Station agent

“ At the majority of the company's stations there is an agent, popularly known as the station master, who is in charge of both the passenger and the goods traffic; and at the larger stations the work is divided between a station master—who attends to passenger traffic, and is accountable to the district superintendent—and a goods agent, who is responsible for the goods work, and is under the control of the district goods manager. ”

“ He got a job as helper to the local station agent at forty dollars a month.
Years passed. The youth was a youth no longer; he was nearing his fortieth birthday but still he served the railroad at Weeping Willow. So well and so truly had he served it that, step by step, the management had widened the scope of his duties until now he was the entire resident staff of the great transcontinental system which passed through Weeping Willow. He was station agent, dispatcher, ticket-seller, train-caller, express-agent, baggage-handler, janitor and porter, all rolled into one. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And we may be able to send a telegram from some place telling the conductor to put our things off at Rockledge and leave them in care of the station agent there. What we’ve got to worry about is ourselves. We can’t stay here, and we’ve got to find some way to get another train as soon as we can. Have any of you fellows got a time table? ”

“ Still, the agent must not only be able to figure the rate to South Paris, Me., or to Oshkosh, Wis., within two minutes, but he must make out a long and correct ticket within that time, while the railroad’s patron demands information about some branch line connection on another system a thousand miles away. The country station-agent earns every cent of his humble salary. He works long hours ”

“ He was hungry, and the station agent, a weedy youth, was making a noisy closing up. Intentionally noisy, for when one is the agent of a small desert station, the occasional visitor is apt to whet one's curiosity to razor edge. ”

“ There wasn't a wagon anywhere around the station, and the agent wouldn't lift a finger. It was blind dark. I walked off the end of the platform, and went plump into a mudhole. I waded up as far as the street crossing, where there was an electric light, and ran across a big lumber yard, and hung around until I found the night watchman. He was pretty near as mean as the station agent, but he finally let me have a wheelbarrow for half a dollar, and told me how to get to the job. ”

“ Reaching the station, the lieutenant called the agent aside, and with him inspected, on a siding, a long platform car on which benches had been placed and secured. Then he took his seat in the station and quietly waited, occasionally twisting his long blond mustache. The doctor took a cigar with the agent, and the men walked about or sat on the edge of the platform. One of them, who obtained a surreptitious glance at his silent commander, told his companions that there was trouble ahead for somebody. ”

“ The station-agent sat on a tilted-up box and discussed the new arrivals with one of his ever-present cronies.
"Whut they standin' ther' fer?" he said. "Some folks ain't got enough sense to go in outen the rain, seems so." ”

“ The successful railway man is often amazed at the number of officials who “made him,” just as the great writer is constantly crossing the trail of the man who “discovered” him.
When McGuire had mastered the key he was given a station. He was duly appointed station-master, ticket agent, operator, yardmaster, head switchman, and superintendent of the windmill and water tank at Plainfield, far out on the plains. ”

“ Each conductor will be held responsible for the exercise of a reasonable discretion in the performance of this duty, being careful that no unnecessary force is used, that the company may not be subjected to unnecessary litigation or annoyance. They must not eject women or children of tender years, and any person unattended in such a condition of body or mind as to be incapable of caring for himself must be placed in the custody of the nearest station agent, who will wire the Superintendent for instructions regarding such person's final disposition. ”

“ At the next station the reporter had a chance to examine the office of the Illinois Central agent, all decorated with shells picked up on the famous battlefields at the head of the line, and to see the bunk house and restaurant for the men who lay over there. Every station on the line—there are seven—has an American station master, and all the yards have American yard-masters and American switchmen. There is, strictly speaking, no block system in France, but each station is supposed to be the boundary of a block, and a train simply stays in one station until the one ahead is clear. ”

“ In a few centres where the amount of secret service to be done was large, a slight specialization of work is to be noticed. This division of labor consisted in the employment of a regular conductor or agent at these points to manage the work of transportation of passengers to points farther north; while the station-keepers attended more closely to the work of receiving and caring for the new arrivals. The special conductors chosen were men thoroughly acquainted with the different routes of their respective neighborhoods. ”

“ They stop at regular stations, not very far apart, and the people who wait here for them are provided with numbered tickets, which they procure from the agent at the station, so that when the omnibus comes, as many as can be accommodated take their seats in regular order, according to the number of their tickets. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A station operator may do much to keep business moving by advising the Dispatcher of arrivals, delays, and other things occurring near him, which have a bearing on train movements, but which the letter of his instructions may not require him to report. ”

“ 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?" ”

“ The burden of keeping things moving and of getting the trains over the road in the shortest possible time, falls principally upon the dispatcher at headquarters, but every operator along the road bears his part, and an important part. He must keep awake and alert for any orders the dispatcher may wish to send him; he must note the passage of every train and report to the dispatcher the exact moment at which it passed; and he must be sure that the station signals are properly displayed, and that all orders are properly delivered. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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 shop-walker or salesman is accustomed to move in relatively confined spaces, and so acquires a short, brisk step, and his dress tends to rather exuberant smartness; the station official patrols long platforms, often at a rapid pace, and so tends to take long strides, while his dress is dignified and neat rather than florid. The last-mentioned characteristics, you see, appear in the subject of our analysis; he agrees with the general description of a stationmaster. ”

“ You know, of course, that when a vessel wants to talk to a station either on ship or shore the first thing the operator does is to listen-in—to make sure that he will not interfere with messages that are being exchanged between other stations within his range. If the ether isn’t too busy he then sends the call letter of the station he wants. ”

“ The station was almost deserted when they reached it; but the gaslight and a good fire were very welcome; and the station-master soon returned with the intelligence that they had collected more men, who were working hard to clear the line, and, that, as soon as it was passable, a fresh train would be sent on from A——.
The station-master was a short man—broad without being stout—with a peculiarly weather-beaten aspect, his mouth screwed to one side, and one eye squeezed down to the other, as if in the habit of facing the sun's glare without adequate shelter. ”

“ Having discovered such a station, the officer directs his man to “call” that station. This he does by signalling the number of the station (for each station had a number) , repeating the same until his signal is seen and answered. It was the custom at stations to keep a man on the lookout, with the telescope, for signals, constantly. Having got the attention of the opposite station, the officer sends his message. The flagman was not supposed to know the import of the message which he waved out with his flag. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ By this method, the dispatcher keeps a record on the sheet before him of the progress of every train. He knows the exact position of every train, or, at least, he knows the last station passed by each, and the probable time of its arrival, barring accident, at the next station. His problem is to keep all the trains moving, to keep a clear track for the passengers so that they can run on time, and to arrange meeting-points for trains going in opposite directions so that there will be no unnecessary delays. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ That is to say, if the despatcher desires to make a meeting point for two trains, he will send the same order simultaneously to both of them. If a train is leaving his end of the division and he desires to make a meeting point with a train coming in, before giving his order to his conductor and engineer, he would telegraph it to a station at which the incoming train was soon to arrive, and from whence the operator would repeat it back word for word, and would give a signal signifying that his red board was turned. ”

“ There are hurried good-byes, gathering together of souvenirs, wistful eyes of those who cannot yet go, watching those who can. Cars are brought round to the side entrance, stretchers slipped into their grooves, and the convoy is off to the station. The long train, already half filled, lies waiting. There is a last little passage across the platform, coming and going of bearers, the inevitable argument with the R.T.O., a warning shriek from the engine, and the train to the base has gone. [Pg 45]
II
'Do you think that sort of thing matters now?'
A clearing station is just what its name denotes. ”