Trainman

“ Many of them have a superfluity of hours and half-hours when they have nothing to do but ride on the top of a car and keep a general watch of the train, and they have ample time to think twice before speaking once. Even a circus clown or the vender of shoestrings or ten-cent watches has to study the arts of expression; why should not the intelligent trainman, who wishes to let people know that he is of some account in the world? If he wants a favor from a superior he knows just the best way of approach to secure success. ”

“ In the pause that followed, while a report was telegraphed to headquarters and instructions returned to proceed without delay, one of the trainmen spied a boyish figure lurking in the open door of an empty box-car. Cunningly boarding this car from the opposite side, the trainman caught the skulker unawares, and booted him vaingloriously into the night.
Shortly after the freight train had gone on its way a second headlight appeared in the east, swept swiftly across the plain, stopped at Detail an instant, and then proceeded to back onto the siding. ”

“ As the train stops you drowse if you have been waking, and wake if you have been in a doze; but in any case you are aware of the locomotive hissing and coughing beyond the station, of flaring gas-jets, of clattering feet of passengers getting on and off; then of some one, conductor or station-master, walking the whole length of the train; and then you are aware of an insane satisfaction in renewed flight through the darkness. You think hazily of the folk in their beds in the town left behind, who stir uneasily at the sound of your train's departing whistle ”

“ You look forward, and see lights down the track. Drawing in like a turtle, you tell the conductor. "What is it, Joe?" and the brakeman replies "Nothin'." The conductor puts his watch to his ear. Has it stopped? With rattle and roar the engineer keeps launching the train into the midnight. A shrill shriek of the locomotive whistles you up, and you are on your feet like a cat. The brakeman runs up his little iron ladder, the speed slackens, the train comes to a dead halt. It is Genesee, and one grateful passenger leaves that frantic caboose, to set foot in it, as he fervently prays, "nevermore." ”

“ Most of the train was occupied by a battalion of sharp-shooters, but in the rear car the General and his staff found seats. The day was cloudy and damp; there was no one to say farewell; and as the train passed through the cold hills, a feeling of gloom seemed to pervade the company. Nature was in harmony with the clouded fortunes of our General, and the laboring locomotive dragged us at a snail’s pace, as if it were unwilling to assist us in our adventure. ”

“ Railroad men, though, are not impolite, nor short to everybody. Ask a jovial, good-natured man, who has a smile and a pleasant word for everybody, and I'll warrant he will tell you that he gets treated well enough on railroads; that the engineer answers his questions readily; that the [Pg 156] brakeman sees that he has a seat; that his baggage is not bursted open every trip he takes, and the conductor does not wake him up out of his sleep every five minutes to ask for his ticket. ”

“ People still love trains. The men who work on the huge powerful engines would rather work there than almost anywhere else. That’s how Sam feels about it.
When Sam reports for work, his big steam locomotive is all ready. Men have oiled it and checked it. The fire is roaring in the firebox. In the old days, a fireman spent most of his time shoveling coal. The faster the train went, the more steam it needed and the faster the fireman had to work with his banjo. ”

“ We shall not forever keep up the absurdity of a Pullman conductor’s snap and a train conductor’s busy job. When we each own at least the sleeping and parlor cars local to our own rails, the conductor will run the train and perhaps work the sleepers, while a collector will work the coaches and chair cars. When oil burners and automatic stokers have revolutionized the fireman’s duties, when train orders are unknown, when the position or color of a signal is the only instruction, we may transfer the command of the train to one of the men in the engine. ”

“ The train had now reached its destination, and the old lady got out, amid the maledictions of some, and the stifled laughter of others of the passengers,—for only one or two had shrewdness enough to perceive that she was one of those good credulous souls who implicitly believed all she had narrated, and whose judgment having been shaken by the miraculous power of a railroad which converted the journey of a day into the trip of an hour, could really have swallowed any other amount of the apparently impossible it might be her fortune to meet with. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When the light of the locomotive appears, three lose their courage: the fourth stops the train, and single-handed takes the money from the express-car and from the passengers, killing the conductor and the express-messenger. ”

“ The conductor and engineman who are in charge of the train subject to his control, are also necessarily advised. The relations of the Pilot to the train are much the same as those of the pilot to a vessel of which he has control for the time being. He is placed there because of his having special knowledge, not possessed by the conductor and engineman, of circumstances which necessarily affect the movement, and has entire control of the train in this respect. He may or may not be an engineman. ”

“ Throughout the long night nothing is heard but the click of the rails as the train drives on, the brakeman passing through with his green and red lanterns, the faithful instructors seeing that all are covered, our beloved Director himself looking out for the welfare of his flock. ”

“ 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 intelligence, quickness of perception and capacity for taking care of themselves—that combination of qualities which, taken together, constitute individuality and adaptability to circumstance—vary greatly among the railroad employés of different countries. The American locomotive engineer, as he is called, is especially gifted in this way. He can be relied on to take care of himself and his train under circumstances which in other countries would be thought to insure disaster. ”

“ He has every opportunity to observe just how trainmen of all classes obey the rules and the signals. Add to this opportunity to become conversant with the practical side of railroad life, the knowledge that is derived from attending to the correspondence of a superintendent and the general work of the office. This includes supervision of pay-rolls, the hiring and examination of men, the investigation of accidents, the tracing of trouble of every description, and the handling and movements of both freight and passenger trains. ”

“ Men who Run the Trains must have Brain as well as Muscle—Their Training—From Farmer’s Boy to Engineer—The Brakeman’s Dangerous Work—Baggageman and Mail Clerks—Hand-switchmen—The Multifarious Duties of Country Station-agents.
One man in every twelve in the United States is on the pay-roll of a railroad. No wonder that that great organism comes so close to human life throughout the nation, that we seem to touch it at every turn. ”

“ It is well to be prepared for minor shocks in travelling. Your train may have left a station at night, and you are dozing in the dimly lit compartment. Suddenly you are fully awake, and by the light of the oil-lamp see a figure outlined—a man in corduroys standing almost menacingly over you. He is not a brigand nor a hold-up; he is merely the inspector wishing to see your ticket. He has clambered to the door by way of the footboard, and has opened it and entered unseen. When he has done his task he leaves by the same way, and proceeds to startle some other unsuspecting and unready traveller. ”

“ Pretty soon a man in uniform, a little higher up than the brakeman, but not so high as the conductor, comes along through the train from the rear end, examines carefully all the tickets, reads all the printed matter on them, punches them, and hands them back, after perhaps taking a passenger out of the cars to verify his statement in regard to an extra hole in his ticket made by some other official. ”

“ That train looks as if it meant to cling to that platform till the very last gasp. You daren't look along again to find out what the guard is doing, for you are conscious that your friend is looking down on you from the carriage window. You feel desperately that you must say something else. ”

“ The man you want to run from is Calamity Jake, who always has a tale of woe as long as a gravel train. His caboose rides rough; its stove smokes; the caller doesn’t give him time enough for his wife to cook breakfast; the yardmaster saves all the shop cripples for his train; he can’t trust the ignorant engineers; the brakemen are all farmers, and the signal oil won’t burn. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The yardmaster has one caller and the roundhouse foreman another. The two callers go up the same street, sometimes together, and call men in adjoining houses, an expensive duplication of work. The trainmaster rides in the caboose and the traveling engineer—road foreman is the modern term—in the engine, but neither dares presume to know the business of the other. Every trainmaster should be a traveling engineer and every traveling engineer should be a trainmaster. That will be the case when we train officials along more definite lines. Honey bees feed their future queen a special food. ”

“ When I could think of myself, I found that I was sitting doubled up, shrinking as a man would from a threatened blow, and my hands were clenched till I felt the smart of the nails in my flesh. The train had chanced to be on the other line of rails, or—I had not been sitting here now to speak of it. An engine was dispatched to bring up the missing carriage, as soon as the fact of its having been left behind was discovered. And so ended my little adventure,—in good time, for this is your station, I think, gentlemen. ”

“ Everyone knows that locomotive engineers are men not to be approached unadvisedly or lightly, and an engineer with his train in difficulties is especially formidable. This one was just climbing back into his cab after a consultation with the conductor, and swung round quickly, aware of Jack just behind him. ”

“ At this station the train stopped for breakfast, and, as the engineer, conductor, myself and other passengers went to get our meals, no one was left in charge of the locomotive. I had about finished, when I heard a noise as if steam were escaping. ”

“ The traveller in a scurrying railroad train becomes familiar with few more thought-suggesting sights than the farm woman in the cottage door. She comes forward with her hands in her apron, if not with a baby on her arm. Sometimes she waves her hand to the unanswering train. Sometimes she leans against the door-post and looks, one might fancy wistfully, at the clattering cars, at the people who are going somewhere. ”

“ The arrival and departure of trains once or twice a day is a thing as personal as the letter which comes into the hand of the butcher, the banker, the druggist, from that same adventuring train that kicks the level dust of the Prairie miles behind it, with the ease of a thoroughbred, and climbs the gorges, the canyons and the steeps of the passes, and enters the black mysteries of the long tunnels as nonchalantly as a cowboy, hand on hip, sits astride his pony. ”

“ But with ever-increasing business and complication of conditions, a much better educated class of men found their way into the railroad service. In moving a train from place to place, greater intelligence was required. A conductor to-day can frequently run from one end of the road to the other in a purely mechanical fashion; but in the early days of railroading, with a single track, a confusion of flags and train orders, and a multitude of unforeseen difficulties awaiting him at every station, it took little less than genius to make a successful railroad man. ”

“ He went out and watched the wheels of the freight trains crunching, and grinding, and squealing by, and he could see it just rolling off and running into the station. Then nights it came stealing over him, and numbing him, just as soon as he tried to get a little sleep, which, heaven knew, he was entitled to. Anybody knows that trains running by like that, day and night, store up more electricity in a station than a man can bear, especially if he is all alone. ”

“ 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. ”