Service station

“ Burglar alarm service is in a sense different from fire alarm service; from waterflow alarms; and so on. But it would be unrealistic on this record to break down the market into the various kinds of central station protective services that are available. Central station companies recognize that to compete effectively, they must offer all or nearly all types of service. [6] The different forms of accredited central station service are provided from a single office and customers utilize different services in combination. ”

“ A staff, formed of military men and railwaymen acting in combination, is allotted to each Line, Sub-Line or Station Commission. Concerning the representation of these two elements, military and civil, on the one body, article 10 of the decree of December 8, 1913, on Military Transports says:—
The special function of each of the agents, military or technical, on the Commissions or Sub-Commissions must, in the operation of the service, be maintained in the most absolute manner. ”

“ The service plant for the installation of machinery for lighting, heating, and ventilating the station, and for operating the interlocking system, is located in an independent building south of the station. ”

“ The same principle is followed out with regard to the management of the stations, at the majority of which a single agent is placed in charge of both the goods and passenger traffic, while at 18o of the most important stations there are two officials, one of whom, called the "Station-master," attends to the passenger work, and is accountable to the District Superintendent,and the other, styled the "Goods Agent," is responsible for the goods working, and is under the control of the District Goods Manager. ”

“ Do you belong to the station?"
"No, sir, the station belongs to me. I'm one of the gen'l public, and if the gen'l public didn't favour it, where'd the Co. be as runs the line?"
"Are you here all day?" ”

“ It is rarely possible in the field to work rapidly with less than five men at a trans- mitting and three at a terminal station. " Central " stations are manned according to the number of stations with which they communicate. ”

“ Each Guard, Policeman, and Pointsman, not at a Station, and all Enginemen, Gatemen, Foremen of Works, Gangers of Plate-Layers, and Tunnelmen, will be provided with packets of Signals, which they are always to have ready for use whilst on duty; and every Officer in charge of a Station will be provided with these Signals, which are to be kept in an unlocked drawer or shelf in the counter, in order that they may at all times be easy of access to all on duty at the Station: and every person connected with the Station shall be made acquainted with the place where they are deposited. ”

“ Then, also, to discharge the function of local executive, there is at every important centre of traffic a Station Commission ("Commission de gare") [159] which consists of a military officer and the stationmaster. It receives from the Line or Sub-Line Commission all orders or instructions concerning military transport to, from, or passing through, such station, and is the recognised intermediary for carrying them into effect and seeing that efficiency is ensured and good order maintained. ”

“ The accredited ones are indeed those that have achieved, in the eyes of underwriters, superiorities that other central stations do not have. The accredited central station is located in a building of approved design, provided with an emergency lighting system and two alternate main power sources, manned constantly by at least a required minimum of operators, provided with a direct line to fire headquarters and, where possible, a direct line to a police station ”

“ It was a little wayside place without even a village that I could see to justify its claim to a station at all. Nobody else got out; and as soon as the train had gone, I was left to explain my presence to what appeared to be the entire population of the district, to wit, a station-master, a porter, and a constable who carried a carbine. ”

“ Can you wonder my mother-heart’s a-brim?
Oh, how happy we’re going to be!
Aren’t we, Jim?
II
In Picardy,
January 1915. The road lies amid a malevolent heath. It seems to lead us right into the clutch of the enemy; for the star-shells, that at first were bursting overhead, gradually encircle us. The fields are strangely sinister; the splintered trees are like giant toothpicks. There is a lisping and a twanging overhead.
As we wait at the door of the dugout that serves as a first-aid dressing station, I gaze up into that mysterious dark, so alive with musical vibrations. ”

“ As we approached the station the guide said in his whining German:
"Pay attention to me now. I shall leave you here. Go to the suburban booking-office—the entrance is in the street to the left of the station hall. Go into the first-class waiting-room and look out of the window that gives on to the station hall. There you will see some of the forces mobilized against you. There is a regular cordon of guides—like me—drawn across the entrances to the main-line platforms—unostentatiously, of course. If you look you will see plenty of plain-clothes Huns, too. ”

“ When one of these men is promoted to the charge of a large city station, either freight or passenger, he becomes really a local superintendent, his duties then consisting very largely in the supervision of an army of clerks and laborers who must, each in his place, be as capable as the agent himself. The agent at a small station has a great multiplicity of duties to perform. He must sell tickets, be a good book-keeper, and a faithful switch-tender. He generally must be a telegraph-operator and must be vigorous physically. ”

“ The unit numbered at full strength eight Medical Officers, a Quartermaster, a Dentist, two Chaplains, seven Nurses, eighty-four rank and file, nine A.S.C. and seventeen P.B. men. Perhaps its own simple statement gives its record in the most effective language: ‘No man ever left the station without having his wound examined and dressed, and receiving a meal and a smoke.’ From frost-bite, La Bassée, Neuve Chapelle, Aubers and Festubert, came the first streams of clients to this station.
A CASUALTY CLEARING STATION.
We return to the centre of war activity at the Territorial Headquarters in York. ”

“ A 'military station' is merely synonymous with the term 'military post,' and means a place where troops are assembled, where military stores, animate or inanimate, are kept or distributed, where military duty is performed or military protection afforded,-where something, in short, more or less closely connected with arms or war is kept or is to be done. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On the Head of the station falls the work of the services in the station and in the nearest villages, together with the superintendence of the schools and of the cultivated land. He ought really never to leave the station for a day; he must have his eyes everywhere, and any one ought to be able to speak to him at any time. ”

“ On the declaration of war the Inspector-General was to organise the stations for the feeding of the troops and horses proceeding to the front, and was then himself to go to some station one or two marches from the fighting-line, and fix, each day, the Railhead Station for the time being, moving his own head-quarters as occasion might require. ”

“ The central office is connected by telegraph with stations in the principal cities of the country, at the sea and lake ports, and at points along the Atlantic and gulf coasts, uniting with stations of the United States Life Saving Service, for it is there that the work of greatest value, the saving of human life, is done. The number of stations is limited only by the amount of money provided by Congress for their maintenance. ”

“ Every Officer in charge of a Station is to be answerable for the Office and Buildings, and the Company’s Property there. He is also to be responsible for the faithful and efficient discharge of the duties devolving upon all the Company’s Servants at the Station. ”

“ The layout embraces every feature and facility involved in the construction of a first-class terminal, including a depot building planned and constructed after the most modern lines, and containing every feature for the convenience, comfort, and pleasure of the traveling public; the most complete and up-to-date facilities for conducting the business of a large railroad station; a main power plant for furnishing power of every kind required for the successful operation of the station and yards ”

“ Then the station-master, the porters, and the ticket-clerks of stations A and B hurry along the line, the staff of station A going towards station B, the staff of station B going towards station A. They hurry along, in the full light of day, in the middle of a perfectly flat plain, a plain without a river, without ridge, and without hollow. ”

“ The large bodies that back them are generally quartered together in extensive barracks, from which any number of engines and men can be turned out according to the nature of the call. Then there are cities where every section has its own well-built station; others where one or two sections are housed together, according to circumstances, and perhaps as many as half a dozen located at headquarters. If groups are formed, the headquarters of the group or district has, perhaps, two sections, while each of the other stations has only one. ”

“ Starting a new station entails hard work, and the workers need to show resource and quickness, and the ability to adapt their arrangements on the instant to existing conditions, however inconvenient and uncomfortable they may be. Railway trucks or a goods shed have had to be transformed in a few hours into a spotlessly clean dressing station, where men could be brought from the improvised ambulance trains to have their wounds re-dressed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.... ”

“ Government takes care of ’em all. So many stations—more or less—makin’ a deestrict, under the care of a superintendent. Then all these deestricts are under Gen. Sumner I. Kimball at Washington. Every deestrict, too, has its inspector.”
“How many men do you have to have at this station?”
“There is the keeper, Keeper Barney—we Cap’n him jest among ourselves—and there are seven surfmen here. We have a cook also. I am a surfman and then I am called a patrolman too. I’m a patrolman now, but just let a vessel show itself off there, and I should be a surfman in less than no time.” ”

“ There is a depôt with spacious repairing yards and very commodious workshops, where 250 workmen are daily employed. In addition there are extensive railway go-downs and quarters for the employés of the company. If these represent merely the requirements of the station, in a more general way there is an hospital with several beds, a building for the accommodation of emigrants and, in the immediate precincts of the station, barracks for the 2nd Trans-Caspian Railway Battalion. ”

“ At other times, the chief officers, unaccompanied by the directors, visit the districts, inspect the stations, examine personally the principal station-masters and inspectors, and satisfy themselves by careful inquiry that all the rules and precepts laid down for the efficient conduct of the traffic, and the safety of the line, are being scrupulously carried out throughout the system. ”

“ WHEN Faye was ordered here I said at once that I would come, too, and so I came! We are at a mail station—that is, where the relay mules are kept and where the mail wagon and escort remain overnight on their weekly trips from Camp Supply to Fort Dodge. A non-commissioned officer and ten privates are here all the time. ”

“ The station itself generally consists of the superintendent's office or bureau; the instrument-room, where the messages are sent and received; the battery-room, generally under ground; and the sleeping-quarters of the clerks. Occasionally the electrician and clerk in charge have separate working-rooms; and a smoking-room, with perhaps a billiard-table and home newspapers, are added for the convenience of all. Life passes quietly and uneventfully at these stations, except when something goes wrong with the instruments or the cable, and then the electrician has his period of anxiety and trouble ”