Railway station master

“ The station baggage-master has an important but rather thankless place. He must handle 200-pound trunks with as much ease as though they contained feathers, and, if he break a moulding off one, must meet the reproaches of the owner, who imagines that the time available for handling the trunk was five minutes instead of two seconds. He must handle much dirty and otherwise unpleasant stuff, and on the whole pursue a very unpoetic life. He has little to do with train-handling, but he "keeps in with" the trainmen and furnishes them with a share of their entertainment. ”

“ What is the second proviso?"
"I am told you have a great deal of influence in railway circles in Chicago."
"Yes, I have."
"Can you get a good place for a capable and deserving young man?"
"I think so. Does he understand railroading?"
"Yes, he is the station-master at Slocum Junction."
"Oh, the station-master! Certainly. I should be delighted to offer him a good position. He is a splendid fellow, and I like him exceedingly." ”

“ Among the servants of a railway company, or rather we should say of the public, there is no one who, in his secluded station, has more important duties to attend to than “the pointsman,” in charge of the switches for diverting a train from one set of rails to another. As it is of course necessary that these switches should be carefully worked and guarded by night as well as by day, there are usually appointed to each station two pointsmen, each of whom remains on duty twelve hours at a time, taking the night and day work week about. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The stationmaster, with an air of immense importance, sounds his toy trumpet, the engine utters a scream of defiance to the world generally, and after a decent interval, to avoid the semblance of haste, the train crawls out of the station. It is an imposing ceremony, but as it is repeated at every small station on the line, it grows somewhat monotonous and makes railway-travelling rather a formidable and lengthy business. At last, however, our train, having rested sufficiently, proceeded slowly on its journey, and we arrived in the course of time at Trieste. ”

“ Her own quick wits, aided by those of a gallant fellow passenger, give the two officers an unlooked-for and exciting "run for their money." One hardly realizes till now the dramatic possibilities of a railway train, and what an opportunity for excitement may be afforded by a joint railway station for two or more roads. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He it is who, acting in conjunction with the railway people, must see that all the details in connection with entraining and detraining are properly arranged and efficiently carried out, while the operations of the station staff are, in turn, greatly facilitated alike by his co-operation and by the fact that there is now only one military authority to be dealt with at a station instead, possibly, of several acting more or less independently of one another. ”

“ Inquiry disclosed the caution of the railway managers. When a train arrives at a station the conductor notifies the man in charge of the station ahead, and also the chief despatcher wherever he may be. He then waits for orders. The telegraph operator at the next station reports to the train despatcher that the track is clear, and the latter then, and not until then, gives orders for the waiting train to move. They take no chances. On a single track road one train only is given the right of way, regardless of side tracks, and everything else is held up until it is reported at the next station. ”

“ As a rule, however, nobody looks as if he liked being in a railway station or would stop there if he could go anywhere else. I trust the Ministry of Reconstruction will see to it that the railway stations of the country are rebuilt and vivified. One does not really wish to stop at any station at all except one's own station. ”

“ The railroad man's home-life is not specially different from other people's. There have been Chesterfields among conductors, and mechanical geniuses have grown up among the locomotive engineers, but these were products of an era now past. Station-men are a part of the communities where their duties place them. Trainmen and their families occupy a modest though highly respectable place in the society they live in. Trainmen who live in a city generally receive the same pay that is given to their brothers, doing the same work, whose homes are in the country. ”

“ The natural result was that we missed another train, and the stationmaster, who must have had an especial dislike for me, had not sent on the horse-box, and was more angry than ever. Of all the obstinate people in the world I think a station-master at a small station can be easily first, and our efforts to soothe him produced no effect whatever. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Many of them expect railway accommodation for troops to be on a liberal scale, and consider that there is no necessity, when close to a railway, to make any effort to cut down baggage and stores....
Commandants of posts on the line, which are very often placed at railway stations, are inclined to think that, because they are called "station commandants," it means that they [235] are in charge of the railway station, and can give orders to railway officials as to traffic and other matters.... ”

“ Well, you run up it as fast as ever you can, and when you get to the top you will see the railway station right in front of you, and all you have to do is to ask if the train is in. There's only one train in and one train out at a little railway station like ours, so you can't miss your way. You will have to ask a porter, or any man you see, to show you the platform where the trains come in, and there you are. ”

“ Block-Telegraph Signalling.—However complete the outdoor signals and interlocking at any station, they can only control the movement of trains within their range, and something more is requisite to ensure the safe working of the traffic over the long lengths of line between stations. For some years a time-interval was allowed for the working of trains following one another on the UP and DOWN lines of a double line railway, no train being allowed to leave a station sooner than a fixed number of minutes after a previous train had started in the same direction. ”

“ There is no great blame to them. Who, indeed, could see in the rude tram-line of Benjamin Outram the germ which was to grow into the maze of lines, and points, and signals which we now pass through without surprise at Clapham Junction or at London Bridge? That most complex organization, a great railway station, is entirely a product of frequent experiment. ”

“ In such a case, he may have a baggage-room with baggageman and baggage-handlers installed; he may have assistants to mind the telegraph instrument and to sell tickets, other assistants to look after the freight. He may even attain to the dignity of a station master in uniform or else have such a dignitary reporting to him.
But in the majority of railroad stations throughout the United States the station-agent is the staff; he is lucky if he has a man to “spell” him in his “off” hours. ”

“ It is not necessary for us to decide whether an engineer may suddenly and without notice quit the service of a railway company at an intermediate station or between stations, though cases may be easily imagined where a sudden abandonment of a train load of passengers in an unfrequented spot might imperil their safety, and even their lives. ”

“ It became obvious that we must let the station-master into it; to attempt to work a thing on so large a scale without taking him into the affair seemed positively rude; besides which, he might be able to assist Moozeby with hints as to the proper construction of a train. So we explained the matter to him.
The station-master shook his head decisively, and said it was against rules for strangers to place trains on the line; it was obviously to the common danger, particularly as the up express was due in twelve minutes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As he walked along, considering, his attention was caught by some red and green lights a little way off, to one side of the town, and the sound of the puffing and snorting of engines and the banging of shunted trucks fell on his ear. “Aha!” he thought, “this is a piece of luck! A railway station is the thing I want most in the whole world at this moment ”

“ That charming writer Gustave Droz has said that railways are at once the symbol and the outcome of the vulgarity of the age; and that whoever lets himself be shot through space like a parcel through a tube, and condescends to eat in a crowd at a station buffet, cannot by any possibility retain dignity of appearance or elegance of manners. The inelegant scrambling and pushing, and elbowing and vociferating of a modern railway station form an exact and painful image of this restless, rude and gregarious century. ”

“ It pleases me to fancy that a railway strike might go on so long that people forgot the very purpose of a railway station. Railway porters would not even know that they were railway porters; and even the stationmaster would be ignorant of the mysterious secret of his mastery. Most of us have had a fancy that all society is like that strange railway station ”

“ And thus, when a train starts on a journey of it may be hundreds of miles, it is signaled on from station to station, and "lives along the line," until at length it reaches its destination, and the last signal of "train in" is given. By this means an immense number of trains can be worked with regularity and safety. On the Southeastern Railway, where the system has been brought to a state of high efficiency, it is no unusual thing during Easter week to send 570,000 passengers through the London Bridge Station alone; and on some days as many as 1200 trains a day. ”

“ They will meet all troop trains, and see that troops and stores are detrained with the utmost despatch.
It will be observed from these regulations that, whatever his own rank may be, the R.T.O., subject to the instructions he has received from his superior Transport Officer, exercises at the railway station to which he is delegated an authority that not even a General may question or seek to set aside by giving orders direct to the station staff. The R.T.O. alone is the "channel of communication" between the military and the railway elements. ”

“ Down below it, indeed, and in direct communication, is the railway station, on the sands, beneath the cliffs. There is a forthright, downright manner about the railway company which rather challenges admiration, even if the slowness and unpunctuality of its trains and the filthiness of its carriages evoke our disgust. The Company seems to say, “You want to go to the seaside at Ramsgate?” ”

“ A large staff of railway men is employed in the locomotive department, over 400 men being paid every fortnight at Northam. The railway platform is half a mile long, and I believe a magnificent railway station will shortly further improve the town. ”

“ It is the busiest railway junction in the worid. More than two thousand five hundred trains pass through here every twenty-four hours – that is an average of two a minute all through the day and night. Actually, at the peak period, there is a train passing about every twenty seconds, and it has been worked out that about two thousand passengers ride through the station every minute during the morning and evening peak periods. ”

“ On one single exceptional occasion 1,111 trains, carrying 145,000 persons, were reported as entering and leaving this station in the space of eighteen hours, being rather more than a train a minute. Indeed it may well be questioned whether the world anywhere else furnishes an illustration so apt and dramatic of the great mechanical achievements of recent times as that to be seen during the busy hours of any week-day from the signal and interlocking galleries which span the tracks as they enter the Charing Cross or Cannon street stations in London. ”

“ The island-platform arrangement possesses many advantages for the exchange of passenger traffic. All the platforms are connected and on one level, and passengers, together with their luggage, can be quickly transferred from one train to another. One set of waiting-rooms, refreshment-rooms, etc., are sufficient, and are available for the passengers of all the four trains. A smaller number of station men are required for the work, as the staff can be more concentrated and better utilized than when there are separate platforms on opposite sides of the line. ”