or in any way prevent his proceeding with his train, the engineer is to immediately take charge of the train and handle it into the terminal. ”

“ The third rail or contact conductor is made in sections or blocks of any desired length, which sections are normally dead but become automatically alive when a train enters thereupon, and dead when the train leaves the section. ”

“ The cars are rather stuffy, and, like the train cars, are narrow and low. At each end is a small partitioned-off “cab,” where sits a motor-man. No tickets are issued from the booking-office; but, as in an omnibus, the conductor comes round and collects the fares, giving a punched voucher in return, which is retained by the traveller.
THE LIVERPOOL OVERHEAD ELECTRIC RAILWAY
There are few overhead, or, rather, elevated, railways in the world. ”

“ At the Paris Electrical Exhibition, the current was conveyed through two separate conductors making sliding or rolling contact with the carriage, whereas in the electric railway now in course of construction in the north of Ireland (which when completed will have a length of twelve miles) a separate conductor will be provided by the side of the railway, and the return circuit completed through the rails themselves, which in that case need not be insulated ”

“ 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. ”

“ Most freight conductors carry these last for a small sum (contrary to railroad regulations) , and I have seen twenty or thirty cotton-pickers in one empty car on 72their way to the cotton-fields. If you can convince the conductor that you are really destitute and hunting work, more likely than not he will not only carry you free, but feed you on the road as well. I have heard of this being done in many cases.
73 CHAPTER IX Toronto—An Interest in a Mine—The Railway Strike of 1894—Stranded at La Junta, Colorado—Strike Incidents—Troops called out. ”

“ You look forward, and see lights down the track. Drawing in like a turtle, you tell the conductor. "What is it, Joe?" and the brakeman replies "Nothin'." The conductor puts his watch to his ear. Has it stopped? With rattle and roar the engineer keeps launching the train into the midnight. A shrill shriek of the locomotive whistles you up, and you are on your feet like a cat. The brakeman runs up his little iron ladder, the speed slackens, the train comes to a dead halt. It is Genesee, and one grateful passenger leaves that frantic caboose, to set foot in it, as he fervently prays, "nevermore." ”

“ Men swarm upon the steps, clog the platforms, pack the baggage-car, thrust the women aside, stick to the cowcatcher and clamber on the roofs of the coaches. Over the roughest track on earth, which winds and twists and skirts the creek most of the way, the train rattles and jolts and pitches. The conductor’s job is no sinecure, as he squeezes through the dense mass that leaves him without sufficient elbow-room to “punch in the presence of the passenjare.” ”

“ Maybe you think the conductor of a passenger train is only the man who takes tickets and says “All Aboard.” But he really is the boss of the whole train. Even the engineer must follow his signals. That’s why they call the conductor the Captain.
The brakeman is the conductor’s helper. Together they collect tickets or fares and help passengers on and off at stations.
On the slick, fast trains called streamliners the conductor has quite a job to do. Many of the passengers are making long trips, so they have complicated tickets that allow them to stop at several places and then come home again. ”

“ When any section of a train is unable to make the specified time, the conductor will drop a man, with danger signals, to warn the following train. It is the duty of the conductor of every train, when the train stops for any cause, to immediately protect the rear end of his train as per rule 133. ”

“ The same thing might be said of a railroad conductor; for, every day in his life, he takes the exclusive control of a train full of passengers of as different dispositions as they are of different countenances. Now, he meets [Pg 54] with a testy, quarrelsome old fellow, who is given to fault-finding, and who blows him up at every meeting. Now, with a querulous old maid, who is in continual fear lest the train run off the track, the boiler burst, or the conductor palm off some bad money on her. ”

“ As it came to a stop the conductor called out in a loud voice:
"Hugson's Siding!"
At once a little girl rose from her seat and walked to the door of the car, carrying a wicker suit-case in one hand and a round bird-cage covered up with newspapers in the other, while a parasol was tucked under her arm. The conductor helped her off the car and then the engineer started his train [Pg 14] again, so that it puffed and groaned and moved slowly away up the track. ”

“ He does not assume the duties of the conductor as to those things which are purely « 64 » local to the train, and the brakemen and fireman are properly held to be under his orders through the conductor and engineman. The trainmen are not, by the presence of the Pilot, relieved from the usual obligation to protect the train and perform other duties connected with it or required by the rules. ”

“ On every train of three cars—one for baggage and two for passengers—are thirteen men. First a manager or conductor who has general supervision, a locomotive engineer and stoker, two ticket takers, two brakemen for each car, and two men to handle baggage and express packages—all of them being arrayed in the most resplendent uniforms, the conductor having the appearance of a major-general on dress parade. Freight trains are run upon the same system and at a similar expense. ”

“ The man primarily responsible for the movement of the trains is not the conductor or engineer but the chef de gare, or station-master. He, or his deputy if the station is a large one with many trains, must be on hand when each train pulls in, and give the signal for its departure. ”

“ To-night the two locomotives should both remain attached to the train, and pull it entirely over the divide together—the helping engine being compelled, of course, to go on as far as the next station, Piedmont.
But the conductor, being a man of routine, does it in his ordinary summer way, by the flying switch, and sends the helping locomotive away. This giving its warning toot, uncouples from the second engine, runs ahead of it, and making a switch into the Y, is ready for its return to Evanston. ”

“ Looking far across the valley we try to make out the distant mountains, but only dim phantoms of gigantic size are seen, gliding stealthily away in the darkness.
We make interest with the conductor and engineer of the train for a special purpose. We are in search of a new sensation, to wit, such as may be derived from a night-ride on the engine, where one can see all the engineer sees, which is indeed little enough. The headlight of the locomotive throws its rays dimly on the darkness for a few rods in advance of the train. ”