The Project Gutenberg eBook, Trips in the Life of a Locomotive Engineer,
by Henry Dawson
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Title: Trips in the Life of a Locomotive Engineer
Author: Henry Dawson
Release Date: March 14, 2021 [eBook #64815]
Language: English
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ENGINEER***
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TRIPS IN THE LIFE OF A LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEER.
[Illustration: Decorative line]
New York:
J. Bradburn (Successor to M. Doolady),
49 Walker Street.
Follett, Foster & Co.
1863.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860.
By Follett, Foster & Co.,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for
the Southern District of Ohio
DEDICATION.
TO THE
RAILROAD MEN OF THE UNITED STATES,
A CLASS
WITH WHOM MY INTERESTS WERE LONG IDENTIFIED, AND WHO I EVER
FOUND GENEROUS AND BRAVE, I DEDICATE THIS
UNPRETENDING VOLUME.
THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE.
Bravery and heroism have in all times been extolled, and the praises
of the self-sacrificing men and women who have risked their own in the
saving of others' lives, been faithfully chronicled.
Railroad men, too long looked upon as the rougher kind of humanity,
have been the subjects of severe condemnation and reproach upon the
occurrence of every disaster, while their skill, bravery and presence
of mind have scarcely ever found a chronicler. The writer ventures to
assert, that if the record of their noble deeds were all gathered, and
presented in their true light, it would be found that these rough, and
weather-worn men were entitled to as high a place, and a fame as lofty,
as has been allotted to any other class who cope with disaster.
It has been the aim of the writer, who has shared their dangerous lot,
to present a few truthful sketches, trusting that his labor may tend to
a better knowledge of the dangers that are passed, by those who drive,
and ride behind the IRON HORSE. If he shall succeed in this, and make
the time of his reader not appear misspent, he will be satisfied.
CONTENTS.
Page
Running in a Fog, 11
A Close Shave, 17
A Collision, 29
Collision Extraordinary, 37
Burning of the Henry Clay, 43
The Conductor, 51
Bravery of an Engineer, 59
The Fireman, 67
A Dream in the "Caboose," 83
The Brakeman, 75
An Unmitigated Villain, 93
A Proposed Race between Steam and Lightning, 101
An Abrupt Call, 109
The Good Luck of being Obstinate, 115
Human Lives _v._ The Dollar, 123
Forty-two Miles Per Hour, 131
Used up at Last, 139
A Victim of Low Wages, 145
Coroners' Juries _v._ Railroad Men, 153
Adventures of an Irish Railroad Man, 161
A Bad Bridge, 169
A Warning, 177
Singular Accidents, 185
Ludicrous Incidents, 191
Explosions, 197
How a Friend was Killed, 203
An Unromantic Hero, 213
The Duties of an Engineer, 219
RUNNING IN A FOG.
In the year 185- I was running an engine on the ---- road. My engine
was named the Racer, and a "racer" she was, too; her driving-wheels
were seven feet in diameter, and she could turn them about as fast as
was necessary, I can assure you. My regular train was the "Morning
Express," leaving the upper terminus of the road at half past four,
running sixty-nine miles in an hour and forty-five minutes, which, as I
had to make three stops, might with justice be considered pretty fast
traveling.
I liked this run amazingly--for, mounted on my "iron steed," as I
sped in the dawn of day along the banks of the river which ran beside
the road, I saw all nature wake; the sun would begin to deck the
eastern clouds with roseate hues--rising higher, it would tip the
mountain-tops with its glory--higher still, it would shed its radiance
over every hill-side and in every valley. It would illumine the broad
bosom of the river, before flowing so dark and drear, now sparkling
and glittering with radiant beauty, seeming to run rejoicing in its
course to the sea. The little vessels that had lain at anchor all
night, swinging idly with the tide, would, as day came on, shake out
their broad white sails, and, gracefully careening to the morning
breeze, sweep away over the water, looking so ethereal that I no
longer wondered at the innocent Mexicans supposing the ships of Cortez
were gigantic birds from the spirit-land. Some mornings were not so
pleasant, for frequently a dense fog would rise and envelop in its
damp, unwholesome folds the river, the road, and all things near them.
This was rendered doubly unpleasant from the fact that there were
on the line numerous drawbridges which were liable to be opened at
all hours, but more especially about daybreak. To be sure there were
men stationed at every bridge, and in fact every half-mile along the
road, whose special duty it was to warn approaching trains of danger
from open drawbridges, obstructions on the track, etc., but the class
of men employed in such duty was not _noted_ for sobriety, and the
wages paid were not sufficient to secure a peculiarly intelligent or
careful class. So the confidence I was compelled to place in them was
necessarily burdened with much distrust.
These men were provided with white and red signal lanterns, detonating
torpedoes and colored flags, and the rules of the road required them to
place a torpedo on the rail and show a red signal both on the bridge
and at a "fog station," distant half a mile from the bridge, before
they opened the draw. At all times when the draw was closed they were
to show a white light or flag at this "fog station." This explanation
will, I trust, be sufficient to enable every reader to understand the
position in which I found myself in the "gray" of one September morning.
I left the starting-point of my route that morning ten minutes behind
time. The fog was more dense than I ever remembered having seen it.
It enveloped every thing. I could not see the end of my train, which
consisted of five cars filled with passengers. The "head-light" which
I carried on my engine illumined the fleecy cloud only a few feet, so
that I was running into the most utter darkness. I did not like the
look of things at all, but my "orders" were positive to use all due
exertions to make time. So, blindly putting my trust in Providence and
the miserable twenty-dollars-a-month-men who were its agents along the
road, I darted headlong into and through the thick and, to all mortal
vision, impenetrable fog. The Racer behaved nobly that morning; she
seemed gifted with the "wings of the wind," and rushed thunderingly
on, making such "time" as astonished even me, almost "native and to
the manor born." Every thing passed off right. I had "made up" seven
minutes of my time, and was within ten miles of my journey's end.
The tremendous speed at which I had been running had exhilarated and
excited me. That pitching into darkness, blindly trusting to men that
I had at best but weak faith in, had given my nerves an unnatural
tension, so I resolved to run the remaining ten miles at whatever
rate of speed the Racer was capable of making. I gave her steam, and
away we flew. The fog was so thick that I could not tell by passing
objects how fast we ran, but the dull, heavy and oppressive roar, as
we shot through rock cuttings and tunnels, the rocking and straining
of my engine, and the almost inconceivable velocity at which the
driving-wheels revolved, told me that my speed was something absolutely
awful. I did not care, though. I was used to that, and the rules bore
me out; besides, I wanted to win for my engine the title of the fastest
engine on the road, which I knew she deserved. So I cried, "_On! on!!_"
I had to cross one drawbridge which, owing to the intervention of a
high hill, could not be seen from the time we passed the "fog station"
until we were within three or four rods of it. I watched closely
for the "fog station" signal. It was white. "All right! go ahead
my beauty!" shouted I, giving at the same time another jerk at the
"throttle," and we shot into the "cut." In less time than it takes
me to write it, we were through, and there on the top of the "draw,"
dimly seen through a rift in the fog, glimmered with to me actual
ghastliness the danger signal--a red light. It seemed to glare at me
with almost fiendish malignancy. Stopping was out of the question,
even had I been running at a quarter of my actual speed. As I was
running, I had not even time to grasp the whistle-cord before we would
be in. So giving one longing, lingering thought to the bright world,
whose duration to me could not be reckoned in seconds even, I shut my
eyes and waited my death, which seemed as absolute and inevitable as
inglorious. It was but an instant of time, but an age of thought and
dread--and then--I was over the bridge. A drunken bridge-tender had,
with accursed stupidity, hoisted the wrong light, and my adventure was
but a "_scare_"--but half a dozen such were as bad as death.
It was three weeks before I ran again, and I never after "made up time"
in a fog.
A CLOSE SHAVE.
Several times during my life I have felt the emotions so often told
of, so seldom felt by any man, when, with death apparently absolute
and inevitable, immediate and inglorious, staring me full in the
face, I forgot all fears for myself--dreamed not of shuddering at the
thought that I soon must die--that the gates of death were swung wide
open before me, and that, with a speed and force against which all
human resistance was useless, I was rushing into them. I knew that
I was fated with the rest; but I thought only of those behind me in
my charge, under my supervision, then chatting gaily, watching the
swift-receding scenery, thinking perhaps how quickly they would be at
home with their dear ones, and not dreaming of the hideous panorama
of death so soon to unroll, the tinkle of the bell for the starting
of which I seemed to hear; the first sad scene, the opening crash of
which was sickening my soul with terror and blinding me with despair.
For I knew that those voices, now so gay, now so happy, would soon be
shrieking in agony, or muttering the dying groan. I knew that those
faces, now so smiling, would soon be distorted with pain, or crushed
out of all semblance to humanity; and I was powerless to avert the
catastrophe. All human force was powerless. Nothing but the hand of
God, stretched forth in its Omnipotence, could avert it; and there was
scarce time for a prayer for that; for such scenes last but a moment,
though their memory endures for all time.
I remember well one instance of this kind. I was running on the R. &
W. road, in the East. A great Sabbath-school excursion and picnic was
gotten up, and I was detailed to run the train. The children of all
the towns on the road were assembled; and, when we got to the grove
in which the picnic was to be held, we had eighteen cars full as they
could hold of the little ones, all dressed in their holiday attire, and
brimful of mirth and gayety. I drew the train in upon the switch, out
of the way of passing trains, let the engine cool down, and then went
into the woods to participate in the innocent pleasures of the day.
The children very soon found out that I was the engineer; and, as I
liked children, and tried to amuse them, it was not long before I had
a perfect troop at my heels, all laughing and chatting gaily to "Mr.
Engineer," as they called me. They asked me a thousand questions about
the engine; and one and all tried to extort a promise from me to let
them ride with me, several declaring to me in the strictest confidence,
their intention of becoming engineers, and their desire, above all
things, that I should teach them how.
So the day passed most happily. The children swung in the swings,
romped on the grass, picked the flowers, and wandered at their own
sweet will all over the woods. A splendid collation was prepared for
them, at which I, too, sat down, and liked to have made myself sick
eating philopenas with the Billys, Freddys, Mollies, and Matties, whose
acquaintance I had made that day, and whose pretty faces and sweet
voices would urge me, in a style that I could not find heart to resist,
to eat a philopena with them, or "just to taste their cake and see if
it wasn't the goodest I ever saw."
But the day passed, as happy or unhappy days will, and time to start
came round. We had some trouble getting so many little folks together,
and it was only by dint of a great deal of whistling that all my load
was collected. I was much amused to see some of the little fellows'
contempt at others more timid than they, who shut their ears to the
sound of the whistle, and ran to hide in the cars. Innumerable were
the entreaties that I had from some of them, to let them ride on the
engine, "only this once;" but I was inexorable. The superintendent of
the road, who conducted the train, came to me as I was about ready to
start, and told me that, as we had lost so much time collecting our
load, I had better not stop at the first station, from whence we had
taken but a few children, but push on to the next, where we would meet
the down train, and send them back from there. Another reason for this
was, that I had a heavy train, and it was a very bad stop to make,
lying right in a valley, at the foot of two very heavy grades. So, off
I started, the children in the cars swinging a dozen handkerchiefs
from every window, all happy.
As I had good running-ground, and unless I hurried, was going to be
quite late in reaching my journey's end, I pulled out, and let the
engine do her best. So we were running very fast--about forty-eight
miles an hour. Before arriving at the station at which I was not to
stop, I passed through a piece of heavy wood, in the midst of which
was a long curve. On emerging from the woods, we left the curve, and
struck a straight track, which extended toward the station some forty
rods from the woods. I sounded my whistle a half mile from the station,
giving a long blow to signify my intention of passing without a stop,
and never shut off; for I had a grade of fifty feet to the mile to
surmount just as I passed the station, and I wanted pretty good headway
to do it with eighteen cars. I turned the curve, shot out into sight of
the station, and there saw what almost curdled the blood in my veins,
and made me tremble with terror: a dozen cars, heavily laden with
stone, stood on the side track, and the switch at this end was wide
open! I knew it was useless, but I whistled for brakes, and reversed
my engine. I might as well have thrown out a fish-hook and line, and
tried to stop by catching the hook in a tree; for, running as I was,
and so near the switch, a feather laid on the wheels would have stopped
us just as soon as the brakes. I gave up all. I did not think for a
moment of the painful death so close to me; I thought only of the load
behind me. I thought of their sweet faces, which had so lately smiled
on me, now to be distorted with agony, or pale in death. I thought
of their lithe limbs, so full of animation, now to be crushed, and
mangled, and dabbled in gore. I thought of the anxious parents watching
to welcome their smiling, romping darlings home again; doomed, though,
to caress only a mangled, crushed, and stiffened corpse, or else to
see the fair promises of their young lives blasted forever, and to
watch their darlings through a crippled life. 'Twas too horrible. I
stood with stiffened limbs and eyeballs almost bursting from their
sockets, frozen with terror, and stared stonily and fixedly, as we
rushed on--when a man, gifted, it seemed, with superhuman strength and
activity, darted across the track right in front of the train, turned
the switch, and we were saved. I could take those little ones home in
safety! I never run an engine over that road afterwards. The whole
thing transpired in a moment; but a dozen such moments were worse than
death, and would furnish terror and agony enough for a lifetime.
A COLLISION.
Of the various kinds of accidents that may befall a railroad-man, a
collision is the most dreaded, because, generally, the most fatal. The
man who is in the wreck, of matter that follows the terrible shock of
two trains colliding, stands indeed but a poor chance to escape with
either life or limb. No combination of metal or wood can be formed
strong enough to resist the tremendous momentum of a locomotive at
full or even half speed, suddenly brought to a stand-still; and when
two trains meet the result is even more frightful, for the momentum is
not only doubled, but the scene of the wreck is lengthened, and the
amount of matter is twice as great. The two locomotives are jammed
and twisted together, and the wrecked cars stretch behind, bringing
up the rear of the procession of destruction. I, myself, never had
a collision with another engine, but I did collide with the hind end
of another train of forty cars, which was standing still, at the foot
of a heavy grade, and into which I ran at about thirty-five miles an
hour, and from the ninth car of which I made my way, for the engine
had run right into it. The roof of the car was extended over the
engine, and the sides had bulged out, and were on either side of me.
The cars were all loaded with flour. The shock of the collision broke
the barrels open and diffused the "Double Extra Genesee" all over; it
mingled with the smoke and steam and floated all round, so that when,
during the several minutes I was confined there, I essayed to breathe,
I inhaled a compound of flour, dust, hot steam and choking smoke. Take
it altogether, that car from which, as soon as I could, I crawled, was
a little the hottest, most dusty, and cramped position into which I was
ever thrown. To add to the terror-producing elements of the scene, my
fireman lay at my feet, caught between the tender and the head of the
boiler, and so crushed that he never breathed from the instant he was
caught. He was crushed the whole length of his body, from the left hip
to the right shoulder, and compressed to the thinness of my hand. In
fact, an indentation was made in the boiler where the tender struck
it, and his body was between boiler and tender! The way this accident
happened was simple, and easily explained. The freight train which I
was to pass with the express at the next station, broke down while on
this grade. The breakage was trifling and could easily be repaired, so
the conductor dispatched a man (a green hand, that they paid twenty-two
dollars a month) to the rear with orders, as the night was very dark
and rainy, to go clear to the top of the grade, a full mile off, and
swing his red light from the time he saw my head light, which he could
see for a mile, as the track was straight, until I saw it and stopped,
and then he was to tell me what was the matter, and I, of course, would
proceed with caution until I passed the train. The conductor was thus
particular, for he knew he was a green hand, and sent him back only
because he could be spared, in case the train proceeded, better than
the other man; and he was allowed only two brakemen. Well, with these
apparently clear instructions, the brakeman went back to the top of the
grade. I was then in sight; he gave, according to his own statement,
one swing of the lamp, and it went out. He had no matches, and what to
do he didn't know. He had in his pocket, to be sure, a half a dozen
torpedoes, given to him expressly for such emergencies, but if he ever
knew their use, he was too big a fool to use the knowledge when it was
needed. He might, to be sure, have stood right in the track, and, by
swinging his arms, have attracted my attention, for on dark nights and
on roads where they hire cheap men, I generally kept a close lookout;
and if I saw a man swinging his arms, and, apparently trying to see
how like a madman he could act, I stopped quick, for there was no
telling what was the matter. But this fellow was too big a fool for
that even. He turned from me and made towards his own train, bellowing
lustily, no doubt, for them to go ahead, but they were at the engine,
and its hissing steam made too much noise for them to hear, even had he
been within ten rods of them. But a mile away, that chance was pretty
slim, and yet on it hung a good many lives. I came on, running about
forty-five miles an hour, for the next station was a wood and water
station, and I wanted time there.
I discovered the red light, held at the rear of the train, when within
about fifteen rods of it. I had barely time to shut off, and was in the
very act of reversing when the collision took place. The tender jumped
up on the foot-board, somehow I was raised at the same time, so that
it did not catch my feet, but the end of the tank caught my hand on the
"reverse lever," which I had not time to let go, and there I was fast.
The first five cars were thrown clear to one side of the track, by the
impetus of my train; the other four were crushed like egg-shells, and
in the ninth, the engine brought up. I was fast; it all occurred in a
second, and the scene was so confusing and rapid that I hardly knew
when my hand _was_ caught; I certainly should not have known where
but for the locality of the piece of it afterwards found. My pain was
awful, for not only was my hand caught, but the wood from the tender,
as I crouched behind the dome, gave my body a most horrible pummeling,
and the blinding smoke and scalding steam added to the misery of my
position. I really began to fear that I should have to stay there and
undergo the slow, protracted torture of being scalded to death; but
with a final effort I jerked my hand loose, and groped my way out. My
clothes were saturated with moisture. The place had been so hot that my
hands peeled, and my face was blistered. I did not fully recover for
months. But at last I did and went at it again, to run into the doors
of death, which are wide open all along every mile of a railroad,
and into which, even if nature does not let you go, some fool of a
man, who is willing to risk his own worthless neck in such scenes for
twenty-five dollars a month, will contrive, ten chances against one, by
his stupid blundering to push you.
COLLISION EXTRAORDINARY.
One morning, in the year 185-, I was running the Morning Express, or
the Shanghæ run, as it was called, on the H. road in New York state.
The morning was foggy, damp and uncomfortable, and by its influence
I was depressed so that I had the "blues" very badly; I felt weary
and tired of the life I was leading, dull and monotonous always, save
when varied by horror. I got to thinking of the poor estimate in which
the class to which I belonged was held by the people generally, who,
seated in the easy-cushioned seats of the train, read of battles far
away--of deeds of heroism, performed amid the smoke and din of bloody
wars,--and their hearts swell with pride,--they glow with gladness to
think that their own species are capable of such daring acts, and all
the while these very readers are skirting the edges of precipices, to
look down which would appall the stoutest heart and make the strongest
nerved man thrill with terror;--they are crossing deep, narrow gorges
on gossamer-like bridges;--they are passing switches at terrific speed,
where there is but an inch of space between smooth-rolling prosperity
and quick destruction;--they are darting through dark, gloomy tunnels,
which would be turned into graves for them, were a single stone to
be detached from the roof in front of the thundering train;--they
are dragged by a fiery-lunged, smoke-belching monster, in whose form
are imprisoned death-dealing forces the most terrific. And mounted
upon this fire-fiend sits the engineer, controlling its every motion,
holding in his hand the thread of every life on the train, which a
single act--a false move--a deceived eye, an instant's relaxation of
thought or care on his part, would cut, to be united nevermore; and the
train thunders on, crossing bridges, gullies and roads, passing through
tunnels and cuts, and over embankments. The engineer, firm to his post,
still regulates the breath of his steam-demon and keeps his eye upon
the track ahead, with a thousand things upon his mind, the neglect or
a wrong thought of either of which would run the risk of a thousand
lives;--and these readers in the cars are still absorbed with the
daring deeds of the Zouaves under the warm sun of Italy, but pay not a
thought to the Zouave upon the engine, who every day rides down into
the "valley of death" and charges a bridge of Magenta.
But to return to this dismal, foggy morning that I began to tell you
of. It was with some such thoughts as these that I sat that morning
upon my engine, and plunged into the fog-banks that hung over the river
and the river-side. I sat so
"Absorbed in guessing, but no syllable expressing"
of whether it must always be so with me; whether I should always be
chilled with this indifference and want of appreciation in my waking
hours, and in my sleep have this horrible responsibility and care to
sit, ghoul-like, upon my breast and almost stifle the beating of my
heart;--when with a crash and slam my meditations were interrupted, and
the whole side of the "cab," with the "smokestack," "whistle-stand" and
"sand-box" were stripped from the engine. The splinters flew around my
head, the escaping steam made most an infernal din, and the "fire-box"
emitted most as infernal a smoke, and I was entirely ignorant of what
was up or the extent of the damage done. As soon as I could stop, I
of course, after seeing that every thing was right with the engine,
went back to see what was the cause of this sudden invasion upon the
dreary harmony of my thoughts, and the completeness of my running
arrangements, when lo! and behold it was a North River _schooner_ with
which I had collided. It had, during the fog, been blown upon the
shore, and into its "bowsprit," which projected over the track, I had
run full tilt.
I think that I am justified in calling a collision between a schooner
on the river and a locomotive on the rail, a _collision extraordinary_.
Readers, do not you?
BURNING OF THE HENRY CLAY.
There is one reminiscence of my life as a "railroad man" that dwells
in my memory with most terrible vividness, one that I often think of
in daytime with shuddering horror; and in the night, in dreams of
appalling terror, each scene is renewed in all the ghastliness of
the reality, so that the nights when I dream of it become epochs of
miserable, terrible helplessness.
It was on a clear, bright day in August. The fields were covered
with the maturity of verdure, the trees wore their coronal of leaves
perfected, the birds sang gaily, and the river sparkled in the sun; and
I sat upon my engine, looking ahead mostly, but occasionally casting
my eyes at the vessels on the river, that spread their white sails to
the breeze and danced over the rippling waters, looking too graceful
to be of earth. Among the craft upon the river I noticed the steamboat
"Henry Clay;" another and a rival boat was some distance from it, and
from the appearance of things I inferred that they were racing. I
watched the two as closely as I could for sometime, and while looking
intently at the "Clay," I saw a dark column of thick black smoke
ascending from her, "amidships," just back of the smoke-pipe. At first
I paid little heed to it, but soon it turned to fire, and the leaping
flames, like serpents, entwined the whole of the middle portion of the
boat in their terrible embrace. She was at once headed for the shore,
and came rushing on, trailing the thick cloud of flame and smoke. She
struck the shore near where I had stopped my train, for, of course,
seeing such a thing about to happen, I stopped to enable the hands
and passengers to render what assistance they could. The burning boat
struck the shore by the side of a little wharf, right where the station
of "Riverdale" now stands, and those who were upon the forward part of
her decks escaped at once by leaping to the shore; but the majority
of the passengers, including all of the women and children, were on
the after-part of the boat, and owing to the centre of the boat being
entirely enwrapped by the hissing flames, they were utterly unable
to get to the shore. So they were cooped up on the extreme after-end
of the boat, with the roaring fire forming an impassable barrier to
prevent their reaching the land, and the swift-flowing river at their
feet, surging and bubbling past, dark, deep, and to most of them as
certain death as the flames in front. The fire crept on. It drove them
inch by inch to the water. The strong swimmers, crazed by the heat,
wrapped their stalwart arms about their dear ones, and leaped into
the water. Their mutual struggles impeded each other; they sank with
words of love and farewell bubbling from their lips, unheard amidst the
roar of the flames and hiss of the water, as the burning timbers fell
in and were extinguished. Women raised their hands to Heaven, uttered
one piercing, despairing scream, and with the flames enwrapping their
clothing, leaped into the stream, which sullenly closed over them.
Some crawled over the guards and hung suspended until the fierce heat
compelled them to loose their hold and drop into the waves below.
Mothers, clasping their children to their bosoms, knelt and prayed God
to let this cup pass from them. Many, leaping into the water, almost
gained the shore, but some piece of the burning wreck would fall upon
them and crush them down. Some we could see kneeling on the deck until
the surging flames and blinding smoke shrouded them and hid them from
our sight. One little boy was seen upon the hurricane roof, just as it
fell. Entwined in each other's embrace, two girls were seen to rush
right into the raging fire, either delirious with the heat or desirous
of quickly ending their dreadful sufferings, which they thought _must_
end in death. And we upon the shore stood almost entirely powerless to
aid. Death-shrieks and despairing cries for help, prayer and blasphemy,
all mingled, came to our ear above the roaring and crackling of the
flames, and in agony and the terror of helplessness we closed our ears
to shut out the horrid sounds. The intense heat of the fire rendered
it impossible for us to approach near the boat. The many despairing
creatures struggling in the water made it almost certain death for any
to swim out to help. No boats were near, except the boats of a sloop
which came along just as the fire was at its highest and were unable to
get near the wreck, because of the heat. The scene among the survivors
was most terrible. One little boy of about seven, was running around
seeking his parents and sisters. Poor fellow! his search was vain,
for the scorching flames had killed them, and the rapid river had
buried them. A mother was there, nursing a dead babe, which drowned
in her arms, as, with almost superhuman exertions, she struggled to
the shore. A young lady sat by the side of her father, lying stark and
stiff, killed by a falling beam, within twenty feet of the shore. A
noble Newfoundland dog stood, sole guardian of a little child of three
or four, that he had brought ashore himself, and to whom we could find
neither kith nor kin among the crowd. His dog, playmate of an hour
before, was now the saviour of his life and his only friend. I left the
scene with my train when convinced that a longer stay was useless, as
far as saving life went.
I returned that afternoon, and the water had given up many of its dead.
Twenty-two bodies lay stretched upon the shore--but one in a coffin,
and she a bride of that morning, with the wedding-dress scorched and
blackened, and clinging with wet, clammy folds to her stiff and rigid
form. Her husband bent in still despair over her. A little child lay
there, unclaimed. His curly, flaxen hair that, two hours before, father
and sisters stroked so fondly, was matted around his forehead, and
begrimed with the sand, over which his little body had been washed to
the river-bank. His little lips, that a mother pressed so lately, now
were black with the slime of the river-bed in which he went to sleep.
An old man of seventy was there, sleeping calmly after the battle of
life, which for him culminated with horror at its close. In short, of
all ages they were there, lying on the sand, and the scene I shall
never forget. Each incident, from the first flashing out of the flame
to the moment when I, with reverent hands, helped lay them in their
coffins and the tragedy closed, is photographed forever upon my mind.
THE CONDUCTOR.
A recent case in the courts of this county, has set me to thinking
of some of the wrongs heaped upon railroad men so much, that I shall
devote this article exclusively to a review of the opprobrium bestowed
upon all men connected with railroads, by the people who every day
travel under their control, with their lives subject to the care and
watchfulness of these men, for whose abuse they leave no opportunity
to escape. Does a train run off the track, and thereby mischief be
worked, every possible circumstance that can be twisted and distorted
into a shape such as to throw the blame upon the men connected with the
road, _is_ so twisted and distorted. The probability of any accident
happening without its being directly caused by the scarcely less than
criminal negligence of some of the railroad men, is always scouted
by the discerning public; most of whom scarcely know the difference
between a locomotive and a pumping engine. An accident caused by
the breaking of a portion of the machinery of a locomotive engine
on the Hudson River Railroad, which did no damage except to cause a
three hours' detention, was by some enterprising and intelligent (?)
penny-a-liner dignified into a proof of the general incompetency of
railroad men, in one of our prominent literary periodicals, and the
question was very sagely asked why the railroad company did not have
engines that would not break down, or engineers that would not allow
them so to do? The question might, with equal propriety, be asked, why
did not nature form trees, the timber of which would not rot? Or, why
did not nature make rivers that would not overflow?
Let two suits be brought in almost any of our courts, each with
circumstances of the same aggravation, say for assault and battery, and
let the parties in one be ordinary citizens, and in the other, let one
party be a railroad man and the other a citizen, with whom, for some
cause, the railroad man has had a difficulty, and you will invariably
see the railroad man's case decided against him, and in the other case
the defendant be acquitted, to go scot-free. Why is this? Simply, I
think, because every individual who has ever suffered from the hands of
any railroad employee, treasures up that indignity, and lays it to the
account of every other railroad man he meets, making the class suffer
in his estimation, because one of them treated him in a crusty manner.
If a man's neighbor or friend offend him, he tries to forgive
it--earnestly endeavors to find palliating circumstances; but, in the
case of railroad men, all that would palliate the offense of rudeness
and want of courtesy, such as is sometimes shown, is studiously
ignored, or, at the mildest, forgotten.
I knew a school teacher once, who said that the most barbarous
profession in the world was that of teaching, because it drove from a
man all humanity. He got into such a habit of ruling, that it became
impossible for him to understand how to obey any one himself.
The same thing might be said of a railroad conductor; for, every day in
his life, he takes the exclusive control of a train full of passengers
of as different dispositions as they are of different countenances.
Now, he meets with a testy, quarrelsome old fellow, who is given
to fault-finding, and who blows him up at every meeting. Now, with
a querulous old maid, who is in continual fear lest the train run
off the track, the boiler burst, or the conductor palm off some bad
money on her. Now, with a gent of an inquisitive turn of mind, who is
continually asking the distance to the next station, and the time the
train stops there, or else pulling out an old turnip of a watch and
comparing his time with the conductor's. Then, a stupid, dunderheaded
man is before him, who does not know where he is going, nor how much
money he has got. Then, somebody has got carried by, and scolds the
conductor for it, or else angrily insists that the train be immediately
backed up for his especial accommodation. The next man, maybe, is an
Irishman, made gloriously happy and piggishly independent, by the
aid of poor whiskey, who will pay his fare how he pleases, and when
he pleases; who is determined to ride where he wants to, and who
will at once jump in for a fight, if any of these rights of his are
invaded; or, mayhap, he will not pay his fare at all, deeming that his
presence (scarcely more endurable than a hog's) is sufficient honor to
remunerate the company for his ride; or perhaps his "brother Tiddy,
or Pathrick, or Michael, or Dinnis works upon the thrack," and "bedad,
he'll jist ride onyway." All these characters are found in any train,
and with them the conductor has to deal every day. How do you know,
when he speaks harshly to you, but that he has just had a confab with
one of these gentry, who has sorely tried his patience, and riled his
temper? How do you think you would fill his place, were you subjected
to such annoyances all the time? Would you be able at all times to
maintain a perfectly correct and polite exterior--a Christian gravity
of demeanor--and never for an instant forget yourself, or lose your
temper, or allow your manner to show to any one the slightest acerbity?
You know you could not; and yet, for being only thus human, you are
loud in your denunciation of conductors and all railroad men, and,
perhaps honestly, but certainly with great injustice, believe them
to have no care for your wants, no interest in your comfort. Treat
railroad men with the same consideration that you evince towards other
business companions. Consider always that they are only human--have
not saintly nor angelic tempers, any of them, and that every day's
experience is one of trial and provocation. By so doing, you will
be only rendering them simple justice, and you will yourself receive
better treatment than if you attempt to make the railroad man your
menial, or the pack-horse for all your ill-feeling.
BRAVERY OF AN ENGINEER.
The presence of mind shown by railroad men is a great deal talked
about; but few, I think, know the trying circumstances under which it
must be exercised, because they have never thought of, and are not
familiar enough with the details of the business, and the common,
every-day incidents of the lives of railroad men. If any thing does
happen to a train of cars, or an engine, it comes so suddenly, and is
all over so quickly, that the impulse, and effort, to do something to
prevent it, must be instantaneous, or they are of no avail. The mind
must devise, and the hands spring to execute at once, for the man is
on a machine that moves like the wind-blast, and will snap bands and
braces of iron or steel as easily as the wild horse would break a
halter of thread.
The engine, while under the control of its master, moves along
regularly and with the beauty of a dream; its wheels revolve, glancing
in the sun; its exhausted steam coughs as regularly as the strong man's
heart beats, and trails back over the train, wreathing itself into the
most fantastic convolutions; now sweeping away towards the sky in a
grand, white pillar, anon twining and twisting among the gnarled limbs
of the trees beside the track, and the train moves on so fast that the
scared bird in vain tries to get out of its way by flying ahead of
it. Still the engineer sits there cool and calm; but let him have a
care,--let not the exhilaration of his wild ride overcome his prudence,
for the elements he controls are, while under his rule, useful and
easily managed, but broken loose, they have the power of a thousand
giants, and do the work of a legion of devils in almost a single beat
of the pulse.
A man can easily retain his presence of mind where the danger depends
entirely upon him; that is, where his maintaining one position, or
doing one thing resolutely, will avert the catastrophe; but under
circumstances such as frequently beset an engineer, where, to do his
utmost, he can only partially avert the calamity, then it is that the
natural bravery and acquired courage of a man is tried to the utmost
extent. I remember several instances of this kind, where engineers, in
full view of the awful danger which threatened them, knowing too well
the terrible chances of death that were against them and the passengers
under their charge, even if they did maintain their positions, and, by
using all their exertions, succeeded in slightly reducing the shock of
the collision, which could only be modified--not averted--still stuck
to their posts, did their utmost, and rode into the other train and
met their death, amid the appalling scenes of the chaotic ruin which
followed.
George D---- was running the Night Express on the ---- road. I was then
running the freight train, which laid over at a station for George to
pass. One night--it was dark and dismal--the rain had been pouring
down in torrents all night long; I arrived with my train, went in upon
the switch and waited for George, who passed on the main track without
stopping. Owing to the storm and the failure of western connections,
George was some thirty minutes behind, and of course came on, intending
to run though the station pretty fast--a perfectly safe proceeding,
apparently, for the switches could not be turned wrong without changing
the lights, and these being "bull's-eye" lanterns elevated so that
they could be seen a great distance on the straight track which was
there, no change could be made without the watchful eye of the engineer
seeing it at once. So George came on, at about thirty-five miles an
hour, as near as I could judge, and I was watching him all the time. He
was within about three times the length of his train of the switch--was
blowing his whistle--when I saw, and _he_ saw the switchman run madly
out of his "shanty," grab the switch and turn it so that it would lead
him directly into the hind end of my train. I jumped, instinctively, to
start my engine--I heard him whistle for brakes, and those that stood
near said that he reversed his engine--but my train was too heavy for
me to move quickly, and he was too near to do much good by reversing,
so I soon felt a heavy concussion, and knew that he had struck hard,
for, at the other end of forty-five cars, it knocked me down, and the
jar broke my engine loose from the train. He might have jumped from his
engine with comparative safety, after he saw the switch changed, for
the ground was sandy there and free from obstructions; and he could
easily have jumped clear of the track and escaped with slight bruises.
But no! Behind him, trusting to him, and resting in comparative
security, were hundreds to whom life was as dear as to him; his post
was at the head; to the great law of self-preservation, that most
people put first in their code of practice, his stern duty required him
to forswear allegiance, and to act on the principle, "others first,
myself afterwards." So, with a bravery of heart such as is seldom found
in other ranks of men, he stuck to his iron steed, transformed then
into the white steed of death, and spent the last energies of his life,
the strength of his last pulse, striving to mitigate the suffering
which would follow the collision. His death was instantaneous; he
had no time for regrets at leaving life and the friends he loved so
dearly. When we found him, one hand grasped the throttle, his engine
was reversed, and with the other hand he still held on to the handle
of the sand-box lever. The whole middle and lower portion of his body
was crushed, but his head and arms were untouched, and his face still
wore a resolute, self-sacrificing expression, such as must have lit
up the countenance of Arnold Winkleried, when crying, "_Make way for
liberty_," he threw himself upon a sheaf of Austrian spears and broke
the column of his enemies.
I find in nearly every cemetery that I visit, monuments and
memorial-stones to some brave man who fell and died amid the smoke
and flame and hate of a battle-field; and orators and statesmen,
ministers and newspapers, exhaust the fountains of eloquence to extol
the "illustrious dead." But George D----, who spent his life in a
constant battle with the elements, who waged unequal war with time and
space, who at last chose rather to die himself than to bring death
or injuries to others, sleeps in the quiet of a country church-yard.
The wailing wind, sighing through the few trees there, sings his only
dirge; a plain stone, bought by the hard won money of his companions in
life, alone marks his resting-place. The stranger, passing by, would
scarcely notice it; but who shall dare to tell me that there resteth
not there a frame, from which a soul has flown, as noble as any that
sleeps under sculptured urn or slab, over which thousands have mused,
and which has been the text of hundreds of exhortations to patriotism
and self-forgetfulness?
THE FIREMAN.
The fireman, the engineer's _left_-hand man, his trump card, without
whom it would be difficult for him to get over the road, is seen but
little, and thought but little of. He is usually dirty and greasy,
wearing a ragged pair of overalls, originally blue, but now embroidered
so with oil and dust, that they are become a smutty brown. Just before
the train leaves the station, you will see his face, down which streams
the perspiration, looking back, watching for the signal to start; for
this is one of his many duties. His head is usually ornamented (in
his opinion) with some outlandish cap or hat; though others regard it
as a fittingly outrageous cap-sheaf to his general dirty and outre
appearance. But little cares Mr. Fireman; he runs the fire-box of that
"machine." He feels pride in the whole engine; and when he sees any
one admiring its polished surface, gleaming so brightly in the sun,
flashing so swiftly by the farm-houses on the road (in each of which
Mr. Fireman has acquaintance of the opposite sex, to whom he must
needs swing his handkerchief), he feels a glow of honest satisfaction;
and the really splendid manner in which his efforts have caused it to
shine--which is evidently one great reason for the admiration bestowed
upon it--so fills him with self gratulation that, in his great modesty,
which he fears will be overcome if he stays there much longer watching
people as they admire his handiwork, and he be led to tell them all
about it, how he scrubbed and scoured to bring her to that pitch of
perfection--he turns away, and begins to pitch the wood about in the
most reckless manner imaginable; yet every stick goes just where he
wants it.
His aspirations (and he has them, my lily-handed friend, as well as
you, and perhaps, though not so elevated, more honorable than yours)
are, that he may, by attending to his own duties, so attract the
attention of the ones in authority that he may be placed in positions
where he can learn the business, and, by and by, himself have charge of
an engine as its runner. It does not seem a very high ambition; but,
to attain it, he undergoes a probation seldom of less than three,
frequently of seven or eight years, at the hardest kind of work,
performed, too, where dangers are thick around him, and his chances to
avert them very slim. His duties are manifold and various; but long
years of attendance to them makes them very monotonous and irksome, and
he would soon weary of them, did not the hope of one day being himself
sole master of the "iron horse," actuate him to renewed diligence and
continued efforts to excel. He is on duty longer than any other man
connected with the train. He must be on hand before the engine comes
out of the shop, to start a fire and see that all is right about the
engine. Usually he brings it out upon the track; and then, when all is
ready, he begins the laborious work of throwing wood; which amounts to
the handling of from four to seven cords of wood per diem, while the
engine and tender are pitching and rolling so that a "green-horn" would
find it hard work to stand on his feet, let alone having, while so
standing, to keep that fiery furnace supplied with fuel. The worse the
day, the more the snow or rain blows, the harder his work. His hands
become calloused with the numerous wounds he receives from splinters
on the wood. He it is who has to go out on the runboard and oil the
valves, while the engine is running full speed. No matter how cold the
wind may blow, how rain, hail, sleet, or snow may beat down upon him,
covering every thing with ice, nor how dark the night, out there he
must go and crawl along the slippery side of the engine to do his work.
At stations he must take water, and when at last the train arrives at
its destination, and others are ready to go home, he must stay. If a
little too much wood is in the fire-box, he must take it out, and then
go to work cleaning and scouring the dust and rust from off the bright
work and from the boiler. Every bit of cleaning in the cab and above
the runboard, including the cylinders and steam-chest, must be done by
him; and any one who will look at the fancy-work on some of our modern
locomotives, can judge something of what he has to do after the day's
work on the road is done. Every thing is brass, or covered with brass;
and all must be kept polished like a mirror, or the fireman is hauled
over the coals.
For performing these manifold duties, he receives the magnificent
sum of (usually) thirty dollars per month; and he knows no Sundays,
no holidays--on long roads, he scarcely knows sleep. He has not the
responsibility resting on him that there is upon the engineer; but
it is required of him, when not otherwise engaged with his duty of
firing, to assist the engineer in keeping a lookout ahead. His position
is one of the most dangerous on the train, as is proved by the frequent
occurrence of accidents, where only the fireman is killed; and his
only obituary, no matter how earnest he may have been, how faithful in
the performance of his duties, is an item in the telegraphic reports,
that _a fireman was killed_ in such a railroad smash. He may have been
one of nature's noblemen. A fond mother and sweet sisters may have
been dependent on his scanty earnings for their support. No matter;
the great surging tide of humanity that daily throngs these avenues
of travel, has not time to inquire after, nor sympathy to waste upon,
a greasy wood-passer, whom they regard as simply a sort of piece in
the machinery of the road, not half so essential as a valve or bolt,
for if he be lost, his place can be at once supplied; but if a bolt
or other essential piece of the iron machinery give out, it will most
likely cause a vexatious delay. Once in a while a fireman performs some
heroic act that brings him into a momentary notoriety, and opens the
eyes of the few who may be cognizant of the case, to the fact that, on
a railroad, all men are in danger, and that the most humble of them
may perform some self-sacrificing deed that will, at the expense of his
own, save many other lives.
In a collision that occurred at a station on one of the roads in New
York state, the engineer, a relative of some of the managers of the
road, who had fired only half so long as the man then firing for him,
jumped from the engine, leaving it to run at full speed into the hind
end of a train standing on a branch track, of which the switch was
wrong; not doing a single thing to avert or mitigate the calamity;
fearing only for his own precious neck, which a hemp cravat would
ornament, to the edification of the world. The fireman sprang at once
to the post vacated by the engineer, reversed the engine, opened the
sand-box valve, and rode into the hind end of that train; losing, in so
doing, a leg and an arm. He has been most munificently rewarded for his
heroism, being now employed to attend a crossing and hold a flag for
passing trains, and receiving the princely compensation of twenty-five
dollars per month; while the engineer, who deserted his post and
left all to _kind Providence_, is running on the road at a salary of
seventy-five per month.
THE BRAKEMAN.
A very humble class of railroad men, a class that gets poorer pay in
proportion to the work they do and the dangers they run than any other
upon a road, are the brakemen. Though perhaps less responsibility rests
upon them, they are placed in the most dangerous position on the train;
they are expected to be at their posts at all times, and to flinch from
no contingency which may arise. The managers of a railroad expect and
demand the brakemen to be as prompt in answering the signals of the
engineer as the throttle-valve is obedient to his touch.
Reader, were you ever on a train of cars moving with the wings of the
wind, skimming over the ground as rapidly as a bird flies, darting by
tree and house, through cuttings and over embankments? and did you ever
feel a sudden jar that almost jerked you from your seat? At the same
time did you hear a sharp, sudden blast of the whistle, ringing out
as if the hand that pulled it was nerved by the presence of danger,
braced by a terrible anxiety to avoid destruction? It frightened you,
did it not? But did you notice the brakeman then? He rushed madly
out of the cars as if he thought the train was going to destruction
surely, and he wished, before the crash came, to be out of it. No,
that was not his object. He caught hold of the brakes and, with all
the force and energy he was capable of exerting, applied them to the
swift-revolving wheels, and when you felt the gradual reduction of
the speed under the pressure of the brakes, you began to feel easier.
But what thought the brakeman all the time? Did he think that, if the
danger ahead was any one of a thousand which might happen? if another
train was coming towards them, and they should strike it? if a disabled
engine was on the track, and a fool, to whom the task was intrusted,
had neglected to give your train the signal? if the driving rain had
raised some little stream, or a spark of fire had lodged in a bridge
and the bridge was gone? if some loosened rock had rolled down upon
the track; or if the track had slid; or if some wretch, wearing a
human form over a hellish soul, had lifted a rail, placed a tie on the
track, to hurl engine and car therefrom?--if any of these things were
ahead and the speed of your train be too great to stop, and go plunging
into it, did he realize that he was the first man to be caught; that
those two cars between which he stood, straining every nerve to do his
share to avert the catastrophe, would come together and crush him,
as he would crush a worm beneath his tread? If he did, he was doing
his duty in that dangerous place, risking his life at a pretty cheap
rate--a dollar a day--wasn't he? And still these men do this every day
for the same price and at the same risk, while the passengers regard
them as necessary evils, who _will_ be continually banging the doors.
So they pass them by, never giving them a kind word, scarcely ever
thanking them for the many little services which they unhesitatingly
demand of them, and, if the passenger has ridden long, and the jolting
and jarring, the want of rest, or wearisome monotony of the long
ride has made him peevish, how sure he is to vent his spite on the
brakeman, because he thinks him the most humble, and therefore the most
unprotected man on the train. And the brakeman endures it all; for if
he answers back a word, if he asserts his manhood--which many seem to
think he has sold for his paltry thirty dollars a month--why, he is
reported at the office, a garbled version of the affair is given, and
the brakeman is discharged.
But have a care, O! most chivalrous passenger, you who fly into such a
passion if your dignity is offended by a short answer. You may quarrel
with a man having a soul in him beside which yours would look most
pitifully insignificant; one who, were the dread signal to sound, would
rush out into the danger, and, throwing himself into the chasm, die for
you, amid all the appalling scenes of the chaotic wreck of that train
of cars, as coolly, as determinately, as unselfishly as the Stuart
queen barred the door with her own fair arm, that her liege lord might
escape. And then, methinks, you would feel sad when you saw his form
stretched there dead, all life crushed out of it--once so comely, now
so mangled and unsightly--and thought that, with that poor handful
of dust from which the soul took flight so nobly, you had just been
picking a petty quarrel.
If you have read the accounts of railroad accidents as carefully
and with such thrilling interest as I have, you will remember many
incidents where brakemen were killed while at their post, discharging
their duty. Several have come under my immediate observation. On the H.
R. R. one night I was going over the road, "extra," that is, I was not
running the engine, but riding in the car. I heard a sharp whistle, but
thought it was not of much consequence, for I knew the engineer's long
avowed intention, to never call the brakemen to their posts when the
danger could be avoided; he said he would give them a little chance,
not call them where they had none. The brakemen all sprang to their
posts; the one in the car where I was I saw putting on his brake; the
next instant, with a shock that shook every thing loose and piled the
seats, passengers, stove, and pieces of the roof all into a mass in the
forward end of the car, the engine struck a rock, the cars were all
piled together, and I was pitched into the alley up close to the end
which was all stove in. I felt blood trickling on my hands, but thought
it was from a wound I had received on my head. I soon found that it
was from Charley McLoughlin, the brakeman with whom I had just been
talking, and whom I saw go to his post at the first signal of danger.
The whole lower part of his body was crushed, but he yet lived. We got
him out as soon as possible and laid him beside the track on a door,
then went to get the rest of the dead and wounded. We found one of the
brakemen dead, his head mashed flat; the other one, Joe Barnard, was
hurt just as Charley was, and as they were inseparable companions,
we laid them together. I took their heads in my lap--we did not try
to move them, as the physicians said they could not live--and there
for four long hours I sat and talked with those men whose lives were
surely, but slowly ebbing away. In life they were as brothers, and
death did not separate them, for they departed within fifteen minutes
of each other. But notice this fact--the brakeman who was found dead,
still held in his hand the shattered brake-wheel, and Joe Barnard was
crushed with both hands still grasping his. Yet these men were "only
brakemen!"
A DREAM IN THE "CABOOSE."
A first thought of the life of an engineer would be that it was a life
peculiarly exhilarating; that in the mind of an engineer the rush and
flow of strong feeling and emotion would constantly be felt; that the
every-day incidents of his life would keep his nerves continually on
the stretch, and that lassitude would never overtake him. But such
is not the case. I know of no life that a man could live which would
more certainly produce stagnation than it. Every day, in sunshine
or storm, cold or heat, light or darkness, he goes through the same
scenes, bearing the same burdens of care and responsibility, facing
the same dangers, braving grim death ever and all the time until he
loses fear, and the novelty of the at first exhilarating effort to
conquer space and distance, and make time of no account, wears away,
till danger becomes monotonous, and only an occasional scene of
horror checkers the unchanging current of his every-day life. He knows
every tie on the road; he knows that here is a bad curve, there a weak
bridge, from either of which he may at any time, by the most probable
of possibilities, be hurled to his death; and still every day he rides
his "iron horse," of fiery heart and demon pulse, over the weak places
and the strong, posted at the very front of the procession, which any
one of a thousand contingencies would make a funeral train. He passes
the same stations, blows his whistle at the same point, sees the same
men at work in the same fields, with the same horses that they used
last year and the year before. Two lines of iron stretch before him, to
demand and receive his earnest scrutiny every day, precisely as they
have every day for years.
He meets the same men on other trains at the same places, and bids them
"hail" and "good-bye" with the same uncertainty of ever seeing them
again that he has always felt, and which has grown so sadly wearisome.
He alone knows and appreciates the chances against him, but his daily
bread depends upon his running them, so with a resolute will that soon
gets to be the merest trusting to luck, he goes ahead, controlled by
the same rules, which always have the same dreary penalties attached
to them when violated,--a maimed and disfigured body for the balance of
his days, or a sudden and inglorious death.
If one of his intimate companions gets killed, he can only bestow a
passing thought upon it, for he has not been unexpectant of it, and he
knows full well that the same accident may at the same place make it
his turn next, as he passes over the same road every day, running the
same chances, as did his friend just gone.
I had, while I was on the H---- road, a particular friend, an engineer.
We were inseparable, and were both of us, alike, given to fits of
despondency, at which times we would, with choking dread, bid each
other farewell, and "hang around" the telegraph office to hear the
welcome "O K" from the various stations, signifying that our trains had
passed "on time" and "all right."
One Saturday night, when my engine was to "lay over" for the Sunday
at the upper end of the road, I determined to go back to N----. The
only train down that night, was the one o'clock "night freight," which
Charley, my friend, was to tow with the "Cumberland," a heavy, clumsy
"coal-burner." I went to the engine-house, and sat down with Charley,
to smoke and talk till his "leaving time" came. He had the blues that
night, and after we had talked awhile, I had them too. So we sat there
slowly puffing our pipes, recalling gloomy tales of our own, and of
others' experience; telling of unlucky engines (a favorite superstition
with many engineers), and of unlucky men, and of bad places on the
road, weak bridges, loose rails, shelving rocks, and bad curves, until
we had got ourselves into the belief that nothing short of a miracle
could possibly enable even a hand-car to pass over the road in any
thing like safety. Had any of the passengers who daily passed over the
road, in the comparative safety of its sumptuous coaches, been there
and heard our description of the road, I guess they would have taken
lodgings at the nearest hotel, sooner than have ridden over the road
that night, towed by that engine, which Charley had more than once
characterized as a "deathtrap" and "man-killer," and proven her right
to the name by alluding to the four men she had killed. At length the
hours had dragged themselves along, and the "Cumberland" was coupled
to the train. As I started for the "Caboose," Charley said to me, "The
'Cumberland' always was and always will be an unlucky engine, and
blamed if I know but she will kill me to-night, so let's shake hands,
and good-bye." We shook hands, and I clambered into the "Caboose,"
having, it must be confessed, a sneaking kind of good feeling to think
that I was at the rear instead of the front end of those forty cars,
especially as the engine was one that, despite my reason and better
judgment, I more than half-believed was "cursed" with "ill-luck;" by
which I mean, she was peculiarly liable to fatal accidents. Well, I
curled myself up on one of the seats and prepared for sleep; not,
though, in just the frame of mind I would choose in order to secure
"pleasant slumbers" and "sweet dreams." At first my sleep was fitful;
the opening of the door, as the hands frequently went out or came
in; the cessation of the jar and rumble when the train stopped; the
changing of position as I tossed about in my fitful sleep--these all
would wake me. At last, however, I dropped to sleep, and slept long
and soundly. Strange dreams, fraught with terror, filled with wild and
fantastic objects, danced over and controlled my mind. I was placed in
positions of the most awful dread; I was on engines of inconceivable
power, powerless to control them, and they ran with the velocity of
light into long trains laden with smiling women and romping children,
whose shrieks mingled with the curses of their husbands and fathers,
who said it was my fault, and cursed me to lingering tortures. Then
the scene would change. I would be on a long straight track, mounted
on an engine which seemed a devil broken loose, and bent on a mission
of death which I could not stir to stop; while away in the distance
was another engine, coming towards me, and I felt, by intuition, that
it was Charley, and then I would see his white and pallid face, clammy
with the sweat of terror, and his long black hair swept back from his
forehead, while agony, despair, and the miserable, hopeless fear of
instant and horrible death shone with lurid, fierce, unnatural fire
from his dark blue eye, and I seemed to know that every one I held
dear was on his train; that my sisters were there looking out of the
window, gaily laughing and watching for the next station, where my
train was to meet theirs, and my mother sat smilingly by, looking on,
while other friends that I loved were saying kind words of me, who, in
another instant, would be upon them with a fiendish, fiery engine of
death. I would shut my eyes, and the scene would change again. I would
be skirting the edges of deep, dark precipices, and while I looked,
shuddering, down into the dark and sombre depths, my whole train would
go over the bank and down, down--still farther down it plunged--till
I seemed to have gone far enough for the nether depths. A sudden
tremendous jar woke me, and I sprang to my feet from the floor to which
I had been hurled, and found myself in utter darkness. For an instant
I did not know where I was, but I soon recalled myself and started out
of the "Caboose," fully convinced that some awful calamity had happened
to the train, and bound to know, in the shortest possible time, whether
Charley or any of the rest of the hands were hurt. I soon saw a light,
and hallooed to know what was the matter. "Nothing," answered Charley's
well-known voice. "Well," says I, "you make a deuce of a fuss doing
nothing." I told him how I was awakened, and we started back to see
what was the matter. We found that, in throwing the "Caboose" in upon
the branch track, he had given it too much headway, and there being no
brakeman on it to check its speed, it had hit the tie laid across the
rail with sufficient force to throw me from the seat and put out the
only lamp in the car. So we went home, laughing heartily; but I never
prepared myself for another midnight ride in the "Caboose" of a freight
train by telling horrid stories just before I started.
AN UNMITIGATED VILLAIN.
Everybody knows mean men. Everybody knows people that they think are
capable of any mean act, who would, did opportunity present itself,
steal, lie, cheat, swear falsely, or do any other act which is vicious.
But do any of my readers think that they know any one who would be
guilty of deliberately placing an obstruction on a railroad track, over
which he knew that a train, laden with human passengers, must soon
pass? Yet such men are plenty. Such acts are frequently done, and often
with the sole view of stealing from the train during the excitement
which must necessarily ensue after such an accident. Sometimes such
deeds are done from pure revenge, because the man who does it imagines
that the railroad company has done him some injury, and he thinks that
by so doing he will reap a rich harvest of vengeance. What kind of a
soul can such a man have? The man who desires to steal, wishes to get
a chance to do so when people's minds are so occupied with some other
idea that their property is not thought of. So he goes to the railroad
track and lifts up a rail, places a tie or a T rail across the track,
or does something that he thinks will throw the train from the track;
and then lies in wait for the accident to happen, calmly and with
deliberate purpose awaiting the event; expecting, amid the carnage
which will probably follow, to reap his reward; calculating, when it
comes, to fill his pockets with the money thus obtained; and when
it does happen, and the heavy train, in which, resting in security,
are hundreds of passengers, goes off the track, is wrecked, and lies
there with every car shattered, and out of their ruins are creeping
the mangled victims, who rend the air with their horrid shrieks and
moans of agony; when the dead and the mangled are mixed up amidst the
appalling wreck; when little children, scarce able to go alone, are
so torn to pieces that they linger only for a few moments on earth;
when families, that a few moments before were unbroken and happy, are
separated forever by the death of the father who lies in sight of the
remaining ones, a crushed and bleeding mass, or by the loss of the
mother, who, caught by some portion of the wreck, is held, and there,
in awful agony, slowly frets her life away, right in sight of all that
are dear to her; or, maybe, a husband, who is hurrying home to his dear
one lying at the point of death, and anxiously awaiting his coming,
that, before she dies, she may bid him good-bye, he is caught and
mangled so that he cannot move farther, and the wife dies alone. Maybe
a child, long time absent, is hastening home to meet the aged mother or
father, and bid them good-bye ere the long running sands are run out
entirely; but here he is caught, and his last breath of life goes out
with a heart-rending, horrible scream of agony, and only his mangled
corpse can go home. All ties may be rudely sundered. The infant at its
mother's breast may be killed, and its mother clasp its tiny, bleeding
form to her bosom, but it shall smile on her nevermore; its cooing
voice shall not welcome her care again on earth. The mother too may be
killed, and the moaning child may sob and sigh for the accustomed kiss,
but all in vain. The mother, mangled and slain, only holds the child
in the stiff embrace of death. The author of it all--where is he? he
that did the deed? Is he rummaging the baggage or the pockets of the
dead to find spoil? If he is, surely every cent he gets will blister
his fingers through all time and in hell. The wail of the dying and
the last gasp of the dead will, through all time, surely ring in his
ears with horrible distinctness, and with a sound ominous of eternal
torture. The horrible sight of the mangled, bleeding bodies, the set
eyes, and jaws locked from excessive torture, will surely fasten on
his eye forever, and blister his sight. Horrid dreams, wherein jibing
fiends shall mock at him and the wail of the damned ring forever in his
ears, shall surely visit his pillow and haunt him every night. Each
voice that he hears amid the carnage shall seem, in after-time, to be
the voice of an accusing angel telling him of his guilt.
So we would think, and yet men do it. Some in order to have a chance
to steal, others as revenge for some petty injury; and they live, and,
if detected, are sent for ten or twenty years to the penitentiary, as
if that were punishment enough! It may be that I feel too strongly on
the subject, but it seems to me that an eternity in hell would scarce
be more than sufficient punishment for such a damnable deed. I think
I could coolly and without compunction tread the drop to launch such
a being to eternity; for surely no good influence that earth affords
would be sufficient to reclaim such a man from the damnable depravity
of his nature. Surely a man capable of such a deed, is a born fiend fit
only for the abiding place of the accursed of God, whose voice should
ever be heard howling in sleepless, eternal agony in the sulphurous
chambers of the devil's home. I do feel strongly on this subject, for
I have stood by and seen many a horrid death of this kind; I have held
the hands of dear friends and felt their last convulsive pressure amid
such scenes, whose deaths were caused by the diabolical malignity of
some devil, who, for the nonce, had assumed human shape, and in revenge
for the death of a cow, or for the unpaid occupation of land, or to get
a chance to rob, had placed something on the track and thrown the cars
therefrom. I have seen things placed on the track, rails torn up, and
other traps, the ingenuity of whose arrangement could only have been
begotten by the devil; and I have shut my eyes and thought that I had
taken my last look at earth and all its glories; but I have escaped.
I never caught one of these wretches, and I never want to; for if I
should, I am afraid I would become an instrument for ridding the earth
of a being who had secured good title (and could not lose it) to an
abode in the nethermost hell.
A PROPOSED RACE BETWEEN STEAM AND LIGHTNING.
Old Wash. S---- is known by almost every railroad engineer, at least
by reputation. A better engineer, one who could make better time, draw
heavier loads, or keep his engine in better repair, I never knew. But
Wash. had one failing, he would drink; and if he was particularly
elated with any good fortune, or was expecting to make a fast run, he
was sure to get full of whiskey; and though in that state never known
to transgress the rules of the road by running on another train's time,
or any thing of that sort, still he showed the thing which controlled
him by running at a terrible rate of speed. At one time they purchased
a couple of engines for the E. road, on which Wash. was running. These
engines were very large, and were intended to be very fast, being
put up on seven feet wheels. From the circumstance of their being
planked between the spokes of their "drivers," that is, having a piece
of plank set in between the spokes, the "boys" used to call them the
"plank-roaders." They were tried, and though generally considered
capable of making "fast time" under favorable circumstances, they
didn't suit that road; so they were condemned to "the gravel-pit,"
until they could receive an overhauling, and be "cut down" a foot or
two. Wash. had always considered that these engines were much abused,
and had never received fair treatment; so he obtained permission of the
Superintendent to take one of them into the shop and repair it. At it
he went, giving the engine a thorough overhauling, fixing her valves
for the express purpose of running fast, and making many alterations
in minor portions of her machinery. At last he had the job completed,
and took her out on the road. After running one or two trips on freight
trains to smooth her brasses, and try her working, he was "chalked"
for the fastest train on the road, the B. Express. All the "boys" on
the road were anxious for the result, for it was expected that "Old
Wash." and the "plank-roader" would "astonish the natives," that trip.
Wash. imbibed rather freely, and was somewhat under the influence of
liquor when the leaving time of his train came, though not enough to be
noticed; but as minute after minute passed, and the train with which it
connected did not make its appearance, Wash., who kept drinking all the
time, grew tighter and tighter, till at last, when it did come in, an
hour and a half "behind time," Wash. was pretty comfortably drunk; so
much so that some of the men who had to go on the train with him looked
rather "skeery," for they knew that they might expect to be "towed" as
fast as the engine could run. How fast that was no one knew, but her
seven feet wheels promised a near approach to flying.
At last they started, and I freely confess that I never took as fast
a ride in my life. (Wash. had got me to fire for him.) Keeping time
was out of the question as far as I was concerned, for I had my hands
full to keep the "fire-box" full, and hold my hat on. We had not run
more than ten miles, before the brakemen, ordered by the conductor,
put on the brakes, impeding our speed somewhat, but not stopping us,
for we were on a heavy down grade, and Wash. had her "wide open,"
and working steam at full stroke. At last the conductor came over and
begged Wash. not to run so fast, for the passengers were half scared
out of their senses. Wash. simply pointed to the directions to use all
"due exertion" to make up time, and never shut off a bit. So on we flew
to B., forty miles from where we started, and the first stopping place
for the train. Here the conductor came to Wash. again and told him if
he did not run slower, the passengers were going to leave. Wash. said,
"Let them leave," and gave no promises. Some of them did leave, so also
did one of the brakemen, and the baggageman, but away we went without
them to O., where a message from head-quarters was awaiting us, telling
them to take Wash. from the engine and put another man on in his place.
I told him of the message, and picking up his coat, he got off and
staggered to a bench on the stoop of the depot, where he laid down,
seemingly to sleep. I started back to the engine, but Wash. called
after me, and asked me "how we got the orders to take him off?" I told
him "by telegraph." "Humph," said he, rolling over, "_wish I'd known
that, the confounded dispatch never should have passed me!_"
Wash. of course was not reinstated, but the "plank-roader" never made
the running time of any of the fast trains with any other man on the
"foot-board."
AN ABRUPT "CALL."
"Hi White," as he was familiarly called, was an engineer on the
same road with me. He has been running there for over ten years,
and, although Hi is one of those mad wags who are never so happy as
when "running a rig" on some of their cronies, he was universally
acknowledged to be one of the most competent and careful men that ever
"pulled a plug" on a locomotive.
In Hi's long career as a runner, he, of course, has met with
innumerable hair-breadth 'scapes; some of them terribly tragic in their
accessories; others irresistibly comic in their termination, although
commencing with fair prospect for a fearful end. Of this latter kind
was an adventure of his, which he used to call "making a morning call
under difficulties." Hi used to run the Morning Express, or, as it was
called, the "Shanghæ run," which left the Southern terminus of the road
at 6 o'clock A.M. It was a "fast run," making the length of the road
(one hundred and forty-one miles) in three and a half hours. Hi ran
the engine Columbia, a fast "machine," with seven feet driving wheels,
and a strong inclination to mount the rail and leave the track on the
slightest provocation. About midway of the road there was a large brick
house, standing but a rod or two from the track and on the outside of
a sharp curve. As Hi was passing the curve one day, running at full
speed, some slight obstruction caused the Columbia to leave the track,
breaking the coupling between it and the train, thus leaving the cars
on the track. Away went the Columbia, making the gravel fly until she
met with an obstruction in the shape of this very brick house, which
the engine struck square in the broad-side, and, with characteristic
contempt of slight obstacles, crashed its way through the wall and on
to the parlor floor, which, being made for lighter tread, gave way and
precipitated the engine into the cellar beneath, leaving only the hind
end of the tender sticking out of the breach in the wall. Hi, who had
jumped off at the first symptom of this furious onslaught, looked to
see if there were any dead or wounded on the field of this "charge of
his heavy brigade." Seeing that he and his fireman were both safe, he
turned his attention to the Columbia, which he found "slightly injured
but safely housed," lying coolly among pork barrels, apple bins and
potato heaps, evidently with no present probability of continuing its
course. By this time the people of the house, who were at breakfast in
the farther part of the building when the furious incursion upon their
domestic economy took place, came rushing out, not knowing whether to
prepare to meet friend or rebel foe. Very naturally the first question
put to Hi (who was renewing vegetable matter for present rumination,
i. e. taking a new chew of tobacco), was, "What's the matter?" This
question was screamed to Hi, with the different intonations of the
various members of the family. Hi coolly surveyed the frightened group
and replied, "Matter--nothing is the matter. I only thought I would
call on you this morning, and pray," said he, with the most winning
politeness, "_don't put yourself to any trouble on my account_."
THE GOOD LUCK OF BEING OBSTINATE.
I think people generally look upon railroad men as a distinct species
of the _genus homo_. They seem to regard them as a class who have the
most utter disregard for human life, as perfectly careless of trusts
imposed upon them, and as being capable of distinctly understanding
rules the most obscure, and circumstances the most complicated. They
seem to think a railroad man is bound to make time any way, in the face
of every difficulty, and to hold him absolutely criminal if he meets
with any accident, or fails to see his way safe out of any trouble into
which their urging may force him. My impression is that they are wrong,
that railroad men have but human courage, but human foresight, and
should be spared the most of the indiscriminate censure heaped upon
them when an accident happens.
If one were to judge from the words of the press and the finding of
coroners' juries, he would infer that a pure accident, one unavoidable
by human foresight, was a thing unknown; but if he will only think, for
a moment, of all the circumstances, consider the enormous velocity at
which trains move, the tremendous strain thus thrown upon every portion
of the road-bed and the machinery, I think the wonder will be why there
are not more accidents. Think, for a moment, of one or two hundred
tons' weight impelled through the air at a velocity of from one hundred
to two hundred and forty feet per second, and tell me if you do not
consider that the chances for damage are pretty numerous.
I remember once being detained at a way-station with the Up Express,
waiting for the Down Express to pass me. We were both, owing to snow
and ice on the rails, sadly behind time, and I had concluded just
to wait where I was, until we heard from the other train, though a
liberal construction of the rules gave me the right to proceed "with
due caution;" but I was afraid that, if any thing _did_ happen, there
would be two opinions as to what "due caution" meant, so I held still.
The passengers were all uneasy, as they always are, and stormed and
fretted up and down, now coming to me and demanding, in just about
such tones as we would imagine a newly caught she-bear to use, whether
we intended "to keep them there all night?" whether I supposed "the
traveling public would tamely submit to such outrages?" if I thought
they "had no rights in the premises?" etc. These and similar questions
were put to me, some peevishly, some in a lordly manner, evidently
with the intention of bullying me into a start. I generally maintained
the dirty but independent dignity of my position of "runner of that
kettle;" but these latter Sir Oracles, I told that I was too well used
to dealing with fire, water, steam and rock to be scared by a little
"wind." After a while there came a telegraphic dispatch, unsigned,
undated, but saying, "Come ahead;" this raised a terrible "hillabaloo."
The passengers crowded into the cars and looked for an immediate start.
The conductor came to me and said that he thought we had better start.
I told him "No;" that I infinitely preferred to run on good solid rails
rather than telegraph wires, at all times, and more especially when
the wires brought such lame orders as these "Very well," says he, "I
don't know but you are right, but I shall leave you to _console_ these
passengers--I'm off to hide," and away he went. Pretty soon out they
came by twos, threes, dozens and scores; and I declare they needed
consolation, for a madder set I never saw. Pshaw! talk about "hornets"
and "bob-tailed bulls in fly-time;" they ain't a circumstance to a
passenger on a railroad train which is an hour behind time. Well,
they blustered and stormed, shook their fists at me, and about twenty
took down my name with the murderous intent of "reporting" me at
head-quarters, and "seeing about this thing" generally. At last some
individual, bursting with wrath, called for an indignation meeting.
The call was answered with alacrity. I attended as a disinterested
spectator, of course; a President and Secretary were appointed, several
speeches were made, overflowing with eloquence, and all aimed at me,
but carrying a few shots for every body on the train, even to the
boy that sold papers. This much had been done, and the committee on
"resolutions which should be utterly annihilating," had just retired,
when a whistle was heard up the track, and down came an extra engine,
running as fast as she could, carrying no light, but bringing news that
the "down train" was off the track eleven miles above, and bringing a
requisition for all the doctors in town to care for the wounded, who
were numerous. The "resolution committee" adjourned _sine die_. I was
never reported, for they all saw that, had I done as they wished me
to, I would have met this extra engine and rendered a few more doctors
necessary for my own train. The blunder of the telegraph was never
explained, but blunder it was, and the more firm was I never to obey a
telegraphic dispatch without it was clear and distinct, "signed, sealed
and delivered."
HUMAN LIVES VS. THE DOLLAR.
Cattle and horses on the track are a continual source of annoyance to
engineers, and have been the occasion of many serious accidents. On the
W. & S. Railroad, not many years since, an accident occurred, with the
circumstances of which I was familiar, and which I will relate.
George Dean was one of the most accomplished and thorough engineers
that I ever knew. He was running the Night Express, a fast run; while
I was running the through freight, and met him at C---- station. I
arrived there one night "on time," but George was considerably behind;
so I had to wait for him. Just before George arrived at the station, he
had to cross a bridge of about 200 feet span; it was a covered bridge,
and the rails were some 30 feet from the water below.
I had been there waiting for him to pass, for over half an hour, when
I heard his whistle sound at a "blind crossing" about a mile distant;
so I knew he was coming; and as George was a pretty fast runner, I
thought I would stand out on the track and see him come, as the track
was straight, there, for nearly a mile.
I saw the glimmer of his head-light when he first turned the curve and
entered upon the straight track, and pulled out my watch to time him to
the station, through which he was to pass without stopping. The light
grew brighter and brighter as he advanced with the speed of the wind,
and he was within sixty feet of the bridge, when I saw an animal of
some kind, I then knew not what it was, but it proved to be a horse,
dart out on the track, right in front of the engine. George saw it, I
know, for he gave the whistle for brakes, and a series of short puffs
to scare the horse from the track; but it was of no use; the horse
kept right on and ran towards the bridge. Arrived there, instead of
turning to one side, it gave a jump right on to the bridge, and fell
down between the ties, and there, of course, he hung. On came George's
ponderous engine, and striking the horse, was thrown from the track
into the floor timbers of the bridge, which gave way beneath the weight
and the tremendous concussion, and down went the engine standing upon
its front, the tender dropped in behind it, and the baggage car and
one passenger car were heaped together on top of them both. I saw them
drop, heard the crash, and at once, with the other men of my train,
started to relieve any that might be caught in the wreck. Leaping down
the embankment forming the approach of the bridge, I waded through the
stream to where the engine stood, my fireman following close behind
me. Looking up, we saw George caught on the head of the boiler. He was
able to speak to us, and told us that he was not much hurt, but his
legs were caught so that he could not move, and from the heat of the
boiler he was literally roasting to death. We climbed up to where he
was caught, to see if we could move him or get him out; but alas! he
could not be helped. His legs lay right across the front of the boiler,
and on them were resting some timbers of the broken baggage car, while
the passenger car was so wedged into the bridge that there was no
prospect of lifting it so as to get George out for many hours. I went
and got him some water, and with it bathed his forehead and cooled
his parching lips; he talking to me all the time and sending word to
his wife and children. For a few minutes, he bore up under the pain
most manfully; but at last, it grew too intolerable for any human being
to bear, and George, than whom a braver soul never existed, shrieked
and screamed in his agony. He begged and prayed to die. He entreated
us to kill him, and put an end to his sufferings--he even cursed us
for not doing it, asking us how we could stand and see him roast to
death, knowing, too, as we did and he did, that he could not be saved.
He begged for a knife to kill himself with, as he would rather die by
his own hand at once than to linger in such protracted, awful agony.
Oh! it was terrible, to stand there and see the convulsive twitchings
of his muscles, to hear him pray for death, to watch him as his eyes
set with pain, and hear his agonized entreaties for death any way, no
matter how, so it was quick. At last it was ended, the horrible drama
closed, and he died; but his shrieks will never die out from the memory
of those who heard them. The next day, when we got him out, we found
his legs were literally jammed to pieces and then baked to a cinder.
The fireman we found caught between the trucks of the tender and the
driving-wheel of the engine, and apparently not a bone left whole in
his body; he was utterly smashed to pieces. You could not have told,
only from his clothing, which hung in bloody fragments to his corpse,
that he had ever been a human being. We got them out at last and buried
them. Sadly and solemnly we followed them to the grave, and thought,
with much dread, of when it would be our turn. They lie together, a
plain stone marking their resting-place, and no railroad man ever
visits their graves without a tear in tribute to their memory.
Thus they died, and thus all that knew them still mourn them. But the
noise of the accident had scarcely ceased echoing amidst the adjoining
hills, ere the owner of the horse was on the ground wishing to know if
any one was there who was authorized to pay for his horse; this, too,
in the face of the fact, afterward proven, that he himself had turned
the horse upon the track, there to filch the feed.
FORTY-TWO MILES PER HOUR.
Nearly every person that we hear speak of travel by rail, thinks that
he has, on numerous occasions, traveled at the rate of sixty miles
an hour; but among engineers this is known to be an extremely rare
occurrence. I myself have run some pretty fast machines, and never
had much fear as to "letting them out," and I never attained that
speed for more than a mile or two on a down grade, and with a light
train, excepting on one or two occasions. Supposing, however, reader,
that we look a little into what an engine has to do in order to run a
mile in a minute, or more time. Say we go down to the depot, and take
a ride on this Morning Express, which goes to Columbus in one hour
and thirty-five minutes, making two stops. We will get aboard of the
Deshler, one of the smartest engines on the road, originally built by
Moore & Richardson, but since then thoroughly overhauled, and in fact
rejuvenated, by that prince of _master_-mechanics, "Dick Bromley." And
you may be sure she is in good trim for good work, as it is a habit
with Dick to have his engines all so. She is run by that little fellow
you see there, always looking good-natured, but getting around his
engine pretty fast. That is "Johnny Andrews," and you can warrant that
if Dick Bromley builds an engine, and Johnny runs her, and you ride
behind her, you will have a pretty fast ride if the time demands it.
The train is seven minutes behind time to-day, reducing the time to
Columbus--55 miles--to one hour and twenty-eight minutes, and that with
this heavy train of ten cars, all fully loaded. After deducting nine
minutes more, that will undoubtedly be lost in making two stops, this
will demand a speed of forty-two miles per hour; which I rather guess
will satisfy you. You see the tender is piled full of wood, enough to
last your kitchen fire for quite a while; but that has got to be filled
again; for, ere we reach Columbus, we shall need two cords and a half.
Look into the tank; you see it is full of water; but we shall have to
take some more; for between here and Columbus, 1558 gallons of water
must be flashed into steam, and sent traveling through the cylinders.
But we are off; you see this hill is before us; and looking behind, you
will see that another engine is helping us. Notwithstanding that help,
let us see what the Deshler is doing, and how Johnny manages her. She
is carrying a head of steam which exerts on every square inch of the
internal surface of the boiler, a pressure of 120 pounds. Take a glance
at the size of the boiler; it is 17 feet 6 inches long, and 40 inches
in diameter. Inside of it there is the fire-box, 48 inches long, 62
inches deep, and 36 across. From this to the front of the engine, you
see a lot of flues running. There are 112 of these, 10 feet 6 inches
long, and two inches in diameter; and of the inner surface of all this,
every square inch is subjected to the aforesaid pressure, which amounts
to a pressure of 95,005 pounds on each flue. Don't you think, if there
is a weak place anywhere in this boiler, it will be mighty apt to give
out? And if it does, and this enormous power is let loose at once,
where will you and I go to? Don't be afraid, though; for _this_ boiler
is built strongly; every plate is right and sound. Open that fire-door.
Do you hear that enormously loud cough? That is the noise made by the
escape, through an opening of 31 square inches only, of the steam which
has been at work in the cylinder. You can feel how it shakes the whole
engine. And see how it stirs up the fire. Whew! isn't that rather a
hot-looking hole? The heat there is about 2800° Centigrade scale. But
we begin to go faster. Listen! try if you can count the sounds made by
the escaping steam, which we call the "exhaust." No, you cannot; but
at every one of those sounds, two solid feet of steam has been taken
from the boilers, used in the cylinder, where it exerted on the piston,
which is fourteen inches in diameter, a pressure of nine tons, and then
let out into the air, making, in so doing, that noise. There are four
of those "exhausts" to every revolution of the driving-wheels, during
which revolution we advance only 17-2/3 feet. Now we are up to our
speed, making 208 revolutions, changing 33-1/3 gallons of water into
steam every minute we run, and burning eight solid feet of wood.
We are now running a mile in one minute and twenty-six seconds; the
driving-wheels are revolving a little more than 3½ times in each
second; and steam is admitted into, and escapes from, the cylinders
fifteen times in a second, exerting each time a force of nearly nine
tons on the pistons. We advance 61 feet per second. Our engine weighs
22 tons; our tender about 17 tons; and each car in the train with
passengers, about 17 tons; so that our whole train weighs, at a rough
calculation, 209 tons, and should we strike an object sufficiently
heavy to resist us, we would exert upon it a momentum of 12,749 tons--a
force hard to resist!
Look out at the driving-wheels; see how swiftly they revolve. Those
parallel rods, that connect the drivers, each weighing nearly 150
pounds, are slung around at the rate of 210 times a minute. Don't you
think that enough is required of an engine to run 42 miles per hour,
without making it gain 18 miles in that time? Those tender-wheels, too,
have been turning pretty lively meanwhile--no less than 600 times per
minute. Each piston has, in each minute we have traveled, moved about
700 feet. So you see that, all around, we have traveled pretty fast,
and here we are in Columbus, "on time;" and I take it you are satisfied
with 42 miles per hour, and will never hereafter ask for 60.
Let us sum up, and then bid good-bye to the Deshler and her
accommodating runner, Johnny Andrews. The drivers have revolved 16,830
times. Steam has entered and been ejected from the cylinders 67,320
times. Each piston has traveled 47,766 feet, and we have run only 55
miles, at the rate of 42 miles per hour.
USED UP AT LAST.
The old proverb, that "the pitcher which goes often to the well returns
broken at last," receives, in the lives of railroad men, frequent
confirmation. I have known some men who have run engines for fifteen
or twenty years and met with no accident worthy of note to themselves,
their trains, or to any of the passengers under their charge; but if
they continue running, the iron hand of fate will surely reach them.
Old Stephen Hanford, or "Old Steve," as he is called by everybody
who knows him, had been running engines for twenty-five years, with
an exemption from the calamities, the smash-ups and break-downs,
collisions, etc., that usually checker the life of an engineer, that
was considered by everybody most remarkable. Night and day, in rain,
snow and mist, he has driven his engine on over flood and field, and
landed his passengers safely at their journey's end, always. No matter
how hard the storm blew, with sharp forked lightnings, with muttering
thunders, and the pitiless, driving rain, Old Steve's engine, which
from its belching smoke and eating fire seemed the demon of the storm,
came in safe, and the old man, whose eye never faltered, whose vigil
never relaxed, got off from his engine, and after seeing it safely
housed, went to his home, not to dream of the terrors and miseries
of collisions, of the shrieks and groans of victims whom his engine
had trodden down and crushed with tread as resistless as the rush of
mountain torrents. No; all these saddening reflections were spared
him, for he had never had charge of an engine when any fatal accident
happened. Old Steve was one of the most careful men on an engine that I
ever saw. He was always on the watch, and was active as a cat. Nothing
escaped his watchful glance, and in any emergency his presence of mind
never forsook him; he went at once to doing the right thing, and did it
quickly.
The old man's activity never diminished in the least, but his eyesight
grew weak, and he thought he would leave the main line, and, like an
old war-horse, in his latter days be rid of the hurry-skurry of the
road. So he took a switch engine in the yard at Rochester and worked
there, leaving the fast running in which he delighted to his younger
comrades, many of whom received their first insight to the business
from Old Steve. He had been there about a year at work, very well
contented with his position, a little outside of the great whirling
current of the road on which he had so long labored, and was one day
standing beside his engine, almost as old a stager as himself, when
with an awful crash the boiler exploded. Old Steve was not hurt by
the explosion, but he started back so suddenly that he fell upon the
other track, up which another engine was backing; the engineer of
which, startled, no doubt, by the explosion, did not see the old man,
until too late, and the wheels passed over him, crushing his leg off,
just above the knee. They picked him up and carried him home; "the
pitcher had been often to the well,"--it was broken at last. Owing to
his vigorous constitution, the shock did not kill him; the leg was
amputated, and now, should you ever be in the depot at Rochester, you
will most likely see Old Steve there, hobbling around on one leg and a
pair of crutches, maimed, indeed, but as cheerful as ever. He said to
me, "I am used up, but what right had I to expect any thing else? In
twenty-five years I have bidden good-bye to many a comrade, who, in the
same business, met the stern fate which will most surely catch us all
if we stick to the iron horse."
A VICTIM OF LOW WAGES.
During an absence from home of several weeks, in the past summer, I
traveled in safety, upwards of three thousand miles, but it was not
because the danger was not there, not because the liabilities for
accidents were not as great as ever; it was because human foresight did
not happen to err, and nature happened to be propitious. The strength
of her materials was as much tried as ever, but they were in condition
to resist the strain; so I and my fellow passengers passed safely over
many a place which awoke in me thrilling memories; for in one place,
the gates of death had been in former time apparently swung wide to
ingulf me, but I escaped; at another, I remember to have shut my eyes
and held my breath, while my heart beat short and heavily, as the
ponderous engine, of which I had the control, crushed the bones and
mangled the flesh of some poor wight caught upon the track, to save
whom I had exercised every faculty I possessed, but all in vain; he
was too near, and my train too heavy for me to stop in time to spare
him. I met many of my old cronies during my absence, and, inquiring for
others, heard the long-expected but saddening news, that they had gone;
their running was over, the dangers they had so often faced overcame
them at last, and now they sleep where "signal lights" and the shrill
whistle denoting danger, which have so often called all their faculties
into play to prevent destruction and save life, are no longer heard.
Others I met, who, in some trying time, had been caught and crushed
by the very engines they had so often held submissive to their will,
and now, maimed and crippled, they must hobble along till the almost
welcome voice of death bids them come and lay their bones beside their
comrades in danger, who have gone before.
A little paragraph in the papers last winter, announced that a gravel
train, of which Hartwell Stark was engineer, and James Burnham
conductor, had collided with a freight train, on the N. Y. C. R. R.;
that the fireman was killed, and the engineer so badly hurt that he was
not expected to live. Perhaps a fuller account of this catastrophe
may be instructive in order to show the risks run by railroad men, the
responsibility resting upon the most humble of them, and the enormous
amount of suffering a man is capable of enduring and yet live. This
gravel train "laid up" for the night at Clyde, and in the morning
early, as soon as the freight trains bound west had passed, proceeded
out upon the road to its work. It was the duty of the switchman to
see that the trains had all passed, and report the same to the men in
charge of the gravel train. This morning it was snowing very hard,
the wind blew strong from the east, and take it altogether, it was a
most unpleasant time, and one very likely to put all trains behind.
Knowing this, the conductor and engineer both asked the switchman if
the freights had all passed. He replied positively that they had.
So, without hesitation, they proceeded to their work. They had left
their train of gravel cars at a "gravel pit," some sixteen miles
distant; so with the engine backing up and dragging the "caboose,"
in which were about thirty men, they started. They had got about ten
miles on their way, the wind and snow still blowing in their faces,
rendering it almost impossible for them to see any thing ahead,
even in daylight--utterly so in the darkness of that morning, just
before day--when, out of the driving storm, looking a very demon of
destruction, came thundering on at highest speed, the freight train,
which the switchman had so confidently reported as having passed an
hour before they left Clyde. The engineer of the freight train jumped,
and said that before he struck the ground he heard the collision. Hart
tried to reverse his engine, but had not time to do it; so he could
not jump, but was caught in the close embrace of those huge monsters.
The freight engine pushed the "tender" of his engine up on to the
"foot-board." It divided; one part crushed the fireman up against the
dome and broke in the "fire-door;" the wood piled over on top of him,
and the flames rushing out of the broken door soon set it on fire,
and there he lay till he was taken out, eighteen hours afterward,
a shapeless cinder of humanity. The other part caught Hart's hips
between it and the "run-board," and rolled him around for about six
feet, breaking both thigh-bones; and to add to his sufferings a piece
of the "hand-rail" was thrust clear through the flesh of both legs,
and twisted about there till it made gashes six inches long. The steam
pipe being broken off, the hissing steam prevented his feeble cries
from being heard, and as every man in the "caboose" was hurt, Hart
began to think that iron rack of misery must surely be his death-bed.
At last, however, some men saw him, but at first they were afraid
to come near, being fearful of an explosion of the boiler. Soon,
however, some more bold than the rest went to work, and procuring a T
rail, they proceeded to pry the wreck apart, and release him from his
horrible position. And so, after being thus suspended and crushed for
over half an hour, he was taken down, put upon a hand-car, and taken
to his home at Clyde, which place he reached in five hours after the
accident. No one expected him to live. The physicians were for an
immediate amputation of both limbs, but to this Hart stoutly objected.
So they finally agreed to wait forty-eight hours and see. At the end
of that time--owing to his strong constitution and temperate habits
of life--the inflammation was so light they concluded to leave poor
Hart with both his legs, and there he has lain ever since. For twelve
weeks he was never moved from his position in the bed, his clothes were
never changed, and he never stirred so much as an inch; and even to
this day--May 20th--he is unable to turn in the bed, though he can sit
up, and when I saw him, was sitting in the stoop cutting potatoes for
planting, and apparently as happy as a child, to think he could once
more snuff fresh air.
I should think that such accidents (and they are of frequent
occurrence) would teach the managers of railroads that the policy of
hiring men who can be hired for twenty-five dollars a month, and who
have so little judgment as to sleep on their posts, and then make such
reports as this switchman did, endangering not only the property of
the company, but also jeopardizing the lives of brave and true men
like Hart Stark, and subjecting them to these lingering tortures, is
suicidal to their best interests. Would not an extra ten dollars a
month to all switchmen be a good investment, if in the course of a
year it saved the life of one poor fireman, who otherwise would die as
this poor fellow did; or if it saved one cool and true man from the
sufferings Hart Stark has for the past five months endured?
CORONERS' JURIES VS. RAILROAD MEN.
Coroner's juries are, beyond a doubt, a very good institution, and
were established for a good purpose; they investigate sudden deaths,
while the matter is still fresh, before the cause has become hidden or
obscured by lapse of time, and in most cases they undoubtedly arrive at
a just conclusion; but in cases of railroad accidents, I never yet knew
one that was not unjust, to a greater or less degree, in its verdict
against employees of the company on the train at the immediate time of
the occurrence.
I know that in saying this I fly into the face of all the newspapers
of the land, for they have a stereotyped sneer in these words, "_Of
course_ nobody was to blame," at every coroner's jury that fails to
censure somebody, or to adjudge some one guilty of wilful murder.
Nevertheless I believe it, and unhesitatingly declare it. Most
generally it is the engineer and conductor who are censured, sometimes
the brakemen or switchmen; but rarely or never is it the right one who
is branded and placed in the newspaper pillory as unfit to occupy any
position of trust, and guilty of the death of those killed and the
wounds of those wounded. As to an accident that could not be avoided
by human forethought, that idea is scouted, and if a coroner's jury
does ever so far forget what is expected of it by these editors--who
are the self-elected bull-dogs of society, and must needs bark or lose
their dignity--why no words are sufficiently sarcastic, no sentences
sufficiently bitter, to express the contempt which they feel for that
benighted coroner's jury. To be sure they know nothing, or next to
nothing, of the circumstances, and the jury knows _all_ about them. To
be sure, iron will break and so will wood; the insidious frost will
creep in where man cannot probe, and render as brittle as glass what
should be tough as steel; watches will go wrong, and no hundred men can
be found who will on all occasions give one interpretation to the same
words. But what of that?
Why, the bare idea that any accident upon any road can happen, and
some poor devil of an engineer, conductor, brakeman or switchman not
be ready at hand, to be made into a pack-horse on whom to pile all the
accumulated bile of these men who, many of them, have some private
grudge to satisfy--the idea, I say, is preposterous to these men, and
they fulminate their thunders against railroad men, until community
gets into the belief that virtue, honesty, integrity or common dog
sense are things of which a railroad man must necessarily be entirely
destitute; and they are looked upon with distrust, they are driven
to become clannish, and frequently, I must confess, any thing but
polite to the traveling public, whose only greeting to them is gruff
fault-finding, or an incessant string of foolish questions. But are
they so much to blame for this? Would you, my reader, "cast your pearls
before swine?" and can you particularly blame men for not being over
warm to the traveling community which almost invariably treats them as
machines, destitute of feeling, for whose use it pays so much a mile?
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 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. But ask
a pursy, lordly individual, whose lack of brains is atoned for by the
capacity of his stomach, who never asks for any thing, always orders
it, and who always praises the last road he was on, and d----s the one
he is now on; or ask a vinegar-looking, hatchet-faced old maid, who
has eight bandboxes, a parasol, an umbrella, a loose pair of gloves, a
work-bag and a poodle dog, who always has either such a cold that she
knows she "shall die unless that window in front is put down," or else
is certain that she "shall suffocate unless more air is let into the
car," and who is continually asking whoever she sees with a badge on,
whether the "biler is going to bust," or if "that last station ain't
the one she bought her ticket for?"--ask either of these (and there are
a great many travelers who, should they see this, would declare that
I meant to be personal), and they will tell you that railroad men are
"rascals, sir! scamps, sir! every one of them, sir! Why, only the other
day I had a bran-new trunk, and I particularly cautioned the baggageman
and conductor to be careful, and would you believe it, sir? when I got
it, two--yes, sir! two--of the brass nails were jammed. Railroad men,
from the dirty engineer to the stuck-up conductor, are bent on making
the public as uncomfortable as they can, sir!" Reader, take my advice,
and when you want any thing, go to the proper person and politely ask
for it, and you will get it; but don't jump off and ask the engineer at
every station how far it is to the next station? and how fast he ever
did run? and if he ever knew John Smith of the Pontiac, and Buckwheat
of the Sangamon and Pollywog road, one or the other, but really you
forget which; but no matter, he must know him, for he looked so and
so. Take care; while you are describing the venerable John Smith, that
long oil-can may give an ugly flirt, and your wife have good cause for
grumbling at your greasy cassimere inexpressibles; or a wink from the
engineer to his funny fireman, may open that "pet cock," and your face
get washed with rather nasty feeling water, and the shock might not be
good for you. Don't bore the conductor with too many questions. If you
ask civil questions, he will civilly answer you; but if you bore him
too much by asking how fast "this ingine can run?" he may get cross, or
he may tell how astonishingly fast the celebrated and mythical Thomas
Pepper used to run the equally celebrated and mythical locomotive,
"Blowhard." I started this article to tell a story illustrating my
opinion of coroners' juries, but have turned it into a sort of homily
on the grievances of railroad men. No matter; the story will keep, and
the traveling people deserve a little talking to about the way they
treat railroad men.
ADVENTURES OF AN IRISH RAILROAD MAN.
On a railroad, as everywhere else, one meets with decidedly "rich"
characters--those whose every act is mirth-provoking, and who, as the
Irishman said, "can't open their mouths without putting their fut in
it." Such an one was Billy Brown, who has been, for nearly thirteen
years, a brakeman on one road; who has run through and escaped many
dangers; who has seen many an old comrade depart this life for--let
us hope, a better one. Scarce an accident has happened on the road in
whose employ he has been so long, but Billy has somehow been there; and
always has Billy been kind to his dying friends. Many a one of them
has breathed out his last sigh in Billy's ear; and I have often heard
him crooning out some wild Irish laments (for Billy is a full-blooded
Patlander), as he held in his lap the head of some of his comrades
whose life was fast ebbing away from a mangled limb. I well remember
one time, when one of Billy's particular cronies, Mike--the other name
has escaped my memory--was missing from the train to which he was
attached. A telegraphic dispatch was sent to the last station to see
if he was left there; but, no! he was seen to get aboard the train as
it left the station. So the conclusion was clear that Mike had fallen
off somewhere on the road. Half a dozen of us, Billy with the rest,
jumped into a hand-car, and went back to find him. We went once over
the road without seeing any thing; but, as we came back, on passing the
signboard which said "80 rods to the drawbridge," we saw some blood on
it; and, on looking down under the trestlework, we saw poor Mike's body
lying half in the water and half on the rocks. It was but an instant
ere we were down there; but the first look convinced us that he was
dead. As the train was passing over the bridge, he had incautiously
put out his head to look ahead, and it had come in contact with the
signboard, and was literally smashed flat. No sooner had the full
conviction that Mike was dead taken possession of Billy, than he whops
down on his knees, and commences kissing the fellow's bloody face, at
the same time, with many tears, apostrophizing his body somewhat after
this fashion: "Oh! wirra, wirra, Mike dear! Mike dear! and is this the
way ye're afther dyin' to git yer bloody ould hed smashed in wid a
dirty old guideboord?"
We all felt sad, and sympathized fully with Billy's grief; but the
ludicrousness with which he expressed it, was too much for any of us;
and we turned away, not to hide a tear, but to suppress a smile, and
choke down a laugh.
But Billy was very clannish; and, to use his own expression, "the
passenger might go hang, if there was any of the railroad byes in the
muss." But as soon as Billy's fears as to any of his comrades being
injured were allayed, no man could be more efficient than he in giving
aid to anybody. Billy was true to duty, and never forgot what to do,
if it was only in the usual routine of his business. Outside of that,
however, he could commit as many Irish bulls as any one.
I well remember one night I had the night freight to haul. We were
going along pretty good jog, when the bell rang for me to stop. I
stopped and looked back to see what could be the matter. I saw no stir;
so after waiting awhile, I started back to see if I could find any
one. After getting back about twenty cars, I found that the train was
broken in two, and that the rest of the cars were away back out of
sight. I hallooed to my fireman to bring a light, and started on foot
back around the curve, to see where they were. I got to the curve, and
saw a light coming up the track towards me; the man who carried it was
evidently running as fast as he could. I stopped to see who it was; and
in a few moments he approached near enough to hail me--when, mistaking
me for a trackman, and without slackening his speed the least, Billy
Brown--for it was he--bellowed out, with a voice like a stentor, only
broken by his grampus-like blowing, "I say, I say, did yees see iver
innything of a train goin' for Albany like h--l jist now?" I believe I
never did laugh quite so heartily in my life, as I did then; and Billy,
turning around, addressed me in the most aggrieved manner possible,
saying: "Pon me sowl now, Shanghi, its mighty mane of yees to be
scarin' the life out of me wid that laff of yours, an' I strivin' as
hard as iver I could to catch up wid yees, and bring yees back, to take
the resht of yere train which ye were afther lavin in the road a bit
back."
Another adventure of Billy's, at which we liked to have killed
ourselves with laughter, and Billy himself liked to have died from
fright, occurred in this wise: I was taking the stock train down the
road one very dark night, and Billy was one of the brakemen. Attached
to the rear of the train were five empty emigrant cars, which we were
hauling over the road. I was behind time, and was running about as
fast as I could, to make up the lost time; when the bell rang for me
to stop. I stopped; and going back to see what was the matter, I found
that two of the emigrant cars had become detached from the train, and
been switched off into the river, just there very close to the track
and very deep; and there they lay, one of them clear out of sight,
and the other cocked up at an angle of about 45 degrees, with one end
sticking out of the water about six feet. On looking around, I found
that all the men were there on hand, except Billy; and he was nowhere
to be found. We at last concluded that he must have been in the cars
that were thrown into the river, and was drowned. But in this we were
soon shown our error; for, from the car that was sticking out of the
water, came a confused sound of splashing, and praying, and swearing,
which soon convinced us that Billy was at least not dead. We hallooed
at him, and asked him if he was hurt. His answer was, "Divil a hurt,
but right nigh drowned; an how'll I get out o' this?" We told him to
get out of the door. "But it's locked." "Unlock it then." "Shure, frow
me a kay an' I will." "Where is your own key?" "Divil a wan o' me
knows. Gone drownded I ixpect." "How deep is the water where you are,
Billy?" "Up till me chin, an' the tide a risin'. Oh! murther, byes,
hilp me out o' this; for I'm kilt intirely wid the wet and the cowld
and the shock til me syshtem----" But we told him we couldn't help him,
and that he must crawl out of a window. "Howly Moses," says Billy, "an'
don't ye know these is imigrant cars, an' the windows all barred across
to kape thim fules from sticking out their heads? an' how'll I get out?
Byes, byes, wad ye see me drown, an' I so close to land, an' in a car
to bute? Ah! now cease yere bladgin, an' hilp me out o' this." After
bothering him to our hearts' content, we got a plank, and crawled out
to the car, only about ten feet from shore, and cutting a hole in the
top, soon had Billy at liberty.
A BAD BRIDGE.
One cold winter's night, while I was running on the H---- Road, I was
to take the Night Express down the road. The day had been excessively
stormy; the snow had fallen from early dawn till dark, and blown and
drifted so on the track, that all trains were behind time. Especially
was this so on the upper end of the road; the lower end, over which
I was to run, was not so badly blockaded; in fact, on the southern
portion, the storm had been of rain. The train came in three hours
behind, consisting of twenty cars, all heavily loaded with grumbling,
discontented passengers. This was more of a train than I could handle
with my engine, even on the best of rail; but where the rail was
so slippery with snow or ice as it was that night, it was utterly
impossible for me to do any thing with it. So, orders were given for
another engine to couple in with me; and George P----, with the Oneida,
did so.
I was on the lead. George coupled in behind me. We both had fast
"machines;" and in a little quiet talk we had before starting, we
resolved to do some pretty fast running where we could.
The hungry passengers at last finished their meal, it being a
refreshment station; the bell was rang; "all aboard" shouted; and we
pulled out. Like twin brothers those engines seemed to work. Their
"exhausts" were as one, and each with giant strength tugged at the
train. We plowed through the snow, and it flew by us in fleecy,
feathery flakes, on which our lights shone so bright that it seemed as
if we were plunging into a cloud of silver dust. On! on! we rushed; the
few stops we had to make were made quickly; and past the stations at
which we were not to stop, we rushed thunderingly: a jar, a rumble, a
shriek of the whistle, and the glimmering station-lights were away back
out of sight.
At last we were within fourteen miles of the terminus of our journey.
Both engines were doing their utmost, and the long train behind us was
trailing swiftly on. Soon the tedious night-ride would be over; soon
the weary limbs might rest. We were crossing a pile bridge in the
middle of which was a draw. The rising of the water in the river had
lifted the ice, which was frozen to the piles, and thus, I suppose,
weakened the bridge, so that, when our two heavy engines struck it, it
gave away. I was standing at my post, when, by the sudden strain and
dropping of the engine, I knew that we were off the track, but had no
idea of the real nature of the calamity. My engine struck her forward
end upon the abutments of the bridge, knocking the forward trucks from
under her. She held there but an instant of time; but in that instant
I and my fireman sprang upon the runboard, and from thence to the
solid earth. We turned in time to see the two engines go down into the
water, there thirty feet deep; and upon them were piled the baggage,
mail and express cars, while the passenger cars were some thrown from
the track on one side, some on the other. The terrible noise made by
the collision and the hissing made by the cold waters wrapping the
two engines in their chill embrace, deafened and appalled us for an
instant; but the next, we were running back to help the wounded. We
found many wounded and seven dead amidst the wreck of the cars; but
seven more were missing, and among them were six of the railroad men.
After searching high and low, amidst the portion of the wreck on dry
land, we with one accord looked shudderingly down into those black,
chilling waters, and knew that there they lay dead. All night long we
sat there. The wild wintry blasts howled around us; the cold waters
gurgled and splashed amid the wreck; we could hear the wounded groan
in their pains; but we listened in vain for the voices we were wont to
hear. The chill tide, over which the ice was even then congealing anew,
covered them. Mayhap they were mangled in the collision, and their
shriek of pain was hushed and drowned as the icy waters rippled in over
their lips. We almost fancied, when we threw the light of our lanterns
upon the black flood, that we could see their white faces turned up
toward us, frozen into a stony, immovable look of direst fear and
agonizing entreaty.
Morning came, and still we could not reach our friends and comrades.
Days went by before they were found, but when found each man was at his
post. None had jumped or flinched, all went down with the wreck, and
were found jammed in; but their countenances wore no look of fear, the
icy waters that congealed their expression, did not find a coward's
look among them; all wore a stern, unflinching expression that would
have shown you, had you seen them just ere they went down, that they
would do as they did do, stick bravely to their posts, and go down with
the wreck, doing their duty at the cost of their lives.
A WARNING.
I am not, nor was I ever, superstitious. I do not believe in dreams,
signs, witches, hobgoblins, nor in any of the rest of that ilk with
which antiquated maidens were in olden time used to cheer the drooping
spirits of childhood, and send us urchins off to our bed, half scared
to death, expecting to see some horrid monster step out from every
corner of the room, and in unearthly accents declare his intention to
"grind our bones for coffee," or do something else equally horrid,
the contemplation of which was in an equal degree unfitted to render
our sleep sound or our rest placid. Somehow the visitors from the
other world, that children used to be told of, were never pretty nor
angelic, but always more devilish than any thing else. But in these
days, this has changed; for the ghosts in which gullible people
deal now, are preëminently silly things. They use their superhuman
strength in tumbling parlor furniture about the rooms, and in drumming
on the floors and ceilings of bed-rooms. The old proverb is, that
"every generation grows weaker and wiser." In this respect, however,
we have reversed the proverb; for a great many have grown stronger
in gullibility and weaker in intellect, else we would not have so
many spiritualists who wait for God and His angels to thump out their
special revelations, or else tumble a table about the room to the tune
of A B C.
I have known, as have many, probably all of my readers, a great many
people who professed to have the firmest faith in dreams and signs,
who were always preadmonished of every event by some supernatural
means, and who invariably are looking out for singular events when they
have been visited by a singular dream. I have never believed in these
things, have always laughed at them, and do so still. Yet there is one
circumstance of my life, of this kind, that is shrouded in mystery,
that I cannot explain, that I know to be so, and yet can scarcely
believe, when a warning was given to me somehow, I know not how, that
shook me and influenced me, despite my ridicule of superstition and
disbelief in signs or warnings of any kind; so that I heeded it, and,
by so doing, saved myself from instant death, and saved also many
passengers who, had they known of the "warning" which influenced me to
take the steps which I did, would have laughed at me, and endeavored
to drive me on. The facts are briefly as follows--I tell them, not
attempting to explain them, nor offering any theory concerning
them--neither pretending that angels or devils warned me, and only
knowing that it was so:
I was running a Night Express train, and had a train of ten cars--eight
passenger and two baggage cars--and all were well loaded. I was behind
time, and was very anxious to make a certain point; therefore I was
using every exertion, and putting the engine to the utmost speed
of which she was capable. I was on a section of the road usually
considered the best running ground on the line, and was endeavoring to
make the most of it, when a conviction struck me that I must stop. A
something seemed to tell me that to go ahead was dangerous, and that I
must stop if I would save life. I looked back at my train, and it was
all right. I strained my eyes and peered into the darkness, and could
see no signal of danger, nor any thing betokening danger, and there
I could see five miles in the daytime. I listened to the working of
my engine, tried the water, looked at the scales, and all was right.
I tried to laugh myself out of what I then considered a childish
fear; but, like Banquo's ghost, it would not down at my bidding, but
grew stronger in its hold upon me. I thought of the ridicule I would
have heaped upon me, if I did stop; but it was all of no avail. The
conviction--for by this time it had ripened into a conviction--that I
must stop, grew stronger, and I resolved to stop; and I shut off, and
blew the whistle for brakes, accordingly. I came to a dead halt, got
off, and went ahead a little way, without saying any thing to anybody
what was the matter. I had my lamp in my hand, and had gone about sixty
feet, when I saw what convinced me that premonitions are sometimes
possible. I dropped the lantern from my nerveless grasp, and sat down
on the track, utterly unable to stand; for there was a switch, the
thought of which had never entered my mind, as it had never been used
since I had been on the road, and was known to be spiked, but which
now was open to lead me off the track. This switch led into a stone
quarry, from whence stone for bridge purposes had been quarried, and
the switch was left there, in case stone should be needed at any time;
but it was always kept locked, and the switch-rail spiked. Yet here it
was, wide open; and, had I not obeyed my preadmonition--warning--call
it what you will--I should have run into it, and, at the end of the
track, only about ten rods long, my heavy engine and train, moving at
the rate of forty-five miles per hour, would have come into collision
with a solid wall of rock, eighteen feet high. The consequences, had I
done so, can neither be imagined nor described; but they could, by no
possibility, have been otherwise than fatally horrid.
This is my experience in getting warnings from a source that I know not
and cannot divine. It is a mystery to me--a mystery for which I am very
thankful, however, although I dare not attempt to explain it, nor say
whence it came.
SINGULAR ACCIDENTS.
The brothers G. are well known to all travelers by the route of
the N. Y. C. R. R. They have been a long time employed there, and
by the traveling public and the company that employ them they are
universally esteemed; but the star of them all, the one most loved
by his companions in toil, respected by travelers, and trusted by
his employers, was Thomas, who met with his death in one of those
calamitous accidents which so frequently mar the career of the railroad
man. I was an eye-witness of the accident, and shall attempt to
describe it.
The day on which it occurred was a glorious summer one; the breeze
wafted a thousand pleasant odors to my senses; the birds sang their
sweetest songs. As I was journeying along the highway between Weedsport
and Jordan, I heard the rumble of the approaching train, and as
from where I was I could get a fair view of the passing train, which
was the fastest on the road and was behind time a few minutes, I
stopped to watch it as it passed. On it came, the sun glancing on the
polished engine as it sped along like the wind. The track where I
had stopped, was crossed by two roads, one of them crossing at right
angles, the other diagonally; between the two crossings there was
a large pile of ties placed, probably eight feet from the track. I
saw the engine, which was running at full speed, pass the pile, when
suddenly, without warning, in a second of time, the cars went piling
and crashing over the bank into a promiscuous heap, crushed into each
other like egg-shells. One of them, a full-sized car, turned a complete
somersault; another was turned once and a half around, and lay with
one end down in the ditch, and the other up to the track, while the
third went crashing into its side. I hitched my horse and ran over to
the scene, expecting, of course, that not a soul would be found alive;
arrived there, I found that no person was killed but poor Tom, and not
over a dozen hurt, although the cars were crowded, and not a seat was
left whole in the cars, which were perfectly riddled. They had already
found Tom's body, which lay under the truck of the first passenger
car, which had been torn out, and one wheel lay on his neck. He had
no need of care, no need of sympathy, for the first crash killed him;
and so with no notice, no warning, no moment for a faintly whispered
good-bye to those he loved, poor Tom passed away to the unknown shore,
leaving many friends to grieve for him.
We got him out, laid him beside the track, and stood solemnly by;
grieving that he, our friend, had gone and left no message for the
wife who idolized him, the brothers who had loved him, or the friends
who so fully appreciated his many noble qualities. While we stood thus
speechless with heartfelt, choking grief, a man came up and asked for
the man who had charge of the train. Some one, I forget who, pointed to
the mangled form of poor Tom and said, "There is all that is mortal of
him." Said the thing--I will not call him man--"Dear me! I'm sorry; I
wanted to find some one to pay for my cow."
It was his cow that had caused the accident, by jumping out against the
baggage car after the engine had passed.
Another singular accident occurred on a road in the State of New York.
An engine, to which something had happened that required a couple
of sticks of wood out on the run-board as fulcrum for a lever, was
passing through a station at full speed, when one of the sticks, that
had carelessly been left outside, fell off and was struck by the end of
the main rod on the backward stroke; impelled backwards by the force
of the blow, it struck a man, standing carelessly beside the track,
full on the side of the head, fracturing his skull, and killing him
instantly.
LUDICROUS INCIDENTS.
There is not often much that is comic on the "rail," but occasionally
an incident occurs that brings a loud guffaw from everybody who
witnesses it.
I remember once standing by the side of an engine that was switching
in the yard. The fellow who was running it I thought, from his actions
while oiling, was drunk, so I watched him. He finished oiling, and
clambered up on to the foot-board and attempted, in obedience to the
orders of the yard-man, to start out. He jerked and jerked at the
throttle-lever, but all to no effect; the engine would not budge an
inch. I saw from where I stood what was the matter, and although nearly
bursting with laughter, I refrained from telling him, but looked on to
see the fun. After pulling for at least a dozen times, he bawled out
to the yard-man that he couldn't go, and then gave another twitch, but
it was of no use; then he stepped back a step or two and looked at the
throttle, with a look of the most stupid amazement that I ever saw; his
face expressed the meaning of the word "dumbfoundered" completely. At
last the fireman showed him what was the matter. It was simply that he
had set the thumb-screw on the throttle-lever and neglected to unloose
it, in each of his efforts.
Another laughable affair occurred on one of the Eastern roads, I forget
which. An engine stood on the switch, all fired up and ready to start;
the hands were all absent at dinner. A big black negro, who was loafing
around the yard, became exceedingly inquisitive as to how the thing was
managed--so up he gets and began to poke around. He threw the engine
into the forward gear and gave it steam, of course not knowing what he
was doing; but of that fact the engine was ignorant, and at once, like
a mettled steed, it sprung to full speed and away it went, carrying the
poor darkey an unwilling dead-head ride. He did not know how to stop
it, and dare not jump, for, as he himself expressed it, when found,
"Gorra mity, she mos flew." The engine of course ran until steam ran
down, which was not in fourteen miles, and Mr. Darkey got off and put
for the woods. He didn't appear at that station again for over a week.
He said that "ef de durn ting had a gon much furder he guessed he'd a
bin white folks."
"Ol Long," an old friend of mine, tells a pretty good story about an
old white horse that he struck once. Ol says that he was running at
about thirty miles an hour, when an old white horse jumped out on the
track right in front of the engine, which struck him and knocked him
away down into the ditch, where he lay heels up. He of course expected
that the horse was killed, and so reported on arriving at the end of
the road; but what was his surprise, on returning the next day, to see
the self-same old nag quietly eating by the side of the road. Ol says
he believes the old fellow did look rather sour at him, but he could
not apologize.
EXPLOSIONS.
It is easy to account for explosions of boilers on the hypothesis of
too great pressure; but it is hardly ever very easy--frequently utterly
impossible--to account for the causes which induce that overpressure.
There are, to be sure, a number of reasons which may be advanced. The
engineer may have screwed the scales down too much, and thus, the
safety-valve not operating to let off the surplus steam, a force may be
generated within the boiler of such tremendous power that the strong
iron will be rent and torn like tissue-paper. This I say may occur, but
in my experience I never knew of such a case. Then again, the water may
get so low in the boiler that, on starting the engine and injecting
cold water upon the hot plates, steam will be generated so suddenly as
not to find vent, and in such enormous quantities and of so high a
temperature as to explode the strongest boiler. Again, the water may be
allowed to get low in the boiler, and the plates getting extremely hot,
the motion of the train would generate steam enough by splashing water
against them to cause an explosion. A proper care and due attention to
the gauges would obviate this, and render explosion from these causes
impossible. A piece of weak or defective iron, too, may have been put
into the boiler at the time of its manufacture, and go on apparently
safe for a long time, until at last it gives way under precisely the
same pressure of steam that it has all along held with safety, or it
may be with even less than it has often carried. How the engineer is to
obviate this most fruitful cause of explosions, for the life of me I
cannot see; still if his engine does blow up, everybody and their wives
will believe that it happened entirely through his neglect. A person
who has never seen an explosion, can form no idea of the enormous
power with which the iron is rent. I saw one engine that had exploded,
at a time too when, according to the oaths of three men, it had a
sufficiency of water and only 95 lbs. of steam to the square inch, and
was moving at only an ordinary speed, yet it was blown 65 feet from
the track, and the whole of one side, from the "check joint" back to
the "cab," was torn wide open--the lower portion hanging down to the
ground, folded over like a table-leaf, and the other portion lay clear
over to the other side, while from the rent, the jagged ends of more
than half of the flues projected, twisted into innumerable shapes. The
frame on that side was broken, and the ends stuck out from the side at
right angles with their former position. I saw another, where the whole
boiler front was blown out and the engine tipped clear over backwards
on to the tender and freight car, where the engineer and fireman were
found, crushed into shapeless masses, lying in the midst of the wreck.
The engine Manchester exploded while standing at a station on the H.
R. R. R., and killed two out of five men, who were standing together
beside the tender. Two of those who were left, deposed, on oath, that
not three minutes before the accident occurred, the engineer tried the
water and found fully three gauges, while there was a pressure of only
ninety-five pounds to the square inch, and it was blowing off.
How to account for it no one could tell, so every one who knew any
thing whatever in regard to such things, called it "another of the
mysterious visitations of God." But the newspapers called it an
evidence of gross carelessness on the part of the engineer.
Several explosions have been known where the upper tubes were found
unhurt, while the lower ones were, some of them, found badly burnt. The
conclusion in these cases was that the tubes were too close together,
and the water was driven away from them; consequently the starting
of the engine, or the pumping of cold water into the boiler, was
sufficient to cause an explosion.
HOW A FRIEND WAS KILLED.
There is among the remembrances of my life as a railroad man, one of
such sadness, that I never think of it without a sigh. Every man,
unless he be so morose that he cannot keep a dog, has his particular
friends; those in whom he confides, and to whom he is always cheerful;
whose society he delights in, and the possibility of whose death, he
will never allow himself to admit.
Such a friend had I in George H----. We were inseparable--both of
us unmarried; we would always manage to board together, and on all
possible occasions to be together. Did George's engine lay up for the
Sunday at one end of the road, and mine at the other, one of us was
sure to go over the road "extra," in order that we might be together.
George and I differed in many respects, but more especially in this,
that whereas I was one of the "fast" school of runners, who are never
so contented with running as when mounted on a fast engine, with an
express train, and it behind time. George preferred a slow train,
where, as he said, his occupation was "killing time," not "making" it.
So while I had the "Baltic," a fast engine, with drivers six feet and
a half in diameter, and usually ran express trains, George had the
"Essex," a freight engine, with four feet drivers.
One Saturday night I took the last run north, and was to "lay over"
with my engine for the Sunday at the northern terminus of the road,
until two o'clock Monday P. M. George had to run the "Night Freight"
down that night, and as we wished particularly to be together the
next day, I concluded to go "down the line" with him. Starting time
came, and off we started. I rode for awhile in the "caboose," as the
passenger car attached to a freight train is called, but as the night
was warm and balmy, the moon shining brightly, tinging with silvery
white the great fleecy clouds that swept through the heaven, like
monstrous floating islands of snow drifting over the fathomless waters
of the sea, I went out and rode with George on the engine. The night
was indeed most beautiful, the moonlight shimmering across the river,
which the wind disturbed and broke into many ripples, made it to glow
and shine like a sea of molten silver. The trees beside the track
waved and beckoned their leafy tops, looking sombre and weird in the
half-darkness of the night. The vessels we saw upon the river, gliding
before the freshening breeze, with their signal lights glimmering
dimly, and the occasional steamers with light streaming from every
window, and the red light of their fires casting an unearthly glare
upon the waters; these all combined to make the scene spread before us,
as we rushed shrieking and howling over the road, one of unexcelled
beauty. We both gazed at it, and said that if all scenes in the life of
a railroad man were as beautiful as this we would wish no other life.
But something ailed George's engine. Her pumps would not work. After
tinkering with them awhile, he asked the fireman if there was plenty of
water in the tank; the fireman said there was, but to make assurance
doubly sure I went and looked, and lo! there was not a drop! Before
passing through the station George had asked the fireman if there was
plenty of water. He replied that there was; so George had run through
the station, it not being a regular stopping place for the train, and
here we were in a fix. George thought he could run from where we had
stopped to the next water station; so he cut loose from the train and
started. We had stopped on the outside of a long curve, to the other
end of which we could see; it was fully a half mile, but the view was
straight across the water--a bay of the river sweeping in there, around
which the track went.
In about twenty minutes after George had left we saw him coming around
the farthest point of the curve; the brakeman at once took his station
with his light at the end of the cars, to show George precisely where
the train stood. The engine came swiftly towards us, and I soon saw he
was getting so near that he could not stop without a collision, unless
he reversed his engine at once; so I snatched the lamp from out the
brakeman's hands, and swung it wildly across the track, but it was of
no avail. On came the engine, not slackening her speed the least. We
saw somebody jump from the fireman's side, and in the instant of time
allowed us, we looked to see George jump, but no! he stuck to his post,
and there came a shock as of a mountain falling. The heavy freight
engine running, as it was, at as high a rate of speed as it could
make, crashed into the train; thirteen cars were piled into a mass of
ruins, the like of which is seldom seen. The tender was turned bottom
side up, with the engine lying atop of it, on its side. The escaping
steam shrieked and howled; the water, pouring in on to the fire,
crackled and hissed; the stock (sheep and cattle) that were in the
cars bellowed and bleated in their agony, and it seemed as if all the
legions of hell were there striving to make a pandemonium of that quiet
place by the river-side. As soon as we recovered from the shock and got
used to the din which at first struck terror to our hearts--and I think
no sound can be more terrible than the bellowing of a lot of cattle
that are crushed in a railroad smash-up--we went to work to see if
George was alive, and to get him out, dead or alive. We found him under
the tender, but one side of the tank lay across his body, so that he
could not move. We got rails and lifted and pried, until we raised the
tender and got him out. We took one of the doors from the wrecked cars,
laid it beside the track, and made a bed on it with our coats and the
cushions from the caboose; for poor George said he wanted to pass the
few moments left him of earth beneath the open sky, and with the cool
breeze to fan his cheek. Of course we dispatched a man to the nearest
station for aid, and to telegraph from there for an engine; but it was
late at night, everybody was asleep, and it was more than three hours
before any one arrived, and all that time George lingered, occasionally
whispering a word to me as I bent over him and moistened his lips.
He told me while lying there the reason why he did not stop sooner.
Something had got loose on the inside throttle gearing, and he could
not shut off steam, nor, owing to some unaccountable complicity of
evil, could he reverse his engine. So on he had to come, pell-mell, and
both of them were killed; for the fireman had jumped on some rocks, and
must have died instantly, as he was most horribly mangled.
The night wind moaned through the wreck, the dripping water yet hissed
upon the still hot iron of the engine, the waves of the river gurgled
and rippled among the rocks of the shore, and an occasional bellow
of agony was heard from amidst the cattle cars, where all the rest
of the hands were at work releasing the poor creatures; but I sat
there, in sad and solemn silence, waiting for him to die that had been
as a brother to me. At last, just as we heard the whistle of the
approaching engine, and just as the rising sun had begun to gild and
bespangle the purpling east, George opened his eyes, gave my hand a
faint grasp, and was no more. I stood alone with the dead man I had
loved so in life, but from whom death had now separated me.
AN UNROMANTIC HERO.
Those who have traveled much on the Little Miami Railroad, must have
noticed a little old fellow, with grizzled locks and an unpoetical
stoop of the shoulders, who whisks about his engine with all the
activity of a cat, and whom the railroad men all call "Uncle Jimmy."
That is old Jimmy Wiggins, an engineer of long standing and well known.
I believe Uncle Jimmy learned the machinists' trade with Eastwick &
Harrison, in Philadelphia; at all events he has been railroading for a
long time, and has been always noted for his carefulness and vigilance.
Let me attempt to describe him. He is about five feet four inches in
height, stoop-shouldered and short-legged. His hair is iron-gray, and
his face would be called any thing but beautiful. He has, though, a
clear blue eye that looks straight and firmly into yours with an
honest and never-flinching expression, that at once convinces you that
he is a "game" man. Not very careful about his dress is old Jimmy;
grease spots abound on all his clothing, and his hands are usually
begrimed with the marks of his trade. In short, Uncle Jimmy is any
thing but a romantic-looking fellow, and a novelist would hesitate
long before taking him as the hero of a romance; but the old man is
a hero, and under that rough, yet placid exterior, there beats a
heart that never cools, and a will that never flinches. We go back
into the history of the past ages to find our heroes, and them we
almost worship, but I question whether the whole history of the world
furnishes a better example of self-sacrificing heroism, than this same
rough and unromantic looking Jimmy Wiggins. It is not the casket that
gives value to the jewel; it is the jewel gives value to all. So with
Uncle Jimmy; rough he looks, but the heart he has makes him an honor to
the race, and deserving of our praise. I'll tell you now why I think so.
Uncle Jimmy was running a train that laid by on the switch at Spring
Valley for the Up Express to pass. He got there on time, and the
express being a little behind time, the old man took advantage of the
time to oil around. The whistle of the up train was heard, but he
paid no heed thereto, for it was to pass without stopping. The fellow
who attended to the switch stood there at his post. Uncle Jimmy was
coolly at work, when a shriek from the conductor called his attention,
and looking up, he saw what would frighten and unnerve almost any
one. The stupid fool at the switch had thrown it wide open, and the
express was already on the branch, coming too at the rate of thirty
miles an hour--thirty feet in the beat of your pulse--and his train
loaded with passengers stood there stock-still. That was a time to try
the stuff a man was made of; ordinary men would have shrunk from the
task, and run from the scene. Your lily-handed, romantic gentry would
have failed then, but homely old Jimmy Wiggins rose superior to the
position, and, unromantic though he looks, proved a hero. No flinch in
him. What though two hundred tons of matter was being hurled at him,
fifty feet in the second?--what though the chances for death for him
were a thousand to one for safety? No tremor in that brave old heart,
no nerveless action in that strong arm. He leaped on to the engine,
and with his charge met the shock; but his own engine was reversed,
and under motion backwards when the other train struck it. It all
took but an instant of time, but in that moment old Jimmy Wiggins
concentrated more of true courage than many a man gets into in a
lifetime of seventy years. The collision was frightful; iron and wood
were twisted and jammed together as if they were rotten straw. Charley
Hunt, the engineer of the other train, was instantly killed; passengers
were wounded; terror, fright and pain held sway. Death was there, and
all stood back appalled at what had occurred; yet all shuddered more
to think of what would have been the result had Old Jimmy's engine
stood still, and all felt a trembling anxiety for his fate, for surely,
thought they, "in that wreck his life must have been the sacrifice to
his bravery;" but out of the mass, as cool, as calm as when running on
a straight track, crawled Uncle Jimmy, unhurt. He still runs on the
same road, and long may his days be, and happy.
THE DUTIES OF AN ENGINEER.
Those unacquainted with the duties of an engineer, are apt to think
that they are extremely light, and require him simply to sit upon his
seat and, shutting off or letting on the steam, regulate the speed of
his engine. Although this is a part of the duty, still it is but a
small portion, and for the benefit of those of my readers who are not
posted on the matter, I will briefly state a few of the things he has
to think of.
Say we take the engine lying in the shop cold, and an order comes for
him to go out on the road. There is no water in the boiler; he must
see that it is filled up to the proper level, and that the fire is
started. He must know beforehand that no piece of the machinery is
broken or loosened, so as to endanger the engine. To know this, he
must make a personal inspection of every part of the engine--trucks,
wheels, drivers, cranks, rods, valves, gearing, coupling, flues,
scales, journals, driving-boxes, throttle gear, oil cups; in short,
every thing about the engine must be seen to by him personally. He must
know that every journal, every joint on the whole machine is in proper
order to receive the oil necessary to lubricate it, for they will each
and all receive a pretty severe strain in his coming ride, and, unless
well oiled, will be pretty apt to get warm. He must know whether the
flues are tight, or whether there are any leaks in the boiler to cause
him trouble, or render it necessary for him to carry a light pressure
of steam. He must see that there is water in the tank, and wood upon
the tender; that he has upon the engine the tools usually necessary
in case of a breakdown, such as hammers, chisels, wrenches, tongs,
bolts, nuts, coupling-pins, plugs for the flues in case one should
burst, chains, extra links, jack-screws, crow, and pinch-bars, an axe
or hatchet; waste or rags, oil, tallow for the cylinders, and material
for packing any joint that may give out. All this he must see to and
know before he starts. And then, when steam is up, he can go. Now he
must closely watch his time-card, and run so as to make the various
stations on time. He must know that his watch is correct and in good
order. He must see closely to his pumps that they work right, and that
the water keeps at the proper level in the boiler. He must watch the
scales that the pressure of the steam does not get too great, also the
working of his engine. To the exhausts of the steam his ear must be as
sensitive as a musical composer would be to a discord, for by it he
can tell much of the condition of his engine, the set and play of the
valves, and the condition of the many joints in the working machinery.
At the same time he must keep the strictest watch of the track ahead of
him, ready-nerved for any emergency that can possibly arise; it may be
a broken rail, cattle on the track, some stubborn, hasty fool striving
to cross the track ahead of him, a broken bridge, washed out culvert,
a train broken down; or it may be some stranger frantically swinging
his hands, and, in every manner possible, endeavoring to attract his
attention. Something may happen to his train or his engine, and he
must keep the strictest watch of both; his hands must be ready to blow
the whistle, shut off steam or reverse his engine, on the instant
intimation of danger, for his engine gets over the ground at a rapid
rate, and nothing but a cool nerve and stout arm can stop it, perhaps
not these. And if any thing does happen rendering it necessary for him
to stop, he cannot say to anybody, "Here, do this;" he must go at it
himself; and oftentimes, though it be but a trivial thing, it will tax
his ingenuity to the utmost to repair it. Thus he goes on every day,
be it clear or cloudy, whether summer breeze fill the air with balm,
or the chill winds of winter make the road-bed solid as the rock, and
the iron of the rails and wheels as brittle as glass; whether the rain,
pelting down, makes of every tiny brook a torrent or the drifted snow
blockades the track, and his engine has to plunge into the chilly mass;
through it all his eye must never cease its vigil, nor his arm lose
its cunning. In cold weather he must watch the pumps that they do not
freeze while standing at the stations, or the wheels get fractured
by the frost; and, in cold or warm weather, he must keep watch of
every place where there is the slightest friction, and keep it well
oiled. At every station where time is allowed, he must give the whole
engine a close inspection, lest some little part be out of order, and
endangering some larger and more important piece of the machinery. At
last, after this his journey for the day is ended, his work is by no
means done. He must again inspect his engine, and if there is any
thing out of order, so much that he cannot without assistance repair
it, he must apply at head-quarters for the necessary aid. But there are
a hundred little matters that he can attend to himself; these he must
see to and do. The friction and enormous strain necessarily wears the
brasses of the journals, and creates what he calls "lost motion," that
is, the journal moves in its box loosely without causing the required
motion in the part of the machinery with which it is connected; this he
must remedy by various expedients. The spring-packing of the piston may
have worn loose, and require to be set out; some one of the numerous
steam joints may be leaking, and these he must repack. Some of the
flues may also be leaking; if so, he must tighten them; or there may
be a crack in the boiler that leaks which can be remedied by caulking;
this he must do. The grate-bars may be broken or disarranged; he must
enter the fire-box and arrange them. The packing in the pumps may have
worn so as to render their operation imperfect, or the valves may be
out of order, or the strainer between the tank and the pump may be
clogged; if either or all be the case, he must take down the pump and
rectify the matter. The smokestack also may be clogged with cinders, or
the netting over it may be choked so as to impede the draught; if so,
he must remedy it, or see that it is done. Some of the orifices through
which oil is let on to the machinery may be clogged or too open; these
he must see to. One or more of the journal-boxes of the wheels may need
repacking, and he must do it. An eccentric may have slipped a little,
or a valve-rod been stripped, or a wheel be defective, or a tire on
the driving-wheel may be loose, and have to be bolted on or reset. A
gauge-cock may be clogged, a leaf of a spring broke, or the boiler may
be very dirty and want washing out. Any of these things or a hundred
others may have happened, and require his attention, which must on all
occasions be given to it; for each part, however simple, goes to make
up a whole, that, if out of repair, will render imminent a fearful loss
of life and limb.
Thus the engineer rides every day, having the same care, and facing
the same dangers, with the same responsibility resting on him. Who
then shall say that, though he be grimy and greasy, rough and uncouth,
given to tobacco-chewing, and sometimes to hard swearing, he is of no
consequence to the world? Who shall blame him too severely if sometimes
he makes an error?
+-------------------------------------------------+
|Transcriber's note: |
| |
|Obvious typographic errors have been corrected. |
| |
+-------------------------------------------------+
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