Streetcar conductor

“ The car is a short caboose, fashioned like a small, ill-shaped back kitchen, and it has no more wheels than a one-horse wagon, which gives it an uneasy and suggestive way on the track. A brakeman sits with his head swung out at a window. The conductor sits with his watch in his hand. Nobody has any business there at all. The engineer is doing his best to make a distant station, and get upon the side-track before the Express wants the road. ”

“ The street car system is excellent. All the street cars are horse cars drawn by mules. They are hitched tandem and go always at a gallop. The cars go from one to fifteen miles and have regular schedule time. They all meet and start from the Zocalo on the Plaza Mayor by the Cathedral, where there is a general conductor with a time-card who starts them off. They always go in trains of from three to six or nine cars in first, second and third class, and with short distances the fare is three, six and nine cents. ”

“ Probably no one else on the streetcar beside myself noticed there wasn't a single passenger car, truck or bus that passed us. Every car, as we sailed by, stalled and every traffic light we passed either turned three colors or blinked out completely. Most of the moving cars made it to the curb on their momentum. The others stayed where they were. When I got off in front of the City Hall, filthy old hulk that it is, the streetcar stayed immobile at the safety zone, it was a new PCC car, and the insulation poured smoke from under the wheels. ”

“ And the conductor writes and one of the policemen writes, and they keep on writing, while the traffic makes beautiful curves to avoid them.
The still increasing crowd continues to stare in the pure blankness of pleasure. A close-shaved, well-dressed, middle-aged man, with a copy of The Sportsman in his podgy hand, who has descended from the motor-bus, starts stamping his feet. ”

“ All trains run wild and every engineer makes his own time, just as he pleases. A sort of 'smoke-if-you-want-to' road. Too many side tracks; every switch wide open all the time, switchman sound asleep and the target-lamp dead out. Get on where you please and get off when you want. Don't have to show your tickets, and the conductor has no authority to collect fare. ”

“ Thus, unless the slot can be dispensed with the greater beauty overhead is obtained at the expense of increased danger on the street surface. There are quite a number of underground conductor systems in which the slot is not used, the current being conveyed to the car by contact made with plates set at suitable intervals between or along the sides of the tracks, and on a level with the street surface. ”

“ They were lying about loose in the cars, after the ordinary fashion of people on a tedious railway journey; curled up in some such ungraceful and uneasy positions as the tired beasts of a strolling menagerie probably assume in their cages during their forced marches across the country. To carry out the parallel, the conductor came along at irregular intervals, and with deliberate and premeditated malignity, stirred up the passengers, as if they were actually animals on exhibition, and he really was their keeper, and wanted to make them growl. ”

“ Leaving her bandbox, she ran to the crossing, and with a “Hold on there, you!” signaled the driver to stop. The latter, taking in the situation, kept on, but a fat man standing on the platform pulled the bell and the car stopped, about half a dozen yards beyond the flag-stones. The conductor, who was inside, collecting fares, ran out, and, grasping the bell-strap with one hand and beckoning with the other, screeched: “If you want to ride down, come on; I ain’t a-goin’ to anchor here all day!” As soon as the woman took up her bandbox and umbrella, I started for the car. ”

“ As it came to a stop the conductor called out in a loud voice:
"Hugson's Siding!"
At once a little girl rose from her seat and walked to the door of the car, carrying a wicker suit-case in one hand and a round bird-cage covered up with newspapers in the other, while a parasol was tucked under her arm. The conductor helped her off the car and then the engineer started his train [Pg 14] again, so that it puffed and groaned and moved slowly away up the track. ”

“ The fireman puts a fresh bacon-rind on the eccentric, stuffs some more cotton batting around the axles, puts a new lynch-pin in the hind wheels, sweeps the apple-peelings out of the smoking car, and he is ready.
Then comes the conductor, with his plug hat full of excursion tickets, orders, passes, and timechecks; he looks at his Waterbury watch, waves his hand, and calls "All aboard" again. It is upgrade, however, and for two miles the "spotter" has to push behind with all his might before the conductor will allow him to get on and ride. ”

“ In a way, the presence of that track was comforting, particularly when some new noise or rattle emanated from my thrice-weary steed. On the other hand it is distinctly humiliating to be astride a 10 h.p. motor-cycle de luxe, jogging along side-saddle (to ease the growing soreness!) at fifteen or twenty miles per hour on three crotchety cylinders, when a tram-load of disinterested Americans flies past with a shriek at forty or fifty. Generally the driver realized the position and sounded a piercing whistle with a supercilious air, as if to say: "Make way for the fast traffic, please!" ”

“ The man in charge of the dining car should be called steward, because he cannot conduct a car even to a side track. He should be under the control of the train conductor, whom the superintendent can hold responsible for the entire train performing proper public service. A good, honest passenger conductor can secure and retain more business for the company than two traveling passenger agents. The conductor cannot do this if the dining car man is unwilling to send promptly a pot of coffee to the shabby little sick woman in the chair car whose daughters are going to buy tourist tickets next year. ”

“ If they don’t pay the driver, the driver will not stop for passengers, and the conductor is short in his returns; if they don’t have a ‘deal’ with the starter, the starter will fix him somehow. You see the driver can stop behind time, or go beyond it if he likes. The latest car in the street, you understand, gets the most passengers. ”

“ Surely there's nothing to equal motoring as a means of seeing the country. Not only are the constant change of landscape and constant succession of new scenes which the railway traveler may enjoy, to be had in an automobile but more—very much more.
The motorist gains a great deal that the railroad passenger inevitably misses. For the man on the train the musical clang of the dinner bell as one passes near some farmhouse, for instance, is lost—swallowed up in the noise and rush of the locomotive. ”

“ The conductor, who was a good sort of a man, had discovered my presence on the train long before reaching Chadbourn, and so had others of the train's crew. The man in the baggage car was even taking care of my bundles, which he had allowed me to deposit in a corner of the car.
Unaware of the fact that I had been discovered, I lay perfectly still, afraid to move hand or foot, and it seemed to me the train would never start.
Several people approached the engine, including a policeman of the town and the conductor.
[Pg 28]
"Come down off that coal pile," cried the conductor. ”

“ The conductor, testing it with the aid of his teeth, announced he was able to make nothing of it; he doubted whether the owner would succeed. Alarmed, the rest of the passengers searched muffs and pockets; three purses were missing, and some articles of less value. Frantic inquiries for the nearest police-station. A man who had lost nothing said he suspected the country lady all along.
“What we ought to be uncommon thankful for,” said the conductor, stopping near Edgware Road, “is that she didn’t pinch the blooming ’bus!” ”

“ It is also evident that it is absolutely impossible to make any accidental contact with any other conductor, or vice versa, or to imperil the lives of the public in any possible manner. The conductor having a continuous support, and always being parallel with the supporting rail, a safe contact under high rates of speed is insured, and as the guide-beam holding the conductor is readily bent to conform to the curves, all difficulty in forming or rounding curves is eliminated. ”

“ Noise, too—that distracting rattle and rumble of vans, light carts, omnibuses, and cabs—will be done away with, and how much this will help to restore the nervous system of Londoners who can tell? Horses having almost vanished, the space each one would occupy—some seven feet in length—will be saved on each vehicle, and thus the increase of traffic will be partly provided for. Collisions and the running-down of cars will be unheard of, the steering and stopping powers of the electric motors being perfect. ”

“ Motor-omnibuses, besides working on the regular routes, can be run on the tramway time-table system on tramway sections where there is little traffic; while for developing scantily-populated districts and accustoming people to travel, automobile public conveyances are perfect agencies, the very fact that they can choose their own route accentuating this great advantage ”

“ In a dispute which follows, the conductor loses a chance to get across a swinging-bridge, and a passenger who has thus missed a train, gets angry and reports the conductor. The driver is quietly asked about our friend, and our friend is thrown out of his place like a shot out of a gun. He is too proud to drive again, and takes a trip into the country for his health. ”

“ Maybe you think the conductor of a passenger train is only the man who takes tickets and says “All Aboard.” But he really is the boss of the whole train. Even the engineer must follow his signals. That’s why they call the conductor the Captain.
The brakeman is the conductor’s helper. Together they collect tickets or fares and help passengers on and off at stations.
On the slick, fast trains called streamliners the conductor has quite a job to do. Many of the passengers are making long trips, so they have complicated tickets that allow them to stop at several places and then come home again. ”

“ Even then its advance was slow, and until about three years ago motor-cars were decidedly unpopular. The London street boys—miniature representatives of public opinion—derided them, and, with their usual fiendish lack of sympathy, rejoiced when they came to grief; while ’bus-drivers and cabmen ironically likened all automobiles to traction engines, cherishing the delusion that they continually broke down, cost a small fortune to maintain, and, worse than all, dislocated every bone in their occupants’ bodies. ”

“ Motor-cars were rushing about as numerous as flies in August. Trolley-cars followed one another up and down Seventh Avenue in endless processions. Wagons and trucks stretched along the highway in slow-moving lines as far as the eye could see. Bells were ringing, whistles tooting, horns blowing, motor-cars honking, newsies shouting. The grinding of car-wheels, the rattle of carts, the clatter of hoofs on the asphalt, the shuffling of feet on the sidewalk, and a thousand other noises combined to make an indescribable and confusing roar. ”

“ The loungers on the platform at the station encourage him with shouts that put "spurs in the sides of his intent." The engineer leans out at his window and lets the engine whistle for him, and sometimes slackens a little, just by way of delusive encouragement. The brakeman on the rear platform seems to be putting on the brakes with might and main, to hold the train for him to catch it. Passengers beckon to him, and wave him on with hand and handkerchief. When he lags a little, the observers cheer him, and he dashes on in prodigious bursts of speed. Boys whirl up their hats and bet he'll win. ”

“ There is many a veteran conductor, many a gray-haired station agent, who, if he could have had the chance to start, would have become a general manager. Some men have to go to another road to be fully appreciated. When a man is young he is criticized if he changes roads. When he is older his services are sought because of his varied experience with different roads. Human nature is prone to limit the length of everybody's train to the capacity of its own sidetracks. ”

“ Modern street traffic, too, is of the most mixed and bewildering kind, and the already too perilous London streets have been made much more so by the motor in its various forms of van and 'bus, business or private car. The aspect of a London street during one of the frequent traffic blocks is certainly extraordinary, so variously sorted and sized are the vehicles, wedged in an apparently inextricable jumble, while the railways and tubes burrowed underground only add fresh streams of humanity to the traffic, instead of relieving it. ”

“ But a tussle of this kind is at best far from soothing to the temper, and the very next car may contain the wife of a nabob, who will expect the most genteel treatment and critically object to any behavior on the part of the conductor which is not fully up to the highest drawing-room standard. Experiences of this kind, it can be readily imagined, are exceedingly trying. The conductor cannot give himself up completely to learning gentility, for he still has need for his old severity. ”

“ Conductor from nearby car comes to side of chauffeur. Also policeman. All lay hold of each other and pull with united effort at taxi door. Door flies open. Closely knit group of chauffeur, conductor and policeman nearly tumbles backward into snow. From cab door descends tall, elegant figure in evening clothes and top hat. Followed by even more elegant figure of slender lady in opera cloak. For some reason she appears to be very angry, and shakes her fist at her three humble liberators. The couple seek some path, from the trampled oasis where they stand, through the drifts to the sidewalk. ”