Railway driver

“ One old driver, very proud of his machine, was said to have sworn to the officials that he would bring his engine and train from London to the railway town, a distance of seventy-seven miles, in an hour, dead time, with perfect safety, and he was only prevented from accomplishing the feat by the strong stand made by the officials, who threatened him with instant dismissal if he should exceed the limit of speed prescribed in the time-tables. ”

“ The best position in the service, apart from that of superintendence, is in the driving of an express engine, and the greatest honour that can be conferred on an engine-driver is to select him to take charge of the locomotive on a Royal train. Only the best men are picked out to drive the Queen, and the best engine on the road is p. 231detailed for the Royal service; and although on those occasions railway officials, who are the superiors of the driver, get on the foot-boards, the latter is for the time being master of the situation. ”

“ Now, every railway man knows that when one thing goes wrong on a railroad, two more mishaps are sure to follow; so, when the rescuing crew heard over the wire that the train they had left on a siding, having been butted by another train heading in, had started back down grade, spilled over at the lower switch, and blocked the main line, they began to expect something to happen at home.
However, the driver had to go when the old [Pg 95] man was in the cab and the G.M. with a whole army of engineers and workmen waiting for him at Pee-Wee ”

“ Captain Galton who some years ago was the government railway inspector, in one of his reports relates the following singular circumstance. “A girl who was in love with the engine-driver of a train, had engaged to run away from her father’s house in order to be married. She arranged to leave by a train this man was driving. Her father and brother got intelligence of her intended escape ”

“ We shall not forever keep up the absurdity of a Pullman conductor’s snap and a train conductor’s busy job. When we each own at least the sleeping and parlor cars local to our own rails, the conductor will run the train and perhaps work the sleepers, while a collector will work the coaches and chair cars. When oil burners and automatic stokers have revolutionized the fireman’s duties, when train orders are unknown, when the position or color of a signal is the only instruction, we may transfer the command of the train to one of the men in the engine. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They look with dull, unseeing gaze on this railway train, the engine, the carriages, which will take their lads away from them. Many have climbed up on the steps of the carriages, hanging on to the handrails, so as to be near the lads as long as possible. Their position is a perilous one, the sergeants as well as the railway officials have to take hold of them by the waist and to drag them forcibly down to the ground before they will give way. ”

“ Behind this coach is an ordinary train, and the men you see here are measuring, with the help of recording instruments, the amount of pull, in pounds, on the drawbar which con-nects the locomotive with the rest of the train. They take other measurements too, and can find out a great deal about the locomotive’s performance under all sorts of conditions of running. So scientists and technicians help to run the railway. But there are men in equally vital jobs in all parts of the railway service, and on all of them depends the smooth running of this great organisation. ”

“ The yardmaster has one caller and the roundhouse foreman another. The two callers go up the same street, sometimes together, and call men in adjoining houses, an expensive duplication of work. The trainmaster rides in the caboose and the traveling engineer—road foreman is the modern term—in the engine, but neither dares presume to know the business of the other. Every trainmaster should be a traveling engineer and every traveling engineer should be a trainmaster. That will be the case when we train officials along more definite lines. Honey bees feed their future queen a special food. ”

“ A young Englishman stood watching a freight train pulling out of a new town, over a new track. A pinch-bar, left carelessly by a section gang, caught in the cylinder-cock rigging and tore it off.
Swearing softly, the driver climbed down and began the nasty work of disconnecting the disabled machinery. He was not a machinist. Not all engine-drivers can put a locomotive together. In fact the best runners are just runners. ”

“ The passenger-train conductor has in many respects the most difficult position in the railroad ranks. He should be a first-class freight conductor and a polished gentleman to boot. But in his long apprenticeship on a freight train he has very likely been learning how not to fulfil the additional requirements of a passenger conductorship. In that service he could be uncouth and even boorish, and still fill his position tolerably well; now he feels the need of a life-time of tuition in dealing with the diverse phases of human nature met with on a passenger 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. ”

“ Signals.—Railway tradition alleges that on one of the early lines opened for passenger traffic, the precautions for public safety were considered to have been fulfilled by providing a man on horseback to ride along the track between the rails in the front of the locomotive engine, to give warning to persons strolling on the line, and to check the advance of the train when necessary. ”

“ And as the ranks of the passenger-train service are generally recruited from the freight trainmen, it follows that the freight brakeman impresses his individuality quite strongly upon not only the circles in which he moves but the whole train-service as well. ”

“ The remarkable safety with which railway traffic is on the whole conducted, is due to constant watchfulness and highly-applied skill. The men who work the railways are for the most part the picked men of the country, and every railway station may be regarded as a practical school of industry, attention, and punctuality. ”

“ The train despatcher, with his constant burden of care, deserves a chapter. The locomotive fireman, who has not been directly alluded to, is practically an apprentice to the engineer, and, like apprentices in some other callings, has a good deal of hard work to do. He generally has longer hours than the engineer, as he has to clean a portion of the polished brass- and iron-work of the engine. He has to throw into the fire-box several tons of coal a day, and gets so black that his best friends would not know him when washed up. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is a rule on railways that when an engine driver applies for a situation, the locomotive superintendent of the company at which employment is sought, writes for the man’s character at his last place. ”

“ While at station conductors will do such switching as may be required by the station agent. Trainmen and switchmen must not couple to or move cars that are being loaded or unloaded on side tracks without first ascertaining whether anyone is in or about such cars and giving them ample notice that same are to be moved. They must not obstruct street or public crossings with their trains and be particular when at junction points not to allow any part of their train to stand on railway crossings or interlocking plants. ”

“ 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 certainly an odd thing that the only two little railway accidents that befell me in England were due to the only porters I gave sixpences to. It would almost seem as if so much prosperity turned their heads.
On this occasion it was to make assurance of the right train on the Underground doubly sure that I tipped my man the first sixpence; and he laid himself out to earn it in such a way that I was ashamed not to have made it a shilling. He bought me my ticket for Praed Street—that was all right; he put my luggage on the train and myself into the special care of the conductor. ”

“ Thus the humblest railway servant, if he does not, like one of Napoleon's corporals, carry a marshal's bâton in his knapsack, may at least contemplate a field of possible promotion of almost as wide a scope. It is scarcely necessary to say that engine-drivers are very carefully trained for their duties before being entrusted with the charge of a locomotive. They usually commence service as lads in the engine sheds, where they are employed as cleaners ”

“ The number of trains which are constantly following each other in quick succession (at times every two or three minutes) on this magnificent railway has rendered a most perfect system of signalling necessary, as well as a working staff of superior intelligence and activity. The drivers are all picked men, and indeed it is obvious to every one who travels by it that the porters, and guards, and all employed on the line are unusually smart men. ”

“ As we have said, railway men are not out of the reach of temptation. Let the various officers of a railway manage it so as not to exceed the average expense of other roads of their State, and their reputation stands high. ”

“ We have divided responsibility sufficiently when we furnish both the conductor and the engineman a copy of the train order. If it is desirable for the brakemen and the fireman to be informed, we should furnish a copy to each man in the crew. ”

“ The guards of passenger trains are usually chosen from the ranks of the porters; and the goods train guards, or brakesmen, are selected from the goods porters, shunters, and men of that class; but all these men are subjected to a rigid examination before being appointed, and due regard is had, not only to their knowledge and experience, but to their general intelligence, capacity, and character. ”

“ RAILWAY mail clerks are not railway employees, although they are under the orders of the railway officials when on the road. They are, as a class, a bright lot of men. They bring more brains and acquired skill into their work than any class of government employees in proportion to the amount of money they draw. They ride the fastest trains in the country, and ride ahead. On most roads their car is coupled to the locomotive, and they take whatever is left when the grim reaper has finished with the enginemen. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The railway is watched by foremen, with “gangs” of men under them, in lengths varying from twelve to five miles, according to circumstances. Their continuous duty is to see that the rails and chairs are sound, their fastenings complete, and the line clear of all obstructions.
Then, at all the junctions, sidings, and crossings, pointsmen are stationed, with definite instructions as to the duties to be performed by them. At these places, signals are provided, worked from the station platforms, or from special signal boxes, for the purpose of protecting the stopping or passing trains. ”

“ For this reason fast time on a railroad depends as much on having a good signal system to assure the locomotive-runners that the line is clear, as it does on the locomotives. If he is always liable to encounter, and must be on the look-out for, obstructions at frequent grade-crossings of common roads, or if he is not certain whether the train in front of him is out of his way or not, the locomotive-runner will be nervous and be almost sure to lose time. ”