Train carriage

“ To follow further the rapid development of the railroad in America would require many volumes. As the canal building fever had seized the fancy of the American public in preceding years, so a similar enthusiasm was instantly kindled in the new railroad, and railroad travel became immediately the most popular diversion. In a relatively few years a web of track carried the smoking locomotive and its rumbling train of cars throughout the country. Crude, and lacking almost every convenience of the passenger coach of the present day, the early railway carriage served fully its new-born function. ”

“ From looking out of the carriage windows, I begin to take note of the carriage itself—a real American railway carriage. It is a long car with a passage down the middle. On each side of this passage are seats for two persons, facing the engine; but the backs being reversible, a party of four can sit as in an English carriage, face to face. At each end of the carriage is a stove, and a filter of iced water. The door at each end leads out on to a platform, enabling the conductor to walk through the train from one end to the other. ”

“ The royal train is put together by selecting those required from fifteen carriages which are always ready for an imperial journey. If the journey is short, a saloon carriage and refreshment car are deemed sufficient; in case of a long journey the train consists of a buffer carriage in addition, with two saloon cars for the suite and two wagons for the luggage. The train is always accompanied by a high official of the railway, who, with mechanics and spare guard, is in direct telephonic communication with the engine-driver and guard. ”

“ The First Class Trains consist of First Class and Mail Carriages, carrying four inside (one compartment of which is convertible into a Bed Carriage, if required) and of Carriages carrying six inside,—The Mixed Trains consist of First Class Carriages, carrying six inside, and of 2d class carriages open at the side, without linings, cushions, or divisions in the compartments.—The Night Mail Train consists of First Class Carriages carrying six inside, and of Second Class Carriages closed, and entirely protected from the weather.—Each Carriage has a small roof lamp by day and night. ”

“ The uniform fare is ten cents, except after four o'clock on Sundays, when it is reduced to five cents, the same as the fare of the "trams." The train consists of an engine and four light coaches, all of one class, and fitted with [6] comfortable cane seats. They succeed each other every five minutes. A conductor is on the platform of every carriage, and opens the iron gate at the end as soon as the train stops. ”

“ Before the orders came to this effect, people went into fits and that like, in one of the carriages.”
“Any particular carriage?”
“The first compartment of the second-class carriage nearest to the engine. It is locked at Brighton, and I unlock it at this station.”
“What do you mean by saying that people had fits?”
“I mean that I used to find men and women a-screeching and a-hollering like mad to be let out; they'd seen some'ut as had frightened them as they was passing through the Clayton tunnel. ”

“ By the uncertain flickering, I could detect the figure of a man, apparently a young one, by the lady’s side; the carriage had no other traveller. “This will do,” thought I, as I opened the door, and took my place on the opposite side.
Every traveller knows that locomotion must precede conversation; the veriest commonplace cannot be hazarded till the piston is in motion or the paddles are flapping. The word “Go on” is as much for the passengers as the vehicle, and the train and the tongues are set in movement together ”

“ They assert that although it is true that the ordinary engine with its coaches rests on a pair of rails, the fact that the space between the rails is cut away is immaterial, as it is rendered a single track by the rigidity of the carriage axles, and if these were loose, of course the train would overturn. ”

“ The man, in all the pride and worldliness of his nature, would see but the advantages of rapid transit, where the poor woman saw many a change for the worse,—all the little incidents and adventures of a pleasant journey being now superseded by the clock-work precision of the rail, the hissing engine, and the lumbering train.
Long after they had left the carriage, I continued to dwell upon the words they had spoken ”

“ It is difficult for us to appreciate the popular surprise and delight at that first railway excursion. We are so accustomed to splendid engines, luxurious cars, and high speed, that we think nothing of them; but when all were new—when coaches and carts on highways were the sole reliance for passengers and freight—it was astonishing indeed to see a "travelling engine," in charge of two men, draw a train of forty cars and six hundred people! ”

“ To secure perfect safety in ascending and descending such a tremendous grade, the track is composed of three rails bolted to a trestle of heavy timbers, the centre rail being an immense wrought-iron ladder, with rounds four inches apart, into which the cogs of the locomotive drive-wheel fit, and thus drag the train up the steep as well as control it, with aid of air-brakes, in making the descent. One and a half hours are consumed in making the round trip, and the fare is six dollars, but the view from the summit is so magnificent that it fully justifies the expense. ”

“ On shot the locomotive, like an arrow from the bow, the men throwing over the ties until the train was well nigh unloaded, when just as they were close to the curve by which the train arrives at the station, they saw the dreaded cars strike a tie, or something equally of service, and with a desperate plunge rush down the embankment, some fifteen feet, to the little valley, and creek below. ”

“ When we got tired of packing we quit picking, and thanking the good people for the treat, we board the car again and are soon spinning up the line among the apricot and cherry orchards, the trees loaded with fruit.{111}
Arriving at our destination, we bid our friend, the conductor, goodbye, and in a few minutes we reach the much-inquired-for “narrow-gauge railroad station,” where we wait half an hour for the train. We find the track composed of three rails; and as though to demonstrate to us the use of the third rail, a freight train comes along made up of both narrow and broad-gauge cars. ”

“ To-day, though our express speed is many times greater than that of the lumbering coaches, our carriages comparatively luxurious, the risk practically nil, the same wish lurks in the breast of ninety-nine out of a hundred railway passengers—to spend the shortest time in the train that the time-table permits of. ”

“ These ten years had witnessed the introduction of breakfast and dining cars on the trains, of parlour cars, long bogie corridor carriages, the lighting of carriages by electricity, the building of railway hotels in tourist districts, the establishment of numerous coach and steamboat tours, the quickening of tourist traffic generally, the adoption of larger locomotives of greatly increased power, the acceleration of the train service, the laying of heavier and smoother permanent way, and a widespread extension of cheap fares—tourist, excursion, week-end, etc. ”

“ The vestibuled limited trains contain several sleeping-cars, a dining-car, and a car fitted up with a smoking saloon, a library with books, desks, and writing materials, a bath-room, and a barber-shop. With a free circulation of air throughout the train, the cars opening into each other, the electric light, the many other increased comforts and conveniences introduced, the steam-heating apparatus avoiding the necessity of using fires, the great speed, and absence of stops at meal-stations, this train is the acme of safe and luxurious travel. ”

“ Another locomotive whistled, and another train came through at top speed, and another, and another, train after train, train after train, till toward the last the trains were composed of passenger coaches, box-cars, flat-cars, dead engines, cabooses, mail-cars, wrecking appliances, and all the riff-raff of worn-out and abandoned rolling-stock that collects in the yards of great railways. When the yards at Council Bluffs had been completely cleaned, the private car and engine went east, and the tracks died for keeps. ”

“ The railways of the country, in their present form, have been built since the close of the Civil War, or in less than fifty years, and are the wonder and admiration of students of the transportation problem who come here from other countries. There are 234,182 miles of railway, and more than 340,000 miles of track in this country, as compared with a trifle less than 300,000 miles of railway in all the other countries of the world combined. There are nearly 58,000 locomotives; more than 45,000 passenger-train cars; nearly 2,200,000 freight- and service-cars. ”

“ After an examination of my passport and baggage, and considerable delay, I got on the train, composed exclusively of Mann boudoir cars, lighted by gas, including dining-car; and every thing first-class, quite as good as any thing in America, except the vestibule trains from New York to Chicago. The road-bed is so perfectly constructed that the cars run easier than on any railroad I was ever on. You could read with comfort, and some of the passengers were writing. ”

“ My train was trundling over the plains—a true train of the past, half freight, half passenger, cars of an obsolete build, big smoke-stack on the archaic engine, stops for meals, inveterate news-boy with bad candy, bad novels, bad bananas—a dear old horrible train, when magic was suddenly wrought. ”

“ THE TUNNEL OF TRÜBAU.
Amblers have not more prejudices and superstitions than railroad travellers. All the preferences for the winning places, the lucky pack, the shuffling cut, &c., have their representatives among the prevailing notions of those who “fly by steam.”
“I always sit with my back to the engine,” cries one.
“I always travel as far from the engine as possible,” exclaims another.
“I never trust myself behind the luggage train,” adds a third. ”

“ No other train, engine or vehicle, except passenger trains, was permitted to travel on the other track between the passing of the pilot and the royal train, and even passenger trains had to slow down to ten miles per hour. ”

“ The results of these tests will help in designing the dozen or so standard locomotives I have already told you about. Passenger trains are usually thought of as the spectacular part of railway working.
But goods trains too are not without romance. Many who love trains would just as soon be travelling through the Scottish Highlands in the guard’s van of this train as they would be going off on the Golden Arrow for a week in Paris. ”

“ Our train consists of two first-class and three second-class carriages, a dining-car, luggage-van, tender, and engine. A long corridor leads from one end to the other, and affords a convenient walk for daily exercise. ”

“ When your grandmother was a little girl, fast trains ran from coast to coast and slower ones climbed to towns high in the mountains. Super-highways for automobiles and trucks were something that only a few people even imagined then. So—if freight and passengers were going very far, they had to travel by train. Mountains gave the railroads a lot of trouble, because it was hard to dig wide roadbeds along the steep, rocky{80} hillsides or to push them through tunnels in solid stone. ”

“ Hugh sledges sent the spikes home,—the car rolled on and the operation was repeated; while every few minutes the long heavy train behind sent out a puff of smoke from its locomotive and caught up with its load of material the advancing work. ”

“ All regular freight trains, extras, and work extras will pass into and through all stations and will approach all isolated side tracks, and also all water tanks and coal sheds with train under full control, expecting to find trains at such points. ”

“ The train is an express, and as it dashes past the fragile, roughly-built little stations with which the road is bordered, it is amusing, or rather I should say it would be amusing, did it not suggest the idea of accidents, to see the signal-flags displayed by peasant-women in every variety of attitude and costume. ”

“ The velocity with which all these little parcels are booked, weigh-billed, placed into hand-trucks, wheeled off to their respective vans, packed, locked up, and then despatched down the little branch-rail to the main line, on which is the train ready to convey them, is very surprising. ”

“ On most of the roads in the country passenger trains of whatever nature or importance are all shown in one class, the first. As a result every limited train in the inferior direction on single track has to be given right by train order over opposing local passenger trains in the superior direction. ”

“ We act as the owners of a railway would act if they allowed luggage trains, express trains, and horse-drawn trams to run upon one pair of rails. The radiating causeways, as I conceive them, would be entirely free from this difficulty. Neither the traffic of cross streets, nor foot passengers, nor slow-going carts and vehicles would be permitted to interfere with the equable running of fast cars. ”

“ Nothing, perhaps, is so typical of the ingenuity, skill and colossal power of our modern civilization as the railroad train—a solitary man holding the lever which controls this tremendous mass of wood and metal, with its freight of goods and passengers rushing past us at the rate of a mile a minute. ”

“ From the character and momentum of a railroad train, and the requirements of public travel by means thereof, it cannot be expected that it shall stop and give precedence to an approaching wagon to make the crossing first: it is the duty of the wagon to wait for the train. The train has the preference and right of way. ”