Vagrant

“ A railway-carriage even of the most antique description, when its glass is opaque with rime, is a little less like a prison-cell than a four-wheeled cab. For which reason, perhaps, as the vehicle ground on beneath the misty leafless elms, the frigid air was allowed to beat softly in from the open window upon its occupant's slightly impurpled face. ”

“ But really, without a cycle, one would sometimes feel lost in caravan travelling. The Wanderer is so large that she cannot turn on narrow roads, so that on approaching a village, where I wish to stay all night, I find it judicious to stop her about a quarter of a mile out and tool on, mounted on the Marlborough, to find out convenient quarters. Then a signal brings the Wanderer on.
Another advantage of having a tender is this. In narrow lanes your valet rides on ahead, and if there really be no room for a trap to pass us, he warns any carriage that may chance to be coming our way. ”

“ The first fortnight of life in a great caravan like the Wanderer is just a little upsetting; even my coachman felt this. The constant hum of the waggon-wheels, and the jolting—for with the best of springs a two-ton waggon will jolt—shakes the system. It is like living in a mill; but after this you harden up to it, and would not change your modus vivendi for life in a royal palace. ”

“ If the train has no "empties," they must ride on top of the car, between the "bumpers," on one of the car ladders, or on the rods. On passenger-trains they ride on top, on the "blind baggage," and on the trucks.
Taking this country by and large, it is no exaggeration to say that every night in the year ten thousand free passengers of the tramp genus travel on the different railroads in the ways mentioned, and that ten [Pg 305] thousand more are waiting at watering-tanks and in railroad yards for opportunities to get on the trains. ”

“ The cars and wagons are on the same scale, and the first impression of the diminutive iron horse awakens doubts as to whether it is safe to trust oneself to its care. But see that self-same engine busy at work hauling a train of 7 passenger coaches, a guard’s van, 10 goods wagons and 100 or more empty slate trucks, stretching out for a length of 1,200 feet and representing a total load of 110 tons, out of Portmadoc, bound for the quarries, and disdain gives way to complete admiration. ”

“ A covered wagon drawn up near the curb sheltered a dozen of them. Under the stairs that led to the elevated railway station, there were six or eight, their hands stuffed deep in their pockets, their shoulders stooped, jiggling their feet. Others always could be seen coming, a strange procession, some slouching along with the characteristic hopeless gait of professional strays, some coming with hesitating steps, wearing the air of men to whom this sort of thing was new. ”

“ The man on duty at the Wheel must examine the Endless Rope, the Messengers, the Coupling Chains, the Van Doors, and the Loads upon the Waggons, to see that all is right and safe to pass upwards, that the Coupling Chains are properly hooked, that the last Waggon is provided with a good and powerful Break, and then the same Breaksman must proceed with the set, and look out for Down Trains, to apprize the other men in charge thereof whereabouts any Waggons are before them, to report any impediments in the Tunnel to the Superintendent or Goods Manager. ”

“ Every time the big wagon jolted over a stone—and it was jolt over stones all the time—it seemed as if it must topple over the side and roll to the bottom; and then the way the driver talked to the mules to keep them straight, and the creaking and scraping of the wagons, was enough to frighten the most courageous. ”

“ The bars of the trans-continental railroad had careened the horizon with their mighty leverage, and let the cargo through—the very cargo for which they waited in the old days with their faces toward the rising sun, like a praying Israelite. The locomotive had wheeled the rolling globe a half revolution, brought the tide of commerce to the right-about, like a soldier upon his heel. It has proved to be anything but what it was suspected of being—the locomotive has—for, made to be a common carrier, a gigantic, quicktime dray-horse, it is a civilizer, a builder of cities ”

“ And let me say right here that only a young and vigorous tramp is able to deck a passenger train, and also, that the young and vigorous tramp must have his nerve with him as well.
The train goes on gathering speed, and I know I am safe until the next stop--but only until the next stop. If I remain on the roof after the train stops, I know those shacks will fusillade me with rocks. A healthy shack can "dewdrop" a pretty heavy chunk of stone on top of a car--say anywhere from five to twenty pounds. ”

“ At the height of the season, when travel was heavy and roads dry, the Standard Concord Coach was employed. At other times, a vehicle commonly termed a “mud wagon” was put to use. During this era of horse-drawn vehicles, the trains of pack mules were, of course, replaced by great freight wagons. Today, in driving over the old wagon roads, one is led to wonder how passenger vehicles succeeded in passing the great freight outfits. ”

“ Whether the weight of the train had been too much for the bridge, or whether the train had gone off the rails, the fact remained that five carriages out of six fell into the bed of the Loddon, dragged down by the locomotive. The sixth carriage, miraculously preserved by the breaking of the coupling chain, remained on the rails, six feet from the abyss. Below nothing was discernible but a melancholy heap of twisted and blackened axles, shattered wagons, bent rails, charred sleepers; the boiler, burst by the shock, had scattered its plates to enormous distances. ”

“ The tins are placed in the van specially reserved for them, the whistle sounds, the passengers—who have been wondering why on earth there was all this noise and delay at a little roadside station without so much as a visible steeple—withdraw their heads from the windows; the wheels revolve, and, gathering speed, the train disappears round the curve, hastening to the metropolis. ”

“ The usual freighter had but one heavy wagon to a team, but it was noticed that our little train hauled as much per team as they, and made better time, consequently many adopted the same plan, and in a few years rich firms had gone into the freighting business, with teams of from nine to twelve yoke of oxen, and four wagons; each team hauling from sixteen to twenty thousand pounds. Eight114 to ten teams constituted a train. One driver to a team, a night herder and wagon boss, was all that was necessary to make a full crew. ”

“ Nor is there, as is usual in America, any difficulty or delay in regard to the baggage; for each man's trunks are placed on the car that he rides in, directly over his head; so that, while he walks across the platform to the cab, the railway porter takes his trunk across and [Pg 21] places it on the top of the cab; and thus he is off from the station in his cab within two minutes sometimes after he arrived at it in the car. ”

“ Each one of our wagons was drawn by six yoke, or twelve oxen, and contained from five to six thousand pounds of freight, and there was but one wagon to each team. The time had not yet come when, what was afterward adopted, trail wagons were in use. This means two or three wagons lashed together and drawn by one team. Twenty-five of our wagons and teams formed what was called a train, and these trains were scattered along the road at intervals of anywhere from two to three miles, and sometimes eight to ten miles, and even greater distances, so as to keep out of the way of each other. ”

“ Quite near the well the mess-wagon had stopped and the cook was already preparing supper. Beyond, a few yards away, a freighter’s long outfit was stopped in the road.
Did you ever see the kind of freight outfit that is used to bring the great loads across the desert? Then I’ll tell you about the one we camped near. Freight wagons are not made precisely like others; they are very [Pg 146] much larger and stronger. ”

“ A brisk, bright-faced young fellow glided from their midst, cleared an obstructing truck with a clever spring, stood ready to greet the locomotive and express car as they parted company from the passenger coaches, and ran thirty feet along the siding to where the freight-sheds stood. ”

“ We had already paid one visit to Pinkenbar to engage a porter, a lean, tall, weather-beaten old man, selected on the wharf, to bring a truck to the station and convey our luggage to the boat. When we arrived and got out of the train with a litter of small baggage, the first thing we saw was a large American trunk tightly jammed half in and half out of the window of the guard’s van, the guard having got so much of our luggage between himself and the door that he could not get it open. ”

“ Bells are ringing; porters are hurrying to and fro with luggage on trucks, to the risk of passengers’ shins and toes; men, women, and children, young and old, high and low, rich and poor, are mixed in confusion on the platform, some insanely attempting to force their way into a train that is moving off, under the impression that it is their train, and they are too late “after all!” Others are wildly searching for lost luggage. ”

“ It is the caller’s business to see that the crews for these trains are ready to take the trains out. A freight crew consists of engineer and fireman, conductor and two brakemen. The conductor and one brakeman, known as the rear-man, ride in the caboose. The other brakeman, known as the front-man, rides in the cab of the engine, and makes himself useful by ringing the bell, watching for signals, and so on, when he is not engaged in setting or releasing the brakes, or helping make up the train. ”

“ Skeletons of cattle, bodies not yet skeletons, aroused no more than a casual look. Furniture lay cast aside, even broken wagons, their wheels fallen apart, showing intimate disaster. The actual hardships of the great trek thrust themselves into evidence on every hand, at every hour. Often was passed a little cross, half buried in the sand, or the tail gate of a wagon served as head board for some ragged epitaph of some ragged man.
It was decided to cross the South Fork at the upper ford, so called. Here was pause again for the Wingate train. ”

“ The mere manual exercise of stacking a 60-foot baggage-car from floor to ceiling with heavy trunks (and the commercial travellers and theatrical folk do carry heavy trunks) is no slight matter. But that is not all. The trunk put off at the wrong place or the trunk that is not put off at all is apt to make the railroad an enemy for life and the baggageman is another one of the many in the service who are permitted to make no mistakes. ”

“ There was a stout wagon, drawn by three pairs of lean oxen at a slow and lumbering pace—probably the last wagon of a train, as it was seldom that a family ventured upon crossing the plains alone. If so, the train was out of sight along the track, which here becomes less monotonous, winding among the bluffs and along the shallow bed of a river, in which, at present, no water was visible. ”

“ The engineer and the fireman sit in the cab at the very front of a Diesel-electric. They can watch the track through front windows.
The cab is at the front of the engine shown on this page, too, but it is a steam locomotive. It burns oil instead of coal, so the cab doesn’t have to be right next to the tender. The men call it the Big Wamp. It hauls tremendously long freight trains across the Rocky{40} Mountains. One siding where the men stop to eat is so long that there has to be a restaurant at each end! ”

“ Hundreds of wagons, filled with every conceivable article of food and implement of labor: steam-engines, saw-mills, picks, shovels, hoes, masses of iron, piles of lumber, tons of pork, hard bread, flour, rice, sugar, coffee, tea, and potatoes, all drawn in huge wagons. Six mules or ten oxen are seen tugging the monster wheeled machines along. The train is generally preceded by a score or two of carriages, ambulances, and light wagons, containing the families of officers, women, children, and laundresses. ”

“ When he found the rate of speed getting too much for him, he was to mount a ladder, but not put in appearance on the roof until positive that the crew was not around.
The crew of a freight train consists of the fireman and engineer, who remain in the locomotive's cab; a conductor who, while the train is in motion, generally remains in his caboose, and two brakeman—front and rear—supposed to remain on top, but who, after the train has started, usually betake themselves to the engine-cab and caboose respectively. ”

“ When the axles of the wagons were to be greased, the wheels were lifted from the ground by a very long lever, on the end of which several men threw themselves to raise the wagon, so that the wheel could be taken off. If one of the teamsters became sick or disabled, it was customary for the wagon-master to drive the leading team.
The train often consisted of from twenty to thirty wagons, most of them—in later years—laden with bales of buffalo robes on the way to the settlements, and returned full of goods. ”

“ Porters fling open packed luggage vans with a swing, setting free a cataract of portmanteaus, boxes, hampers, baskets, which pours across the platform for yards, led by a frolicsome black leather valise, whose anxious owner has fought her adventurous way to the van for the purpose of explaining to a phlegmatic Scot that he would know it by a broken strap, and must lift it out gently, for it contained breakables.
"It can gang itsel, that ane," as the afflicted woman followed its reckless progress with a wail. ”