Night train

“ The movement of the train seems, after sunset, particularly in the South where night fall is rapid, to take a quality of mystery. It glides through a landscape of which the smaller details are effaced, as are likewise effaced the details of the railway itself. And that rapid gliding brings home to one the instability of the hour, of the changing light, the obliterating form. It makes one feel that everything is, as it were, a mere vision; bends of poplared river with sunset redness in their grey swirls ”

“ Light and dark, day and night, are but as the lights of a station at which the train does not stop. They whisk past, gleaming bright but for a moment, and the world which came out of great twilight plunges again into it, perhaps to be remade and reillumined on some eternal morning. ”

“ From the windows of a night-express in Europe, or the older portions of the United States, one looks on houses and lights, cultivated fields, fences, and hedges; and, hurled as he may be through the darkness, he has a sense of companionship and semi-security. Far different is it when the long train is running over those two rails which, seen before night set in, seemed to meet on the horizon. ”

“ The railway carriage suddenly grows like night—with lamps, of course, unless you are in a slow local train, in which case lamps are not always provided. Then by and by the darkness outside the carriage window is touched by puffs of cloudy whiteness, then you see a blue light on the walls of the tunnel, then the sound of the moving train changes once more, and you are out in the good open air again, and grown-ups let the straps go. ”

“ At the end of half an hour the train stopped, and the conductor entered, with his rough coat, his board and hair so covered with snow that he looked like a Polar bear.
"Here we are at last!" said he, addressing the passengers, "and here, it seems, we must stay to-night. The worst part of the road is before us, and it would be perfect madness for us to try to go any further. All we can do is to make ourselves as comfortable as possible till morning." ”

“ Rude fates, hard hearts, and prisoning poverty.
[Pg 142]
THE RAILWAY STATION.
The darkness brings no quiet here, the light
No waking: ever on my blinded brain
The flare of lights, the rush, and cry, and strain,
The engines' scream, the hiss and thunder smite:
I see the hurrying crowds, the clasp, the flight,
Faces that touch, eyes that are dim with pain:
I see the hoarse wheels turn, and the great train
Move labouring out into the bourneless night.
So many souls within its dim recesses,
So many bright, so many mournful eyes:
Mine eyes that watch grow fixed with dreams and guesses ”

“ 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. ”

“ They work downtown somewhere and come up every night on this train. I always have to wake them up. The first man there gets off at 145th Street and the one by the door at 168th. We know practically all the regular passengers on the late night trains. Some work, while others are just rounders who are out every night, returning always on the same train with as much regularity as those who work. ”

“ To people unaccustomed to travel and not so familiar with railroads and steamboats, that change of scene and surroundings and the conveniences and inconveniences invented for the public are old stories and even tiresome ones, to board a train at night is by no means an uninteresting or unexciting experience. ”

“ TRAVEL The railroad track is miles away, And the day is loud with voices speaking, Yet there isn't a train goes by all day But I hear its whistle shrieking. All night there isn't a train goes by, Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming But I see its cinders red on the sky, And hear its engine steaming. My heart is warm with the friends I make, And better friends I'll not be knowing, Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take, No matter where it's going. ”

“ The night train-master will meet your needs. He will act as the agent of the railroad and arrange, while you hold the telephone receiver in your fingers, the entire schedule for you. Trains will be held, connections made; the telegraph is capable of arranging the details. If you demand speed, the railroad will give it to you—if you are willing to pay the price and give a release against damage to your precious bones. Increased speed means increased risk to your railroader.
Maude Adams uses a special many Saturday nights to carry her down to her Long Island farm at Ronkonkoma. ”

“ Few railroaders in train service can leave their homes in the morning, “double their runs,” and be home at night. The hard part of the business is that in most cases a man [Pg 420] will have to spend one night, occasionally two nights, out on the run. ”

“ I sit down, feeling very proud of myself. In all my hoboing it is the best bit of train-jumping I have done. I know that late at night one is always good for several stations on the last platform, but I do not care to trust myself at the rear of the train. At the first stop I run forward on the off-side of the train, pass the Pullmans, and duck under and take a rod under a day-coach. At the next stop I run forward again and take another rod. ”

“ The compartments are large, the beds good, the ventilation is scientific, and the motion easy. The springy gait [Pg 208] of the carriage rocks you to sleep. The attendants are all alive, and do not ask for or seem to expect fees. The train stops often and long enough after daylight to “refresh” the hungriest and thirstiest of mortals. At the tidy-looking stations—wooden, one-story, painted yellow, each with boxes of flowers in the windows—he finds glasses of delicious coffee or strong tea, “screeching” hot. The tea is served from the samovar, or big urn, and is on tap night and day. ”

“ At all times the native loves railway travelling, and, as he has no notion of time-tables, he often arrives at the station the night before, sleeps peacefully on the ground, and is in comfortable time for the first train in the morning. ”

“ It’s not often that the chaps find anything wrong. They may sometimes be half asleep when a train comes into a station in the middle of the night. You would be yourself. They ought to tap the axle-box, but they don’t.
“Many accidents take place that never get into the papers; many trains, full of passengers, escape being dashed to pieces by next door to a miracle. Nobody knows anything about it but the driver and the stoker. ”

“ As the express trains were almost invariably stopped at night, the expert travelled at night and slept by day. Months passed with only two or three "signals." These happened to be on [Pg 97] the train opposed to the one in which the detective was travelling at that moment. They brought out another man, and on his first trip, taken merely to "learn the road," the train was stopped in broad daylight. This time the stop proved to be a lucky one; for, as the engineer let off the air and slipped round a curve in a cañon, he found a rock as big as a box car resting on the track. ”

“ The night following our passage through Bira, I got to sleep about ten o’clock. At a quarter to eleven I woke with a start, for no apparent reason. D—— was sleeping soundly beside me, and my interpreter was snoring on an upper shelf. The train was toiling up hills slowly, and then dashing down the other side recklessly, or so it seemed to me. ”

“ The plan of spending our days visiting or sightseeing, passing to the next important point in the cool of the evening, and resting luxuriously for the night drawn up on some quiet sidetrack, works wonderfully well. There is something gorgeous in the idea of a special train, that moves when one pleases and rests when one desires ”

“ Since the day when he had heard from Katharine’s lips of her engagement, he had refrained from investing his dream of her with the details of real life. But the light of the late afternoon glowed green behind the straight trees, and became a symbol of her. The light seemed to expand his heart. She brooded over the grey fields, and was with him now in the railway carriage, thoughtful, silent, and infinitely tender; but the vision pressed too close, and must be dismissed, for the train was slackening. ”

“ Coming out of the lane along the darkness, with the dark space spreading down to the wind, and the twinkling lights of the station below, the far-off windy chuff of a shunting train, the tiny clink-clink-clink of the wagons blown between the wind, the light of Beldover-edge twinkling upon the blackness of the hill opposite, the glow of the furnaces along the railway to the right, their steps began to falter. They would soon come out of the darkness into the lights. ”

“ Everything takes a supernatural shape in the ghastly lamplight; the horses that have brought us here seem, on a sudden, slim and spectral; the long lines of railway carriages have a funereal look; the men, waiting about in their long black cloaks, become brigand-like and terrible to look at; one’s own shadow is mysteriously long and dark; one’s own voice sounds hollow and unearthly. It is like reading a scene from Mrs. Radcliff’s novels. But when once the train moves slowly off, and the blessed sun warms you, it is the very poetry of railway-travelling. ”

“ At dawn I was obliged to leave the express and wait at a junction for the local train which should bring me to my journey's end. Against a misty sky, filled with clouds, in the uncertain glimmering light, the silhouettes of the mountains softly massed themselves, surrounding with a vast amphitheatre the hideous buildings of the station, the long lines of empty cars, the idle locomotives. Near by some factory chimneys, tall and unsymmetrical, sent their smoke into the morning twilight. ”

“ If upon a summer evening one shall rest amid the sweet air and the rustling trees upon the hill-top, he may hear coming up from this dusky, grimy blackness of the mills and the railway the soughing of the blowers of the blast-furnaces, the sharp crack of the exploding gases in the white-hot iron, the shriek of the locomotive whistle and all night long the roar and rattle of the passing trains, but so mellowed by the distance that the harsh sounds seem almost musical—almost as pleasant and as easily endured as the voices of nature. ”

“ The low, monotonous, hum of the flying wheels on the heavy steel rails; the steady, easy, motion of the express as it flew over the miles of well ballasted track; the dim light of the curtained berth, and the quiet of the Pullman, soon lulled the tired traveler to sleep. Mile after mile and mile after mile was marked off, with the steady regularity of time itself, by the splendidly equipped train as it rushed through the darkness with its sleeping passengers. ”

“ "It was on the two little seats facing each other that are always the last ones left on the train. I was going up to New York to see my sister and spend the night. He had on a dress suit and patent leather shoes, and I couldn't keep my eyes off him, but every time he looked at me I had to pretend to be looking at the advertisement over his head. When we came into the station he was next to me, and his white shirt-front pressed against my arm, and so I told him I'd have to call a policeman, but he knew I lied. ”

“ Many earnest young writers with a flow of adjectives and a passion for detail have attempted to describe the quiet of a great city at night, when a few million people within it are sleeping, or ought to be. They work in the clang of a distant owl car, and the roar of an occasional "L" train, and the hollow echo of the footsteps of the late passer-by. They go elaborately into description, and are strong on the brooding hush, but the thing has never been done satisfactorily. ”

“ As the train stops you drowse if you have been waking, and wake if you have been in a doze; but in any case you are aware of the locomotive hissing and coughing beyond the station, of flaring gas-jets, of clattering feet of passengers getting on and off; then of some one, conductor or station-master, walking the whole length of the train; and then you are aware of an insane satisfaction in renewed flight through the darkness. You think hazily of the folk in their beds in the town left behind, who stir uneasily at the sound of your train's departing whistle ”

“ Be- yond the garden the country is still sleeping under a curtain of fog, and in the distance, coming from an invisible valley, I hear the very feeble sound of a locomotive whistle. It is the train that bears Joseph and my destiny. I can eat no breakfast; it seems to me that something huge and heavy fills my stomach. ”

“ The boys do say that every once in a while there is a train made up of a locomotive, a baggage-car, and a Pullman sleeper that comes down the road a hustlin', and goes off the Muskahoot bridge into the river. I never saw no such train myself, but there's lots of folks living along this road that have seen it, and you'd have hard work to convince 'em that it isn't the ghost of the wrecked train. ”