Freight train

“ In a picture view Ralph could see some belated locomotive breasting the drifts of lonely gully and curve. He could imagine a cumbersome freight feeling its way slowly past snow-clouded signals, marooned station men with their instruments knocked dead through fallen wires, and the venturesome repair crew wading through deep drifts to locate the break. ”

“ The use of steel passenger cars calls for larger locomotives in that class of service, and the American policy, consistently followed for years, of increasing the freight-train load, required the use of more powerful locomotives in freight service. The average freight-train load, in tons of freight, grew from less than 400 tons in 1910 to more than 700 tons in 1920. Not all of this increase is to be attributed to the heavier locomotive. Reductions in grades and curvature have made heavier trains possible. ”

“ On most railroads the freight trainmen—engineers, conductors, brakemen, and firemen—are the most numerous and prominent class, as the number of freight trains is generally larger than that of passenger trains; and among these men there are more brakemen than anything else, because there are two or more on every train, while there is but one of each of the other classes. ”

“ 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 « 13 » 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. ”

“ The transportation of passengers on a freight train, or on a mixed train, is subordinate to the transportation of freight,-a mere incident to the business of carrying freight. To furnish such cars as are necessary for the suitable and proper carriage of passengers involves the necessity of adopting that mode of carrying passengers which is best adapted to secure their safety and convenience. This can be accomplished better by operating a separate passenger train than by operating a mixed train ”

“ All regular freight trains, extras, and work extras will pass into and through all stations and will approach all isolated side tracks, and also all water tanks and coal sheds with train under full control, expecting to find trains at such points. ”

“ The train is practical only because the railroad company maintains freight and passenger stations, foreign and domestic agents, and all the detailed [Pg 277] force that a modern railroad requires. Furthermore, it sends its trains over certain routes at certain specified intervals, ready to move freight and passengers as they are ready to be moved. So must a shipping line be operated. Ships must be where they are needed, else freight accumulates or is diverted to other lines. ”

“ And while the freight train is traveling you go over the tops of the cars and feed and water the mules and horses every day. It’s just like a farm on wheels. I’ve walked over the top of a freight train lots of times—when it was going pretty fast, too. And once when we moved from Ohio to a new job in Louisiana we had chickens on the flatcar, and a cow that gave milk in one of the boxcars. ”

“ Always there was the track demanding attention,—an endless round of work which would never be completed. Always there were the trains rushing over it in endless procession,—the luxurious Limited, sending every other train headlong into a siding out of the way; the slower “accommodation,” which stops at every station along the road and is very popular with the farmers and dwellers at crossroads; the big through freight, drawn by a mighty giant of an engine, hauling two thousand tons of grain or beef or coal to the great Eastern market. ”

“ A freight train of 800 tons, running at 30 miles per hour, can be stopped in about 950 feet in 32 seconds, or in 300 feet and 11 seconds by an “emergency” application. Very few countries have applied continuous brakes to freight cars, except the United States and Canada, and (to some extent) Russia and New South Wales.
The improvement in train service has been even greater than that in train equipment, and this improvement has been in speed, accommodation, and number of trains. Among the notable runs are those across the American and European continents. ”

“ When the engine emerges from the paint-shop it is gorgeous and refulgent—brilliantly new. Unless it is going to foreign lands, when it must be partly dismantled and crated, it will ride its own wheels to the road which has purchased it. A string of new locomotives may be sprinkled through a freight train—never coupled together—in charge of an inspector from the locomotive company, who will bunk in one of the cabs and never leave his charges until they have been receipted for. ”

“ Regular freight-trains must make provision to leave the track clear for the passengers, while the extra freights, which have no regular schedule, creep from station to station as best they can, giving all the other trains a clear track—a sort of yellow dog which every one is privileged to kick.
All the regular trains, passenger and freight, run by the time-card. That is, each of them has its regular time for reaching and leaving every station on the road, and as long as all the trains are on time, things move smoothly and the dispatcher has an easy time of it. ”

“ Referring to Example 1, if train No. 1 is superior to No. 3, the rules should give it the right to pass, as No. 3 must keep out of its way and no order would be required. If No. 3 is the superior and is for any reason running slower than No. 1 and it is desired to permit the latter to pass, an order of this kind is needed. A regular freight train may be in the way of a special passenger train which it is necessary should pass the freight. The order may also be needed for two extras or for regular « 105 » trains of equal class. ”

“ 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. ”

“ French freight trains have no brakemen and the conductor rides in a caboose directly behind the coal car. Trains pulling into town from the north hit a grade curve close to the camp, up which they must pull very slowly. The camp guard kept a lookout; when a freight train with flat cars was sighted, word was immediately passed to the mess sergeant who with a number of K. P.s hurried to the tracks and boarded the slow-moving train ”

“ When railroad workers give a good look at a running train, they say that they’ve made a running inspection. Telegraph operators and station agents come out on the platform and make running inspections whenever trains go by.
The newest, fastest cars on both passenger and{44} freight trains get fewer hot boxes than old ones. Their axles have roller bearings to help them turn smoothly, and the oil in their journal boxes is supposed to last for a long time. Still, an inspector may forget to check the oil, or it may leak out. ”

“ When business is slack and few freight-trains are needed, that turn is often a long time coming; but when business is heavy it frequently happens that the road finds itself short of men and the same crew which has just brought in one train is compelled to take out another, and is sometimes on duty for sixteen, twenty-four, and even thirty-six hours at a stretch. ”

“ For do not forget that one of these biggest motor-trucks does not carry, or should not be permitted to carry, more than five tons of freight upon the public highroad, while a really good freight-train upon the railroad will carry all the way from three thousand tons upwards, and with a working crew of, at the most, six or seven men. To carry this minimum bulk of merchandise in five-ton trucks would entail the services of six hundred trucks and at least six hundred men. ”

“ A freight train is backed into a yard or sidetrack, and by reason of rough handling or carelessness a small collision occurs, and several cars loaded with valuable merchandise are jammed down and off the end of the track into the swamp. ”

“ While it is obvious that if the high-speed gasolene passenger-unit is introduced to any large extent in this country, we also shall have to speed up the freights that are interlarded between them, which will naturally mean the larger use of a high-speed and improved steam locomotive of comparatively moderate weight, and the use of comparatively small swift freight-trains, we shall have to abandon, for this sort of service at least, our American fetish of the excessively long and the excessively heavy freight-train. ”

“ A railroad yard is a noisy place. Usually the engineer can’t possibly talk with a switchman down the track, no matter how loud he shouts. So railroaders have{33} worked out a whole sign language in which they can talk to each other from a distance. The pictures tell what some of these special signals mean.
After a new freight train has been made up at the classification yard, a car inspector puts a blue flag on the engine and another on the caboose. Then he checks up carefully on the whole train to make sure everything is in good working order. ”

“ Have you not seen cars pulled to pieces in big trains, have you not seen freight delayed in a manner to suggest to an innocent bystander that the road was perhaps running its last train and giving its cars their last load?
The inevitable tendency of the big train is to hold back and combine in large lots cars destined to the same point and to the same consignee. When a whole train can be unloaded at the ship’s side at tidewater, or at a large consuming plant, the system is ideal. ”

“ Roads of dense traffic with much low-class freight, such as coal, coke, ore, pig iron, etc., to move, found it more economical to have large engines and heavy trains. The nature of the business demands a considerable supply always on hand. This permits waiting for full tonnage for every train. A few cars, more or less, at one end or the other of the line make no great difference to the shipper. These roads usually have more than one track and an old solid roadbed. ”

“ Passenger conductors and engineers, as well as passenger-engines, have regular runs, which they always make unless some accident prevents. Freight conductors and engineers are assigned to trains in the order in which they sign the book. There are in the employ of the road two men known as “callers,” whose sole business it is to notify the trainmen when they are wanted. For instance, three freight-trains are scheduled to leave, one at ten o’clock, another at 10.10, and a third at 10.20. ”

“ Car after car drifts down the hump and stops just where it should. When one freight train has been unscrambled,{30} another rolls up beneath the tower, and its cars, too, are shuffled. In just a few hours half a dozen trains have been broken up and made into new ones.
Some yards have extra inspectors who stand on top of a building and look down at the cars from above. They can see broken parts that the man in the inspection pit might miss. In other yards, a man is stationed beside the track that leads up to the hump. ”

“ These trains must work upon the track away from stations, often with a large force of men, and delays to their operations cause expense as well as hindrance to work. At the same time they must not be permitted to interfere with the passage of regular trains, nor of others more than can be avoided. The solving of this problem has been attempted in various ways. Some allow the "work train" to occupy the track by right, except that it must keep out of the way of regular trains. Some permit it to work under flag "until freight trains come in sight." ”

“ There should be, if possible, at least one telegraph office between those at which opposing trains receive meeting-orders.
Orders should not be sent an unnecessarily long time before delivery, or to points unnecessarily distant from where they are to be executed. No orders (except those affecting the train at that point) should be delivered to a freight train at a station where it has much work, until after the work is done. ”

“ Through express and mail trains have more than doubled in weight, and their speeds have increased thirty to forty per cent. The tonnage of an average freight train has been augmented four to six-fold, with reduction of the crews necessary to keep a given amount of tonnage in motion. ”

“ At each railway junction a record of the cars in every train is made. For through freight several fast freight lines have been organized under a separate management to operate between certain points over several roads. Some of these are simply formed by the coöperation of several roads, each of which assigns a certain number of cars to the line, which is placed in control of a general manager. Other fast freight lines are independent of the railways, which simply charge mileage for the cars carried over their lines. ”

“ He climbed down the embankment—and started through the greasewood to find a road, but a half-hour's search revealed not even a wagon track.
He retraced his steps to the track. Some wildcat engine or freight train might happen along. He must have a fire as a signal. His knife made no impression upon the rhinolike hide of the yucca, and the mesquite thorns quickly covered his hands with blood. Moreover, his pursuit of the train had made him very thirsty. But nowhere was there any sign of water.
It had grown dark and the wind had risen. Rand took refuge in the small arroyo beside the track. ”