Express train

“ Before starting the Express train, we must not fail to note one new class of passengers, recruited by the speed of railways, viz., the number of gentlemen in breeches, boots, and spurs, with their pinks just peeping from under their rough jackets, who, during the season, get down to Aylesbury, Bletchley, and even Wolverton, to hunt, and back home again to dinner. ”

“ The word is most frequently used with the idea of something done with a definite purpose; the term “express train,” now meaning one that travels at a high speed over long distances with few intermediate stoppages, was, in the early days of railways, applied to what is now usually called a “special,” i.e. a train not running according to the ordinary time-tables of the railway company, but for some specific purpose, or engaged by a private person. ”

“ Again, all trainmen understand that an express train has no business to run past a station while accommodation trains are discharging passengers. It is by no means an uncommon occurrence, however, to see an express train disregard these positive instructions, on the strength of hand motions given by trainmen on the accommodation train to the effect that they are about to start, and that the way is safe and clear for the flyer. ”

“ We act as the owners of a railway would act if they allowed luggage trains, express trains, and horse-drawn trams to run upon one pair of rails. The radiating causeways, as I conceive them, would be entirely free from this difficulty. Neither the traffic of cross streets, nor foot passengers, nor slow-going carts and vehicles would be permitted to interfere with the equable running of fast cars. ”

“ After that she was put upon a construction train, and made to drag outfit cars from station to station along the line. But even here she had to be followed up by a machine-shop to keep her on her wheels.
In time she came to be the talk of the whole system. If a man had a special or a fast freight behind him, he would invariably ask the despatcher where the 13 was, and he looked for her at every curve until he had found and passed her. She was always "due" to jump the track or lie down between stations in the face of the fast express. ”

“ The train is an express, and as it dashes past the fragile, roughly-built little stations with which the road is bordered, it is amusing, or rather I should say it would be amusing, did it not suggest the idea of accidents, to see the signal-flags displayed by peasant-women in every variety of attitude and costume. ”

“ Also, for the security of the workmen employed in maintaining the track as on an ordinary railway—the system of “packing” the sleepers and inspecting the various parts being common to all railways—a clear space of three feet is left between the passing trains, and strong posts, ten feet apart, are fixed along the centre of the space for the labourers to hold on by when an express rushes by. ”

“ To-day, though our express speed is many times greater than that of the lumbering coaches, our carriages comparatively luxurious, the risk practically nil, the same wish lurks in the breast of ninety-nine out of a hundred railway passengers—to spend the shortest time in the train that the time-table permits of. ”

“ State Express between New York and Buffalo, and, by means of the almost marvellous resources of its advertising department, made it the most famous train in the world. Save for a single parlor car or two, it has always been a day-coach train, no excess fare being charged. ”

“ It’s right the conductor, or chief of the train, or whatever you call him, should know what has happened.”
“Why, man, can’t you see? While the train is travelling express, every one must stay on board it; if it slows, it is possible to leave it.”
“Who would want to leave it?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said the General, rather testily. “Any way, the thing’s done now.”
The train had pulled up in obedience to the signal of alarm given by some one in the sleeping-car, but by whom it was impossible to say. Not by the porter, for he seemed greatly surprised as the conductor came up to him. ”

“ Yet it is unusual, as the detective imagined, for a passenger, and especially an Italian, to lie under an open window in a sleeping-berth when travelling by express train before daylight in March.
Who opened that window, then, and why? Perhaps some further facts might be found on the outside of the car. With this idea, M. Floçon left it, and passed on to the line or permanent way.
Here he found himself a good deal below the level of the car. These sleepers have no foot-boards like ordinary carriages; access to them is gained from a platform by the steps at each end. ”

“ Not only are railways extending in all outlying parts of the world, but at home, where the territory is already everywhere intersected with lines, larger and heavier locomotives are being used, and longer runs without stopping are being made by our express trains. ”

“ Although the track was clear and straight, the driver kept a constant lookout, for he had no air, and the way the train was rolling it would be difficult for the trainmen to get to the brakes, and when they did get to them they were apt to be out of repair. Occasionally they crossed deep, narrow gullies on wooden bridges that shook as the engine struck them. These waterless streams in the West are treacherous. It is not enough to say that they are dry one hour and bank-full the next; for they will often fill to overflowing in a single minute. ”

“ The man is crazy, thought the operator, but he would try. As he rushed from the office a light engine was just pulling out of the siding to take water. This locomotive belonged to the crew of a work train, but the train had been left in the siding. The operator sprang into the cab, and shouted to the engineer to pull out and catch No. 8; "lap order," he added, and that was enough. The driver, without waiting for his fireman who was some yards behind, tugging at a stiff switch in an effort to close it, pulled the throttle open and bounded away up the steep grade behind the passenger train. ”

“ If we study the De Witt Clinton train, we shall learn several things. Both the engine and the coaches were small and light compared with those used now. With the great speed of to-day, all the parts of a train must be very heavy in order to cling to the track. The engine of those days had four light driving wheels, and the engineer, it would seem, had to operate his engine while facing wind and storm. The cab looks very much like a common express wagon made heavier than usual; and if we look at the passenger wagons, we shall see why passenger cars are called coaches. ”

“ The engineer, to avoid running by a red flag, turned his face to the fireman's side and refused to see the danger signal. Now he was near enough to whistle the other engines "down," and the enginemen pulling the passenger train shut off, and when the driver of the light engine saw a chimney of white steam shoot up from each of the forward locomotives, he knew they had quit, and slowed his own machine accordingly. When they had come up to the train, the operator ran to the rear of No. 8, shouted, "lap order, back up," and hurried over to the head end. ”

“ The conductor and the captain of the guard, composed of government scouts, took a stand on the rearmost flat-car, and when I got a signal I opened the throttle and began to poke the blunt end of the construction train into the darkness. Ordinarily I hate running backward at night, but in a case of this kind it is a real relief to know that there are a dozen or more well-armed soldiers between you and whatever the darkness holds. Three or four men with white lights were stationed at intervals along the tops of the ten or twelve cars that made up the train. ”

“ The big engine jumped the rails, crashed up on the station platform, and stopped, without being overturned; three cars went off with it. The brakemen came running up along the train, and the engineer and fireman climbed down out of the cab, swearing and looking for the operator. Just then the express could be heard rushing along from the east, and two brakemen started up the track to head it off, on the dead run. At 6.16 the train appeared in sight. When she came around the curve and saw the freight she just stiffened right out and slid. ”

“ In “Ralph on the Overland Express” the young engineer did some pretty big things for a new man at the throttle. He carried a train load of passengers through a snowstorm experience that made old veterans on the road take notice in an astonished way, and he made some record runs over the Mountain Division that established the service of the Great Northern as a standard model. ”

“ The engineer was doing the best he could with the old scrap heap, for there was a passenger train coming from the west, and the first siding was nearly ten miles away. It had been raining down the line the night before, and the parched plain was fresh and cool. ”

“ The drivers felt it instantly, and the danger of it, and opened their throttles and whistles and began to jam the train back regardless of brakes, and the conductor, taking something of the alarm that was in the cry of the locomotives, released the air. ”

“ Power which you see here is in its simplest form. These three giants are of the type which takes main-line express trains from King’s Cross, London, to Yorkshire, Newcastle, and Scotland. The one on the right, incidentally, is being swung round on a turntable by the man holding the lever. ”

“ On the London & North-Western there are more than sixty through down trains, taking no account of local trains, each day passing over the same line of tracks, among which are express trains which stop nowhere, way trains which stop everywhere, express-freight, way-freight, mineral trains and parcel trains. On the Midland road there are nearly twice as many similar trains on each track. On the Metropolitan railway the average interval is three and one-third minutes between trains. ”

“ To follow further the rapid development of the railroad in America would require many volumes. As the canal building fever had seized the fancy of the American public in preceding years, so a similar enthusiasm was instantly kindled in the new railroad, and railroad travel became immediately the most popular diversion. In a relatively few years a web of track carried the smoking locomotive and its rumbling train of cars throughout the country. Crude, and lacking almost every convenience of the passenger coach of the present day, the early railway carriage served fully its new-born function. ”

“ On shot the locomotive, like an arrow from the bow, the men throwing over the ties until the train was well nigh unloaded, when just as they were close to the curve by which the train arrives at the station, they saw the dreaded cars strike a tie, or something equally of service, and with a desperate plunge rush down the embankment, some fifteen feet, to the little valley, and creek below. ”

“ When we got tired of packing we quit picking, and thanking the good people for the treat, we board the car again and are soon spinning up the line among the apricot and cherry orchards, the trees loaded with fruit.{111}
Arriving at our destination, we bid our friend, the conductor, goodbye, and in a few minutes we reach the much-inquired-for “narrow-gauge railroad station,” where we wait half an hour for the train. We find the track composed of three rails; and as though to demonstrate to us the use of the third rail, a freight train comes along made up of both narrow and broad-gauge cars. ”

“ To secure perfect safety in ascending and descending such a tremendous grade, the track is composed of three rails bolted to a trestle of heavy timbers, the centre rail being an immense wrought-iron ladder, with rounds four inches apart, into which the cogs of the locomotive drive-wheel fit, and thus drag the train up the steep as well as control it, with aid of air-brakes, in making the descent. One and a half hours are consumed in making the round trip, and the fare is six dollars, but the view from the summit is so magnificent that it fully justifies the expense. ”

“ Sharp on the minute an unseen hand—at least I never saw it—slams the doors and coyly—you might almost say secretively—the train moves out of the terminal. It moves smoothly and practically without jarring sounds. There is no shrieking of steel against steel. It is as though the rails were made of rubber and the wheel-flanges were faced with noise-proof felt. No conductor comes to punch your ticket, no brakeman to bellow the stops, no train butcher bleating the gabbled invoice of his gumdrops, bananas and other best-sellers. ”

“ If every holiday recollection of my youth, every escape from town to country, be associated with the railway, I must feel towards it otherwise than did my father, upon whose middle age it came as a monstrous iron innovation. The locomotive is one of the wonders of modern childhood. Children crowd upon a bridge to see the train pass beneath. Little boys strut along the streets puffing and whistling in imitation of the engine. All that romance, silly as it looks, becomes sacred in afterlife. Besides, when it is not underground in a foul London tunnel, a train is a beautiful thing. ”

“ We wait patiently upon a long siding until everything else has been moved—through fast expresses heavily laden with opulent-looking Pullmans, jerky little suburban trains, long draughts of empty coaches, being drawn by consequential switch-engines in and out of the train-shed of the passenger station. Finally a certain semaphore blade drops, we cross over to the important main line and begin pulling on a sharp curve, across the river, clear of the station with its confusion, through and past the city to a busy division yard. ”