Train timetable

“ For this reason fast time on a railroad depends as much on having a good signal system to assure the locomotive-runners that the line is clear, as it does on the locomotives. If he is always liable to encounter, and must be on the look-out for, obstructions at frequent grade-crossings of common roads, or if he is not certain whether the train in front of him is out of his way or not, the locomotive-runner will be nervous and be almost sure to lose time. ”

“ While one train rises the other descends, passing each other midway. By this arrangement trains carrying from seventy-five to one hundred passengers can be run in each direction every fifteen minutes when necessary, the time required for a trip being only ten minutes. This is a vast improvement over the old way of making the ascent of the mountains by stage, as it reduces the time fully one and a half hours, besides adding greatly to the pleasure of the trip. ”

“ A train may lose time if it has to, but there are never any circumstances that will justify it in running ahead of time.
All this is the part of railroad operation which governs the relation of one train to another. There are even [Pg 225] simpler but not less vital rules that control its own operation. In order that the engineer who is guiding the train, and the conductor who shares the responsibility, may keep in touch with one another, the device was adopted many years ago of having a cord run through the cars of passenger trains to a bell signal in the cab of the engine. ”

“ The goods trains must shunt out of the way some time before a passenger train is due, and this frequent shunting into sidings results in hours of delay in the transit of the goods and cattle traffic; and when one of such trains is allowed to proceed again on its way up to another station, dove-tailed as it may be between two fast passenger trains, there is always the tendency to run at a much higher rate of speed than is prudent for the class of rolling-stock of which the goods train is composed. ”

“ The time tables seem to be made with the sole object of helping delayed trains get through on time, no matter how slow that time is. One train we were on was an hour and a half late at midnight, but on time before 5 o’clock the next morning, and we did not run so fast but that passengers could sleep as usual. There is talk of a new fast train being put on between Omaha and San Francisco that will shorten the time perhaps a day, but in the East even that train would not be considered anything very fast. ”

“ To-night a dozen passengers in the luxuriantly appointed Pullmans of the east-bound flyer were fuming and fretting because their train was ten minutes late. They complained to the conductor; they expressed their opinion of the road at length and in terms the most uncomplimentary. They vowed one and all that never again would they travel by this route. Not that the delay really made any difference to any of them; but average human nature seems to be so constituted that it is most deeply annoyed by trifles. ”

“ In a picture view Ralph could see some belated locomotive breasting the drifts of lonely gully and curve. He could imagine a cumbersome freight feeling its way slowly past snow-clouded signals, marooned station men with their instruments knocked dead through fallen wires, and the venturesome repair crew wading through deep drifts to locate the break. ”

“ In other words, the working time table, by definition a general law, has no more practical value, as between such trains, than an advertising folder. A train order by its very nature is an exception to the general law, the time table. When the exception becomes the rule it is high time to head in or to put out a thinking flag. Some years ago your old dad after much persuasion induced his superiors to let him make four classes of trains on a pretty warm piece of single track. ”

“ Lose time in the customary manner, and allow the train to arrive at the stated station half an hour late. Permit the passengers to descend and to enter the refreshment-rooms. The moment they are served, drive them back hurriedly into the carriages with the threat that if they are not immediately seated in their places they will be left behind. When the passengers are once more in their compartments, the carriage-doors should be securely locked, and the train can then remain waiting beside the platform for three-quarters of an hour. ”

“ One is tempted at times to wonder why they have a time-table at all! Express or local, the train is always either too late or too early. You may take your choice of reaching the station well ahead of the “due” time, and vegetating until the little locomotive sniffles shamefacedly in, away late, or going on time and finding the carriage doors locked, the train ready to leave, and the guards very much disinclined to open for you. A jingling of one’s pocket usually unlocks the doors in such circumstances, however. ”

“ Do you think that 50 miles an hour is speed? Our locomotives do far better than that every day in the United States. A train on a standard railroad and hauled by steam as a motive power has gone faster than the rate of 135 miles an hour. With the mono-rail and the gyroscope, with the countless mountain brooks and rivers harnessed and grinding out electricity, the inventors say calmly that they will begin at 200 miles an hour. ”

“ A road doing a large passenger business must accommodate the public as far as possible as regards the time of departure and arrival, and the connections with other roads. A freight road must regard more the character of the road. Some classes of freight (ice, beef, etc.) do not admit of delay. As we increase the number of trains, the ratio of time employed in actual work to the whole train under steam is decreased, as there must be much time lost on sidings in waiting for trains to pass. Liability to accidents is also incurred. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The night train-master will meet your needs. He will act as the agent of the railroad and arrange, while you hold the telephone receiver in your fingers, the entire schedule for you. Trains will be held, connections made; the telegraph is capable of arranging the details. If you demand speed, the railroad will give it to you—if you are willing to pay the price and give a release against damage to your precious bones. Increased speed means increased risk to your railroader.
Maude Adams uses a special many Saturday nights to carry her down to her Long Island farm at Ronkonkoma. ”

“ It is in the daily journey on the suburban train, that daily tax of time, that speed is in itself so eminently desirable, and it is just here that the conditions of railway travel most hopelessly fail. It must always be remembered that the railway train, as against the motor, has the advantage that its wholesale traction reduces the prime cost by demanding only one engine for a great number of coaches. ”

“ We'll be going a hundred miles an hour inside of a minute!" But no crow-bar was to be found, and the door resisted all their efforts. On rushed the train, thundering down the pass, swaying around curves until the frightened occupants of the baggage-car clung to one another to retain their foothold, and every moment adding to its speed. ”

“ The time-table had taught us that we were to arrive at one station, and that a train was to start from another about half an hour later. A number of people were likely to change from the one to the other. To follow [Pg 293] them, as if we were of the same mind, would give us a start off and carry us beyond the eyes of the railway officials. After that I should have to do the best I could, without the help of either a compass, which I could not consult, or the stars, which were not in evidence. ”

“ This board, in reality, has all its trains placed upon it by strings and pins, to admit of the constant changes that the schedules are always undergoing, and the addition of a new train is a quick proceeding. As a matter of fact, a skilled train-master or despatcher will rarely take the time actually to string an extra train. He carries the schedule too completely in his head to admit of such a necessity. ”

“ If the train passed is the superior, the order does not in terms fully convey to the other all the right needed. Having passed, it may be for some time, or at a subsequent period, within the time of the superior train, and it hence would by the train rules be required in turn to clear the track for a train which it had passed a short time before. ”

“ At any rate, there is not much pleasure in running on railroad time. If the week or fortnight at your disposal is up before the journey is done, take a train and go home, with the wheel in a baggage-car; but on no account hurry. You have your road-map with you, and can see at a glance that Johnstown is three miles further on, and Brownstown is ten. If at Johnstown you don't want to stop, make for Brownstown. ”

“ Already the little railway has shot ahead at an amazing rate; though whether track laid in such a hurry is really going to make for speed in the long run is a question on which the trainmen, sipping their pink lemonade at the canteen counter, have their own opinions. For no train, it seems, can make the run at present without leaving the track at least once during the journey. ”

“ Next to studying the idiosyncrasies of his engine, our model engineer prides himself on his intimate acquaintance with the details of the time-table. The practice becoming so common on our best-regulated railroads, of examining candidates for promotion to the position of engineer on their knowledge of the time-table, has a very salutary effect upon aspiring firemen, and induces them to acquire familiarity with the rules governing train-service, which they never forget. ”

“ The train-service in those early days was very poor, and engine-power insufficient, so that heavy loads, rain-showers that made the rails slippery, and the innumerable minor accidents always happening to the engines themselves, made travelling by railway not only uncertain, but, in not a few instances, even slower than by coach. ”

“ It would appear then that when an order gives a train of inferior right the right of track to a given point against a superior train, the train arriving first at the designated point may go beyond it, before the other arrives, to any point where it can clear the regular time of the opposing train the number of minutes required. The train thus passing the given point must run as the inferior of the two until the other is met, and should be required, as in the rule, to clear the other by as much as the train rules prescribe for clearance of similar trains. ”

“ A hundred years hence trains will almost jump to full speed, somewhat as a motor-car jumps to-day. In collecting passengers at suburban stations, the train, a hundred years hence, will perhaps not stop at all. It will only slacken speed a little; but the platform will begin to move as the train approaches, and will run along beside it, at the same speed as the train itself, so that passengers can get in and out as if the train were standing still. ”

“ The law requires them to post bulletins of delayed trains at every station in advance of the delayed train, in order that passengers may be put upon notice. This law is of great consequence to the traveler. If the train is one, two, or three hours late, and the traveler can learn that fact upon his arrival at the depot, he can dispose of himself to the best advantage during the interval. ”

“ The two were naturally related, in that railroading demands the constant use of a great number of watches, while its progress in punctuality and speed is in direct proportion to the supply of reliable timekeepers. Precision is here the great essential; every passenger must have the means of being on hand in time in order not to miss his train. But what is of far greater importance, railroad men must know and keep the exact time not alone for their own protection but in order that they may protect and safeguard the lives of those who are entrusted to their care. ”

“ Every superintendent and higher official should remember that if the same train order is given every day there must be something radically wrong with the time table. All over this broad land, day after day, hundreds of unnecessary train orders are being sent because many time tables are constructed on the models of forty years ago. At that time, in fact as in name, there were two classes of trains, passenger and freight. To-day there are in reality at least two distinct classes of passenger trains and two classes of freights, or at least four in all. ”

“ The schedule is slow compared with that in England and on some roads in America, twenty-five miles an hour being as fast as trains run. Long delays take place at stations, for when a passenger train stops it often seems as if it had been abandoned. ”

“ Tyson, is to let us stop whenever we have a fancy to do so. We are to go fast or slow as we may prefer. We are to start on Tuesday morning, at the tail of the express train, and we have only to give the signal when our car will be detached. There are only two or three trains daily for passengers; but there are goods' and extra trains for various purposes, which are constantly running at different speeds on the road. ”

“ If you look back at the picture on page 19, you will see how one railroad solved the problem. The rails are laid so that they spiral upward, making a loop. When a very long train travels along the loop, it’s like a huge snake coiled around over its own tail!
Unless it’s absolutely necessary, the builders try not to make curves. Trains run faster along rails that are straight as well as flat. Every bend means that the engineer has to slow down a little. ”