,,the ,,modern ,,railroad ,illustration3 ,,ready ,,for ,,the ,,day',s ,,run ,,the ,,modern ,,railroad ,,by ,,edward ,,hungerford ,,author ,,of ,,little ,,corky1 ,,the ,,man ,,who ,,stole ,a ,,railroad1 ,,etc4 ,,with ,,many ,,illustrations ,,from ,,photographs ,,chicago ,a4 ,c4 ,mc,c,l,u,r,g ,,co4 #aiaa ,,copyright ,a4 ,c4 ,mc,c,l,u,r,g ,,co4 #aiaa ,published ,november1 #aiaa ,entered at ,stationers' ,hall1 ,london1 ,england ,,press ,,of ,,the ,,vail ,,company ,,coshocton1 ,u4 ,s4 ,a4 ,,to ,,my ,,father ,,in ,,recognition ,,of ,,his ,,interest ,,and ,,appreciation ,,this ,,book ,,is ,,dedicated ,,preface ,to bring to the great lay mind some slight idea of the intricacy and the involved detail of railroad operation is the purpose of this book4 ,of the intricacies and involved details of railroad finance and railroad politics2 of the quarrels between the railroads1 the organizations of their employees1 the governmental commissions1 or the shippers1 it says little or nothing4 ,these difficult and pertinent questions have been and still are being competently discussed by other writers4 ,the author wishes to acknowledge the courtesy of the editors and publishers of ,harper's ,monthly1 ,harper's ,weekly1 ,the ,saturday ,evening ,post1 and ,outing in permitting the introduction into this work of portions or entire articles which he has written for them in the past4 ,he would also feel remiss if he did not publish his sincere acknowledgments to ,the ,american ,railway1 a compilation from ,scribner's ,magazine1 published in #ahhg1 ,mr4 ,logan ,g4 ,mc,pherson's ,the ,workings of the ,railroad1 ,mr4 ,c4 ,f4 ,carter's ,when ,railroads ,were ,new1 and ,mr4 ,frank ,h4 ,spearman's ,the ,strategy of ,great ,railroads4 ,out of a sizable reference library of railroad works1 these volumes were the most helpful to him in the preparation of certain chapters of this book4 ,e4 ,h4 ,,brooklyn1 ,,new ,,york1 ,august #a1 #aiaa4 ,,contents ,,page ,,chapter ,i ,,the ,,railroads ,,and ,,their ,,beginnings #a ,two great groups of railroads2 ,east to ,west1 and ,north to ,south--,some of the giant roads--,canals--,development of the country's natural resources--,railroad projects--,locomotives imported--,first locomotive of ,american manufacture--,opposition of canal-owners to railroads--,development of ,pennsylvania's anthracite mines--,the merging of small lines into systems4 ,,chapter ,,ii ,,the ,,gradual ,,development ,,of ,,the ,,railroad #ae ,alarm of canal-owners at the success of railroads--,the making of the ,baltimore ,ohio--,the ,tom ,thumb engine--,difficulties in crossing the ,appalachians--,extension to ,pittsburgh--,troubles of the ,erie ,railroad--,this road the first to use the telegraph--,the prairies begin to be crossed by railways--,chicago's first railroad1 the ,galena ,chicago ,union--,illinois ,central--,rock ,island1 the first to span the ,mississippi--,proposals to run railroads to the ,pacific--,the ,central ,pacific organized--,it and the ,union ,pacific meet--,other ,pacific roads4 ,,chapter ,,iii ,,the ,,building ,,of ,a ,,railroad #cd ,cost of a single-track road--,financing--,securing a charter-- ,survey-work and its dangers--,grades--,construction--,track- laying4 ,,chapter ,,iv ,,tunnels #dh ,their use in reducing grades--,the ,hoosac ,tunnel--,the use of shafts--,tunnelling under water--,the ,detroit ,river tunnel4 ,,chapter ,v ,,bridges #ef ,bridges of timber1 then stone1 then steel--,the ,starucca ,viaduct--,the first iron bridge in the ,united ,states--,steel bridges--,engineering triumphs--,different types of railroad bridge--,the deck span and the truss span--,suspension bridges--,cantilever bridges--,reaching the solid rock with caissons--,the work of sand-hogs--,the cantilever over the ,pend ,oreille ,river--,variety of problems in bridge-building--,points in favor of the stone bridge--,bridges over the ,keys of ,florida4 ,,chapter ,,vi ,,the ,,passenger ,,stations #hj ,early trains for suburbanites--,importance of the towerman-- ,automatic switch systems--,the interlocking machine--,capacities of the largest passenger terminals--,room for locomotives1 car-storage1 etc4--,storing and cleaning cars--,the concourse-- ,waiting-rooms--,baggage accommodations--,heating--,great development of passenger stations--,some notable stations in ,america4 ,,chapter ,,vii ,,the ,,freight ,,terminals ,,and ,,the ,,yards #ajg ,convenience of having freight stations at several points in a city--,the ,pennsylvania ,railroad's scheme at ,new ,york as an example--,coal handled apart from other freight--,assorting the cars--,the transfer house--,charges for the use of cars not promptly returned to their home roads--,the hard work of the yardmaster4 ,,chapter ,,viii ,,the ,,locomotives ,,and ,,the ,,cars #aai ,honor required in the building of a locomotive--,some of the early locomotives--,some notable locomotive-builders--,increase of the size of engines--,stephenson's air-brake--,the workshops-- ,the various parts of the engine--,cars of the old-time-- ,improvements by ,winans and others--,steel cars for freight4 ,,chapter ,,ix ,,rebuilding ,a ,,railroad #ach ,reconstruction necessary in many cases--,old grades too heavy-- ,curves straightened--,tunnels avoided--,these improvements required especially by freight lines4 ,,chapter ,x ,,the ,,railroad ,,and ,,its ,,president #aeb ,supervision of the classified activities--,engineering1 operating1 maintenance of way1 etc4--,the divisional system as followed in the ,pennsylvania ,road--,the departmental plan as followed in the ,new ,york ,central--,need for vice-presidents--,the board of directors--,harriman a model president--,how the ,pennsylvania forced itself into ,new ,york ,city--,action of a president to save the life of a laborer's child--,keep right on obeying orders--,some railroad presidents compared--,high salaries of presidents4 ,,chapter ,,xi ,,the ,,legal ,,and ,,financial ,,departments #agj ,functions of general counsel1 and those of general attorney--,a shrewd legal mind's worth to a railroad--,the function of the claim-agent--,men and women who feign injury--,the secret service as an aid to the claim-agent--,wages of employees the greatest of a railroad's expenditures--,the pay-car--,the comptroller or auditor--,division of the income from through tickets--,claims for lost or damaged freight--,purchasing-agent and store-keeper4 ,,chapter ,,xii ,,the ,,general ,,manager #ahg ,his duty to keep employees in harmonious actions--,the superintendent deals with men2 the general manager with superintendents--,the general manager is really king--,cases in which his power is almost despotic--,he must know men4 ,,chapter ,,xiii ,,the ,,superintendent #bjb ,his headship of the transportation organism--,his manner of dealing with an offended shipper--,his manner with commuters--,his manner with a spiteful kicker--,a dishonest conductor who had a pull--,a system of demerits for employees--,dealing with drunkards--,with selfish and covetous men4 ,,chapter ,,xiv ,,operating ,,the ,,railroad #bbj ,authority of the chief clerk and that of the assistant superintendent--,responsibilities of engineers1 firemen1 master mechanic1 train-master1 train-despatcher--,arranging the time-table--,fundamental rules of operation--,signals--,selecting engine and cars for a train--,clerical work of conductors--,a trip with the conductor--,the despatcher's authority--,signals along the line--,maintenance of way--,superintendent of bridges and buildings--,road-master--,section boss4 ,,chapter ,,xv ,,the ,,fellows ,,out ,,upon ,,the ,,line #bdc ,men who run the trains must have brain as well as muscle--,their training--,from farmer's boy to engineer--,the brakeman's dangerous work--,baggagemen and mail clerks--,hand-switchmen--,the multifarious duties of country station-agents4 ,,chapter ,,xvi ,,keeping ,,the ,,line ,,open #bef ,the wrecking train and its supplies--,floods dammed by an embankment--,right of way always given to the wrecking-train-- ,expeditious work in repairing the track--,collapse of the roof of a tunnel--,telegraph crippled by storms--,winter storms the severest test--,trains in quick succession help to keep the line open in snowstorms--,the rotary plough4 ,,chapter ,,xvii ,,the ,g4 ,p4 ,a4 ,,and ,,his ,,office #bgf ,he has to keep the road advertised--,must be an after-dinner orator1 and many-sided--,his geniality1 urbanity1 courtesy-- ,excessive rivalry for passenger traffic--,increasing luxury in ,pullman cars--,many printed forms of tickets1 etc4 ,,chapter ,,xviii ,,the ,,luxury ,,of ,,modern ,,railroad ,,travel #bib ,special trains provided--,private cars--,specials for actors1 actresses1 and musicians--,crude coaches on early railroads-- ,luxurious old-time sleeping-cars--,pullman's sleepers made at first from old coaches--,his pioneer--,the first dining-cars--,the present-day dining-cars--,dinners1 table d'hte and a la carte--,caf-cars--,buffet-cars--,care for the comfort of women4 ,,chapter ,,xix ,,getting ,,the ,,city ,,out ,,into ,,the ,,country #caa ,commuters' trains in many towns--,rapid increase in the volume of suburban travel--,electrification of the lines--,long ,island ,railroad almost exclusively suburban--,varied distances of suburban homes from the cities--,club-cars for commuters-- ,staterooms in the suburban cars--,special transfer commuters4 ,,chapter ,,xx ,,freight ,,traffic #cbe ,income from freight traffic greater than from passenger-- ,competition in freight rates--,afterwards a standard rate-sheet-- ,rate-wars virtually ended by the ,interstate ,commerce ,commission classification of freight into groups--,differential freight rates--,demurrage for delay in emptying cars--,coal traffic-- ,modern methods of handling lard and other freight4 ,,chapter ,,xxi ,,the ,,drama ,,of ,,the ,,freight #cdc ,fast trains for precious and perishable goods--,cars invented for fruits and for fish--,milk trains--,systematic handling of the cans--,auctioning garden-truck at midnight--,a historic city freight-house4 ,,chapter ,,xxii ,,making ,,traffic #cee ,enticing settlers to the virgin lands of the ,west--,emigration bureaus--,railways extended for the benefit of emigrants--,the first continuous railroad across the ,american continent-- ,campaigns for developing sparsely settled places in the ,west-- ,unprofitable branch railroads in the ,east--,development of scientific farming--,improved farms are traffic-makers--,new factories being opened--,how railroad managers have developed ,atlantic ,city4 ,,chapter ,,xxiii ,,the ,,express ,,service ,,and ,,the ,,railroad ,,mail #cfi ,development of express business--,railroad conductors the first mail and express messengers--,william ,f4 ,harnden's express service--,postage rates--,establishment and organization of great express companies--,collection and distribution of express matter--,relation between express companies and railroads-- ,beginnings of post-office department--,statistics--,railroad mail service--,newspaper delivery--,handling of mail matter--,growth of the service4 ,,chapter ,,xxiv ,,the ,,mechanical ,,departments #chh ,care and repair of cars and engines--,the locomotive cleaned and inspected after each long journey--,frequent visits of engines to the shops and foundries at ,altoona--,the table for testing the power and speed of locomotives--,the car shops--,steel cars beginning to supersede wooden ones--,painting a freight car--,lack of method in early repair shops--,search for flaws in wheels4 ,,chapter ,,xxv ,,the ,,railroad ,,marine #djd ,steamship lines under railroad control--,fleet of ,new ,york ,central--,tugs--,railroad connections at ,new ,york harbor--,handling of freight--,ferry-boats--,tunnel under ,detroit ,river--,car-ferries and lake routes--,great ,lakes steamship lines under railroad control4 ,,chapter ,,xxvi ,,keeping ,,in ,,touch ,,with ,,the ,,men #dah ,the first organized branch of the ,railroad ,y4 ,m4 ,c4 ,a4-- ,cornelius ,vanderbilt's gift of a club-house--,growth of the ,railroad ,y4 ,m4 ,c4 ,a4--,plans by the railways to care for the sick and the crippled--,the pension system--,entertainments--,model restaurants--,free legal advice--,employees' magazines--,the ,order of the ,red ,spot4 ,,chapter ,,xxvii ,,the ,,coming ,,of ,,electricity #dcb ,electric street cars--,suburban cars--,electric third-rail from ,utica to ,syracuse--,some railroads partially adopt electric power--,the benefit of electric power in tunnels--,also at terminal stations--,conditions which make electric traction practical and economical--,hopeful outlook for electric traction--,the monorail and the gyroscope car1 invented by ,louis ,brennan--,a similar invention by ,august ,scherl4 ,,appendix #ddi ,efficiency through ,organization4 ,,index #dfe ,,illustrations ,,page ,ready for the day's run ,frontispiece ,an early locomotive built by ,william ,norris for the ,philadelphia ,reading ,railroad #ah ,the historic ,john ,bull of the ,camden ,amboy ,railroad--and its train #ah ,a heavy-grade type of locomotive built for the ,baltimore ,ohio ,railroad in #ahfd4 ,its flaring stack was typical of those years #ai ,construction engineers blaze their way across the face of new country #ch ,the making of an embankment by dump-train #ci ,small temporary railroads peopled with hordes of restless engines #ci ,cutting a path for the railroad through the crest of the high hills #dd ,a giant fill--in the making #dd ,the finishing touches to the track #de ,this machine can lay a mile of track a day #de ,sometimes the construction engineer 444 brings his line face to face with a mountain #eb ,finishing the lining of a tunnel #eb ,the busiest tunnel point in the world--at the west portals of the ,bergen tunnels1 six ,erie tracks below1 four ,lackawanna above #ec ,the ,hackensack portals of the ,pennsylvania's great tunnels under ,new ,york ,city #ec ,concrete affords wonderful opportunities for the bridge-builders #fh ,the ,lackawanna is building the largest concrete bridge in the world across the ,delaware ,river at ,slateford1 ,pa4 #fh ,the bridge-builder lays out an assembling-yard for gathering together the different parts of his new construction #fi ,the new ,brandywine ,viaduct of the ,baltimore ,ohio1 at ,wilmington1 ,del4 #fi ,the ,northwestern's monumental new terminal on the ,west ,side of ,chicago #hb ,the ,union ,station at ,washington #hc ,a model ,american railroad station--the ,union ,station of the ,new ,york ,central1 ,boston ,albany1 ,delaware ,hudson1 and ,west ,shore railroads at ,albany #ajb ,the classic portal of the ,pennsylvania's new station in ,new ,york #ajb ,the beautiful concourse of the new ,pennsylvania ,station1 in ,new ,york #ajc ,the waiting-room is the monumental and artistic expression of the station--the waiting-room of the ,union ,depot at ,troy1 ,new ,york #ajc ,something over a million dollars' worth of passenger cars are constantly stored in this yard #aad ,a scene in the great freight-yards that surround ,chicago #aad ,the intricacy of tracks and the throat of a modern terminal yard3 ,south ,station1 ,boston1 and its approaches #aae ,one of the diamond-stack locomotives used on the ,pennsylvania ,railroad in the early seventies #abf ,prairie type passenger locomotive of the ,lake ,shore ,railroad #abf ,pacific type passenger locomotive of the ,new ,york ,central lines #abf ,atlantic type passenger locomotive1 built by the ,pennsylvania ,railroad at its ,altoona shops #abf ,one of the great ,mallet pushing engines of the ,delaware ,hudson ,company #abg ,a ten-wheeled switching locomotive of the ,lake ,shore ,railroad #abg ,suburban passenger locomotive of the ,new ,york ,central lines #abg ,consolidation freight locomotive of the ,pennsylvania system #abg ,where ,harriman stretched the ,southern ,pacific in a straight line across the ,great ,salt ,lake #adj ,line revision on the ,new ,york ,central--tunnelling through the bases of these jutting peaks along the ,hudson ,river does away with sharp and dangerous curves #adj ,impressive grade revision on the ,union ,pacific in the ,black ,hills of ,wyoming4 ,the discarded line may be seen at the right #ada ,the old and the new on the ,great ,northern--the ,william ,crooks1 the first engine of the ,hill system1 and one of the newest ,mallets #aed ,the ,southern ,pacific finds direct entrance into ,san ,francisco for one of its branch lines by tunnels piercing the heart of the suburbs #aee ,portal of the abandoned tunnel of the ,alleghany ,portage ,railroad near ,johnstown1 ,pa41 the first railroad tunnel in the ,united ,states #aee ,the freight department of the modern railroad requires a veritable army of clerks #agf ,the farmer who sued the railroad for permanent injuries-- as the detectives with their cameras found him #agg ,oil-burning locomotive on the ,southern ,pacific system #aij ,the steel passenger coach such as has become standard upon the ,american railroad #aij ,electric car1 generating its own power by a gasoline engine #aij ,both locomotive and train--gasoline motor car designed for branch line service #aij ,the biggest locomotive in the world3 built by the ,santa ,fe ,railroad at its ,topeka shops #aia ,the conductor is a high type of railroad employee #bjh ,the engineer--oil-can in hand--is forever fussing at his machine #bjh ,railroad responsibility does not end even with the track walker #bji ,the fireman has a hard job and a steady one #bji ,how the real timetable of the division looks--the one used in headquarters #bbb ,the electro-pneumatic signal-box in the control tower of a modern terminal #bbh ,the responsible men who stand at the switch-tower of a modern terminal3 a large tower of the manual type #bbh ,when winter comes upon the lines the superintendent will have full use for every one of his wits #bbi ,watchful signals guarding the main line of a busy railroad #bbi ,when the train comes to a water station the fireman gets out and fills the tank #bdh ,a freight-crew and its hack #bdh ,a view through the span of a modern truss bridge gives an idea of its strength and solidity #bdi ,the ,new ,york ,central is adopting the new form of ,upper quadrant signal #bdi ,the wrecking train ready to start out from the yard #bfb ,two of these great cranes can grab a wounded ,mogul locomotive and put her out of the way #bfb ,the shop-men form no mean brigade in this industrial army of ,america #bfc ,winter days when the wind-blown snow forms mountains upon the tracks #bgb ,the despatcher may have come from some lonely country station #bgc ,the superintendent is not above getting out and bossing the wrecking-gang once in a great while #bgc ,the ,new ,york ,central ,railroad is building a new ,grand ,central ,station in ,new ,york ,city1 for itself and its tenant1 the ,new ,york1 ,new ,haven ,hartford ,railroad #bhd ,the concourse of the new ,grand ,central ,station1 ,new ,york1 will be one of the largest rooms in the world #bhd ,south ,station1 ,boston1 is the busiest railroad terminal in the world #bhe ,the train-shed and approach tracks of ,broad ,street ,station1 ,philadelphia1 still one of the finest of ,american railroad passenger terminals #bhe ,connecting drawing-room and stateroom #bif ,a man may have as fine a bed in a sleeping-car as in the best hotel in all the land #bif ,you may have the manicure upon the modern train #big ,the dining-car is a sociable sort of place #big ,an interior view of one of the earliest ,pullman sleeping-cars #cjb ,interior of a standard sleeping-car of to-day #cjc ,even in winter there is a homely1 homey air about the commuter's station #cad ,entrance to the great four-track open cut which the ,erie has built for the commuter's comfort at ,jersey ,city #cad ,a model way-station on the lines of the ,boston ,albany ,railroad #cae ,the yardmaster's office--in an abandoned switch-tower #cae ,the inside of any freight-house is a busy place #cbh ,st4 ,john's ,park1 the great freight-house of the ,new ,york ,central ,railroad in down-town ,new ,york #cbh ,the great ore-docks of the ,west ,shore ,railroad at ,buffalo #cbi ,the great bridge of the ,new ,york ,central at ,watkins ,glen #cdj ,building the wonderful bridge of the ,idaho ,washington ,northern over the ,pend ,oreille ,river1 ,washington #cda ,inside the ,west ,albany shops of the ,new ,york ,central3 picking up a locomotive with the travelling crane #cej ,a locomotive upon the testing-table at the ,altoona shops of the ,pennsylvania #cej ,the roundhouse is a sprawling thing #cea ,denizens of the roundhouse #cea ,in the ,far ,west the farm-train has long since come into its own #cfj ,even in ,new ,york ,state the interest in these itinerant agricultural schools is keen1 indeed #cfa ,interior of the dairy demonstration car of an agricultural train #cfa ,the famous ,thomas ,viaduct1 on the ,baltimore ,ohio at ,relay1 ,md41 built by ,b4 ,h4 ,latrobe in #ahce1 and still in use #cff ,the historic ,starucca ,viaduct upon the ,erie #cff ,the cylinders of the ,delaware ,hudson ,mallet #cfg ,the interior of this gasoline-motor-car on the ,union ,pacific presents a most unusual effect1 yet a maximum of view of the outer world #cfg ,a portion of the great double-track ,susquehanna ,river bridge of the ,baltimore ,ohio--a giant among ,american railroad bridges #cgb ,in summer the brakemen have pleasant enough times of railroading #cgc ,a famous cantilever rapidly disappearing--the substitution of a new ,kentucky river bridge for the old1 on the ,queen ,crescent system #cgc ,triple-phase1 alternating current locomotive built by the ,general ,electric ,co4 for use in the ,cascade ,tunnel1 of the ,great ,northern ,railway #cij ,heavy service1 alternating and direct current freight locomotive built by the ,westinghouse ,company for the ,new ,york1 ,new ,haven ,hartford ,railroad #cij ,the monoroad in practical use for carrying passengers at ,city ,island1 ,new ,york #cia ,the cigar-shaped car of the monoroad #cia ,a modern railroad freight and passenger terminal3 the terminal of the ,west ,shore ,railroad at ,weehawken1 opposite ,new ,york ,city #djf ,high-speed1 direct-current passenger locomotive built by the ,general ,electric ,company for terminal service of the ,new ,york ,central at the ,grand ,central ,station #djg ,this is what ,new ,york ,central ,mc,crea did for the men of the ,canadian ,pacific up at ,kenora #dbj ,a clubhouse built by the ,southern ,pacific for its men at ,roseville1 ,california #dbj ,the ,b4 ,o4 boys enjoying the ,railroad ,y4 ,m4 ,c4 ,a41 ,chicago ,junction #dba ,the ,brooklyn ,rapid ,transit ,company has organized a brass band for its employees #dba ,a high-speed electric locomotive on the ,pennsylvania bringing a through train out of the tunnel underneath the ,hudson ,river and into the ,new ,york ,city terminal #dcd ,high-speed1 direct-current locomotive built by the ,westinghouse ,company for the terminal service of the ,pennsylvania ,railroad1 in ,new ,york #dcd ,two triple-phase locomotives of the ,great ,northern ,railway helping a double-header steam train up the grade into the ,cascade ,tunnel #dce ,the outer shell of the ,new ,haven's freight locomotive removed1 showing the working parts of the machine #dce ,the railroad is a monster4 ,his feet are dipped into the navigable seas1 and his many arms reach into the uplands4 ,his fingers clutch the treasures of the hills--coal1 iron1 timber--all the wealth of ,mother ,earth4 ,his busy hands touch the broad prairies of corn1 wheat1 fruits--the yearly produce of the land4 ,with ceaseless activity he brings the raw material that it may be made into the finished4 ,he centralizes industry4 ,he fills the ships that sail the seas4 ,he brings the remote town in quick touch with the busy city4 ,he stimulates life4 ,he makes life4 ,his arms stretch through the towns and over the land4 ,his steel muscles reach across great rivers and deep valleys1 his tireless hands have long since burrowed their way through ,god's eternal hills4 ,he is here1 there1 everywhere4 ,his great life is part and parcel of the great life of the nation4 ,he reaches an arm into an unknown country1 and it is known6 ,great tracts of land that were untraversed become farms2 hillsides yield up their mineral treasure2 a busy town springs into life where there was no habitation of man a little time before1 and the town becomes a city4 ,commerce is born4 ,the railroad bids death and stagnation begone4 ,it creates4 ,it reaches forth with its life1 and life is born4 ,the railroad is life itself6 ,,the ,,modern ,,railroad ,,chapter ,i ,,the ,,railroads ,,and ,,their ,,beginnings ,,two ,,great ,,groups ,,of ,,railroads2 ,,east ,,to ,,west1 ,,and ,,north ,,to ,,south--,,some ,,of ,,the ,,giant ,,roads--,,canals--,,development ,,of ,,the ,,country',s ,,natural ,,resources--,,railroad ,,projects--,,locomotives ,,imported--,,first ,,locomotive ,,of ,,american ,,manufacture--,,opposition ,,of ,,canal-,,owners ,,to ,,railroads-- ,,development ,,of ,,pennsylvania',s ,,anthracite ,,mines--,,the ,,merging ,,of ,,small ,,lines ,,into ,,systems4 ,fifteen or twenty great railroad systems are the overland carriers of the ,united ,states4 ,measured by corporations1 known by a vast variety of differing names1 there are many1 many more than these4 ,but this great number is reduced1 through common ownership or through a common purpose in operation1 to less than a score of transportation organisms1 each with its own field1 its own purposes1 and its own ambitions4 ,the greater number of these railroads reach from east to west1 and so follow the natural lines of traffic within the country4 ,two or three systems--such as the ,illinois ,central and the ,delaware ,hudson--run at variance with this natural trend1 and may be classed as cross-country routes4 ,a few properties have no long-reaching routes1 but derive their incomes from the transportation business of a comparatively small exclusive territory1 as the ,boston ,maine in ,northern ,new ,england1 the ,new ,haven in ,southern ,new ,england1 both of them recently brought under a more or less direct single control1 and the ,long ,island4 ,still other properties find their greatest revenue in bringing anthracite coal from the ,pennsylvania mountains to the seaboard1 and among these are the ,lackawanna1 the ,lehigh ,valley1 the ,central ,railroad of ,new ,jersey1 and the ,philadelphia ,reading systems4 ,the very great railroads of ,america are the east and west lines4 ,these break themselves quite naturally into two divisions--one group east of the ,mississippi ,river1 the other west of that stream4 ,the easterly group aim to find an eastern terminal in and about ,new ,york4 ,their western arms reach ,chicago and ,st4 ,louis1 where the other group of transcontinentals begin4 ,giants among these eastern roads are the ,pennsylvania and the ,new ,york ,central4 ,of lesser size1 but still ranking as great railroads within this territory are the ,chesapeake ,ohio1 the ,baltimore ,ohio1 and the ,erie4 ,several of the anthracite roads enjoy through connections to ,chicago and ,st4 ,louis1 breaking at ,buffalo as an interchange point1 about half way between ,new ,york and ,chicago4 ,there are important roads in the ,south1 reaching between ,gulf points and ,new ,york and taking care of the traffic of the centres of the section1 now rapidly increasing its industrial importance4 ,the western group of transcontinental routes are the giants in point of mileage4 ,the eastern roads1 serving a closely-built country1 carry an almost incredible tonnage2 but the long1 gaunt western lines are reaching into a country that has its to-morrow still ahead4 ,of these1 the so-called ,harriman lines--the ,southern ,pacific and the ,union ,pacific--occupy the centre of the country1 and reach from the ,mississippi to the ,pacific4 ,the ,santa ,fe and the ,gould roads share this territory4 ,to the north of the ,harriman lines1 ,j4 ,j4 ,hill has his wonderful group of railroads1 the ,burlington1 the ,great ,northern1 and the ,northern ,pacific1 together reaching from ,chicago to the north ,pacific coast4 ,still farther north ,canada has her own transcontinental in the ,canadian ,pacific ,railway1 another approaching completion in the ,grand ,trunk ,pacific ,railway4 ,the ,grangers 7so called from their original purpose as grain carriers71 that occupy the eastern end of this western territory1--the ,st4 ,paul1 the ,gould lines1 the ,northwestern and the ,rock ,island--are just now showing pertinent interest in reaching the ,pacific1 with its great ,oriental trade in its infancy4 ,the first two of these have already laid their rails over the great slopes of the ,rocky ,mountains and so it is that the building of railroads in the ,united ,states is nowhere near a closed book at the present time4 ,the better to understand the causes that went to the making of these great systems1 it may be well to go back into the past1 to examine the eighty years that the railroad has been in the making4 ,these busy years are illuminating4 ,they tell with precise accuracy the development of ,american transportation4 ,yet1 as we can devote to them only a few brief pages1 our review of them must be cursory4 ,when the ,revolution was completed and the ,united ,states of ,america firmly established as a nation1 the people began to give earnest attention to internal improvement and development4 ,under the control of a distant and unsympathetic nation there had been very little encouragement for development2 but with an independent nation all was very different4 ,the ,united ,states began vaguely to realize their vast inherent wealth4 ,how to develop that wealth was the surpassing problem4 ,it became evident from the first that it must depend almost wholly on transportation facilities4 ,to appreciate the dimensions of this problem it must be understood that at the beginning of the last century a barrel of flour was worth five dollars at ,baltimore4 ,it cost four dollars to transport it to that seaport from ,wheeling2 so it follows1 that flour must be sold at ,wheeling at one dollar a barrel for the ,baltimore market4 ,with a better form of transportation it would cost a dollar a barrel to carry the flour from ,wheeling to ,baltimore1 making the price of the commodity at the first of these points under transit facilities four dollars a barrel4 ,it did not take much of that sort of reasoning to make the ,states appreciate from the very first that a great effort must be made toward development4 ,that effort1 having been made1 brought its own reward4 ,the very first efforts toward transportation development lay in the canal works4 ,canals had already proved their success in ,england and within ,continental ,europe1 and their introduction into the ,united ,states established their value from the beginning4 ,some of the earliest of these were built in ,new ,england before the ,revolution4 ,after the close of that conflict many others were planned and built4 ,the great enterprise of the ,state of ,new ,york in planning and building the ,erie1 or ,grand ,canal1 as it was at first called1 from ,albany to ,buffalo--from ,atlantic tidewater to the navigable ,great ,lakes was a tremendous stimulus to similar enterprises along the entire seaboard4 ,canals were built for many hundreds of miles1 and in nearly every case they proved their worth at the outset4 ,canals were also projected for many1 many hundreds of additional miles1 for the success of the earliest of these ditches was a great encouragement to other investments of the sort1 even where there existed far less necessity for their construction4 ,then there was a halt to canal-building for a little time4 ,the invention of the steamboat just a century ago was an incentive indirectly to canal growth but there were other things that halted the minds of farsighted and conservative men4 ,canals were fearfully expensive things2 likewise1 they were delicate works1 in need of constant and expensive repairs to keep them in order4 ,moreover1 there were many winter months in which they were frozen and useless4 ,it was quite clear to these farsighted men from the outset that the canal was not the real solution of the transportation problem upon which rested the internal development of the ,united ,states4 ,they turned their attention to roads4 ,but1 while roads were comparatively easy to maintain and were possible routes of communication the entire year round1 they could not begin to compare with the canals in point of tonnage capacity1 because of the limitations of the drawing power of animals4 ,some visionary souls experimented with sail wagons1 but of course with no practical results4 ,at this time there came distinct rumors from across the sea of a new transportation method in ,england--the railroad4 ,the ,english railroads were crude affairs built to handle the products of the collieries in the northeast corner of the country1 to bring the coal down to the docks4 ,but there came more rumors--of a young engineer1 one ,stephenson1 who had perfected some sort of a steam wagon that would run on rails--a locomotive he called it1--and there was to be one of these railroads built from ,stockton to ,darlington to carry passengers and also freight4 ,these reports were of vast interest to the earnest men who were trying to solve this perplexing problem of internal transportation4 ,some of them1 who owned collieries up in the northeastern portion of ,pennsylvania and who were concerned with the proposition of getting their product to tidewater1 were particularly interested4 ,these gentlemen were called the ,delaware ,hudson ,company1 and they had already accomplished much in building a hundred miles of canal from ,honesdale1 an interior town1 across a mountainous land to ,kingston on the navigable ,hudson ,river4 ,but the canal1 considered a monumental work in its day1 solved only a part of the problem4 ,there still remained the stiff ridge of the ,moosic ,mountain that no canal work might ever possibly climb4 ,to the ,delaware ,hudson ,company1 then1 the railroad proposition was of absorbing interest1 of sufficient interest to warrant it in sending ,horatio ,allen1 one of the canal engineers1 all the way to ,england for investigation and report4 ,allen was filled with the enthusiasm of youth4 ,he went prepared to look into a new era in transportation4 ,in the meantime other railroad projects were also under way in the country1 short and crude affairs though they were4 ,as early as #ahjg ,silas ,whitney built a short line on ,beacon ,hill1 ,boston1 which is accredited as being the first ,american railroad4 ,it was a simple affair with an inclined plane which was used to handle brick2 and it is said that it was preceded twelve years by an even more crude tramway1 built for the same purpose4 ,another early short length of railroad was built by ,thomas ,leiper at his quarry in ,delaware ,county1 ,pennsylvania4 ,it has its chief interest from the fact that it was designed by ,john ,thomson1 father of ,j4 ,edgar ,thomson1 who became at a much later day president of the ,pennsylvania ,railroad ,company1 and who is known as one of the master minds in ,american transportation progress4 ,similar records remain of the existence of a short line near ,richmond1 ,va41 built to carry supplies to a powder mill1 and other lines at ,bear ,creek ,furnace1 ,pennsylvania1 and at ,nashua1 ,n4 ,h4 ,but the only one of these roads that seems to have attained a lasting distinction was one built by ,gridley ,bryant in #ahbf to carry granite for the ,bunker ,hill ,monument from the quarries at ,quincy1 ,mass41 to the docks four miles distant4 ,this road was built of heavy wooden rails attached in a substantial way to stone sleepers imbedded in the earth4 ,it attained considerable distinction and became of such general interest that a public house was opened alongside its rails to accommodate sightseers from afar who came to see it4 ,this railroad continued in service for more than a quarter of a century4 ,but the motive power of all these railroads was the horse2 and it was patent from the outset that the horse had neither the staying nor the hauling powers to make him a real factor in the railroad situation4 ,so when ,horatio ,allen returned to ,new ,york from ,england in ,january1 #ahbi1 with glowing accounts of the success of the ,english railroads1 he found the progressive men of the ,delaware ,hudson anxiously awaiting an inspection of the ,stourbridge ,lion1 the first of four locomotives purchased by ,allen for importation into the ,united ,states4 ,three of these machines were from the works of ,foster1 ,rastrick ,co41 of ,stourbridge2 the fourth was the creation of ,stephenson's master hand4 ,the ,lion arrived in ,may of that year1 and after having been set up on blocks and fired for the benefit of a group of scientific men in ,new ,york it was shipped by river and canal to ,honesdale4 ,allen placed the ,stourbridge ,lion--which resembled a giant grasshopper with its mass of exterior valves1 and joints--on the crude wooden track of the railroad1 which extended over the mountain to ,carbondale1 seventeen miles distant4 ,a few days later--the ninth of ,august1 to be exact--he ran the ,lion1 the first turning of an engine wheel upon ,american soil4 ,details of that scene have come easily down to to-day4 ,the track was built of heavy hemlock stringers on which bars of iron1 two and a quarter inches wide and one-half an inch thick were spiked4 ,the engine weighed seven tons1 instead of three tons1 as had been expected4 ,it so happened that the rails had become slightly warped just above the terminal of the railroad1 where the track crossed the ,lackawaxen ,creek on a bending trestle4 ,allen had been warned against this trestle and his only response was to call for passengers upon the initial ride4 ,no one accepted4 ,there was a precious ,pennsylvania regard shown for the safety of one's neck4 ,so1 after running the engine up and down the coal dock for a few minutes1 ,allen waved good-bye to the crowd1 opened his throttle wide open and dashed away from the village around the abrupt curve and over the trembling trestle at a rate of ten miles an hour4 ,the crowd which had expected to see the engine derailed1 broke into resounding cheers4 ,the initial trial of a locomotive in the ,united ,states had served to prove its worth4 ,the career of the ,stourbridge ,lion was short lived4 ,it hauled coal cars for a little time at ,honesdale2 but it was too big an engine for so slight a railroad1 and it was soon dismantled4 ,its boiler continued to serve the ,delaware ,hudson ,company for many years at its shops on the hillside above ,carbondale4 ,the fate of the three other imported ,english locomotives remains a mystery4 ,they were brought to ,new ,york and stored1 eventually to find their way to the scrap heap in some unknown fashion4 ,mr4 ,allen held no short-lived career4 ,his experiments with the locomotive ranked him as a railroad engineer of the highest class1 and before the year #ahbi closed he was made chief engineer of what was at first known as the ,charleston ,hamburg ,railroad1 and afterwards as the ,south ,carolina ,railroad4 ,this was an ambitious project1 designed to connect the old ,carolina seaport with the ,savannah ,river1 one hundred and thirty-six miles distant4 ,it achieved its greatest fame as the railroad which first operated a locomotive of ,american manufacture4 ,this engine1 called the ,best ,friend of ,charleston1 was built at the ,west ,point ,foundry in ,new ,york ,city and was shipped to ,charleston in the ,fall of #ahcj4 ,it was a crude affair1 and on its trial trip1 on ,november #b1 of that year1 it sprung a wheel out of shape and became derailed4 ,still it was a beginning2 and after the wheels had been put in good shape it entered into regular service1 which was more than the ,stourbridge ,lion had ever done4 ,it could haul four or five cars with forty or fifty passengers at a speed of from fifteen to twenty-five miles an hour1 so the ,charleston ,hamburg became the first of our steam railroads with a regular passenger service4 ,a little later1 a bigger and better engine1 also of ,american manufacture and called the ,west ,point1 was sent down from ,new ,york4 ,word of these early railroad experiments travelled across the country as if by some magic predecessor of the telegraph4 ,other railroad projects found themselves under way4 ,another colliery railroad1 a marvellous thing of planes and gravity descents1 was built at ,mauch ,chunk in the ,lehigh ,valley1 and this stout old road is in use to-day as a passenger-carrier4 ,but it was already seen that the future of the railroad was not to be limited to quarries or collieries4 ,up in ,new ,england the railroad fever had taken hold with force2 and in #ahca1 construction was begun on the ,boston ,lowell ,railroad4 ,this line was analogous to the ,manchester ,liverpool1 which proved itself from the beginning a tremendous money-earner4 ,boston1 a seaport of sixty thousand inhabitants was to be linked with ,lowell1 then possessing but six thousand inhabitants4 ,still1 even in those days1 ,lowell had developed to a point that saw fifteen thousand tons of freight and thirty-seven thousand passengers handled between the two cities over the ,middlesex ,canal in #ahbi4 ,then there developed the first of a new sort of antagonism that the railroad was to face4 ,the owners of the canals were keen-sighted enough to discover a dangerous new antagonist in the railroads4 ,they protested to the ,legislature that their charter gave them a monopoly of the carrying privileges between ,boston and ,lowell1 and for two years they were able to strangle the ambitions of the proposed railroad4 ,this fight was a type of other battles that were to follow between the canals and the railroads4 ,the various lines that reached across ,new ,york ,state from ,albany to ,buffalo1 paralleling the ,erie ,canal1 were once prohibited from carrying freight1 for fear that the canal's supremacy as a carrier might be disturbed4 ,the ,baltimore ,ohio ,railroad1 struggling to blaze a path toward the ,west1 was for a long time halted by the ,chesapeake ,ohio ,canal1 which proposed to hold to its monopoly of the valley of the ,potomac4 ,the ,boston ,lowell1 however1 conquered its obstacles and was finally opened to traffic1 ,june #bf1 #ahce4 ,within a few months similar lines reaching from ,boston to ,worcester on the west1 and ,providence on the south had also been opened4 ,by #ahci ,boston ,worcester had been extended through to ,springfield on the ,connecticut ,river1 where it connected with the ,western ,railroad1 extending over the ,berkshires to ,greenbush1 opposite ,albany4 ,the ,providence ,road was rapidly extended through to ,stonington1 ,connecticut4 ,from that point fast steamboats were operated through to ,new ,york1 and a quick line of communication was established between ,boston and ,new ,york4 ,before that time the fastest route between these two cities had been by steamboat to ,norwich1 then by coach over the post-road up to ,boston4 ,norwich saw the railroad take away its supremacy in the through traffic4 ,finally it awoke to its necessity1 and arranged to build a railroad to reach the existing line at ,providence4 ,between ,new ,york and ,philadelphia railroad communication came quickly into being1 the first route opened being the ,camden ,amboy1 which terminated at the end of a long ferry ride from ,new ,york4 ,even after more direct routes had been established and the ,delaware crossed at ,trenton1 it was many years before the trains ran direct from ,jersey ,city into the heart of the ,quaker ,city4 ,the cars from ,new ,york used to stop at ,tacony1 considerably above the city and there was still a steamboat ride down the river4 ,the railroad route to ,baltimore was only a partial one4 ,a steamboat took the traveller to ,new ,castle1 ,delaware1 where a short pioneer railroad crossed to ,french ,town1 ,maryland4 ,after that there was another long steamboat ride down the flat reaches of the ,chesapeake ,bay before ,baltimore was finally reached4 ,a little later there developed an all-rail route between ,philadelphia and ,baltimore although not upon the line of the present most direct route4 ,from ,philadelphia an early double-track railroad extended west to ,columbia1 upon the ,susquehanna ,river4 ,an early route extended due north from ,baltimore to ,york1 and then to ,harrisburg2 the parent stem of what afterwards became the ,northern ,central4 ,a branch from this line was extended through to ,columbia1 and the ,new ,castle and ,french ,town route lost popularity4 ,but the ,columbia and ,philadelphia route was destined to more important things than merely affording an all-rail route to ,baltimore4 ,at ,columbia it connected with the important ,pennsylvania ,state system of internal canals and railroads1 affording a direct line of communication with ,pittsburgh and the headwaters of the ,ohio ,river4 ,this was accomplished by use of a canal through to ,hollidaysburgh upon the east slope of the ,alleghanies1 and the well-famed ,alleghany ,portage ,railroad over the summit of those mountains to ,johnstown1 where another canal reached down into ,pittsburgh and enjoyed unexampled prosperity from #ahcd to #ahed4 ,the ,alleghany ,portage railroad was a solidly constructed affair and its rails after the fashion of almost all railroads of that day were laid upon stone sleepers1 rows of which may still be seen where the long-since abandoned railroad found its path across the mountains4 ,the ,portage ,railroad was operated by the most elaborate system of inclined planes ever put to service within the ,united ,states2 one has only to turn to the pages of ,dickens's ,american ,notes to read3 ,we left ,harrisburg on ,friday4 ,on ,sunday morning we arrived at the foot of the mountain1 which is crossed by railroad4 ,there are ten inclined planes1 five ascending and five descending2 the carriages are dragged up the former and slowly let down the latter by means of stationary engines1 the comparatively level spaces between being traversed sometimes by horse and sometimes by engine power1 as the case demands4444 ,the journey is very carefully made1 however1 only two carriages travelling together2 and while proper precaution is taken1 is not to be dreaded for its dangers4 ,the ,portage ,railroad was the first to surmount the ,alleghanies although in course of time its elaborate system of planes disappeared1 as they disappeared elsewhere1 under the development of the locomotive4 ,an interesting feature of the operation of the eastern end of this route of communication across the ,keystone ,state1 which was afterwards to develop into the mighty ,pennsylvania ,railroad1 was the communal nature of the enterprise4 ,the railroad was regarded as a highway4 ,any person was supposedly free to use its rails for the hauling of his produce in his own cars4 ,the theory of the ,columbia ,philadelphia ,railroad was simply that of an improved turnpike4 ,for ten years after the opening of the line in #ahcd1 the horse-teams of private freight haulers alternated upon the tracks between steam locomotives hauling trains4 ,a team of worn-out horses hauling a four-wheeled car1 loaded with farm produce could1 and frequently did keep a passenger train hauled by a steam locomotive fretting along for hours behind it4 ,in the end the use of horses was abolished on the ,philadelphia ,columbia--the name of the road had been reversed--and in #aheg the road was sold by the ,state to the newly organized ,pennsylvania ,railroad ,company4 ,the ,pennsylvania had already built a through rail route from ,columbia over the ,alleghanies1 and1 by the aid of the wonderful ,horse ,shoe ,curve and the ,gallitzin ,tunnel1 through to ,pittsburgh2 it had created its shop-town of ,altoona and abandoned for all time the ,alleghany ,portage ,railroad4 ,but before the consolidation came to pass1 two companies had been organized to control freight-carrying upon the tracks of the ,philadelphia ,columbia ,railroad4 ,one of these was the ,people's line1 the other the ,union line2 and in them was the germ of the private car lines1 which in recent years have become so vexed a problem to the ,interstate ,commerce ,commission4 ,there were other short railroad lines in ,pennsylvania1 most of them built to bring the products of the rapidly developing anthracite district down to tidewater4 ,across ,new ,york ,state another chain of little railroads1 which were in their turn to become the main stem of one of ,america's mightiest systems1 was under construction4 ,the first of this chain to be built was the ,mohawk ,hudson1 extending from the capital city of ,albany1 by means of a sharply graded plane1 to a tableland which brought it in turn to a descending plane at ,schenectady4 ,at this last city it enjoyed a connection with the ,erie ,canal1 and for a time the packet-boat men hailed the new railroad as a great help to their trade4 ,it shortened a great time-taking bend in the canal1 and helped to popularize that waterway just so much as a passenger carrier4 ,afterwards the packet-boat men thought differently4 ,hardly had the ,mohawk ,hudson been opened on ,august #i1 #ahca1 by an excursion trip behind the ,american built locomotive ,de,witt ,clinton1 when the railroad fever took hold of ,new ,york ,state as hard as the canal fever had taken hold of it but a few years before4 ,railroads were planned everywhere and some of them were built4 ,men began to dream of a link of railroads all the way through from ,albany to ,buffalo and even the troubles of a decade1 marked with a monumental financial crash1 could not entirely avail to stop railroad-building4 ,the railroads came1 step by step2 one railroad from ,schenectady to ,utica1 another from that pent-up city to ,syracuse1 still another from ,syracuse to ,rochester4 ,from ,rochester separate railroads led to ,tonawanda and ,niagara ,falls2 to ,batavia1 ,attica1 and ,buffalo4 ,but the panic of '#cg was a hard blow to ambitious financial schemes1 and it was six years thereafter before the all-rail route from ,albany to ,buffalo was a reality4 ,even after that it was a crude sort of affair4 ,at several of the large towns across the ,state the continuity of the rails was broken4 ,utica was jealous of this privilege and defended it on one occasion through a committee of eminent draymen1 'bus-drivers1 and inn-keepers1 who went down to ,albany to keep two of the early routes from making rail connections within her boundaries4 ,at ,rochester there was a similar break1 wherein both passengers and freight had to be transported by horses across the city from the railroad that led from the east to the railroad that led towards the west4 ,this matter of carrying passengers across a city has always stimulated local pride4 ,along in the fifties ,erie1 ,pa41 waged a bitter war to prevent the ,lake ,shore ,railroad from making its gauge uniform through that city and abandoning a time-honored transfer of passengers and freight there4 ,but there seems to be no stopping of the hand of ultimate destiny in railroading4 ,the little weak roads across the ,empire ,state were first gathered into the powerful ,new ,york ,central1 and after a time they were permitted to carry freight1 the privilege denied them a long time because of the power of the ,erie ,canal4 ,after a little longer time there was a great bridge built across the ,hudson ,river at ,albany1 and soon after the close of the ,civil ,war shrewd old ,commodore ,vanderbilt brought the railroad that had been built up the east shore of the ,hudson1 his pet ,new ,york ,harlem1 and the merged chain of railroads across the ,state1 into the ,new ,york ,central ,hudson ,river ,railroad1 his great lifework4 ,that system spread itself steadily4 ,it built a new short line from ,syracuse to ,rochester1 another from ,batavia to ,buffalo4 ,it absorbed and it consolidated2 gradually it sent its tentacles over the entire imperial strength of ,new ,york ,state4 ,,chapter ,,ii ,,the ,,gradual ,,development ,,of ,,the ,,railroad ,,alarm ,,of ,,canal-,,owners ,,at ,,the ,,success ,,of ,,railroads--,,the ,,making ,,of ,,the ,,baltimore ,,ohio--,,the ,,tom ,,thumb ,,engine--,,difficulties ,,in ,,crossing ,,the ,,appalachians--,,extension ,,to ,,pittsburgh--,,troubles ,,of ,,the ,,erie ,,railroad--,,this ,,road ,,the ,,first ,,to ,,use ,,the ,,telegraph--,,the ,,prairies ,,begin ,,to ,,be ,,crossed ,,by ,,railways--,,chicago',s ,,first ,,railroad1 ,,the ,,galena ,,chicago ,,union--,,illinois ,,central--,,rock ,,island1 ,,the ,,first ,,to ,,span ,,the ,,mississippi--,,proposals ,,to ,,run ,,railroads ,,to ,,the ,,pacific--,,the ,,central ,,pacific ,,organized--,,it ,,and ,,the ,,union ,,pacific ,,meet--,,other ,,pacific ,,roads4 ,all the railroad projects already related were timid projects in the beginning1 with hardly a thought of ultimate greatness4 ,yet there were men1 even in the earliest days of railroading1 whose minds winged to great enterprises1 whose dreams were empire-wide4 ,of such men was the ,baltimore ,ohio born4 ,baltimore1 like ,philadelphia1 had greedily watched the success of the ,erie ,canal upon its completion1 and noted with alarm its possible effects upon its own wharves4 ,philadelphia1 with the wealth of the great ,state of ,pennsylvania behind1 had sought to protect herself by the construction of the long links of canal and railroad to ,pittsburgh1 of which you have already read4 ,but ,baltimore had no great ,state to call to her support4 ,she must look to herself for strength4 ,out of her eminent necessity for self-preservation came men of the strength and the fibre to meet the emergency4 ,baltimore might have retreated from the situation1 as some of the ,new ,england towns had retreated from it1 and become a somnolent reminiscence of a prosperous ,colonial seaport4 ,she did nothing of the sort4 ,instead she made herself the terminal and inspiration of a great railroad1 laid the foundations of a great and lasting growth4 ,the ,baltimore ,ohio ,railroad was born ,february #ab1 #ahbg4 ,on the evening of that day1 a little group of citizens of the sturdy old ,southern metropolis gathered at the house of ,george ,brown4 ,mr4 ,brown together with ,philip ,e4 ,thomas1 a distinguished merchant and philanthropist of ,baltimore1 had been making investigation into the possibilities of railroads4 ,the fact that the ,chesapeake ,ohio ,canal1 which was already well advanced in construction1 would have its eastern terminus at the ,potomac ,river1 near ,washington1 brought no comfort to the merchants of ,baltimore4 ,wonder not then1 that the stern old traders of that city assembled to consider the best means of restoring to the city of ,baltimore that portion of the western trade which has lately been diverted from it by the introduction of steam navigation and other causes4 ,from that ,february day to this the corporate title of the ,baltimore ,ohio has been unchanged1 despite the career of the most extreme vicissitudes--long years of shadows that were almost complete despair1 other years that were brilliant with success4 ,it was decided at the outset that the commercial supremacy of ,baltimore rested on her conquest of the ,appalachian ,mountains1 of her reaching by an easy artificial highway the almost limitless waterways of the ,west that linked themselves with the navigable ,ohio4 ,but for the beginning it was agreed that ,cumberland1 long an important point on the well-famed ,national ,highway1 and even then a centre in the coal traffic1 was a far enough distant goal to be worthy of the most ambitious enterprise4 ,indeed a long cutting through a hill in the first section of the road proved a serious financial obstacle to the directors of the struggling railroad4 ,but these last were men who persevered4 ,they started to lay their track for the thirteen miles from ,baltimore to ,ellicott's ,mills on ,july #d1 #ahbh4 ,that occasion was honored by an old-time celebration in which the chief figure was ,charles ,carroll1 of ,carrollton1 who laid the first stone of the new line4 ,after his services were finished he said to a friend3 ,i consider this among the most important things of my life1 second only to the signing of the ,declaration of ,independence1 if even it be second to that4 ,of that act ,president ,hadley1 of ,yale1 has written3 ,one man's life formed the connecting link between the political revolution of the one century and the industrial revolution of the other4 ,no sooner had actual construction begun on the new line1 than the directors found themselves beset by many difficulties4 ,their enterprise was then so unusual1 that they went blindly1 stumbling ahead in the dark4 ,even the construction of the track itself was experimental4 ,it was first planned to use wooden rails hewn from oak1 and these were to be mounted upon stone sleepers set in a rock ballast4 ,the money spent in such track was obviously wasted4 ,all such construction had to be torn out before the traffic was at all sizable1 and replaced by iron rails and wooden sleepers4 ,but the track was the least of the company's problems4 ,it had gone ahead to build a railroad with a very vague conception as to its permanent motive-power4 ,it was soon seen there1 too1 that horses were out of the question for hauling the passengers and freight any considerable distance4 ,the ,baltimore ,ohio ,company gravely experimented at one time with a car which was carried before the wind by means of mast and sail4 ,sturdy old ,peter ,cooper1 of ,new ,york1 finally solved that motive-power problem4 ,he had been induced to buy three thousand acres of land in the outskirts of ,baltimore for speculation4 ,requests sent by his ,baltimore partners for remittances1 for taxes and other charges1 became so frequent that he went to the ,maryland city to investigate4 ,one glance showed him that the future of his investment rested upon the future of the struggling little railroad which was trying to poke its nose west from ,baltimore4 ,he came to the aid of its directors in their problem of motive-power4 ,that problem consisted1 for one thing1 in the practical use of a locomotive around curves of #djj feet radius4 ,cooper went back to ,new ,york1 bought an engine with a single cylinder1 rigged it on a car--not larger than a hand-car1 geared it to the wheels of that car and solved the chief problem of the ,b4 ,o4 ,his little engine--the ,tom ,thumb--was a primitive enough affair1 but it pointed the way to these ,baltimore merchants who were pinning their entire faith to their railroad project4 99 99 99 99 99 ,two years after the beginning of the work1 brigades of horse-cars were in regular service to ,ellicott's ,mills2 by the first of ,december1 #ahca1 trains--steam-drawn--ran through to ,frederick1 ,md42 five months later1 to a day1 they had reached ,point of ,rocks on the ,potomac1 seventy miles from ,baltimore4 ,at ,point of ,rocks the road was halted for a long time4 ,the power of the powerful ,chesapeake ,ohio ,canal1 which had been great enough to keep ,state or national grants from struggling railroads1 was raised to defend its claim to a monopoly of the ,potomac ,valley1 by right of priority4 ,this right was sustained in the courts1 and the railroad held back two years1 until it could buy a compromise4 ,in #ahce1 a highly profitable branch was opened to ,washington1 while early in the following year1 trains were running through to ,harpers ,ferry1 at the mouth of the ,shenandoah4 ,during that same ,summer of #ahce1 definite steps were taken toward the extension of the railroad to ,pittsburgh1 as well as ,wheeling4 ,but it was three years later before the struggling company was ready to make a surveying reconnaissance of these extensions of the road4 ,all through that time actual construction work was slowly but quite surely progressing westward from ,harpers ,ferry1 and on ,november #e1 #ahdb1 trains entered ,cumberland1 the one-time objective point of the enterprise4 ,illustration3 ,,an ,,early ,,locomotive ,,built ,,by ,,william ,,norris ,,for ,,the ,,philadelphia ,,reading ,,railroad ,illustration3 ,,the ,,historic ,,john ,,bull ,,of ,,the ,,camden ,,amboy ,,railroad--,,and ,,its ,,train ,illustration3 ,a ,,heavy-,,grade ,,type ,,of ,,locomotive ,,built ,,for ,,the ,,baltimore ,,ohio ,,railroad ,,in #ahfd4 ,,its ,,flaring ,,stack ,,was ,,typical ,,of ,,those ,,years ,but beyond ,cumberland the road gradually left the comfortable valley of the ,potomac1 and these early railroad builders found themselves confronted with new difficulties4 ,to build a railroad across the range of the ,appalachians1 with the primitive methods and machinery of those days was no simple task4 ,for nine years the construction work dragged4 ,in #ahea the line had only been finished to ,piedmont1 twenty-nine miles west of ,cumberland1 and its builders were well-nigh discouraged4 ,let us quote from the ancient history of the ,b4 ,o41 from which we derive these facts1 in an exact paragraph3 ,in the ,fall of #ahea1 the ,board found themselves1 almost without warning1 in the midst of a financial crisis1 with a family of more than #e1jjj laborers and #a1bjj horses to be provided for1 while their treasury was rapidly growing weaker4 ,the commercial existence of the city of ,baltimore depended on the prompt and successful prosecution of the unfinished road4 ,in ,october1 #aheb1 it was found that there had been expended for construction west of ,cumberland1 #g1bag1gcb4ea4 ,but the road was going ahead once more4 ,its ,board had dug deep into their pockets and the commercial crisis that hovered over ,baltimore was passed4 ,two years later the road entered ,wheeling1 and its corporate title was no longer a misnomer4 ,a little later1 a more direct line was built to ,parkersburg1 ,west ,virginia1 and direct connection entered with the ,ohio ,mississippi ,railroad1 which reached ,st4 ,louis4 ,the railroad was beginning to feel its way out across the land4 ,war between ,north and ,south had been declared before the long delayed extension to ,pittsburgh was finished4 ,in that time a real master-hand had come to the ,baltimore ,ohio4 ,in its early days the names of ,philip ,e4 ,thomas1 ,peter ,cooper1 ,ross ,winans1 and ,b4 ,h4 ,latrobe were indissolubly linked with this pioneer railroad2 in its second era ,john ,w4 ,garrett gave brilliancy to its administration4 ,even before1 as well as throughout the four trying years of the war1 when the road's tracks were being repeatedly torn up and its bridges burned1 ,mr4 ,garrett was laying down his masterly policy of expansion4 ,it was a discouraging beginning that confronted him4 ,the two expensive extensions to the ,ohio ,river had been a severe drain on the company's treasury1 traffic was at low ebb1 the great financial panic of #aheg had been hard to surmount4 ,but ,mr4 ,garrett was one of the first of ,american railroaders to see that a trunk-line should start at the seaboard and end at ,chicago or the ,mississippi4 ,he pushed his line to ,pittsburgh1 to ,cleveland1 to ,sandusky1 to ,chicago4 ,it began to reach new and growing traffic centres4 ,the ,baltimore ,ohio entered upon an era of magnificent prosperity4 ,the first cloud upon that era came in the early seventies1 when its powerful rival1 the ,pennsylvania1 secured control of the ,philadelphia1 ,wilmington ,baltimore1 the ,b4 ,o4's connecting link on its immensely profitable through route from ,new ,york to ,washington4 ,pennsylvania interests tunnelled for long miles through the rocky foundations of ,baltimore1 purchased an independent line to ,washington--the ,baltimore ,potomac--and the ,b4 ,o4 found itself deprived of its best congested traffic district4 ,for eleven years it was unable to retaliate1 though not a soul believed the ,baltimore ,ohio to be other than a splendid1 conservative property4 ,it owned its own sleeping-car company1 its own express company1 its own telegraph company4 ,the name of ,garrett was behind it4 ,logan ,g4 ,mc,pherson says3 ,when it was desired to obtain additional funds1 bonds were always issued instead of the capital stock being increased4 ,interest on bonds has always to be met1 whereas dividends on stocks can be passed4 ,it was announced1 however1 that the retention of the stock capitalization at less than fifteen millions of dollars was an evidence of conservatism1 as the continuance of semi-annual dividends of five per cent was thereby permitted4 ,john ,w4 ,garrett died in #ahhd1 and was succeeded in the presidency by his son ,robert ,garrett1 who announced himself ready to continue a policy of expansion4 ,the younger ,garrett sought to regain an entrance for his traffic to ,new ,york4 ,to that end he built a line into ,philadelphia and prepared to strike across the ,state of ,new ,jersey4 ,he failed in that end by the failure of one of his confidential aides2 the line that he had counted on for entrance into the ,american metropolis was snapped up by his greatest rival just as his own fingers were almost upon it4 ,later the ,b4 ,o4 was permitted a trackage entrance into ,jersey ,city1 but the terms of that entrance were so stringent as to mean a practical surrender upon its part4 ,if ,baltimore ,ohio had won that battle1 a different story might have been chronicled4 ,as it was1 it stood a loser in a fearfully expensive fight2 the ,english investors in the property became investigators--of a sudden the bottom dropped out of things4 ,the stock went slipping down as only a mob-chased stock in ,wall ,street can drop2 the road that had been the pride of ,baltimore became1 for the moment1 her shame4 ,it was shown1 upon investigation1 that the road had long gone upon a slender standing3 millions of dollars that should actually have been charged to loss had been charged against its capital and included in the surplus4 ,ten years after ,mr4 ,garrett's death the road found itself in even more bitter straits4 ,it was a laughing stock and a reproach among railroad men4 ,its profitable side-properties--the sleeping-car company1 the express company1 the telegraph company1--the first two of which should never be permitted to go outside of the control of any really great railroad company--had been sold1 one after another1 in attempts to save the day of reckoning4 ,just before the ,chicago ,fair the road reached low-water mark4 ,its passenger cars were weather-beaten and ravaged almost beyond hope of paint-shops2 it was sometimes necessary to hold outgoing trains in the famous old ,camden station at ,baltimore1 until the lamps and drinking glasses could be secured from some incoming train4 ,in that day of low-water mark it was actually and seriously proposed to abandon the passenger service of the road6 ,out of that chaos came the ,b4 ,o4 of to-day1 a substantial and well-managed railroad property4 ,mr4 ,garrett was the first of the railroaders to construct a single property from the ,atlantic seaboard to the ,mississippi2 ,john ,f4 ,cowan1 ,l4 ,f4 ,loree1 ,oscar ,g4 ,murray1 and ,daniel ,willard have been his successors in the revamping of the ,b4 ,o41 eliminating its costly grades1 enlarging yard and terminal facilities1 and making the historic road a carrier of the first class4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the history of the ,erie ,railroad is hardly less dramatic than that of the ,baltimore ,ohio2 its financial disasters were not owing to the errors that come of crass stupidity4 ,for the ,erie did its good part in the making of railroad law4 ,built and operated in the earliest railroad days as a single enterprise through the southern tier of counties of ,new ,york ,state from the ,hudson ,river to ,lake ,erie1 while the roads to the north that were eventually to be welded by ,commodore ,vanderbilt into the great ,new ,york ,central were still quarrelling among themselves1 it was wrecked time and time again by unscrupulous schemes of high finance4 ,it was made to wear mill-stones in the shape of outrageous bonded indebtednesses that acted as a fearful handicap for many years and prevented a remarkably well located property from standing to-day as the peer of the ,pennsylvania or of the ,new ,york ,central4 ,the story of these outrages has been told and retold--they are integral parts of the financial history of the country4 ,suffice it to say here and now that the ,erie has been operated with more or less success by no less than four struggling corporations2 that it has never come closer to achieving success than under its present president1 ,f4 ,d4 ,underwood2 and that no one save those who have stood close to ,underwood has known or appreciated the heritage of handicap that was given to him to shoulder4 ,for it has been part of our railroad principle in this country--a mighty sad part1 too--that no matter how villainously stocks and bonds may have been issued at any time--only to bring failure swiftly and inevitably1--such bogus paper has always been protected in reorganization4 ,a railroad which becomes bankrupt cannot be abandoned4 ,that has been done only in rare cases4 ,even the ,baltimore ,ohio1 at the end of its rope less than twenty years ago1 was not permitted to abandon its passenger service4 ,it must pull itself up out of the difficulties1 and--in ,america at least--it must pull its trashy paper up too1 in order that no holder of such paper may be unprotected4 ,the paper can no more be abandoned than the right-of-way4 ,the result is seen in railroads staggering under vast and questionable capitalization 7there is no cleaning of the slate72 but the sins of those that have gone before are truly visited upon the third and the fourth generation1 as well as upon the poor humans who1 under such burdens1 are trying to operate a railroad property4 ,from the beginning the story of ,erie has been a story of difficulties4 ,the original scheme of building a ,new ,york railroad from ,piermont-on-,hudson to ,dunkirk on ,lake ,erie--some #dej miles--seems in the face of the resources of the ,state at that time and the engineering difficulties to be solved1 almost quixotic4 ,but the road was built step by step1 section by section1 until in ,may1 #ahea1 a triumphal first train was operated over its entire length4 ,president ,fillmore was the guest of honor on the train1 but shared attention with ,daniel ,webster on the trip4 ,webster1 in order that he might see the country1 insisted on making the entire tedious journey in a rocking-chair1 which was lashed upon a flat-car4 ,another flat-car was occupied by a railroad officer who was designated to receive the flags4 ,c4 ,f4 ,carter1 in his interesting sketch on the early days of the ,erie1 writes3 ,by a singular coincidence1 the ladies at every one of the more than sixty stations between ,piermont and ,dunkirk had conceived the idea that it would be as original as it was appropriate to present a flag wrought by their own fair hands to the railroad company when the first train passed through to ,lake ,erie4 ,as it would have consumed altogether too much time to make a stop for each of these flag presentations1 the engineer merely slowed down at three-fourths of the stations long enough to permit the man on the flat-car to scoop up the banners in his arms1 much like the hands on the old-fashioned ,marsh harvesters gathered up armfuls of grain for binding4 ,at the end of the journey the ,erie ,railroad had a collection of flags that would have done credit to a victorious army4 ,mr4 ,carter has also told how in that same eventful year #ahea the telegraph came into use on the ,erie1 first of all railroads3 ,a crude telegraph line1 built for commercial purposes1 had been stretched along the eastern end of the road4 ,people did not think very much of the telegraph in those days4 ,it was only seven years old2 and when a man wired another man he wrote his message like a letter1 beginning with ,dear sir and ending with ,yours truly4 ,the railroads scorned its use4 ,their trains ran by hard and fast train rules4 ,then1 as now1 north and east-bound trains held the right-of-way over those south and west-bound1 and the meeting places on single-track lines were each carefully designated on the time-card4 ,if a train was waiting for another coming in an opposite direction1 and the train came not after an hour1 the first train proceeded forward under flag4 ,that meant that a man1 walking with a flag in his hand preceded the train to protect it4 ,the locomotive and its train of cars necessarily proceeded at snail's pace4 ,it was not so very long after that observation-car trip that ,daniel ,webster took in the rocking-chair up to ,dunkirk1 before the ,erie's superintendent1 ,charles ,minot1 was taking a trip up over the east end of the road4 ,the train on which he was riding was due to meet a west-bound express at ,turner's4 ,after waiting nearly an hour there1 without seeing the opposing train1 ,minot was seized with an inspiration4 ,he telegraphed up the line fourteen miles to ,goshen to hold that west-bound train until he should arrive there4 ,he then ordered his train-crew to proceed4 ,they rebelled4 ,engineer ,isaac ,lewis had too much regard for his own precious neck to break the time-card rules1 even under the superintendent's orders4 ,so finally ,minot took charge of the engine himself1 while ,lewis cautiously seated himself in the last seat of the last car and awaited the worst4 ,it never came1 of course4 ,when they reached ,goshen1 the agent had received the message1 and was prepared to hold the west-bound train4 ,but it had not arrived1 and ,minot by repeating his method was enabled first to reach ,middletown and then ,port ,jervis before meeting the delayed train4 ,by the use of the telegraph he had saved his own train some three hours in running time2 and it was not long thereafter until the operation of trains by telegraph order became standard on the ,erie and all others of the early railroads4 ,at the beginning1 one of the promoters of the ,erie announced his belief that the road would eventually earn1 by freight alone1 some two hundred thousand dollars in a year1 and his neighbors laughed at him for his extravagant promise4 ,yet1 in the first six months' operation of the road the receipts--mostly from freight--were #a1gee1bhe4 ,to tell the full story of ,erie would require a sizable book4 ,it has not yet been told4 ,it is a story of intrigue and deceit1 of trickery and of scheming2 the story of ,daniel ,drew and ,jim ,fisk and ,jay ,gould2 the monumental tragedy of the wrecking of a great railroad property--a property with possibilities that probably will never now be realized4 ,the present management of the road has labored valiantly and well4 ,it has seen the future of ,erie as a great freighting road1 has carefully laid its lines for the full development of the property as a carrier of goods1 rather than of through passengers4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the history of the railroad divides itself sharply into epochs4 ,in the beginning1 the different roads--such as ,erie1 ,pennsylvania1 ,baltimore ,ohio1 and ,new ,york ,central--were being pushed west over the ,alleghany ,mountains to the ,great ,lakes and the ,ohio ,river4 ,there followed an era where the railroads were reaching ,chicago and ,st4 ,louis4 ,that was the era which saw the weird railroads of the ,middle ,west1 the strange stock-watering companies that made the very names of ,ohio1 ,michigan1 and ,illinois financial bywords in the late forties and the early fifties4 ,the first railroad in ,ohio was the old ,mad ,river ,lake ,erie1 which was built in #ahce1 from ,sandusky1 south about a hundred miles to ,columbus1 the ,state capital4 ,the pioneer engine on the road1 the ,sandusky1 was the first locomotive ever equipped with a whistle4 ,the first railroad of the prairies was the ,northern ,cross railroad--now a part of the ,wabash--extending from ,merodosia on the ,illinois ,river1 to ,springfield4 ,it was started in #ahcg1 and late in the following fall a locomotive built by ,rogers1 ,grosvenor1 and ,ketchum of ,paterson1 ,n4 ,j41--the founders of a famous locomotive works--was landed from a packet-steamer at ,merodosia4 ,then was the first puff of a locomotive heard upon the prairies of the great ,west4 ,a contemporary account says3 ,the little locomotive had no whistle1 no spark-arrester1 no cow-catcher1 and the cab was open to the sky4 ,its speed was about six miles an hour1 and where the railroad and the highway lay parallel to each other there was frequently a trial of speed between the locomotive with its 'pleasure cars' and the stage-coaches4 ,sometimes the stage-coaches came in ahead4 ,six inches of snow were sufficient to blockade the trains drawn by this ,american engine4 ,in #ahdf ,james ,m4 ,forbes was building the ,michigan ,central west from ,detroit1 #ade miles to ,kalamazoo4 ,a little later it was extended to the east shore of ,lake ,michigan1 at ,new ,buffalo2 eventually it reached ,chicago with its own rails4 ,while the ,michigan ,central was pushing its rails1 its chief competitor to the south1 the ,michigan ,southern1--afterwards a part of the ,lake ,shore1 and eventually united with its traditional rival in the extended ,new ,york ,central system--was also pushing toward ,chicago as a goal4 ,both roads reached ,chicago in #aheb4 ,but railroad building was slow work4 ,the country expanded too quickly after the golden promises of the railroad promoters4 ,money came too easily2 then there would come a fearful financial time1 and the reputable railroad enterprises would be halted beside the fly-by-night schemes4 ,as late as #ahej1 ,ohio had only the single trunk-line connecting ,sandusky and ,cincinnati2 but the railroad to ,cleveland that was afterwards the main stem of the ,big ,four and the trunk-line connection east to the ,baltimore ,ohio1 were nearing completion4 99 99 99 99 99 ,chicago's first railroad was the ,galena ,chicago ,union1 and it was the cornerstone of the great ,chicago and ,northwestern system1 one of the really great railroads of ,america4 ,the ,galena ,chicago ,union was incorporated in #ahcf1 but not until eleven years later was work begun in laying tracks1 for a short ten-mile stretch from the ,chicago ,river to ,des ,plaines2 and its first locomotive1 the ,pioneer1 had been bought second-hand from the ,buffalo ,attica ,railroad1 away east in ,new ,york ,state4 ,the rails were second-hand1 too1 of the strap variety1 which the ,western railroads were already discarding in favor of solid rails4 ,but it was a railroad1 and it was with a deal of pride that ,john ,b4 ,turner1 its president1 used to ascend to an observatory on the second floor of the old ,halsted ,street depot to sight with a telescope the smoke of his morning train coming across the prairie4 ,the ,chicago and ,northwestern1 itself1 was organized in #ahei4 ,for a time it was so desperately poor that it could not pay the interest on its bonds1 and there was a time when its officers had to meet the pay-roll out of their own pockets2 but it succeeded in absorbing about six hundred miles of railroad at the beginning4 ,in another decade the ,union ,pacific ,railroad1 first uniting the ,far ,west with the populous ,middle and ,eastern ,states1 was completed4 ,the ,chicago and ,northwestern formed one of the most direct links between the ,lakes and the eastern terminal of the ,union ,pacific at ,council ,bluffs4 ,the business that came to it because of that linking was the first strong impulse that led to the ultimate greatness of the ,northwestern4 ,the distinctive mid-,western road was and always has been the ,illinois ,central4 ,originally incorporated in #ahcf1 it was nearly twenty years later when1 through substantial aid from the ,state whose name it bears1 construction actually began4 ,the first track was laid from ,chicago to ,calumet to give an entrance to the ,michigan ,central in its heart-breaking race to the ,western metropolis against the ,michigan ,southern4 ,the main line through to ,cairo was pushed forward rapidly1 however1 and was ready for traffic at the end of #ahee4 ,a large number of ,kentucky slaves promptly showed their appreciation of the new railroad enterprise by using it to effect their escape to the ,north4 99 99 99 99 99 ,of course with the railroad pushing its way westward all the while 7the ,rock ,island in ,april1 #ahei1 was the first to span the ,mississippi with a bridge71 it was only a question of time when some adventurous soul should seek to reach the ,pacific coast4 ,indeed it was away back in #ahcb1 while there was still less than a hundred miles of track in the ,united ,states1 that ,judge ,dexter of ,ann ,arbor1 ,michigan1 proposed a railroad through to the ,pacific ,ocean1 through thousands of miles of untrodden forest4 ,six years later1 a ,welsh engineer1 ,john ,plumbe1 held a convention at ,dubuque1 ,iowa1 for the same purpose4 ,the idea would not down4 ,hardly had ,plumbe and his convention disappeared from the public notice when ,asa ,whitney1 a ,new ,york merchant of considerable reputation1 began to agitate the ,pacific railroad4 ,whitney was a good deal of a theorist and a dreamer2 but he was a shrewd publicity man1 and he held widely attended meetings for the propagation of his idea1 in all the ,eastern cities4 ,eventually1 like ,judge ,dexter and ,john ,plumbe1 he was doomed to disappointment4 ,after ,whitney had died broken-hearted and bankrupt because of his devotion to an idea1 came ,josiah ,perham1 of ,boston4 ,josiah ,perham was the ,raymond ,whitcomb of the fifties4 ,he began by organizing excursions for ,new ,england folk to come to ,boston to see the ,boston ,museum and the panoramas1 which were the gay diversion of that day4 ,in one year he brought two hundred thousand folk into that sacred ,massachusetts town1 and he began to be rated as a rich man4 ,he absorbed the ,pacific railroad idea and freely spent his money in its propagation4 ,he organized the ,people's ,pacific ,railroad1--and a part of his scheme formed the foundation of the ,northern ,pacific4 ,perham1 like the others1 spent his money and failed to see the fruition of his plan4 ,there seemed to be something ill-fated about that plan of a railroad to the ,pacific4 ,even the citizens of ,st4 ,louis1 who had gathered on the ,fourth of ,july1 #ahea1 to see soil broken for the first real transcontinental railroad1 found that it could only manage to reach ,kansas ,city by #ahef4 ,that particular railroad--the ,missouri ,pacific--through its western connection1 the ,western ,pacific1 only succeeded in reaching the coast within the past year4 ,when ,theodore ,d4 ,judah brought himself to the seemingly hopeless task of trying to build a ,pacific railroad1 he brought with him all the enthusiasm of ,asa ,whitney1 and with it the experience of a trained railroad engineer4 ,the thing was beginning to take shape4 ,the men1 like ,whitney and ,perham1 who had been before ,congress at session after session1 finally brought that august body1 even when the nation stood on the verge of civil war1 into making an appropriation for a survey for a scheme1 which nine out of ten men regarded as a mere visionary dream4 ,theodore ,d4 ,judah1 filled with enthusiasm for his mighty plan1 went ,west that he might roughly plan the location of the railroad4 ,he went to ,san ,francisco and he went to ,sacramento1 where the little twenty-two-mile ,sacramento ,valley ,railroad had been running since #ahef4 ,the ,californians listened to him with interest1 but they proffered him no financial aid4 ,then ,judah went up into the high passes of the ,sierras1 through which a railroad to the east would certainly have to reach1 to find a crossing for the line in which he believed so earnestly4 ,he found it--making a route that would save #adh miles and #ac1ejj1jjj over that proposed by the ,government authorities4 ,when he went back to ,sacramento1 to the hardware store of his old friends1 ,huntington ,hopkins1 in ,k ,street1 it was with a rough profile of that pass in his pocket4 ,what ,judah said to ,collis ,p4 ,huntington and ,mark ,hopkins has never been known1 but certain it is that in a little time they were sending for the three other capitalists of ,sacramento--the ,crocker brothers1 who had a dry-goods store down the street1 and ,leland ,stanford1 a wholesale grocer4 ,out of the efforts of those six men the ,central ,pacific ,railroad was organized with a capital of #abe1jjj4 ,work began on the new line at ,sacramento on the first day of #ahfc1 while ,california shook with laughter at the idea of a parcel of country store-keepers building a railroad across the crest of the ,sierras4 ,how they built their railroad successfully and amassed six really great ,american fortunes is all history now4 ,sufficient is it that they turned a deaf ear to the ridicule 7the project was considered so visionary that bankers dared not subscribe to the stock of the road for fear of injuring their credit71 found their route through the mountains just as ,judah had promised1 brought their materials around the ,horn1 imported ten thousand ,chinese laborers1 hurled thousands of tons of solid rock down among the pines by a single charge of nitro-glycerine1 bolted their snow-sheds to the mountains1 and filled up or bridged hundreds of chasms and valleys4 ,two thousand feet of granite barred the way upon the mountain-top where eagles were at home4 ,the ,chinese wall was a toy beside it4 ,it could neither be surmounted nor doubled2 and so they tunnelled what looks like a bank swallow's hole from a thousand feet below4 ,powder enough was expended in persuading the iron crags and cliffs to be a thoroughfare1 to fight half the battles of the ,revolution4 ,while the ,central ,pacific was being built east from the coast1 the ,union ,pacific was pushing its rails west from the ,missouri ,river to meet it4 ,a ,federal subsidy was paid to each road for each mile of transcontinental track it laid1 and the result was the ,credit ,mobilier1 the worst financial blot upon the pages of ,american government transactions4 ,early in the ,spring of #ahfh the companies were on equal terms in this great game of subsidy getting4 ,each finally had ample funds and each was about #ecj miles away from the ,great ,salt ,lake4 ,so in #ahfh a construction campaign began that has never been approached in the history of railroad building4 ,twenty-five thousand men1 and #f1jjj teams1 together with whole brigades of locomotives and work-trains1 were engaged in the work2 in a single day ten miles of track was laid and that was a world-beating record4 ,the result of such speed was that the two railroads met1 ,may #i1 #ahfi4 ,leland ,stanford1 who was ridiculed when he first turned earth for the ,central ,pacific at ,sacramento six years before1 drove the last spike1 and was for that moment the central figure in an attention that was world-wide4 ,after the ,union ,pacific and the ,central ,pacific came the ,southern ,pacific1 and after them came ,collis ,p4 ,huntington binding them into a tight single railroad4 ,but close on the heels of the ,southern ,pacific1 and right into its own territory1 reached the ,santa ,fe1 while to the north1 first the ,northern ,pacific and then the ,great ,northern was built from the lake country straight to ,puget ,sound4 ,on a ,november day in #ahhe the last spike was driven in the great transcontinental ,canadian ,pacific1 the first and so far the only railroad to lay its rails from the ,north ,atlantic to the ,pacific4 ,within a year the ,western ,pacific--the westernmost of the chain of ,gould roads--has begun to run its through trains to the ,golden ,gate4 ,as this volume goes to press finishing touches are being placed upon the ,puget ,sound extension of the ,chicago1 ,milwaukee ,st4 ,paul1 probably the last transcontinental to be stretched across these ,united ,states for a number of years to come4 ,far to the north1 the ,grand ,trunk ,pacific is finding its way across the wilderness of the ,canadian ,rockies1 creating a great city--,prince ,rupert--at its western terminal4 ,it should be ready for its through traffic within the next three years4 99 99 99 99 99 ,this then1 in brief1 is the history of ,american railroading--an eighty-year struggle from ,east to ,west4 ,the railroad has passed through many vicissitudes2 days of wild-cat financing1 and days when men refused to invest their money under any inducements whatsoever4 ,it has been assailed by legislatures and by ,congress2 it has been scourged because of the so-called pooling agreements1 and it has cut its own strong arms by building foolish competing lines4 ,but it has survived masterfully1 while the highroads have become grass-grown1 and the once proud canals have fallen into decay4 ,railroading is to-day in the full flush of successful existence4 ,science has been brought to each of the infinite details of the business2 and for the first time the country sees practically every line1 large or small1 honestly earning its way4 ,the railroad receiver has all but passed into history4 ,,chapter ,,iii ,,the ,,building ,,of ,a ,,railroad ,,cost ,,of ,a ,,single-,,track ,,road--,,financing--,,securing ,a ,,charter--,,survey-,,work ,,and ,,its ,,dangers--,,grades--,,construction--,,t rack-,,laying4 ,the railroad has its beginning in the inspiration and in the imagination of men4 ,perchance a great tract of country1 rich in possibilities1 stands undeveloped for lack of transportation facilities4 ,the living arm of the railroad will bring to it both strength and growth4 ,it will bring to it the materials1 the men1 and the machinery needed for its development4 ,it will take from it its products seeking markets in communities already established4 ,in that way the first railroads began1 reaching their arms carefully in from the ,atlantic and the navigable rivers and bays that emptied into it4 ,in the beginning there was hardly any inland country4 ,all the important towns were spread along the sea-coast or along those same navigable tributaries1 and it was sorry shrift for any community that did not possess a wharf to which vessels of considerable tonnage might attain4 ,where such communities did not possess natural water-ways1 they sought to obtain artificial ones2 and the result was the extraordinary impetus that was given to the building of canals during the first half of the nineteenth century--a page of ,american industrial history that has been told in another chapter4 ,it was found quite impossible to handle bulky freight economically by wagon1 no matter how romantic the turnpike might be for passenger traffic in the old-time coaches4 ,the canal was so much better as a carrier that it was hailed with acclaim1 and waxed powerful4 ,in the height of its power it laughed at the puny efforts of the railroad1 and then1 as you have seen1 sought by every possible means to throttle the growth of the steel highway4 ,within eighty years it was powerless1 and the railroad was conqueror4 ,there were hundreds of miles of abandoned canal within the country1 many of them being converted into roadbeds of railroads2 and the water-highway1 with its slow transit and its utter helplessness during the frozen months of the year1 was not able to exist except where quantities of the coarsest sort of freight were to be moved4 ,without railroads1 the ,united ,states to-day would1 in all probability1 not be radically different from the ,united ,states of a hundred years ago4 ,all the large towns and cities would still be clustered upon the coast and waterways1 and back of them would still rest many1 many square miles of undeveloped country2 the nation would have remained a sprawling1 helpless thing1 weakened by its very size1 and subject both to internal conflict and to attacks of foreign invaders4 ,it has been repeatedly said that if there had been a through railroad development in the ,south during the fifties1 there would have been no ,civil ,war4 ,france for five hundred years before the signing of our ,declaration1 was a civilized and progressive nation4 ,yet century after century passed without her inland towns showing material change2 and her seaports1 lacking the impetus of interior growth1 remained quiescent4 ,such a metropolis as ,marseilles is to-day1 became possible only when the railroad made this seaport the south gate of a mightily developing nation4 99 99 99 99 99 ,let us assume that we are about to build a railroad4 ,if we are going to strike our road in from some existing line or some accessible port into virgin country1 we may hope for land or money grants from the ,state1 county1 town1 or city ,government4 ,that is a faint hope1 however1 in these piping days of the twentieth century4 ,so much scandal once attached itself to these grants that they have become all but obsolete4 ,we shall have to fall back upon the individual enterprise and help of the persons who are to benefit by the coming of the railroad4 ,they may be folk who simply regard our project as a good investment1 and place their money in it with hopes of a fair return4 ,even if we are not going into virgin territory to give whole townships and counties their first sight of the locomotive1 but are going to strike into a community already provided with railroad facilities but seemingly offering fair opportunity for profit in a competitive traffic1 we shall find capital ready to stand back of us4 ,a railroad will cost much money1 the mere cost of single-track construction generally running far in excess of #ce1jjj a mile2 and it should have resources1 particularly in a highly competitive territory1 to enable it to carry on a losing fight at the first4 ,for the money it receives it will issue securities1 upon incorporation and legal organization1 almost invariably in the form of capital stock and of mortgage-bonds4 ,the stock will probably be held by the men who wish to control the construction and the operation of the line2 the bonds will be issued to those persons who invest their money in it1 either for profit or as an aid to the community it seeks to enter4 ,the bonds are1 in almost all cases1 the preferable security4 ,they pay a guaranteed interest at a certain rate1 and at the end of a designated term of years they are redeemable at face value1 in cash or in the capital stock of the company4 ,there are other forms of loan obligations which the railroad issues--debenture bonds1 second-mortgage bonds1 short-term notes1 and the like4 ,to enter upon a description of these would mean a detour into the devious highways and byways of railroad finance--an excursion which we have no desire to make in this book4 ,in building our line we will issue as few bonds in proportion to our stock as will make our company fairly stable in organization1 and its proposition attractive to investors4 ,for we shall have to pay our interest coupons upon the bonds from the beginning4 ,we can begin even moderate dividends upon our stock after our enterprise has entered upon fair sailing4 ,the all-important initial problem of financing having been at least partly settled1 we will go before the ,legislature and secure a charter for our road4 ,in these modern days we shall probably have also to make application to some ,state railroad or public utility commission4 ,it will consider our case with great care1 granting hearings so that we may state our plans1 and that folk living in the territory which we are about to tap may urge the necessity of our coming1 and that rival railroads or other opponents may state their objections4 ,after the entire evidence has been sifted down and weighed in truly judicial fashion1 we may hope for word to go ahead1 from the official commission1 which1 though it assumes none of our risk of loss in projecting the line1 will gratuitously assume many of the details of its management4 ,perhaps the politicians will poke their noses into our plan2 they sometimes do4 ,if we have plenty of capital behind us2 if it becomes rumored that the ,p---- or the ,n---- or the ,x----1 one of the big existing properties1 is back of us1 or some big ,wall ,street fellow is guiding our bonds1 we can almost confidently expect their interference4 ,after that it becomes a matter of diplomacy--and may the best man win6 99 99 99 99 99 ,let us assume that some of these big obstacles have already been passed1 that the politicians have been placed at arm's length1 that the money needed is in sight--we are ready to begin the construction of our line4 ,the location is the thing that next vexes us4 ,a few errors in the placing of our line may spell failure for the whole enterprise4 ,obviously1 these errors will be of the sort that admit of no easy correction4 ,if our line is to link two important traffic centres and is to make a specialty of through traffic it will have to be very much of a town that will bend the straightness of our route4 ,if1 on the other hand1 the line is to pick up its traffic from the territory it traverses we can afford to neglect no place of possibilities4 ,we must make concessions1 even if we make many twists and turns and climb steep grades2 we cannot afford to pass business by4 ,perhaps we may even have to worm our way into the hearts of towns already grown and closely built1 and this will be expensive work4 ,but it will be worth every cent of that expense to go after competitive business4 ,we roughly outline our route1 and the engineers get their camping duds ready1 particularly in these days when new railroads almost invariably go into a new country4 ,their first trip over the route will be known as the reconnaissance4 ,on it they will make rough plotting of the territory through which the new line is to place its rails4 ,our engineers are experienced4 ,they survey the country with practised eyes4 ,the line must go on this side of that ridge1 because of the prevailing winds and their influence upon snowdrifts 7it costs a mint of money to run ploughs through a long winter71 and on the other side of the next ridge1 because the other side has easily worked loam1 and this side heavy rock4 ,there must be passes through hills and through mountains to be selected now and then1 and all the while the engineer must bear in mind that the amount of his excavation should very nearly balance the amount of embankment-fill4 ,bridges are to be avoided and tunnels must come only in case of absolute necessity4 ,there will be several of these reconnaissances and from them the engineers who are to build the line1 and the men who are to own and operate it1 will finally pick a route close to what will be the permanent way4 ,illustration3 ,,construction ,,engineers ,,blaze ,,their ,,way ,,across ,,the ,,face ,,of ,,new ,,country ,illustration3 ,,the ,,making ,,of ,,an ,,embankment ,,by ,,dump-,,train ,illustration3 ,,small ,,temporary ,,railroads ,,peopled ,,with ,,hordes ,,of ,,restless ,,engines ,then the real survey-work begins4 ,the engineers divide the line1 if it is of any great length1 and the several divisions prosecute their work simultaneously4 ,each surveying party consists of a front flag-man1 who is a captain and commands a brigade of axe-men in their work of cutting away trees and bushes2 the transit-man1 who makes his record of distances and angles and commands his brigade of chain-men and flag-men2 and the leveller1 who studies contour all the while1 and supervisors1 rod-men and more axe-men4 ,topographers are carried1 their big drawing boards being strapped with the camp equipment2 and a good cook is a big detail not likely to be overlooked4 ,in soft and rolling country this is a form of camp life that turns back the scoffer3 busy summer days and indolent summer nights around the camp-fire1 pipes drawing well and plans being set for the morrow's work4 ,another summer all this will be changed4 ,the resistless path of the railroad will be stepped through here1 the group of nodding pines will be gone1 for a culvert will span the creek at this very point4 ,sometimes the work of these parties becomes intense and dramatic4 ,the chief1 lowered into a deep and rocky river caon1 is making rough notes and sketches1 following the character of the rock formation1 and dreaming the great dreams that all great engineers1 great architects1 great creators must dream perforce4 ,he is dreaming of the day when1 a year or two hence1 the railroad's path shall have crowded itself into this impasse1 and when the folk who dine luxuriously in the showy cars will fret because of the curve that spills their soup1 and who never know of the man who was slipped down over a six-hundred-foot cliff in order that the railroad might find its way4 ,it is then that the surveying party begins to have its thrills4 ,perhaps to put that line through the caon the party will have to descend the river in canoes4 ,if the river be too rough1 then there is the alternative of being lowered over the cliffsides4 ,talk of your dangers of ,alpine climbing6 ,the engineers who plan and build railroads through any mountainous country miss not a single one of them4 ,everywhere the lines must find a foothold4 ,this is the proposition that admits of but one answer--solution4 ,sometimes the men who follow the chief in the deep river caons1 the men with heavy instruments to carry and to operate--transits1 levels1 and the like--must have lines of logs strung together for their precarious foothold as they work4 ,sometimes the foothold is lost2 the rope that lowers the engineer down over the cliffside snaps1 and the folk in the cheerful dining-room do not know of the graves that are dug beside the railroad's resistless path4 ,it is all new and wonderful1 blazing this path for civilization2 sometimes it is even accidental4 ,an engineer1 baffled to find a crossing over the ,rockies for a transcontinental route saw an eagle disappear through a cleft in the hills that his eye had not before detected4 ,he followed the course of the eagle2 to-day the rails of the transcontinental reach through that cleft1 and the time-table shows it as ,eagle ,pass4 99 99 99 99 99 ,possibly there are still alternative routes when the surveyers return in the fall and begin to make their finished drawings4 ,final choices must now be made1 and land-maps that show the property that the railroad will have to acquire1 prepared4 ,the details1 of infinite number1 are being worked out with infinite care4 ,the great problem of all is the problem of grades2 in a mountainous stretch of line this is almost the entire problem4 ,obviously a perfect stretch of railroad would be straight and without grades4 ,the railroad that comes nearest that practically impossible standard comes nearest to perfection4 ,but as it comes near this perfection1 the cost of construction multiplies many times4 ,most new lines must feel their way carefully at the outset4 ,moreover it is not an impossible thing to reconstruct it after years of affluence--of which more in another chapter4 ,a three-per-cent grade is almost the extreme limit for anything like a profitable operation2 even a two-per-cent grade is one in which the operating people look forward to reconstruction and elimination4 ,yet there are short lengths of line up in the mining camps of ,colorado1 where grades of more than four per cent are operated2 and it is a matter of railroad history that away back in #aheb1 when the ,baltimore ,ohio ,railroad was being pushed through toward ,parkersburg1 and the great ,kingwood tunnel was being dug1 ,b4 ,h4 ,latrobe1 the chief engineer of the company1 built and successfully operated a temporary line over the divide at a grade of ten per cent--#ebh feet to the mile4 ,a locomotive which weighed #bh tons on its driving-wheels carried a single passenger car1 weighing #ae tons1 in safety and in regular operation over this stupendous grade for more than six months4 ,the ascent was made by means of zigzag tracks on the so-called switchback principle4 ,that scheme succeeded earlier planes operated by endless chains2 an instance of which is the quite famous road of ,mauch ,chunk1 originally operated for coal1 and now a side scenic trip for passengers4 ,other planes of this sort1 you will remember1 were in operation at ,albany and ,schenectady on the old ,mohawk ,hudson route1 now a part of the ,new ,york ,central lines2 but all of them involved a change of passengers and freight to and from their cars1 and the zigzag switchback was considered quite an advance in its day4 ,two of these ancient switchbacks are still in regular use for passengers and freight--one at ,honesdale1 ,pa41 and the other at ,ithaca1 ,n4 ,y4 ,the matter of grades being settled1 and with it as a corrollary the question of minor curves1 minor details next claim attention4 ,perhaps the water supply along the new line is defective4 ,then arrangements must be made for impounding1 and perhaps suitable dams and waterworks will be built for this purpose4 ,the water must be soft1 to protect the locomotive boilers2 if hard1 an apparatus is erected for the softening process4 ,grade crossings are to be avoided1 highway crossings being built1 wherever possible1 over or under the railroad4 ,a railroad crossing another railroad at grade is an abomination not to be permitted nowadays4 ,the universal use of the air-brake has permitted a reduction of the head-room1--the necessary clearance between the rail and overhead obstruction--from #bj feet to #ad feet4 ,the old head-room was necessary to protect the brakeman who worked atop of the box-cars4 ,this reduction of six feet in clearance was a matter of infinite relief to engineers1 particularly in the bridging of one railroad over another4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the entire problem of bridges is so intricate a phase of ,american railroad construction as to demand attention in a subsequent chapter4 ,in actual railroad practice it is apt to demand a separate branch of engineering skill1 both in construction and in maintenance4 ,we turn our attention back to the main problem of the building of our railroad4 ,when all plans are finished1 contracts remain to be divided and sub-divided2 for it would be a brave contractor1 indeed1 who in these days would consent to essay himself1 any considerable length of railroad line4 ,in fact1 in recent work of heavy nature1 the price is almost invariably placed at an indefinite figure1 a certain definite percentage of profit being allowed the contractor on each cubic yard of rock or soil4 ,in such a case the contractor's business becomes far less a game of chance2 he is1 in effect1 the railroad's agent supervising its construction at a certain set stipend4 ,let us say that the construction on our railroad begins in the early spring4 ,as a matter of real fact it would not be halted long because of adverse weather conditions4 ,even up in the frozen and uninhabitable wilds of the ,canadian ,northwest1 work has been prosecuted on the new ,grand ,trunk ,pacific throughout the entire twelve months4 ,but in summer the construction gangs rejoice4 ,the great proposition of bringing mile after mile of future railroad to sub-grade--the level upon which the cross-ties are to be set--fairly sweeps forward under the genial warmth of the sun4 ,the construction is under the supervision of competent engineers1 who are1 of course1 under the direct supervision of the railroad's own organization4 ,every six to twelve or fifteen miles of new line is divided into sections1 better known as residencies1 for each is under the eye of its own resident engineer4 ,he reports to the construction engineer1 who in turn reports to the chief engineer of the railroad1 an officer who reports to no less person than the president of the company4 ,this great force--for each engineer has gathered about him a competent staff of young men as expert with compass1 with level1 and with transit as were the men who first projected the line--is in the field as quickly as the contractor4 ,they are to see him bring the line to sub-grade2 to see him place bridges and culverts1 bisect high hills with cuttings1 bore tunnels through even higher hills and mountains1 span deep valleys with great embankments4 ,to facilitate quick construction the residencies are made numerous2 work begins at as many initial points as possible4 ,these points1 of course1 are situated1 where possible1 close to water communication or existing railroad lines1 in order that material may be brought with the least possible delay and expense4 99 99 99 99 99 ,of course1 if the country has a sharp contour1 the ordinary difficulties of line-construction multiply very rapidly4 ,the great cuttings through the hills may have to be carved out of resisting rock1 a work that is carried on through many levels1 known to the engineers as ledges or as benches4 ,if there are high hills to be notched there will probably be great hollows where the circumstances do not justify carrying the line on bridge or trestle4 ,in these cases come the fills1 or embankments4 ,we have already shown how the locating engineer in the first instance has tried to plan his line so that the earth or rock from his cutting will be as nearly as possible sufficient to form the near-by embankments4 ,sometimes it is not1 and then the resident engineers must locate borrow-pits1 where the hungry demand of the railroad for dirt will cause a great hollow to show itself on the face of the earth4 ,the borrow-pit must be carefully located--convenient of access1 far enough from the track not to be a danger spot to it4 ,this is one of the infinity of problems that come to the construction engineer4 ,for these big jobs laborers' camps will be established close to them2 and small temporary railroads peopled with hordes of restless dummy-engines and forcing their narrow-gauged rails here and there and everywhere1 will be busy for long weeks and months4 ,there will not be much hand-cutting in the ledges4 ,steam shovels1 mounted like locomotives upon the rails1 and pushing forward all the while1 will fairly eat out the hillside4 ,one of these will catch up in a single dip of his giant arm more than a wagon load of soft earth or of rock that has been blasted apart for his coming4 ,to make the fills the engineers must often build rough wooden trestles out of the permanent level of the line4 ,the dummy-engines1 with their trails of dump-cars1 coming from the back of the steam shovels in the cutting1 or from the nearest borrow-pit1 will hardly seem in a single day to make an appreciable effect upon the fill4 ,but the days and weeks together count1 and the dumping multiplies until the rough trestle has completely disappeared1 and the railroad has a firm and permanent path across the edge of the dizzy embankment4 ,and these embankments can be made truly dizzy4 ,the passenger going west from ,omaha on the new ,lane cut-off of the ,union ,pacific finds his path for almost twenty miles through deep cuttings of the crests of the rolling ,nebraska hills1 across the edge of the long fills over wide valleys4 ,the ,lackawanna railroad building a great cut-off on its main line where it passes through ,new ,jersey has just finished the largest railroad embankment ever built--an earthen structure for two tracks1 three miles long and seventy-five to one hundred and ten feet in height4 ,illustration3 ,,cutting ,a ,,path ,,for ,,the ,,railroad ,,through ,,the ,,crest ,,of ,,the ,,high ,,hills ,illustration3 ,a ,,giant ,,fill--,,in ,,the ,,making ,illustration3 ,,the ,,finishing ,,touches ,,to ,,the ,,track ,illustration3 ,,this ,,machine ,,can ,,lay ,a ,,mile ,,of ,,track ,a ,,day ,as the line goes forward1 the track follows4 ,the new railroad has probably popularized itself from the outset by hiring the near-by farmers and their teams to grade the line through their localities1 particularly where an almost level country makes the grading a slight matter4 ,sometimes in level country1 grading machines1 drawn by horses1 or by traction engines1 have been used to advantage4 ,these machines are equipped with ploughs which loosen the soil and place it on conveyor belts4 ,material can be deposited twenty-two feet away from the line1 and a four-foot excavation can be made by these machines with ease4 ,but the laying of the track--the line having been finished at sub-grade with a top width of from #ad to #bj feet for each standard gauge track to be laid--the line begins to assume the appearance of a real railroad4 ,upon the first stretches of completed track1 locomotives and cars employed in construction service begin to operate4 ,as the track grows1 their field of operation increases4 ,then comes the day when the track sections begin to be joined2 the railroad is beginning to be a real pathway of steel4 ,to build this pathway is comparatively a simple matter1 once the sub-grade is finished4 ,a mile a day is not too much for any confident contractor to expect of his construction gangs4 ,there was that time1 back in '#fi1 when a world's record of ten miles of track laid in a single day was established on the ,central ,pacific4 ,for that mile of standard track the contractor will need #c1afh ties--eight carloads2 #ceb rails--five carloads2 and a carload of angle irons1 bolts1 and spikes1 as fasteners4 ,the track-layers are as proud of their profession as any man might be of his4 ,their skill is a wondrous thing4 ,two men who follow the wake of a wagon roughly place the ties as fast as they are dropped upon the right-of-way4 ,another man aligns them with a line that has been strung by one of the young engineers1 a fourth with a notched board1 marks the location of one rail4 ,that rail--the line side--follows close to the location marks4 ,it is roughly banded and lightly fastened in place4 ,the other rail--the gauge side--quickly follows4 ,the wonderfully accurate gauge representing the #d feet1 #h-a_/b inches that is almost the standard of the work1 and which is tested every morning by the engineers1 is in constant use4 ,the railroad track must be true2 there is not room for even the variation of a fraction of an inch in the gauge of the two rails4 ,in fastening the two long lines of rails1 the profession of track-laying rises to almost supreme heights4 ,the men who fasten the rail with angle iron and a single roughly-adjusted bolt in each rail-end are head-strappers and past masters in their art4 ,after them in due season come the back-strappers1 finishing that fine work of solidly bolting the rail against the vast strain of a thousand-ton train being shot over it at lightning speed4 ,and after the back-strappers and the men who have spiked the rail to the ties1 comes the locomotive itself1 bringing more ties1 more rails1 more angle-bars and bolts1 and more spikes to the front4 ,then sometime later the road-bed is ballasted and the line made ready for heavy operation4 ,but track-laying is frequently machine systematized these days2 and in this1 as in so many smaller things1 the mechanical device has supplanted the man4 ,a real giant is the track-laying machine4 ,it is mounted upon railroad tracks and is a form of overhead carrier with a tremendous overhang4 ,the carrier is fed with the cross-ties from supply cars just back of the machine and the ties are dropped1 each close to its appointed place1 as a locomotive slowly pushes the entire apparatus forward4 ,in a smaller way the heavy steel rails are delivered from under the overhang of the carrier4 ,a gang of men make short work of the fastening of the rail to the cross-ties and the machine moves steadily forward4 ,it has been known to make two miles a day at this work4 99 99 99 99 99 ,culverts have been laid for each small run or kill or creek2 the bridge-builders along the new line finish their work and cart off their kits2 the day comes when there is an unbroken railroad from one end of the new line to the other4 ,it links new rails and new towns2 its localities produce for new markets1 commerce from strange quarters pours down upon the land that has known it not4 ,passenger trains begin regular operation1 the fresh-painted depots are brilliant in their newness1 the shriek of the locomotive sounds where it has never before sounded4 ,life is awakened4 ,the railroad1 which is life1 has reached forth a new arm1 and creation is begun4 ,,chapter ,,iv ,,tunnels ,,their ,,use ,,in ,,reducing ,,grades--,,the ,,hoosac ,,tunnel--,,the ,,use ,,of ,,shafts-- ,,tunnelling ,,under ,,water--,,the ,,detroit ,,river ,,tunnel4 ,sometimes the construction engineer of the railroad brings his new line face to face with a mountain too steep to be easily mounted4 ,then he may prepare to pierce it4 ,tunnels are not pleasant things through which to ride4 ,they are1 moreover1 expensive to construct1 and when once constructed are an unending care1 necessitating expensive and constant inspection4 ,but--and that but in this case is a very large one--they reduce grades and distances in a wholesale fashion2 and when you reduce grades you are pretty sure to be reducing operating expenses4 ,a railroad man will think twice in his opposition to a smoky bore of a tunnel that will cost some three to five million dollars1 when his expert advisers tell him that that same smoky bore will save him a hundred thousand tons of coal in the course of a year4 ,from almost its very beginnings the ,american railroad has been dependent upon tunnels1 and thus has closely followed ,european precedent4 ,the ,alleghany ,portage ,railroad1 to which reference has already been made1 passed through what is said to have been the first railroad tunnel in the ,united ,states4 ,it pierced a spur in the ,alleghany ,mountains1 and it was #ija feet in length1 #bj feet wide1 and #ai feet high within the arch1 #aej feet at each end being arched with cut stone4 ,the old tunnel1 built in #ahcb1 which has not echoed with the panting of the locomotive for more than half a century1 is still to be found not far from ,johnstown1 ,pa4 ,it simply serves the purpose to-day of calling attention to the durable fashion in which the earliest of our railroad-builders worked4 ,of the building of the ,baltimore ,ohio1 tunnel-construction formed an early part1 several paths being found across the steep profiles of the ,alleghanies4 ,the ,kingwood ,tunnel1 which ,b4 ,h4 ,latrobe drove1 was nearly a mile long and the chief of these bores4 ,but when the ,hoosac ,tunnel was first proposed--piercing the rocky heart of one of the greatest of the ,berkshires--the country stood aghast4 ,four miles and a half of tunnel6 ,that seemed ridiculous away back in #ahed1 when the plan was first broached and folk were not slow to say what they thought of such an absurd plan4 ,for twenty years it looked as though these scoffers were in the right--the work of digging that monumental tunnel was a fearful drain on the treasury of the commonwealth of ,massachusetts1 which was lending its aid to the project4 ,but the tunnel-diggers finally conquered--they almost always do--and the ,hoosac remains to-day the greatest of all mountain tunnels in ,america4 ,the system of continuous tunnels1 by which the ,pennsylvania ,railroad recently reached its terminal in ,new ,york1 stretches from ,bergen ,hill in ,new ,jersey to ,sunnyside1 ,long ,island1 a distance of some ten miles4 ,in fact the largest feature of recent tunnel-work in this country has been in connection with terminal and rapid-transit development in the larger cities4 ,for a good many years ,new ,york and ,baltimore1 in particular1 have been pierced with these sub-surface railroads2 it is a construction feature that increases as our great cities themselves increase4 ,no river is to-day too formidable to be conquered by these underground traffic routes4 ,a river such as the ,hudson or the ,detroit may sometimes halt the bridge-builders2 it has but slight terror for the tunnel engineers4 ,the tunnel-work is apt to be a separate part of the work of building a railroad4 ,it calls for its own talent1 and that of an exceedingly expert sort4 ,if the tunnel is more than a half or three-quarters of a mile long it will probably be dug from a shaft or shafts as well as from its portals4 ,in this way the work will not only be greatly hastened but the shafts will continue in use after the work is completed as vents for the discharge of engine smoke and gases from the tube4 ,the work must be under the constant and close supervision of resident engineers4 ,the survey lines must be corrected daily1 for the tunnel must not go astray4 ,it must drive a true course from heading to heading4 ,in the shafts plumb lines1 with heavy bobs1 to lessen vibration1 will be hung4 ,sometimes these bobs are immersed in water or in molasses4 ,from the portals and from the bottoms of the shafts the headings are driven4 ,if the tunnel is to accommodate no more than a single track it will be built from #ae to #af-a_/b feet wide1 and from #ba to #bb feet high1 inside of its lining2 so the general method is first to drive a top heading of about #aj feet in height up under the roof of the bore4 ,the rest of the material is taken out in its own good season on two following benches or levels4 ,piercing a granite mountain is no rapid work4 ,when the ,pennsylvania ,railroad built its second ,gallitzin ,tunnel in #aijc1 #ac men1 working #d drills in the top heading1 were able to drill #af holes1 each #aj feet deep1 in a single day4 ,the engineers there figured that each blast removed twenty-three cubic yards of the rock4 ,at night1 when the hard-rock men were sleeping and their drills silent1 a gang of fourteen muckers removed the loosened material4 ,slow work that4 ,the ,northern ,pacific finding its way through the crest of the ,cascade ,mountains by means of the great ,stampede ,tunnel1 nearly two miles in length1 demanded that the contractor work under pressure and make #ac-a_/b feet of tunnel a day4 ,the contractor1 working under the bonus plan1 did better4 ,with his army of #cej hard-rock men1 muckers1 and their helpers1 and his tireless battery of #cf drills he sometimes made as high as eighteen feet a day from the two headings4 ,on a three-year job he beat his contract time by seven days4 ,the ,northern ,pacific paid the price1 #aah for each lineal foot of tunnel4 ,that was a high price1 occasioned largely by the fact that the work was carried forward in what was then an almost unbroken wilderness4 ,the ,wabash finding its way through the great and forbidding hills of ,western ,pennsylvania to ,pittsburgh a dozen years later was able to dig its succession of tunnels at an average cost of #d1eji for #ajj feet4 ,of that amount #b1ebg went for labor2 and #bfj was the price of a ton of dynamite4 ,when the tunnel engineer finds that his bore is not to pierce hard-rock1 of whose solidity he is more than reasonably assured1 he prepares to use cutting-shields4 ,these shields1 proceeding simultaneously from the portals and from the footings of the shafts1 are steel rings of a circumference only slightly greater than that of the finished tunnel4 ,with pick and with drill and dynamite1 they constantly clear a path for it1 whereupon it is pressed forward in that path4 ,dummy tracks follow the cutting-shield2 and dummy locomotives--more likely electric than steam in these days--are used in removing the material4 ,electricity has been a boon to latter-day tunnel-workers4 ,its use for light and power keeps the tunnel quite clear of all gases during the work of boring4 ,in rare cases1 the rock through which the shield has been forced is strong enough to support itself2 in most works the engineers prefer to line the bore1 with brick and concrete1 as a rule4 ,this lining is set in the path of the cutting-shield before its protection is entirely withdrawn2 and so the heavy roof-timbering which was formerly a trade-mark of the successful tunnel engineer is no longer used4 ,tunnel-boring becomes doubly difficult when the railroad is to be carried under a river or some broad arm of the sea4 ,men work in an unnatural environment when they work below the surface of great waters1 and the record of such work is a record of many tragedies4 ,at any instant firm rock may cease1 silt or sand or an underground stream may make its appearance and the helpless workmen find a ready grave4 ,in work where there is even the slightest expectation of such a contingency the air-lock1 with its artificial pressure to hold back the soft earth and moisture is brought into use4 ,in another chapter we shall see how the caisson is operated4 ,suffice it to say now that the necessity of working under the air1 brings no comfort to any one4 ,it vastly hinders and complicates the work of construction1 and adds greatly to the expense4 ,moreover1 it has its own record of tragedies4 ,still it remains1 to the infinite credit of a national persistence1 that there is no record in the annals of ,american engineering where the workers have finally given up a tunnel job4 ,lives have been sacrificed1 good-sized fortunes swept away1 but in the end the resistless railroad has always found its underground path4 ,the tunnel-workers can tell you of the accident when the subway was being driven under the ,east ,river from ,manhattan to ,brooklyn1 three years ago4 ,the cutting-shield1 which was advancing from the ,brooklyn side1 suddenly slipped out from the rock into the unprotected soft mud of the river bottom4 ,the heavily compressed air shot a geyser straight up to the surface of the river some fifty feet above4 ,a workman shot through the geyser1 pirouetted gayly for a fraction of a second above the river1 then dropped1 to be picked up by the crew of a passing ferryboat4 ,in a week he was back at work again inside the cutting-shield4 ,his fortune was the opposite of that which generally awaits a man caught in a tunnel accident4 ,it ain't as bad as it used to be1 one of them informs you4 ,when ,i first got into this profession1 they didn't have the electricity for lights or moving the cars or nothing4 ,we used to try and get along with safety lamps an' near choke to death4 ,it was more like hell then than it is now4 ,illustration3 ,,sometimes ,,the ,,construction ,,engineer 444 ,,brings ,,his ,,line ,,face ,,to ,,face ,,with ,a ,,mountain ,illustration3 ,,finishing ,,the ,,lining ,,of ,a ,,tunnel ,illustration3 ,,the ,,busiest ,,tunnel ,,point ,,in ,,the ,,world--,,at ,,the ,,west ,,portals ,,of ,,the ,,bergen ,,tunnels1 ,,six ,,erie ,,tracks ,,below1 ,,four ,,lackawanna ,,above ,illustration3 ,,the ,,hackensack ,,portals ,,of ,,the ,,pennsylvania',s ,,great ,,tunnels ,,under ,,new ,,york ,,city ,but your interest in the man who was blown from the tunnel to the surface of the river and escaped with his life is not entirely satiated1 and you ask more questions4 ,what do they do when they strike soft mud like that8 ,we get down and pray1 he of the experience in this weird form of construction engineering tells you4 ,we try to get the boys safely back through the air-lock1 and then we quit boring till we can fix things up from outside4 ,if it's a real bad case we've got to make land to bore through4 ,it's generally done by dumping rock and bags of sand from floats just over where she blows out4 ,it's a pretty rough way of doctoring her up1 but it has to go1 and generally it does4 ,all we want is to get it to hold until we can set the rings of the tunnel4 ,that ain't always the worst4 ,i've been driving a bore under water this way1 when we struck stiff rock overhead and soft mud underneath the edge4 ,that's something that makes the engineers hump4 ,you can't rest a cast-iron tunnel like this on mud and you get a wondering if you've got to quit after all this work under the durned old river1 and let the boss lose his money4 ,the last time we struck a snag of that sort1 the boss didn't give up4 ,he wasn't that kind4 ,he had a chief engineer that was brass tacks from beginning to end4 ,what do you suppose that fellow did8 ,he bored holes in the bottom of the lining and drove steel legs right down to the next ledge of solid rock below4 ,there's that tunnel to-day1 carrying #cb1jjj people between five and six o'clock every night perched down there seventy feet underground like a big caterpillar sprawled under the wickedest ledge o' rock you ever see4 ,it takes a real genius of an engineer for this sort of work4 ,he who drives his bore into the unknown must be on guard for the unexpected4 ,emergencies arise upon the minute1 and the tunnel engineer must be ready with his wits and ingenuity to meet them4 ,finally the day does come when the bores from either shore are hard upon one another4 ,if there has been blasting under the bed of the river it is reduced to a minimum4 ,the drills work at half-speed1 the fever of expectancy hangs over the men4 ,those who are close at the heading catch faint sounds of the workmen on the other side of the thin barrier--the last barrier of the river that was supposed to acknowledge no conqueror4 ,the first tiny aperture between the two bores is greeted with wild cheers4 ,on the surface far above1 the whistles of the shaft-houses carry forth the news to the outer world2 it is echoed and rechoed by the noisy river craft4 ,the aperture grows larger4 ,it is large enough to permit the passage of a man's body2 and a man1 enjoying fame for this one moment in his life1 crawls through it4 ,the men knock off work and have a rough spread in the tunnel4 ,at night the engineers and contractors banquet in a hotel4 ,not so bad1 the chief engineer says quietly4 ,we were #c_/h of an inch out1 in #h1jjj feet4 ,it was not so bad4 ,it spoke wonders for his profession4 ,to carry forth two giant bores from the opposite sides of a broad river1 and have them meet within #c_/h of an inch of perfect alignment1 was an achievement well worth attention4 ,after that1 the last traces of the rough rock and silt are removed1 the iron rings of the tunnel made fast together1 the air pressure released1 the cutting-shields1 that formed so essential a feature of the construction1 removed4 ,then there remains only the work of installing conduits and wiring and laying the tracks before the tunnel is ready for the traffic of the railroad4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the ,michigan ,central has recently finished a tunnel under the busy ,detroit ,river1 at ,detroit1 which eliminates the use of a car-ferry at that point4 ,the tunnel was built in a manner entirely new to engineers4 ,the river at ,detroit is about three-quarters of a mile wide1 and its bed is of soft blue clay1 making it difficult to bore a tunnel safely and economically4 ,to meet this obstacle a new fashion of tunnel-building was created4 ,the tunnel itself consists of two tubes1 each made from steel #c_/h of an inch in thickness and reinforced every twelve feet by outer fins4 ,the channel was dredged and a foundation bed of concrete laid4 ,the sections of the tunnel1 each #bej feet long1 were then put in position one at a time4 ,the section-ends were closed at a shore plant with water-tight wooden bulkheads4 ,they were then lashed to four floating cylinders of compressed air and towed out to position4 ,after that it was merely a matter of detail to drop the sections into place1 pour in more concrete and make the new section fast4 ,the wooden bulkheads next the completed tube were then removed and the structure was ready for the track-layers4 ,the sub-aqueous portion of the new ,detroit ,tunnel is #b1fjj feet long2 it joins on the ,detroit side with a land tunnel #b1ajj feet long1 and on the ,canadian side with a land tunnel of #c1aib feet4 ,it takes more than a river1 carrying through its narrow throat the vast and growing traffic of the ,great ,lakes--a traffic that is comparable with that of the ,atlantic itself--to halt the progress of the railroad4 ,,chapter ,v ,,bridges ,,bridges ,,of ,,timber1 ,,then ,,stone1 ,,then ,,steel--,,the ,,starucca ,,viaduct--,,the ,,first ,,iron ,,bridge ,,in ,,the ,u4 ,s4--,,steel ,,bridges--,,engineering ,,triumphs--,,different ,,types ,,of ,,railroad ,,bridge--,,the ,,deck ,,span ,,and ,,the ,,truss ,,span--,,suspension ,,bridges--,,cantilever ,,bridges--,,reaching ,,the ,,solid ,,rock ,,with ,,caissons--,,the ,,work ,,of ,,sand-,,hogs--,,the ,,cantilever ,,over ,,the ,,pend ,,oreille ,,river--,,variety ,,of ,,problems ,,in ,,bridge-,,building--,,points ,,in ,,favor ,,of ,,the ,,stone ,,bridge--,,bridges ,,over ,,the ,,keys ,,of ,,florida4 ,when the habitations of man first began to multiply upon the banks of the water courses1 the profession of the bridge-builder was born4 ,the first bridge was probably a felled tree spanning some modest brook4 ,but from that first bridge came a magnificent development4 ,bridge-building became an art and a science4 ,men wrought gigantic structures in stone1 long-arched viaducts1 with which they defied time4 ,then for two thousand years the profession of the bridge-builder stood absolutely still4 ,with the coming of the iron and steel age it moved forward again4 ,the development of a fibre of great strength and without the dead weight of granite gave engineers new possibilities4 ,they began in simple fashion1 and then they developed once again1 with marvellous strides4 ,steel1 the dead thing with a living muscle1 could span waterways from which stone shrank4 ,steel redrew the maps of nations4 ,proud rivers at which the paths of man had halted1 were conquered for the first time4 ,routes of traffic of every sort were simplified2 the railroad made new progress2 and economic saving of millions of dollars was made to this gray old world4 ,the earliest of the very distinguished list of ,american bridge-builders erected great timber structures for the highroads and the post-roads4 ,some of them went back many centuries and came to the stone bridge1 in many ways the most wonderful of all the artifices by which man conquers the obstructive power of a running stream4 ,but the building of stone bridges took time and money1 and time and money were little known factors in a new land that had begun to expand rapidly4 ,so at first the railroad followed the course of the highroad and the post-road1 and took the timber bridge unto itself4 ,in some cases it actually fastened itself upon the highroad bridge1 as at ,trenton1 ,n4 ,j41 where a faithful wooden structure built by ,theodore ,burr in #ahjc was strengthened and widened in #ahdh to take the first through railroad route from ,new ,york4 ,it continued its heavy dual work until #ahge when it was superseded by a steel bridge4 ,a dozen years ago the railroad tracks were moved from that structure to a magnificent and permanent stone-arch built near-by4 ,thus the railroad crossing the ,delaware at ,trenton has1 in this way1 typified step by step every stage of the development of ,american bridge-building4 ,the timber bridges developed the steel truss bridge1 the typically ,american construction1 of to-day4 ,in an earlier day the timber bridges were the glory of the engineer4 ,sometimes you see one of these old fellows remaining1 like the long structure that ,mr4 ,walcott built across the ,connecticut ,river at ,springfield1 ,mass41 in #ahje1 and which still does good service2 but the most of them have passed away4 ,fire has been their most persistent enemy4 ,within the past two years fire destroyed the staunch toll-bridge at ,waterford on the ,hudson1 just above ,troy4 ,the bridge was a faithful carrier for one hundred and four years4 ,in many ways it was typical of those first constructions4 ,it consisted of four clear arch spans--one #aed feet1 another #afa feet1 the third #agf feet1 and the fourth #ahj feet in length4 ,it was built of yellow pine1 wonderfully hewn and fitted1 hung upon solid pegs2 and save for the renewal of some of the arch footings1 the roof1 and the side coverings1 it was unchanged through all the years--even though the heavy trolley-cars of a through interurban line were finally turned upon it4 ,about the same time1 the once-famed ,permanent ,bridge across the ,schuylkill ,river at ,philadelphia was built4 ,it had two arches of #aej feet each and one of #aie feet4 ,in its day it was regarded as nothing less than a triumph4 ,a very old publication says3 ,the plan was furnished by ,mr4 ,timothy ,palmer1 of ,newburyport1 ,mass41 a self-taught architect4 ,he brought with him five workmen from ,new ,england4 ,they at once evinced superior intelligence and adroitness in a business which was found to be a peculiar art1 acquired by habits not promptly gained by even good workmen in other branches of framing in wood4444 ,the frame is a masterly piece of workmanship1 combining in its principles that of king-post and braces or trusses with those of a stone arch4 ,in after years1 the ,permanent ,bridge was also entrusted with the carrying of a railroad4 ,it has1 however1 disappeared these many years4 ,the early railroad builders did not neglect the possibilities of the stone bridge4 ,two notable early examples of this form of construction still remain--the ,starrucca ,viaduct upon the ,erie ,railroad1 near ,susquehanna1 ,pa41 and an even earlier structure1 the stone-arch bridge across the ,patapsco ,river at ,relay1 ,md41 which ,b4 ,h4 ,latrobe1 the most distinguished of all ,american railroad engineers1 built for the ,baltimore ,ohio ,railroad1 in #ahcc-ce4 ,the ,thomas ,viaduct1 as it has been known for three-quarters of a century1 was the first stone-arch bridge ever built to carry railroad traffic4 ,it was erected in a day when the railroad was just graduating from the use of teams of horses as motive-power4 ,in this day1 when locomotives have begun to reach practical limits of size and weight1 that viaduct is still in use as an integral part of the main line of the ,baltimore ,ohio4 ,it is built on a curve1 and consists of #h spans of stone arches1 #fg feet #f inches1 centre to centre of piers1 which1 together with the abutments at each end1 make the total length of the structure #fab feet4 ,it is in as good condition to-day as upon the day it was built4 ,when the ,erie ,railroad was being constructed across the ,southern ,tier counties of ,new ,york in #ahdh1 its course was halted near the point where the rails first reached the beautiful valley of the ,susquehanna4 ,a side-valley1 a quarter of a mile in width1 stretched itself squarely across the railroad's path4 ,there was no way it could be avoided1 and it could be crossed only at a high level4 ,for a time the projectors of the ,erie considered making a solid fill1 but the tremendous cost of such an embankment was prohibitive4 ,while they were at their wits' ends1 ,james ,p4 ,kirkwood1 a shrewd ,scotchman1 who had been working as a civil engineer upon the ,boston ,albany1 appeared4 ,kirkwood spanned the valley with the ,starucca ,viaduct1 one of the most beautiful bridges ever built in ,america4 ,he opened quarries close at hand and by indefatigable energy built his stone bridge in a single summer4 ,it has been in use ever since4 ,the increasing weight of its burdens has never been of consequence to it1 and to-day it remains an important link in a busy trunk-line railroad4 ,it is #a1bjj feet in length and consists of #ah arches of #ej feet clear span apiece4 ,but stone bridges even then cost money1 and so the timber structure still remained the most available4 ,many men can still remember the tunnels1 into whose darkness the railroad cars plunged every time they crossed a stream of any importance whatsoever4 ,they have nearly all gone4 ,the wooden bridge was ill suited to the ravages of weather and of fire--ravages that were quickened by the railroad1 rather than hindered4 ,a substitute material was demanded4 ,it was found--in iron4 ,the first iron bridge in the ,united ,states is believed to be the one erected by ,trumbull in #ahdj over the ,erie ,canal at ,frankfort1 ,n4 ,y4 ,record is also held of one of these bridges being built for the ,north ,adams branch of the ,boston ,albany ,railroad1 in #ahdf4 ,about a year later1 ,nathaniel ,rider began to build iron bridges for the ,new ,york ,harlem1 the ,erie1 and some others of the early railroads4 ,his bridges--of the truss type1 of course1 that type having been worked out in the timber bridges of the land--were each composed of cast-iron top-chords and post1 the remaining part of the structure being fabricated of wrought-iron4 ,the members were bolted together4 ,still1 the failure of a ,rider bridge upon the ,erie in #ahej1 followed closely by the failure of a similar structure over the ,river ,dee1 in ,england1 influenced officials of that railroad to a conclusion that iron bridges were unpractical1 and to order them to be removed and replaced by wooden structures4 ,for a time it looked as if the iron bridge were doomed4 ,that was a dark day for the bridge engineers4 ,a contemporary account says3 ,the first impulse to the general adoption of iron for railroad bridges was given by ,benjamin ,h4 ,latrobe1 chief engineer of the ,baltimore ,ohio ,railroad4 ,when the extension of this road from ,cumberland to ,wheeling was begun1 he decided to use this material in all the new bridges4 ,mr4 ,latrobe had previously much experience in the construction of wooden bridges in which iron was extensively used2 he had also designed and used the fish-bellied girder constructed of cast and wrought-iron4 ,under the influence of the really great ,latrobe1 an iron span of #abd feet was built in #aheb at ,harpers ,ferry4 ,in that same year1 the ,b4 ,o4 built its ,monongahela ,river ,bridge1 a really pretentious structure of #c spans of #bje feet each1 and the first really great iron railroad bridge in all the land4 ,the path was set4 ,the conquest of iron over wood as a bridge material was merely a problem of good engineering4 ,the iron bridge quickly came into its own4 ,the ,pennsylvania ,railroad began building cast-iron bridges of from #fe to #aaj feet span at its ,altoona shops for the many creeks and runs along the western end of its line4 ,the other railroads were following in rapid order4 ,squire ,whipple1 ,bollman1 ,pratt--all the others who could design and build iron bridges--were kept more than busy by the work that poured in upon them4 ,and in the day when the iron bridge was coming into its own1 ,sir ,henry ,bessemer1 over in ,england1 was bringing the steel age into existence1 first making toy cannon models for the lasting joy of ,napoleon ,,iii1 and then making a whole world see that steel--that dead thing with the living muscle--was no longer to be limited for use in tools and cutting surface4 ,steel was to become the very right-hand of man4 ,and so steel came to the bridge-builders1 at first only in the most important wearing points such as pins and rivets1 finally to be the whole fabric of the modern bridge4 ,the transition was gradual4 ,the early engineers began using less and less of cast-iron and more and more of wrought1 until they had practically eliminated cast-iron as a bridge material4 ,then there came a quick change2 there was another dark day for the railroad bridge engineers of ,america4 ,in #ahgf--that very year when the land was so joyously celebrating its ,centennial--a passenger train went crashing through a defective bridge at ,ashtabula1 ,ohio4 ,there was a great property loss--thousands and thousands of dollars1 and a loss of lives that could never be expressed in dollars4 ,an outraged land asked the bridge-builders if they really knew their business4 ,out of that ,ashtabula wreck came the scientific testing of bridges and bridge materials1 and the abolition of the rule-of-thumb in the cheaper sorts of construction4 ,out of that miserable wreckage came also the use of steel in the railroad bridge4 ,steel had found itself2 and how the steel bridges began to spring up across the land6 ,they spanned the ,ohio1 and they spanned the ,mississippi1 and they spanned the ,missouri2 a great structure threw itself over the deep gorge of the ,kentucky ,river4 ,when the day came that fire destroyed the famous wooden viaduct of the ,erie over the ,genesee ,river at ,portage1 ,n4 ,y4 7you must remember the pictures of that tremendous structure in the early geographies71 steel took its place4 ,all this while the bridge engineer attempted more and more4 ,he built over the deep gorge of the ,niagara4 ,he conquered the ,st4 ,lawrence in and about ,montreal4 ,he laughed at the mighty ,hudson and flung a dizzy steel trestle over its bosom at ,poughkeepsie4 ,he built at ,cairo1 at ,thebes1 and at ,memphis1 on the ,mississippi1 and again and again and still again at ,st4 ,louis4 ,the ,east ,river no longer halted him or compelled him to resort to the alternative of the very expensive types of suspension bridge4 ,he has finally thrown a great cantilever over it1 from ,manhattan to ,long ,island4 ,the steel bridge has come into its own4 99 99 99 99 99 ,let us study for a moment the construction of the different types of railroad bridge4 ,for the tiny creeks--the little things that are mad torrents in spring1 and run stark-dry in midsummer--where they cannot be poured through a pipe or a concrete moulded culvert1 the simplest of bridge forms will suffice4 ,and the simplest of bridge forms consists of two wooden beams laid from abutment to abutment and holding the ties and rails of the track-structure4 ,as the first development of that simplest idea comes the substitution of steel for wood1 giving1 as we have already seen1 protection against fire and a far greater strength4 ,the steel beam has greater strength than a wooden beam of the same outside dimension and yet in its design it effects for itself a great saving of material1 by cutting out superfluous parts and becoming the structural standard of to-day1 the ,i beam4 ,when the ,i beam becomes too large to be made in a single pouring or a single rolling1 it may be constructed of steel plates and angles firmly riveted together1 and thus still remains the possibility of the simplest form of bridge4 ,that single span may be further increased1 or the bridge developed into a succession of increased spans by the substitution of the lattice-work girder1 effecting further saving in weight without material loss of strength for the solid-plate girder4 ,the track may be laid atop of such girders or--to save clearance in overhead crossing--swung between them at their bases4 ,the limit in this form of bridge is generally in a #fe-;foot or a #ajj-;foot span4 ,it is not practical to build the girders up outside of a shop2 and the #fe-;foot length represents the two flat-cars that must be used to transport any one of them to the bridge location4 ,some railroads have used three cars for the hauling of a single girder1 and so increased these spans to #ajj feet2 but as a rule1 over #fe feet1 and the truss1 the most common form of railroad bridge in this country1 comes into use4 ,the truss is a distinct evolution from those old timber bridges of which we have already spoken4 ,burr and ,latrobe and ,bollman and ,howe and ,squire ,whipple--those distinguished engineers of other days--have evolved it1 step by step4 ,it is1 in one sense1 no more than an enlarged form of lattice girder1 the work of the different designers having been to accomplish at all times1 a maximum of strength with a minimum of weight4 ,it is built of members that stand pulling-strain1 and those that stand pressure-strain2 and these are respectively known as tension and as compression members4 ,in them rests the real strength of the truss4 ,but in addition to the structure are the bracing-rods1 generally placed as diagonals and built to sustain the structure against both lateral and wind-strains4 ,the members that form the trusses are stoutly riveted together2 the rapid rat-a-tap-tap of the riveter is no longer a novelty in any corner of the land4 ,sometimes certain of the important bearing-points are connected by steel pins instead of rivets--another survival of the old days of the timber bridge4 ,as a rule1 the railroad is carried through the truss--and this is known as the through span4 ,sometimes it is carried upon the top of the structure1 and then the truss becomes known as a deck span4 ,a long bridge may effectively combine both of these types of span4 ,the splendid new double-track truss bridge recently built by the ,baltimore ,ohio ,railroad over the ,susquehanna ,river between ,havre-de-,grace and ,aiken1 ,md41 to replace a single-track bridge in the same location1 is a splendid example of the best type of such structures4 ,at the point of crossing1 the river is divided into channels by ,watson ,island2 the width of the west channel being approximately #b1fjj feet and that of the east channel being approximately #a1djj feet4 ,the distance across the low-lying island is #b1jjj feet--making the length of the entire bridge about #f1jjj feet4 ,the bridge1 as originally constructed when the line from ,baltimore to ,philadelphia was built1 in #ahhf1 had a steel trestle over ,watson ,island4 ,in building the new structure1 this viaduct was eliminated in favor of a bridge structure of #ij-;foot girder spans1 placed upon concrete piers4 ,additional piers were placed in the west channel1 shortening the deck spans from #dhj to #bdj feet2 the through span over the main channel was kept at the original length--#ebj feet4 ,in the east channel1 the span lengths remained unchanged1 with a single slight exception4 ,the changes in the span lengths involved new masonry1 and all piers were sunk to solid rock1 those in the west channel being carried by caissons to a depth of more than seventy feet beneath low-water4 ,the total amount of new masonry and concrete approximated #fb1jjj cubic yards4 ,the long span-lengths of the deck span over the east channel and the through span over the navigable portion of the west channel--each #ebj feet in length--occasioned heavy construction4 ,the deck span1 for instance1 weighed #ab1jjj pounds to each foot of bridge4 ,the total weight of this very long bridge reaches the enormous figure of #cb1jjj1jjj pounds4 ,and yet1 even the untechnical observe the extreme simplicity of its lines of construction1 and feel that the engineer1 ,a4 ,w4 ,thompson1 has done his work well4 ,the construction of the giant took two years and a half4 ,during that time1 the trains of the ,b4 ,o4 were diverted to the closely adjacent ,pennsylvania1 so that the bridge-builders might continue with a minimum of delay4 ,the truss span reaches its limitations at a little over #ejj feet in length--we have just seen how the ,susquehanna structure had its spans cut in halves in the non-navigable portions of the river4 ,the spans of two great railroad bridges over the ,ohio at ,cincinnati reached #eai and #eej feet1 but they were built in a day when the weights of locomotives and of train-loads had not yet begun to rise4 ,nowadays the shorter span is the safer and by far the best4 ,the engineer builds plenty of midstream piers1 looking out only for a decent width for any navigable channels4 ,and when because of peculiarities of location he cannot place his pier midstream1 then it is time for him to get out his pencils and begin his drawings all over again4 ,he can perhaps build a suspension bridge--a clear span of #a1ejj feet will be as nothing to it1--but suspension bridges take a long time to build and are fearfully expensive in the building4 ,it is more than likely1 then1 that he will turn to the cantilever4 ,in the cantilever1 two giant trusses are cunningly balanced upon string supporting towers4 ,they are constructed by being built out from the towers1 evenly1 so that the balance of weight may never be lost for a single hour4 ,the two projecting arms are finally caught together in mid-air and over the very centre of the span--caught and made fast by the riveters4 ,the result is a bridge of surpassing strength and fairly low cost1 a real triumph for the bridge engineer4 ,the first of these cantilever bridges built in the ,united ,states was of iron4 ,it was designed and constructed by ,c4 ,shaler ,smith across the deep gorge of the ,kentucky ,river in #ahgf-gg4 ,mr4 ,smith also built the second cantilever1 the ,minnehaha1 across the ,mississippi1 at ,st4 ,paul1 ,minn41 in #ahgi-hj4 ,the third and fourth were the ,niagara and the ,frazer ,river bridges built in the early eighties4 ,in their trail came many others--one of the most notable among them being the great ,poughkeepsie ,bridge4 99 99 99 99 99 ,we are going to see something of the construction of one of these great railroad bridges4 ,let us begin at the beginning1 and see the men1 as they work upon the foundations of abutments and of piers--many times hundreds of feet under the waters of the very stream that they will eventually conquer4 ,for months this important work of getting a good foothold for the monster will go forth almost unseen by the workaday world--by the aid of the great timber footings1 which the engineer calls his caissons4 ,these caissons 7they are really nothing more or less than great wooden boxes71 are slowly sunk into the sand or soft rock under the tremendous weight of the many courses of masonry4 ,they sink to solid rock--or something that closely approximates solid rock4 ,we are going down into one of the caissons that form the foothold of a single great pier of a modern railroad bridge2 we are going to stand for a very few minutes under air-pressure with the sand-hogs--men whom we first came to know when we studied the boring of a tunnel4 ,air pressure spells danger4 ,it takes a good nerve to work high up on the exposed steel frame of some growing bridge1 but the bridge-builders have air and sunlight in which to pursue their hazardous work4 ,the sand-hog has neither4 ,he toils in a box down in the depths of the unknown1 working with pick and shovel under artificial light and under a pressure that becomes all but intolerable4 ,the knowledge that the most precious and vital of all man's needs--fresh air--is controlled by another1 and through delicate and intricate mechanism1 cannot add to his peace of mind4 ,no wonder1 then1 that it is the highest paid of all merely manual work4 ,the sand-hog working #ej feet below datum is paid #c4ej for an eight-hour day4 ,but #ej feet is but the beginning to these human worms1 who burrow deep into the earth4 ,below it they first begin to divide their day into two working periods4 ,the air begins to count1 and men with steel muscled arms must rest4 ,as they approach #hj feet below datum--the engineers' phrase for sea level1--they are working two periods each day of one hour and a half apiece1 while their daily pay has risen to #d4 ,there is your rough arithmetical law of sand-hogs4 ,as your caisson goes down so does the length of your working-day decrease2 inversely1 their air pressures and the pay of the men increase4 ,the cost8 ,the cost leaps forward in geometrical progression4 ,it is the owner's turn to groan this time4 ,one hundred feet is the limit4 ,at #ajj feet the air pressure is more than #ej pounds to the square inch--three additional atmospheres--and the limit of human endurance is reached4 ,the men work two shifts of forty minutes each as a daily portion and the law steps in to say that they must rest four hours between the shifts4 ,they are paid #d4ej for that day's work--which means something more than #d an hour for the time that they are actually at work in the caisson4 ,you have expressed your interest in the sand-hog1 given vent to a desire to go down into their underworld4 ,you wonder what three pressures is going to feel like4 ,permission is given and a physician begins examining you4 ,you cannot go into the caisson unless you are sound of heart and stout of body4 ,this is no joking matter4 ,the sand-hogs' rules read like the training instructions for a college football team4 ,no drink1 regular hours1 simple diet1 the donning of heavy clothes after they leave the pressure1 constant rexamination--these rules are inflexible when the caissons go to far depths4 ,by their observance the difficult foundation construction of this new bridge has been kept free from accident--there have been few cases of the bends brought to the specially constructed hospital in the bottom of the cavity4 ,the bends sounds complicated1 and is1 in reality1 almost the simplest of human ailments in its diagnosis4 ,a bubble of high pressure air works its way into the human structure while a man is in the caisson4 ,when he comes out into the normal atmosphere the bubble is caught and remains4 ,if it is caught near any vital organ that bubble is apt to spell death4 ,generally the bubbles are caught in the joints--frequently the elbow or the knee--where they cause excruciating pain4 ,then the specially constructed hospital crowded on the narrow platform formed by the top of the pier1 comes into full play4 ,its sick room is incased in an air-tight cylinder4 ,the man suffering from the bends1 together with physicians and nurses1 is put under a pressure that gradually increases until it reaches that of the caisson4 ,after that it is a comparatively simple matter to relieve the bubble and bring the air in the hospital back to a normal pressure4 ,the path is clear for us to go down into the caisson4 ,a party of sand-hogs1 hot and exhausted after forty minutes of work within1 come out of the little manhole at the top of the air-lock4 ,we step through the little manhole and into a tiny steel bucket that rests within the air-lock there at the top of the shaft4 ,a word of command--farewell to the bright blue sky overhead--the black manhole cover is replaced4 ,it is suddenly very dark4 ,a single faint incandescent gives a dim glow in the tiny place4 ,illustration3 ,,concrete ,,affords ,,wonderful ,,opportunities ,,for ,,the ,,bridge-,,builders ,illustration3 ,,the ,,lackawanna ,,is ,,building ,,the ,,largest ,,concrete ,,bridge ,,in ,,the ,,world ,,across ,,the ,,delaware ,,river ,,at ,,slateford1 ,,pa4 ,illustration3 ,,the ,,bridge-,,builder ,,lays ,,out ,,an ,,assemblying-,,yard ,,for ,,gathering ,,together ,,the ,,different ,,parts ,,of ,,his ,,new ,,construction ,illustration3 ,,the ,,new ,,brandywine ,,viaduct ,,of ,,the ,,baltimore ,,ohio1 ,,at ,,wilmington1 ,,del4 ,you are not thinking of that4 ,they are putting the pressure on4 ,you can feel it4 ,your eardrums feel as if they would break2 they vibrate4 ,you must show your distress4 ,pinch your nose and swallow hard1 says the man who stands beside you in the bucket4 ,he stands so close to you that you can fairly feel the pulsation of his heart1 but his voice sounds miles away4 ,you swallow hard1 the hardest you have ever swallowed1 and you pinch your nose4 ,you feel better4 ,the far-away voice speaks again in your ear4 ,three atmospheres1 is all it says4 ,the caisson shaft is no place for extended conversation4 ,you descend in an express elevator car2 in that bucket you just drop4 ,you have all the eerie sensations that a ,coney ,island novelty ride might give you4 ,there is a row of dim incandescents all the way down the smooth side of the shaft1 and when you look you forget that this is vertical traction and think of an uptown subway tube as you see it recede from the rear of an express4 ,a final manhole1 the gate at the foot of the shaft and you stop abruptly4 ,it seems as if you had almost bumped against the under side of ,china4 ,this is it1 says the far-away voice4 ,a timbered room1 not larger than a parlor in a city flat and not near so high4 ,a close and murky place1 filled with a little company of men--shadowy humans of a real underworld there under the dull electric glow4 ,they're finding the footing for the shaft1 says the voice4 ,we're on rock at last at #id feet4 99 99 99 99 99 ,when the footings are finished and the caisson's edges have ceased to cut its path straight downward1 that timbered construction will rest here far below the city for long ages4 ,the sand-hogs will come out of their working chamber for the last time--it will be poured full of concrete1 more solid than rock itself4 ,the air pressure will be withdrawn--there is no longer mud or shifting sand for it to withhold4 ,then1 section by section1 the steel lining of the caisson shaft will be withdrawn1 while concrete1 tramped into place1 makes the shaft a hidden monolith #ajj feet or so in length4 ,upon the tops of all these monoliths a close grillage of steel beams will be laid2 upon that grillage will be riveted the steel plates and columns of the bridge tower4 ,the great structure is to have sure footing2 these giant feet bind and clasp themselves throughout the years against the mighty river that has been conquered and humbled by the work of man4 99 99 99 99 99 ,you should have been down in one of the boxes when they had to burn torches1 before they got the electric light1 says one of the bridge engineers4 ,i worked in one of those that we left under a stone tower of the ,brooklyn ,bridge4 ,now we're almost in clover4 ,they even cool and dry the compressed air before we breathe it4 ,an order goes aloft over an electric wire1 the engineer who sits smoking his pipe on the sun-baked platform of the traveller derrick pulls a lever1 and we go slipping up the shaft toward fresh air and freedom only a little less rapidly than we descended it4 ,we do not reach it too quickly4 ,there is a long wait in the air-lock after the lower manhole has closed1 while the pressure is being reduced4 ,you begin to worry and you ask your guide as to the delay4 ,nothing wrong8 ,he smiles at your timorous question and explains4 ,it would be dangerous to come out from the caisson pressure quickly4 ,he does not want to have to send you to that air-tight hospital with a bad case of the bends4 ,how long in the air-lock8 you ask4 ,fifty minutes1 he answers4 ,then he explains in more detail4 ,you have been under a pressure of #ej pounds to the square inch--that's your three atmospheres1 and under the rules you must spend fifty minutes in the tiny air-lock4 ,up to a pressure of #cf pounds you must spend two minutes there for every three pounds of pressure4 ,when you get above that law of #cf it is a minute to the pound4 ,when that manhole cover overhead finally slides open you feel blinded by the light1 even though the sun is hidden behind a passing cloud4 ,the air-lock tender reaches down with his arms and gives you a lift up onto his narrow perch4 ,want to be a sand-hog8 he smiles4 ,not yet a while1 you answer1 in all truth4 ,not until every other job is gone4 99 99 99 99 99 ,you are standing aloft1 balancing yourself upon tiny planks at the steadily advancing end of the bridge1 as it forces itself over a stream of formidable width4 ,overhead1 a gigantic1 ungainly traveller1 equipped with steel derricks at every corner1 is advancing foot by foot as the bridge advances foot by foot4 ,underneath1 through the thin network of planks1 of girder and of supporting false work1 you can see the surface of the river a full hundred feet below4 ,a steamboat is passing directly beneath you4 ,from your perch she looks like a great yellow bird4 ,those fine black specks upon her back are the humans who are gathered upon her upper deck4 ,whistles call and the derricks groan as they swing the thousands of bridge-members1 that are flying together at the beck of the engineer1 into their final resting-places4 ,there is the deafening racket of the riveters1 here and there and everywhere4 ,there are crude railroad tracks upon the temporary flooring of the bridge deck1 and the calls of the dummy locomotives add to the racket4 ,the railroad tracks lead to the shore1 to temporary yards where the bridge materials are assembled as fast as they come from the shops in a city three hundred miles distant4 ,for1 remember that while the sand-hogs were burrowing under the surface of the river to find footholds for this monster1 other men were burrowing into the hillsides to find the precious ore for the welding of his muscles4 ,a hundred thousand picks must have fought in his behalf1 furnaces blazed for miles before the crude ore became the finished1 perfect steel4 ,of the forging and the rolling of the steel a whole book might be written4 ,it is enough now to say that of the #ej1jjj1jjj pounds of steel1 every pound was made on honor4 ,the railroad had its inspectors everywhere1 but the rolling-mill men held to their formulas for perfect steel1 and perfect steel was the result4 ,a slight flaw in the metal1 and possibly at some unexpected day1 a great catastrophe4 ,the safety of human life was upon the men who forged the steel1 and they forged honor into every great girder1 into every rod and bolt and plate4 ,this conqueror of the river was a warrior built in honor4 ,the safety of human life depends upon the men who build this bridge4 ,study carefully the face of this man who stands beside you1 the man who evolved this bridge as a season's work of his restless mind4 ,his face is the face of a man who has high regard for human safety2 that factor creeps to the fore as he talks to you4 ,he is telling of the method of constructing the upper works of a bridge of this size4 ,we're getting ahead all the time1 he laughs1 and we're moving rather forward in our construction methods4 ,in an older day we did this work with derricks of a rather simple sort1 operated them by small portable steam engines4 ,you can't handle bridge-members--units that are only held down by the clearances of tunnels and the transporting powers of the railroads--that way to-day4 ,we've nearly half a million dollars tied up here in constructing-appliances4 ,these steel-boom derricks1 travellers1 and steel-wire hoists1 the compressing engines for handling the riveters1 cost big money4 ,our method8 ,that's a simple enough affair as a rule4 ,we set up this spindly tower on rails1 that we call the 'traveller' and it moves backwards and forwards over the trusses and the timber falsework that we build before the steel really begins to be set up4 ,when the steel--the trusses--is up and riveted1 then away with the falsework4 ,our bridge stands by itself4 ,you can put up a #ejj-;foot span in no time at all by using the falsework4 ,you make bold to ask what the engineer does when the river is too deep to admit of falsework4 ,he is quick to answer4 ,we generally fall back on a cantilever1 he says1 without hesitation4 ,then he begins to tell you about one of the latest of ,american problems--the new bridge of the ,idaho ,washington ,northern ,railroad1 just now being built over the ,pend ,oreille ,river1 ,washington4 ,they could span that narrow cleft only on the cantilever principle1 and when they began to balance their cantilever1 there was not enough room for the back arm4 ,but the engineers only chewed off fresh cigars and began forcing their great span out mid-air4 ,they made the balance by placing #fjj tons of steel rails on the back-arm4 ,for every foot the span reached out anew over a so-called bottomless they added a few more rails4 ,you can generally trust an engineer in such a time as that4 ,look closely now upon the workmen who are fabricating this giant bridge4 ,look closely upon them4 ,they are different from those whom we saw toiling in the caissons below4 ,scandinavians may and do toil as sand-hogs at the bottom of the stream2 ,lithuanians may mine the ore1 and ,hungarians roll it into steel2 ,americans build upon their toil and erect this bridge4 ,these builders speak no unfamiliar tongue4 ,they are the product of ,ohio1 the ,middle ,west1 the ,south1 the ,pacific ,coast1 ,new ,england2 they rise immeasurably superior to every other class of labor employed upon the work4 ,some of them have been sailors1 and their talk has the savor of the sea4 ,all of them are men1 clear-headed1 cool-headed1 true-headed men4 ,if you come upon them at the noon-hour1 sprawled along the narrow ledge of a single plank you may be impressed by two things--their ,americanism and their cosmopolitanism4 ,the first of these is writ upon each man as you look at him2 the second is evident in talk with him4 ,this big fellow must have been a sheriff out in ,montana1 and he must have been a sheriff for bad men to dodge2 his neighbor is talking about his last job1 a sky-high cantilever down in ,peru4 ,the two side-partners over by the tool-box are just back from ,india4 ,american bridge-building talent encircles the world4 ,here is a boss who got his first training down on the ,nile2 his assistant has done some mighty big work on the ,trans-,siberian4 ,these are the men who are building the bridge4 ,in a little time there will be no advancing ends1 finding their path from pier-top to pier-top4 ,there will be1 instead1 a long and slender path for the railroad2 the bridgemen will have done their work well2 a great river will have once again been conquered4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the bridge problem is always different1 it constantly has the fascination of variety4 ,that variety will come into play at unexpected turns4 ,once1 down in a deep ,colorado caon1 whose walls rose precipitously for a thousand-odd feet1 and which was all but filled by a deep and rapid river1 the engineers of the ,rio ,grande ,western found absolutely no ledge whatsoever upon which they might rest their rails4 ,they puzzled upon the problem for a little while1 and then they swung a girder bridge parallel with the river4 ,the bridge was supported by braced girders1 that fastened their feet in the walls of the caon1 hardly wider there than a narrow city house4 ,the railroad has been running over that construction for more than thirty years2 it is one of the scenic wonders of the land1 and a triumph for the engineer that built it4 ,in constructing the expensive ,west ,shore ,railroad up the ,hudson ,river1 similar difficulties were experienced south of ,west ,point1 and truss bridges were built parallel with the steep river banks to carry the tracks from ledge to ledge4 ,it is not an unusual matter for the construction engineer to spend a quarter of a million dollars to span some deep1 waterless gully in the mountains1 which could not be filled for more than twice that sum4 ,many times1 in these days of increasing weight of equipment1 it becomes necessary to replace a bridge1 without interrupting the traffic4 ,the construction engineer never fails to meet the problem4 ,years ago1 he took ,roebling's famous suspension bridge at ,niagara ,falls1 removed the stone towers and replaced them with towers of steel1 without delaying a single train2 and a little later he took that bridge itself1 and substituted a heavy cantilever for it1 while all the time a heavy traffic poured itself over the structure4 ,the rebuilder of bridges works like the original builder--with plentiful falsework4 ,he timbers in and around his structure1 and then step by step and with exceeding caution removes the old and substitutes the new4 ,an old girder is taken out between trains2 before another train of cars shall roll over the structure a new one is ready1 temporarily bolted until the riveters can make it fast4 ,it sounds complicated1 but it is remarkably simple1 under the careful plans of a patient engineer1 who has that infinite thing that we call genius4 ,sometimes a bold engineer strikes out into a new method1 quicker and less expensive than these piecemeal efforts4 ,of such was the job at ,steubenville1 ,o41 where a #bje-;foot double-track span was erected on heavy falsework alongside the old bridge4 ,in a carefully chosen interval between a service of frequent trains1 both the old and the new spans--together weighing #a1cjj tons--were fastened together and drawn sideways a distance of twenty-five feet in one minute and forty seconds4 ,the new span was then in place1 and the old one--ready to be dismantled--stood on falsework at the side4 ,the entire job had been accomplished in an interval of seventeen minutes between trains4 ,that is not unusual4 ,the floating method is sometimes adopted with remarkable success--especially in the case of draw-bridge spans4 ,there the problem complicates itself exceedingly1 for both the water and the land highways must be kept open for traffic2 yet it is a matter of record that the ,pennsylvania ,railroad1 operating a fearfully heavy suburban service in and out of ,jersey ,city1 recently substituted one draw for another on its ,hackensack ,river ,bridge without delaying a single train4 99 99 99 99 99 ,but even in this high noon of the day of steel1 the stone bridge holds its own4 ,the big chiefs of railroad construction look upon it with favor4 ,higher priced than a steel bridge of equal capacity it requires initial outlay4 ,but forever after1 it represents a saving--a saving chiefly in that very important figure1 maintenance4 ,a steel bridge requires constant attention and constant expense4 ,a stone bridge requires little of either2 and therein lies its strength in its old age4 ,engineers point to such structures as the ,thomas ,viaduct down at ,relay1 or to the wonderful stone bridges that have stood through the centuries in older lands2 they bear in mind the constant battle that a steel bridge must make against the ravages of weather and against the sinister thefts of corrosion1 and ofttimes they rule in favor of the oldest type of sizable bridge4 ,two things are all-important in the choice between the steel bridge and the arch bridge of stone or concrete4 ,the first is the accessibility of the quarries4 ,if they are not very near the solid bridge will cost four times that of one of steel and the average ,american railroad is not able to spend money in that fashion1 even in the hopes of future economies in maintenance4 ,if the quarries are close at hand1 as they were years ago when ,kirkwood built the ,starucca ,viaduct for the ,erie1 the cost of a masonry bridge will hardly exceed that of steel trusses1 and the concrete structure may cost a little less4 ,then there comes into play the second consideration4 ,the stone or concrete bridge has tremendous weight1 no ordinary foundation work will serve it4 ,if the river bed and banks be of sand or poor earth1 the engineer had best give up his hopes of the ,roman form of structure4 ,he can build steel towers and trusses on piles of caissons--hardly solid stone piers and abutments and aides4 ,all these things considered1 the stone bridge is still more than holding its own in modern railroad construction4 ,the ,boston ,albany ,railroad began building these splendidly permanent structures along its lines through the ,berkshires more than twenty years ago4 ,more recently both the ,pennsylvania and the ,baltimore ,ohio have been looking with favor upon this type of bridge4 ,the ,baltimore ,ohio has just finished building its massive ,brandywine ,viaduct1 near ,wilmington1 a splendid double-track structure1 #gfd feet in length1 and composed of two #hj-;foot1 two #ij-;foot1 and three #ajj-;foot arches4 ,the three great stone bridges that the ,pennsylvania has built upon its main line are all four-tracked4 ,two splendid examples of these span the ,raritan ,river at ,new ,brunswick1 and the ,delaware at ,trenton1 ,new ,jersey4 ,the third1 spanning the ,susquehanna at ,rockville1 ,pa41 just north of ,harrisburg1 is the largest stone bridge in the world4 ,it is over a mile in length1 and is composed of #dh arches2 #bbj1jjj tons of masonry was employed in its construction4 ,concrete viaducts were first employed in interurban electric railroad construction1 and latterly they have been brought more to the service of the steam railroad4 ,a splendid example of this very new form of construction exists in the extension of the ,florida ,east ,coast ,railroad over the keys and shallow waters of ,southern ,florida1 for seventy-five miles between ,homestead and ,key ,west4 ,a considerable portion of the line is over the sea4 ,the ,florida keys are like a series of stepping-stones1 leading into the ocean from the tip of the peninsula to ,key ,west4 ,they lie in the form of a curve1 the channels separating the islands varying from a few hundred feet to several miles in width4 ,nearly thirty of these islands were used in the construction of the new railroad4 ,more than fifty miles of rock and earthen embankment have been built where the intervening waters are shallow1 but where the water is deeper and the openings are exposed to storms by breaks in the outer reef1 concrete arch viaducts have been used4 ,these viaducts consist of #ej-;foot reinforced concrete arch spans and piers1 with here and there a #fj-;foot span4 ,there are four of these arch viaducts aggregating #e4gh miles in length4 ,the longest is between ,long ,key and ,grassy ,key1 #b4g miles1 and is called the ,long ,key ,viaduct2 across ,knight's ,key ,channel1 #g1cjj feet2 across ,moser's ,channel1 #g1hjj feet1 and across ,bahia ,honda ,channel1 #d1iej feet4 ,the material of these islands is coralline limestone4 ,in many places the embankment for the roadway is #h or #i feet in height1 and the roadbed is ballasted with the same material4 ,the result is one of the finest and safest railway roadbeds in the world4 ,across the ,delaware ,river at ,slateford1 ,pa41 the ,delaware1 ,lackawanna ,western ,railroad is building the largest concrete bridge in the world1 a few feet longer than the great structure by which the ,illinois ,central crosses the ,big ,muddy ,river and just #ajj feet longer than the ,connecticut ,avenue ,bridge1 at ,washington1 ,d4 ,c4 ,the ,lackawanna's bridge is #a1dej feet long1 with five arches of #aej-;foot span1 and a number of shorter arches4 ,the track is carried at an elevation of #ge feet above highwater2 and to find living-rock as a solid foundation for a structure of so great a weight1 the abutments and piers were carried about #fa feet below the surface of the ground4 99 99 99 99 99 ,with the bridge-builder at his elbow1 the railroad constructing engineer hesitates at no river1 no arm of the sea1 no deep valley1 no wild ravine1 no cleft in the mountain-side4 ,he calls to his aid the magic of the men who have made this branch of ,american practical science famous3 a feathery trestle appears1 as if by magic4 ,across its narrow edge the steel rails follow their resistless path4 ,,chapter ,,vi ,,the ,,passenger ,,stations ,,early ,,trains ,,for ,,suburbanites--,,importance ,,of ,,the ,,towerman--,,automatic ,,switch ,,systems--,,the ,,interlocking ,,machine--,,capacities ,,of ,,the ,,largest ,,passenger ,,terminals--,,room ,,for ,,locomotives1 ,,car-,,storage1 ,,etc4--,,storing ,,and ,,cleaning ,,cars--,,the ,,concourse--,,waiting-,,rooms--,,baggag e ,,accommodations--,,heating--,,great ,,development ,,of ,,passenger ,,stations--,,some ,,notable ,,stations ,,in ,,america4 ,the railroad terminal is the city gate4 ,without1 it rises in the superior arrogance of white granite1 as an architectural something4 ,it has broad portals1 and through these portals a host of folk both come and go4 ,within1 this city gate is a thing of stupendous apartments and monumental dimensions1 a thing not to be grasped in a moment4 ,in a single great apartment--a vaulted room so great as to have its dimensions run into distant vistas--are the steam caravans that come and go4 ,it is a busy place1 a place of an infinite variety of business4 99 99 99 99 99 ,in the early morning the train-shed gives the first sign of the new-born day4 ,before the dawn is well upon the city1 the great arcs that run into those distant vistas in wonderful symmetry are hissing and alight1 and the first of #ejj incoming trains is finding its way into the gloom of the shed4 ,some few trains have started out with the early mails and the morning papers4 ,the great rush into town is yet to begin4 ,even before dawn1 a thousand little homes without the city have been awake and fretful4 ,the gray fogs of the night lie low1 and lights begin to twinkle1 lines of shuffling figures to find their way to the nearest suburban station4 ,it is very early morning when these begin to pass through the city gate4 ,the earliest suburban trains slip in from the yards and come to a slow1 grinding stop beneath the shed4 ,before the wheels have ceased turning1 the first of the workers is off the cars and running down the platform4 ,in fifteen seconds1 the platform is black with men4 ,there are many more of these trains1 a great multiplication of men within a little time4 ,before seven o'clock1 the trains begin to increase2 to follow more and more closely upon one another's heels4 ,after seven1 they come still oftener2 two or three of them may stop simultaneously on different tracks under the great vault of the shed2 they are heavy with people4 ,there is a constant clatter of engines1 stamping and puffing1 dragging their heavily laden trains and snapping them quickly out of the way of others to follow4 ,the electric lights under the shed go out with a protesting sputter1 and you realize that the day is at hand4 ,this mighty army of those who live without the city walls is flocking in1 in an unceasing current now4 ,there is an endless procession from the track platforms2 a stream of humans finding its way to the day's work4 ,do you want figures so that you may see the might of this army8 ,binghamton1 ,n4 ,y41 is a city2 a little less than fifty thousand persons live there4 ,if the whole population of ,binghamton--every man1 woman1 and child--were poured through the portals of this terminal on any one of six mornings of the week1 it would be about equal to this suburban traffic4 ,in a single hour--from seven to eight--#de trains have arrived under the roof of this shed and discharged their human freight2 in the following hour1 #fd trains empty another great brigade of the army from without the city walls4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the city gate is indeed a busy place4 ,its concourse or head platform echoes all day long with the unending tread of shuffling feet2 beyond the fence1 with its bulletins and ticket-examiners1 is the vault of the train-shed1 a thing of great shadows1 even in midday4 ,its echoes are also unending4 ,there seems to be no end of pushing and shoving and hauling among the engines2 there must be an infinite stock of trains somewhere without4 ,the human stream flows all the while4 ,the marvel of all this is that the terminal1 which seems so intricate1 so baffling1 is under the control of one man--a man to whom it is as simple as the ten fingers of his hands4 ,this man is keeper of the city gate4 ,his watch-house is situated just without the big and squatty train-shed4 ,it is long and narrow1 glass-lined and sun-filled4 ,through its windows he keeps track of those who come and go4 ,there's ,second ,seventeen1 with them school teachers coming back from the convention out at ,kansas ,city4 ,put her in on ,twenty-one so's to give the baggage folks a chance4 ,them women travel with lots of duds4 ,these are orders to his assistants and orders in that watch tower are rarely repeated4 ,the assistants are in shirt-sleeves like their chief1 for the sun-filled tower is broiling hot4 ,they nod to one another1 click small levers1 and ,second ,seventeen--a long train of sleeping-cars coming into the city in the hot moisture of the early ,june morning--is sent easily and carefully in upon track ,twenty-one in the train-shed of the terminal4 ,there you have the explanation of that order that was meaningless to you but a moment ago4 ,track ,twenty-one is nearest the in-baggage room of the station4 ,with two cars1 piled roof-high with heavy trunks1 the thoughtfulness of the towerman in sending the special upon track ,twenty-one will be appreciated by the baggage handlers4 ,a vast amount of manual labor will be saved2 and that counts1 even upon a cool day4 ,illustration3 ,,the ,,northwestern',s ,,monumental ,,new ,,terminal ,,on ,,the ,,west ,,side ,,of ,,chicago ,illustration3 ,,the ,,union ,,station ,,at ,,washington ,this keeper of the city gate represents the survival of the fittest1 the very cream of his profession4 ,the chances are that he began his railroading off in some lonely way station on a branch line1 developed qualities that brought him to the quick and favorable attention of his chiefs1 then advanced steadily along the rapid lines of promotion that railroading holds for some men4 ,he is one of three men1 who1 for certain hours1 hold the keeping of the complicated city gate within their own well-drilled minds4 ,the tower is the mind1 the brain centre1 the ganglion1 of that city gate2 but the tower is only wondrously mechanical1 after all2 the mind of the careful towerman is the mind that controls all the mechanism4 ,to the average traveller1 the city gate is a thing that impresses itself upon his mind by its exterior and interior beauty1 or its convenience of arrangement4 ,he notes the broad concourses1 the ample entrances and exits1 the compelling magnificence of the public rooms1 the great sweep of the train-shed roof1 but beyond that train-shed roof is a tangle of tracks and signals about which he does not worry his busy head4 ,those tracks and signals represent more truly the station than the mere architectural magnificence of its outer shell4 ,they are a tangle and a maze1 apparently1 but a tangle and maze that must represent skill and ease in their tremendous operation4 ,they are neither tangle nor maze to the shirt-sleeved men in the tower4 ,they must know each track1 each switch-point1 each signal as intimately and familiarly as they know the fingers of their hands4 ,every mechanical device is employed to simplify the tangle for the comfort of the busy minds that must constantly employ themselves in solving it4 ,in the big watch-tower--the control of the terminal--there is a map that is more than map4 ,it depicts in miniature all the tracks and switches and signals that lie without and roundabout the tower2 but this map shows switches and signals changing as the switches and signals of the train-yard change4 ,it brings the distant corners of the terminal in closer touch with the towermen4 ,in fog or blinding storm1 this track model is invaluable--a veritable compass set within the brain of the terminal4 ,this illuminated map sets upon the best piece of mechanism that has yet been devised for the operation of the terminal yard4 ,it is a long boxed affair1 not entirely unlike the box of the old-fashioned square piano1 but in this case 7the terminal we are watching being of unusual capacity7 more than thirty feet in length4 ,this box is the very brains of the terminal4 ,it represents the acme of mechanical condensation4 ,reduced to its earliest and simplest equivalent--the separate hand operation of a gigantic cluster of switches in a great terminal yard--it would cover a vast area and result in the employment of an army of switchmen4 ,carelessness on the part of any one member of this army might cause a serious accident4 ,the margin of safety would be very low in such a case4 ,the first schemes of automatic switch systems eliminated the necessity of employing an army of switchmen4 ,a cluster of levers1 in a tower of commanding location1 was connected by steel rods with the switches and the signals which protected them4 ,a man in the tower operated this group of levers4 ,in this way1 the control of the yard was simplified1 and responsibility was placed upon a better paid and better trained man than the average hand switchman4 ,the margin of safety was considerably broadened4 ,then came an amendment to that first system4 ,some genius of a mechanic built an interlocking switch machine1 a thing of cogs and clutches1 by which a collision in a railroad yard became almost a physical impossibility4 ,in these mechanical interlocking devices the tower levers are so controlled1 one by another1 that signals cannot be given for trains to proceed until all switches in the route governed are first properly set and locked2 and conversely1 so that the switches of a route governed by signal cannot be moved during the display of a signal giving the right of way over them4 ,by installation of the interlocking1 some of the responsibility is taken by mechanical device from human brain and the margin of safety broadened still further4 ,this piano box represents still further condensation of the switch and signal control and interlocking devices4 ,the men who designed this particular city gate designed it to accommodate more than a thousand outgoing and incoming passenger trains each twenty-four hours2 they had found that the condensations given by earlier systems were not sufficient for their purpose4 ,after bringing several switches1 designed to act in concert1 upon a single lever1 they found that they would have a row of #cfj levers4 ,set closely together these would require a tower about #afj feet long4 ,it is roughly figured that it is not desirable to assign more than twenty of these heavy levers to a single towerman and that meant eighteen men1 working at a shift4 ,moreover1 the throwing of a heavy switch half a mile distant from the tower is not a slight manual exercise4 ,then the piano box--electro-pneumatic--was installed2 #aej feet of levers was reduced to #cj feet of small handles hardly larger than faucet handles and quite as easily turned4 ,the control of a great terminal was brought down to three towermen1 acting under the direction of their chief1 the shirt-sleeved keeper of the city gate4 ,we've got to keep them hustling1 he tells you4 ,there's the morning express in from ,new ,york4 ,she's heavy this morning4 ,that train over there1 coming across the swing-bridge1 is the millionaire's special4 ,she's all club-cars1 comes in every mornin' from the seaside4 ,her wheels'll stop on the same nick as the express4 ,watch them both1 carefully4 ,isn't it quite a trick handling those trains simultaneously8 ,not much1 a smile fixed itself upon the chief towerman's features1 as he fingered his greasy timetable4 ,here's four trains pulling out here simultaneously at #e3dj4 ,on top of that we get a ,forest ,hills local in at #e3ci1 a ,hudson ,upper local at #e3dj1 an ,ogontz at #e3db1 a ,readville at #e3dc1 all incoming1 and pull out two more at #e3dc4 ,ten trains in just four minutes isn't bad1 and we haven't begun to feel the capacity of this terminal yet4 ,that isn't all of it4 ,we get the whole thing criss-crossed on us sometimes2 and perhaps they'll put on an extra getting out of here at #e3dj1 and that'll bother us a little1 for we have regular tracks assigned for all our scheduled trains4 ,if they don't run in the extras on us1 or we don't get a breakdown anywhere1 it's pretty plain sailing4 ,ring off your #aj3aj1 ,jimmy4 ,jimmy1 the assistant at the far end of the tower1 touched one of the little handles1 a blade on a signal bridge opposite the end of the train-shed dropped1 a big locomotive caught the rails instantly and cautiously led a long train of heavy cars out through the intricacy of tracks and switches until it was past the tower1 over the throat of the yard1 and1 striking on the main line1 was gaining speed once more4 ,it's as easy for him as unbroken rail off in the country1 said the chief towerman to me1 as he waved salutation at the engineer passing below him4 ,then he fell into a detailed and wondrous explanation of the intricacies of the piano-box mechanism4 ,on the lower floor of the tower were air condensers1 and through the medium of electricity and compressed air heavy switches and signals a half-mile off are worked almost by finger touch4 ,each switch is guarded by at least one signal1 possibly two--home and distant--and these blades show an open or a closed path to the engineer4 ,they are so arranged that normally they stand at danger and in case of breakdown they return by gravity to danger4 ,at night the blades1 which in various positions show safety and danger and caution1 are replaced by lights--red for danger1 yellow for caution1 green for safety--according to the present standard rules4 99 99 99 99 99 ,this physiology of the passenger terminal has dwelt so far upon its brain and its nerve structure2 the anatomy is hardly less interesting4 ,almost every great passenger terminal in ,america is built upon the head-house plan4 ,in this scheme trains arrive and depart upon a series of parallel tracks terminating within some sort of train-shed4 ,it is the ideal scheme from the standpoint of the passenger1 for no stairs or bridges or subways are necessary to reach any track4 ,the tracks are generally laid in pairs1 and between each pair a broad platform is built1 which is in reality a long-armed extension of a common distributing platform or concourse extending across the head of the tracks4 ,sometimes these extension platforms are laid on both sides of a single track for greater facility in handling baggage and for the quick unloading of heavy trains4 ,but in case any number of trains are to be operated through the terminal1 the head-house scheme becomes impracticable and an abomination to the operating department4 ,it makes necessary all manner of backing and turning trains and a tremendous amount of energy and time is spent in so doing4 ,so we find the head-house stations--the real terminals of ,america--for the most part along the seaboard or at the termination of really important railroad routes4 ,they are an expensive luxury at any other point4 ,at the outer end of the train-shed1 its tracks begin to converge4 ,they are in rough similarity to the sticks of an open fan and at the handle they are reduced to anywhere from two to eight main tracks1 the connections with the through tracks that serve the station4 ,the point of convergence is known to the towerman and all the other workers as the throat of the yard4 ,it is by far the most important point of the terminal1 and is the usual location of the control tower1 with its authority over several hundred switches and signals4 ,upon the number of main tracks in this throat depends the capacity of the terminal1 quite as much as the number of tracks in the train-shed or the size of any other of its facilities4 ,if there are as many as eight tracks in this throat--an unusual number--the signals and switches will probably be arranged so that in the morning five tracks may be used for the rush of incoming business1 and three tracks for outgoing business1 while in the late afternoon conditions are exactly reversed1 five tracks being used for hurrying the suburbanites homeward1 three for the lesser business incoming to the terminal4 ,with four tracks in the throat--a usual number--three may be used in the direction of the volume of greatest business4 ,each of these tracks is like a separate entrance to the terminal1 and when five are open from the train-shed simultaneously1 as in this first case1 five outgoing trains may be started simultaneously from as many tracks4 ,in this connection1 a comparative table of the capacity of several of the largest ,american passenger terminals may not be without interest3 ,approach ,station ,tracks ,tracks ,broad ,street ,station1 ,philadelphia #d #af ,market ,street ,station1 ,philadelphia #d #ac ,north ,station1 ,boston #h #bd ,south ,station1 ,boston #h #bh ,union ,station1 ,st4 ,louis #f #cb ,union ,station1 ,washington #f #cc ,northwestern ,station1 ,chicago #f #af ,lackawanna ,terminal1 ,hoboken #d #ad ,pennsylvania ,station1 ,new ,york #b #ba ,grand ,central ,station1 ,new ,york #d #cb ,but the approach and train-shed tracks are only a part of the yards that are necessary at every large passenger terminal4 ,certain provisions are necessary for mail and express service 7freight of every sort is handled as far as possible in separate yards and terminals71 and extensive provision for the storage and care of cars and motive power4 ,in the last case1 it becomes advisable to have the roundhouse1 or roundhouses1 for locomotive storage within short striking distance of the terminal station4 ,these are vast structures1 their very form requiring large tracts of land4 ,the ,american plan of radiating engine-storage tracks from a common centre1 occupied by a turntable1 has never prevailed in ,england4 ,some few attempts have been made in this country to build parallel storage tracks1 with the transfer table for an operating arm1 but almost every attempt of this sort has been induced by a necessity for unusual economy in land-space4 ,we shall need the turntables as long as we continue to use steam as a motive power1 and the early method of grouping storage tracks and radii from the table has never lost its favor with operating officers4 ,a full-size roundhouse1 with a diameter approximating #cjj feet1 has as its necessary accessories1 facilities for coaling the locomotives--several at a time--as well as supplying them with water1 sand1 and other necessities4 ,possibly the terminal will be big enough to demand shop facilities for trifling repairs and maintenance of both cars and motive power4 ,a big passenger terminal is a much bigger thing than that gaudy waiting-room in which you sit1 whilst your train is being made ready to take you out from the city4 ,great as the room assigned to locomotives1 greater must be yard-room for car-storage1 in rough proportions1 as the length of the locomotive to the average train length4 ,it takes something approaching a genius to lay out the car-yards1 particularly in the case of passenger terminals1 which are almost invariably in the heart of great cities where land values are fabulously high4 ,these yards1 in order to earn the appreciation of the men who must operate them1 must be easy of access and be of sufficient size to meet the heavy demands that are to be put upon them4 ,to appreciate them1 let us consider them in daily use4 ,the heavy express which has discharged its baggage and passengers in the train-shed is hauled out to the yards by one of the sturdy little switch-engines that are eternally poking their way about the yards4 ,the engine that has pulled it in from the road backs itself down to the roundhouse1 without another thought of the train4 ,its responsibility ended as soon as the run ended in the train-shed4 ,the engineer simply has to see that his locomotive is carefully put away in the roundhouse2 and1 on some roads1 that his fireman cleans its upper parts before the next run out upon the line4 ,the roundhouse crew is then supposed to take care of the rest of the engine4 ,in the meantime1 the stout little switching-engine has hauled the cars out to the yards1 separating the ,pullman equipment and placing day-coaches1 baggage cars1 and the like in a position by themselves4 ,an effort is made to keep the equipment for the heavy through trains reserved1 allowance being made for occasional changes for repair and maintenance4 ,in the case of the local and suburban trains1 their varying traffic requires varying lengths2 and it is possible that two or three of the train-shed tracks contain a supply of extra coaches in order that emergencies of sudden and unexpected traffic may be met4 ,the yards must afford full facilities for storing and cleaning cars4 ,this last is a thorough operation1 compressed air being used in many cases and to great advantage4 ,within1 seats are thoroughly dusted1 floors swept1 woodwork wiped1 while the railroad's pride in the outer appearance of its equipment is shown by the scrupulous care with which a small army of cleaners1 ladders in hand1 wash down the varnished sides of the coaches4 ,in addition1 both coaches and ,pullmans must be stocked with linen and ice-water1 lighting tanks filled and trucks inspected while in storage yards4 ,most elaborate provisions are made for the stocking of dining and buffet cars4 ,through equipment will rest in the yards from six to twenty-four hours1 as an average4 ,the local and suburban trains have a programme of their own1 slightly different4 ,the engine that is to make the run will get its train in the first place from the storage yard4 ,it is only a big express run1 where the locomotive is privileged to back into the station1 to find its train made ready there for it by some fag of a switch-engine4 ,the engine that hauls the local backs its own train into the station1 makes its run out upon the line1 #ae1 #be1 #ej miles1 whatever the case may be1 and brings the train back into the station4 ,it kicks the cars out1 just beyond the cover of the train-shed and while it is hurrying to the turntable the cars are being hastily swept and dusted4 ,an hour will be allowed the engineer to turn his engine and get his coal and water supply1 and then he will start out again on his local run4 ,this performance will be repeated one or more times1 before the coaches are sent to the yard for thorough cleaning and stocking1 and the locomotive housed for a little rest in the programme4 ,this is not the universal programme1 but it is typical4 ,it seems simple2 but with the multiplicity of local trains in service1 the demands of the regular through traffic1 and the special demands that come unexpectedly day after day1 that car storage yard has got to be arranged for an economy of operation1 as well as with the economy of space in view4 ,each storage track must be of convenient access and the chances are that a separate tower and interlocking may be set aside for the quick1 convenient1 and safe operation of the storage yard4 ,in any event1 it must be so built as to be worked without interference of any sort on the main line tracks of the terminal4 ,so much for the terminal1 in reference to its operation2 now let us consider it for a moment from the standpoint of the passenger4 ,the first point to be considered by the engineers who design it is the point that we have just considered--safety and convenience in operation4 ,a terminal might be1 and sometimes is1 an architectural triumph and a thing of monumental beauty1 but a curse and an extravagance as an operating proposition4 ,the architects1 the mural painters1 the furniture designers and the like are called in last4 ,it is their province to make the setting for the thing the engineers have already created4 ,so in considering the terminal station as a building1 we must still give ear to the engineer4 ,he must plan for the future1 anticipate the number of persons who are to pass through this city's gate fifty years hence1 and plan his concourse1 so many square inches for each one of those future users of the terminal4 ,exits and entrances to the trains must be built in order that incoming and outgoing streams of persons shall not conflict4 ,all these points require careful study4 ,it is possible to design a baggage-room so bad as to make the station all but a failure2 a stuffy ticket-office that is almost an impossibility to use under pressure conditions4 ,the good engineer thinks two or three thousand times before he begins the design of a passenger terminal4 ,the concourse1 or head platform1 that joins all the different track platforms is the main feature of the terminal building4 ,upon it some persons congregate preparatory to going through the gates to their trains1 and other persons congregate awaiting the arrival of trains--a matter which is carefully bulletined for their convenience4 ,arriving and departing passengers1 with a percentage of idlers1 must be accommodated upon it4 ,it must be capacious4 ,exits to the street should be provided1 without the necessity of passing through the station building1 and the carriage stand should be close at hand4 ,the waiting-room will be the monumental and artistic expression of the terminal4 ,it may or may not be a portion of the entrance to the concourse and train-shed1 but it is essential that it be conveniently located1 that smoking-rooms1 women's waiting-rooms1 parcel-check1 telephone1 telegraph1 news-stand1 and restaurant facilities be close at hand4 ,it is hardly less desirable that the ticket-offices adjoin the waiting-room yet the architect who so places his ticket-offices that the belated traveller has unnecessary delay in purchasing his tickets1 will bring down unnumbered curses upon his defenceless head4 ,the modern station will make provision for numerous railroad offices--be a complete modern office-building in fact1 although not emblazoning that in its architectural design--and will have lunch-stand and restaurant facilities1 with their necessary addenda of store-rooms1 refrigerators and kitchens1 as complete as those of the largest hotels4 ,the baggage accommodations deserve a paragraph by themselves4 ,americans1 due to the liberal baggage provisions of our railroads1 travel each year with increased impedimenta4 ,each year the task of the baggage-handlers multiplies4 ,making room for trunks has come to be an important terminal provision4 ,in the large terminals1 this traffic is divided1 an in-baggage room receiving from incoming trains and distributing to various forms of city baggage delivery and an out-baggage room receiving and checking baggage for outgoing trains4 ,the in-baggage room is always much the largest1 because of the delays that almost invariably hold trunks for a time--short or long--upon their arrival at a terminal4 ,it is desirable that baggage be handled with as little inconvenience as possible to passengers2 and for this reason almost all terminals have subways extending from the in and out rooms beneath all train-shed platforms and connected with each of these by elevators1 large enough to receive a full-sized baggage-truck4 ,in this way annoyance and delay to passengers is minimized4 ,in the case of heavy through trains1 where baggage runs unusually heavy1 the baggage-cars are frequently detached and switched in upon special tracks that run alongside the baggage rooms4 ,the passenger terminal must also provide mail and express facilities among these structures1 but these1 as has already been intimated1 are generally apart and quite separate from the passenger facilities4 ,a power plant is another necessity4 ,the buildings must be heated1 cars warmed in freezing weather long before the locomotives are attached1 ice-machines operated for the station restaurant1 power supplied to elevators1 dynamos1 and lesser mechanisms about the terminal4 ,this is a feature that is not radically different from that of other large commercial structures4 ,the capacity of a modern railroad is measured by the capacity of its terminals rather than by that of its main line tracks4 ,the railroads were not quick to realize nor to appreciate this fact at the first4 ,it was finally forced upon their attention1 and in that way became one of the fundamental principles of ,american railroad construction and operation4 ,the terminal became recognized as one of the most efficient possible solutions of the congestion problem1 a little more than a quarter of a century ago4 ,it was then that the double-tracking and four-tracking devices were found to measure all out of cost with the relief that was to be derived from them4 ,it was then that the engineers were told to meet the situation with a relief that should be measurably low in cost4 ,the result of their work has been to put ,america foremost with her railroad terminals4 ,the engineers have worked against great odds in many cases4 ,the railroads in the beginning took little or no forethought for their terminals4 ,they neglected rare opportunities to buy land for these facilities in the beginning1 when the cities were small and the land cheap4 ,they have paid in millions of dollars for this neglect4 ,in some cases1 the early railroads had little money to expend upon this city real estate2 but in few cases did any of their managers have the gift of prophecy that made them foresee the great cities of to-day or the great tides of traffic they would be called upon to move4 ,nor has this phase of the situation improved within recent years4 ,a great railroad rebuilt its passenger terminal in an important city ten years ago and blindly imagined that the increase in facilities would carry it a quarter of a century at the least4 ,to-day it is carrying off the remnants of that station improvement to the scrap-heap and trying to see far enough into the future to build a station that shall last it fifty years at least4 ,there is not an engineer employed by that railroad who will assert himself as possessed of the absolute belief that the new station will be adequate for the traffic of a half century hence1 if indeed the great spreading palace of steel and marble be in existence at all at that time4 ,all that they will tell you is to point to the fact that another one of ,america's greatest passenger carriers has doubled its traffic within the past ten years4 ,how can we gamble with an unknown future of such dimensions8 they ask you in return4 ,when the ,park ,square ,station of the ,boston ,providence ,railroad in ,boston and the ,grand ,central ,station in ,new ,york were built1 in the early seventies1 they were the first railroad passenger terminals of size that the country had seen4 ,it was thought that they would stand a hundred years as monuments to the genius of the men who designed them4 ,to-day they are both gone1 each supplanted by a station that both together might be packed within4 ,do you wonder then that railroad operator and engineer alike stand appalled at the tremendous terminal problem that our great cities1 growing awesome overnight1 are constantly presenting to them8 99 99 99 99 99 ,in the beginning1 there were no passenger or freight terminals1 nor1 indeed1 a traffic that demanded them4 ,the passenger cars were apt to be hauled by horses from some downtown depot through the centre of the street to an outer depot at the edge of the town where the locomotive replaced the horses4 ,when the cars became heavier1 the trains longer and more frequent1 the railroads were gradually forced in most cities to remove their rails from the streets and the use of horses was generally abandoned4 ,still1 passengers crossing ,baltimore1 for some years after the war on their way from the ,north to ,washington1 noticed that the trains were broken into cars and drawn one by one by horses across the city1 through crowded streets1 from one outer railroad station to the other4 ,a venerable white horse was the switching-engine in the ,rochester depot until the beginning of the eighties4 ,when the passenger traffic on the railroads had become a business of extent--about the middle of the past century--the construction of sizable railroad stations began4 ,the ,fitchburg ,railroad built its stone fortress at ,boston1 which still stands and was for many years regarded as a marvel of its sort4 ,down in ,baltimore1 the ,susquehanna ,railroad--afterwards the ,northern ,central--built ,calvert ,station1 and stanch old ,calvert is still a busy passenger gateway of the ,monumental ,city4 ,a few years later the ,baltimore ,ohio built ,camden ,station there and ,camden ,station was regarded as something rather unusually fine for a number of years4 ,in the sixties1 the railroad terminals grew in size1 and the old custom of having separate stations at the far sides of important towns was disappearing1 as the ,american began to see and to demand the advantages of through traffic4 ,so ,cleveland built at the close of the war a stone ,union ,station1 of such size that ,cleveland folks bragged of it for many years4 ,the stone ,union ,station at ,cleveland is still in use1 but the folk of that town do not brag of it nowadays4 ,cleveland has grown a good deal since they built the ,union ,station there4 ,the first real passenger terminals of importance in the country were the ,park ,square in ,boston1 and the ,grand ,central in ,new ,york1 to which reference has already been made4 ,these presented architectural pretensions such as the railroads of the country had not before offered to the cities they served4 ,they also served as models for bigger things that were to follow4 ,in ,boston1 the ,lowell ,road planned and built a large new station1 and the era of the passenger terminal was begun4 ,when the ,pennsylvania ,railroad built ,broad ,street ,station1 at ,philadelphia1 it built a terminal a little finer than anything accomplished up to that time4 ,even to-day1 with the dignity of years creeping upon it1 ,broad ,street is still one of the foremost ,american stations4 ,the policy of its owners has been to keep it abreast of the demands of the day1 and only recently it has been greatly enlarged again1 its protecting1 interlocking1 and signal system being made second to none in the world4 ,to the traveller1 the ivory-white waiting-room1 where ,philadelphians delight to congregate1 is an unending source of admiration2 engineers find interest in the intricate system of tunnels and bridges by which a number of trunk-line divisions are brought into the station without crossing at level4 ,broad ,street ,station shows a yearly increase in its passenger traffic of about five per cent4 ,it has a daily movement of more than #fjj loaded trains in and out1 in addition to a heavy switching movement4 ,but because of the steady increase of its traffic the ,pennsylvania has already planned to relieve it by building a new main for express trains out at ,west ,philadelphia4 ,when that is done ,broad ,street will be used exclusively for suburban traffic4 ,a short distance away stands the ,market ,street ,station1 of the ,philadelphia ,reading ,railroad1 a terminal rivalling ,broad ,street in beauty1 and only slightly inferior in capacity4 ,philadelphia possesses two distinguished city gateways4 ,but the first big station terminals--in our ,american sense that a thing big must be bigger than anything else of the same kind in the world--were those erected at ,boston and at ,st4 ,louis4 ,the first of these handles a traffic far exceeding that of any other terminal ever built2 the second has a train-shed that is gigantic and overwhelming2 and so each of the cities can1 in a measure of truth1 claim for itself the largest railroad station ever built4 ,each has enough of novelty and interest to make it worthy of attention4 ,the ,boston terminal--,south ,station--was preceded by a giant structure erected along the bank of the ,charles ,river to receive a multitude of through and suburban railroad lines entering from the north4 ,this terminal--,north ,station--embraced the structure of the ,boston ,lowell ,railroad and superseded those of the ,boston ,maine and ,fitchburg railroads4 ,the merging of these and other interests into the present ,boston ,maine made the ,north ,station a possibility4 ,it is not a structure of particular distinction1 from either an architectural or an engineering standpoint1 but it has proved itself a mighty convenience to a travelling public1 using a multiplicity of busy lines4 ,the convenience of it made the ,south ,station a possibility4 ,boston1 like ,philadelphia1 spreads out well beyond its actual boundaries and measures itself as a vast community1 including many near-by cities and villages4 ,with the consolidation of a number of railroads in ,southern ,new ,england into the ,new ,york1 ,new ,haven ,hartford system1 and the popularity of the ,north ,station so close at hand1 the ,south ,station came as a matter of course4 ,it replaced the stations of the ,new ,york ,new ,england--whose site forms part of its site--the ,old ,colony1 the ,boston ,albany1 and the ,park ,square ,station4 ,to accommodate the vast traffic of all these railroads1 a great terminal was designed and built1 a thing whose bigness is hardly realized by the passenger coming and going through it and who knows it only as a thing of some thousands of shuffling feet1 giant shadows1 and long distances4 ,in addition to the #bh sub-tracks in the train-shed1 ,south ,station is1 in effect1 a through station for electric suburban traffic4 ,this service has not yet been installed1 but the tracks are ready for use upon short notice1 when the facilities of the main train-shed shall become overtaxed4 ,this through station has been ingeniously devised underneath the train-shed and waiting-rooms of the terminal4 ,it is served by two tracks leading from the main entrance tracks to the station--guarded by separate interlocking and tower controls1 and consists of two extensive loops4 ,for suburban service1 with no baggage to be handled1 these loops will some day afford a great accommodation4 ,three or four electric trains may be stood upon each4 ,the time and necessity of reversing the trains is entirely obviated1 and upon the two tracks of this sub-station a short-haul traffic can be handled almost equal in numbers to that of the train-shed overhead4 ,what such a statement means can be better realized by a recourse to bold statistics4 ,south ,station handled #ca1hca1cij passengers in #aiji1 who travelled two and fro in some #hjj trains daily4 ,it has handled more than #ijj trains in a single day4 ,its baggage men take care of more than #b1ejj1jjj trunks in a twelvemonth4 ,the statistics of a city gate like ,south ,station are1 in themselves1 sizable4 ,st4 ,louis has one passenger station to serve as city gate for the traffic that comes and goes at that important railroad centre4 ,that gate is the chief through passenger traffic point of the world4 ,from its train-shed one may take through trains to every corner of the ,united ,states and a few distant corners of ,mexico and ,canada4 ,st4 ,louis1 like most ,western cities has no volume of suburban traffic as ,new ,york1 ,boston1 or ,philadelphia1 but it is a consequential point for through passengers4 ,the better to serve the needs of the #bb different railroad systems entering that city1 the ,union ,station was built a dozen years ago4 ,it was thought to be big enough to last ,st4 ,louis many years4 ,before the ,world's ,fair of #aijd opened in that city the ,union ,station was already judged inadequate1 and an elaborate plan was consummated for its enlargement4 ,when the ,union ,station was originally planned1 ,st4 ,louis demanded a gate that would be worthy of her size and dignity4 ,no type of through station would do1 the head-house terminal was demanded and built1 even though in actual practice it necessitated backing each arriving train into the shed4 ,a station of giant size with the largest train-shed in the world was built and hailed with a glad acclaim by the ,western town4 ,when the station was found inadequate1 the engineers found their plans for enlarging it would have to be adapted to a very confined area1 proscribed by immovable railroad properties to the south1 highway viaducts to the east and west1 and a granite head-house1 costing several million dollars1 to the north4 ,within that confined area1 they were to correct the evils of insufficient capacity--a train-shed with a single #d-track throat and some standing tracks of but #c cars' length1 inadequate baggage arrangements1 and lesser evils4 ,within two years1 they had substituted1 without increasing the area of the ,union ,station property1 a #aj-;car capacity for each of the #cb tracks of the train-shed1 a double throat with #f tracks1 increased concourses and distributing platforms for passengers1 and a complete subway system for the handling of baggage4 ,the prosecution of that work1 while the station was in constant and busy use1 ranks as one of the marvels of latter-day practical engineering4 ,from the standpoint of the architect1 no other station has yet been built in the ,united ,states that can compare with the new ,union ,station at ,washington4 ,for years1 the overcrowded railroad stations at that city have been but wretched gateways to the national capitol4 ,now the city that is fast becoming the ,mecca of all ,americans has an entrance worthy of her dignity1 and in keeping with the increasing magnificence of her architectural works4 ,the ,washington ,station is in full accord with the wonderful architectural development of that city1 and has a setting in the creation of a great facing plaza1 in which #ajj1jjj troops may be gathered in review4 ,some day the plaza is to be surrounded by a group of public buildings but even in that day the white marble station1 exceeding in size all other ,washington buildings save the ,capitol itself1 will remain the dominating feature of that facing plaza4 ,it has been created in simple classic outline1 a vaulted train-shed being purposely omitted1 in order that the station should not overshadow the proportions of the near-by ,capitol4 ,similarly1 the vaulted train-shed has been omitted in the splendid new white granite terminal which the ,chicago and ,northwestern ,railway has just completed on the ,west ,side of ,chicago4 ,that new terminal is a real addition to a town which has long boasted two model stations--one in ,la ,salle ,street and the other upon the ,lake ,front4 ,the ,northwestern terminal is one of the fine architectural features of ,chicago--a structure of classic design1 the dominating feature of which is a colonnaded portico1 monumental in type and towering to a height of #abj feet above the main street entrance4 ,this new terminal has a possible capacity of a quarter of a million passengers each day4 ,it has some novel features for the comfort of passengers4 ,a great many travellers cross ,chicago in the course of twenty-four hours2 in many cases this is the single break in a weary and dirty journey4 ,for these1 the new terminal not only provides the customary lounging rooms and barber shops1 but also private baths4 ,there is a series of rooms where invalids1 women with children1 or other persons seeking privacy1 may go directly by private elevator where they may rest while waiting for connecting trains4 ,for women there are tea-rooms and hospital rooms1 with trained nurses in attendance4 ,that is almost the last note in comfort for the traveller4 ,there are1 in addition to all these1 private rooms where the suburbanite may change into his evening clothes and proceed in his various social duties1 changing back again before he catches his late train out into the country4 99 99 99 99 99 ,new ,york ,city is still in the process of rebuilding and readjusting her gateways4 ,two magnificent terminals in her metropolitan district have already been finished2 the third is still under construction4 ,the first of these terminals is a real water-gate1 built for the ,lackawanna ,railroad and situated in ,hoboken1 just across the ,hudson ,river from the corporate ,new ,york4 ,it is a handsome architectural creation in steel and concrete4 ,its tall clock-tower dominates the river front by night and day and those who come and go through its portals find themselves in a succession of white and vaulted hallways and concourses that suggest a library or museum more than the mere commercial structure of a railroad corporation4 ,an interesting feature of the ,hoboken ,station is the abandonment of the high train-shed such as has come to be a distinguishing feature of some of the world's great terminals4 ,engine smoke and gases work havoc with the structural steel work of such sheds1 and the engineers of the ,hoboken ,station fashioned a low-lying roof1 slotted to receive the locomotive stacks4 ,the result is a clean train-house1 yet admirably protected from the stress of weather4 ,it is a novel note in terminal engineering4 ,the ,pennsylvania ,station1 opened in ,november1 #aiaj1 has already become one of the notable landmarks of ,new ,york4 ,beneath it disappeared the biggest hole ever excavated at one time in the metropolitan city2 for the great station is not so famed either for its architectural beauty or for the completeness of its details 7although it is in the foreguard of the world's great terminals in both of these regards71 as for the stupendous engineering project that was found necessary to connect it with the trunk-line railroads that it serves4 ,to the west1 this takes form in two parallel tunnels underneath the city1 the ,hudson ,river1 and the ,jersey ,heights2 to the east a still heavier traffic1 composed of empty trains in ,pennsylvania service and a great army of ,long ,island commuters1 is carried under the very heart of ,manhattan ,island and under the ,east ,river in four parallel tunnels4 ,trains run for six miles under the greatest city of the continent1 with its flanking rivers and environs1 without ever seeing more than a momentary flash of daylight4 ,the terminal has no train-shed or other of the familiar external appearances of the usual railroad station in a large city4 ,illustration3 ,a ,,model ,,american ,,railroad ,,station--,,the ,,union ,,station ,,of ,,the ,,new ,,york ,,central1 ,,boston ,,albany1 ,,delaware ,,hudson1 ,,and ,,west ,,shore ,,railroads ,,at ,,albany ,illustration3 ,,the ,,classic ,,portal ,,of ,,the ,,pennsylvania',s ,,new ,,station ,,in ,,new ,,york ,illustration3 ,,the ,,beautiful ,,concourse ,,of ,,the ,,new ,,pennsylvania ,,station1 ,,in ,,new ,,york ,illustration3 ,,the ,,waiting-,,room ,,is ,,the ,,monumental ,,and ,,artistic ,,expression ,,of ,,the ,,station1--,,the ,,waiting-,,room ,,of ,,the ,,union ,,depot ,,at ,,troy1 ,,new ,,york ,the ,pennsylvania terminal also departs radically from the other great terminals in its track arrangements4 ,the twenty-one parallel station tracks1 with their platforms1 are placed in a basement forty feet below street level4 ,in fact1 the great building is divided into three levels4 ,at the street level are the broad entrances1 the chief of these forming itself into a broad arcade1 lined with shops that cater particularly to the demands of the traveller4 ,on this floor are also the railroad's commodious restaurant and lunch-room4 ,on the intermediate plane1 or level1 the real business of the passenger prefatory to his journey is transacted4 ,the concourse1 the great general waiting-room1 with its subsidiary rooms for men and women1 the ticket offices1 and the telegraph offices are there gathered4 ,from the roomy concourse1 covered in steel and glass after the fashion of the famous train-sheds in ,frankfort and ,dresden1 ,germany1 individual stairs and elevators lead to each of the track platforms4 ,a sub-concourse1 hung directly underneath the main structure1 is reserved for exit purposes only1 and serves to separate the streams of incoming and outgoing passengers4 ,the north side of the station is separated and reserved for the use of the ,long ,island passengers1 chiefly commuters4 ,the theory of operation of the station is simplicity itself4 ,a ,pennsylvania through train from the ,west1 after discharging its passengers and baggage1 will not be backed out of the train-house1 but will continue on through the station1 under more tunnels and another river1 to the storage yards just outside of ,long ,island ,city4 ,similarly1 trains made ready for a long trip at the yards will proceed empty under the ,east ,river tunnels to the big station1 where they will receive their outbound load4 ,this is the theory of the station1 an operating theory which makes it in part like a giant way-station and saves much terminal congestion4 ,the ,long ,island trains and a few short-line ,pennsylvania express trains will be turned in the station4 ,these are the exception4 ,of interest fully equal to that of the new ,pennsylvania ,station1 is the construction of a new ,grand ,central ,station upon the site of and during the use of the old4 ,the ,grand ,central ,station1 used by both the ,new ,york ,central and the ,new ,york1 ,new ,haven1 ,hartford ,railroads1 has been for many years ,new ,york's great gateway to the east as well as the north and west4 ,it has developed a great suburban and a great through traffic since the construction of the first station--away back in #ahga4 ,temporary relief was gained in the early eighties by the construction of an annex to the east of the original station4 ,still further improvement was gained ten years ago by tearing out a series of ill-arranged public rooms and substituting for them the single beautiful waiting-room that has proved so great a delight to travellers4 ,now that waiting-room is about to be demolished in the face of plans for the newer and greater ,grand ,central4 ,the building of the new station has offered tremendous problems to the engineers1 for it has demanded a complete reconstruction within extremely limited area1 while not placing hindrances in the way of the constant operation of one of the world's greatest terminals4 ,coincident with the rebuilding of the new station has come the substitution of electricity for steam on the terminal lines of its two tenants1 the ,new ,york1 ,new ,haven1 ,hartford1 and the ,new ,york ,central ,hudson ,river ,railroads4 ,in order to work the three-mile tunnel through ,park ,avenue and the sole entrance for trains to the station at greatest capacity1 it was found necessary to extend the yards of the new station far north of those of the old4 ,this work1 alone1 has necessitated the acquisition of whole city blocks of tremendously valuable real estate and the excavation of several million cubic yards of rock and earth4 ,to accomplish the work of reconstruction and still enable the station to handle its great traffic without serious interruption1 serious forethought and definite plans of action were found necessary4 ,the plan was developed by constructing a temporary building of brick and plaster covering a vacant city block in ,madison ,avenue1 at the west of the station4 ,into this temporary structure a branch post office1 an important adjunct of the ,grand ,central1 was moved from the extreme eastern side of the terminal4 ,excavation for the new terminal began at its eastern edge and at that edge the first portions of the new structure have been completed4 ,a waiting-room was then established in temporary quarters1 the last vestiges of the old ,grand ,central removed1 and the main front and centre of the new station fabricated4 ,similarly1 as the excavation has progressed from the east to the west side of the terminal1 the great bulk of the traffic has been gradually shifted from the old high-level to the new low-level4 ,the new ,grand ,central complete will have its main train-shed devoted to through traffic4 ,a second train-shed of similar arrangement and of slightly smaller dimensions will be constructed underneath the main shed for suburban traffic1 and a single head-house will serve both floors4 ,the head-house will have as its chief architectural feature1 a concourse of mammoth proportions4 ,the lesser features of the new ,grand ,central will contribute to make the new terminal1 built upon the site of the historic old1 one of the world's greatest gateways4 ,the fact that steam locomotives are absolutely prohibited from entering either of the two new stations on ,manhattan ,island makes these the cleanest railroad terminals yet built4 ,so not only have our railroads begun to build great stations2 they are to-day building really beautiful stations4 ,an age in which the ,american demands the exquisite and the monumental in his architecture1 palatial homes1 palatial shops1 palatial hotels1 demands that the railroad station be something more than the mere expression of a commercial utility4 ,stone1 the sturdy and durable building material of all the ages1 has become the expression of these buildings from without4 ,within1 they are gay with rare marbles and mural paintings4 ,there is nothing too fine for the railroad passenger terminal of to-day in the ,united ,states4 ,when the master fancy of the architect1 ,richardson1 designed the splendid stations at ,worcester and ,springfield1 as well as a host of smaller attractive stations along the line of the ,boston ,albany ,railroad1 the beginnings were made4 ,more recently this rising ,american desire for beauty and good taste has shown itself in such elaborate and artistic structures as the stations at ,albany and ,scranton4 ,the last step has come in the designing of the palatial terminals in ,chicago1 in ,washington1 and in ,new ,york ,city4 ,it would take a bold prophet to anticipate what the next step might be4 ,,chapter ,,vii ,,the ,,freight ,,terminals ,,and ,,the ,,yards ,,convenience ,,of ,,having ,,freight ,,stations ,,at ,,several ,,points ,,in ,a ,,city--,,the ,,pennsylvania ,,railroad',s ,,scheme ,,at ,,new ,,york ,,as ,,an ,,example--,,coal ,,handled ,,apart ,,from ,,other ,,freight--,,assorting ,,the ,,cars--,,the ,,transfer ,,house--,,charges ,,for ,,the ,,use ,,of ,,cars ,,not ,,promptly ,,returned ,,to ,,their ,,home ,,roads--,,the ,,hard ,,work ,,of ,,the ,,yardmaster4 ,all the folk who come and go upon the railroad know the passenger stations4 ,few of them know the freight terminals4 ,yet it is from this last source that the railroad will derive the greater part of its revenue4 ,the freight terminals of a large city will be a group of plants1 designed for varying purposes4 ,the railroad handles its passenger business from a single structure1 if possible4 ,it is comparatively simple to gather all its passengers1 even from a broad territory1 within a great city1 and so to concentrate this part of its traffic in a single well-located terminal4 ,with the freight it is entirely a different question4 ,the problem of trucking is one of the great problems of each of our large cities1 and1 in order to eliminate this as far as possible1 the railroad1 under the stimulus of competition1 will establish freight stations at each point where any considerable volume of traffic is likely to originate4 ,these stations will consist of a freight-house1 for handling package-freight 7your traffic expert calls this ,,lcl1 meaning less than carload71 and wagon yards for carload lots4 ,perhaps there will be two freight-houses1 one for inbound1 the other for outbound traffic4 ,the wagon yards will have to be ample for the accommodation of a host of trucks and drays as well as for the long rows of freight-cars4 ,in addition to these stations1 each large manufacturing plant is apt to be a freight station of itself1 with a private switch running to its shipping-rooms and storage sheds2 and in even a moderate-sized ,american city there may be from #cjj to #ejj of these sidings in active daily use4 ,so much for the general commodity freight4 ,then there are the special commodities4 ,coal1 for instance1 is a freight business of itself4 ,it is not handled in the regular stations of the railroad1 but in specially designed pockets and storage sheds1 which may be located at from one or two to half a hundred different accessible points about the city4 ,one begins to see1 after a little while1 why the railroads now seize with avidity each opportunity to gain lines through the hearts of our cities4 ,each line gained means some appreciable relief toward the taking up of a traffic burden that increases yearly4 ,it is most probable that the freight terminals of the city will have to accommodate much more traffic than that which originates or terminates there4 ,important lines of other railroads may intersect at that point1 and the handling of interchange freight is a busy function of the terminal scheme4 ,it may be an important point for lake1 river1 or ocean traffic2 and in such a case1 the industries at docks and docking facilities of every sort form other busy functions4 ,there will be coal or ore wharves1 elevators1 and car-floats to enter into the scheme4 ,so you see the railroad's freight terminal in any large city is like the fingers of its extended hand4 ,the long tendons reach into every productive centre1 gathering and distributing at from a dozen to fifty points1 aside from the private sidings4 ,it is obvious that these must be caught together somewhere2 and generally upon the outskirts of an important traffic city the railroad creates an interchange yard where this freight1 incoming and outgoing--#ajj trains a day1 perhaps--is gathered together and sorted with system and regularity1 very much as the post office sorts the letters and the mail packages4 ,to examine more closely this working of a modern freight terminal scheme1 let us take a single plant of a single system4 ,the great operation by which the ,pennsylvania ,railroad catches up and delivers its freight in the metropolitan district around ,new ,york is typical1 and will illustrate4 ,the ,pennsylvania works with at least #bd freight stations1 in addition to a great number of private sidings from its lines as they pass through ,eastern ,new ,jersey4 ,these stations handle the freight of ,manhattan ,island1 ,brooklyn1 ,jersey ,city1 ,hoboken1 ,newark1 and smaller centres2 but in addition to them there are vast docks at which foreign steamers berth1 lighterage facilities for both foreign and coasting steamers1 and a tremendous freight interchange with the railroads running to the north and east4 ,the coal business is there again1 a separate institution with many piers and pockets2 there is a group of bulky elevators that rise above the smoky1 busy ,jersey shore1 the whole going to make a sizable freight terminal4 ,there are coal pockets1 piers1 elevators1 and a local freight station at ,jersey ,city 7the railroad men know it as ,harsemus ,cove71 and another much larger plant at ,greenville on the west bank of the upper harbor1 almost behind the ,statue of ,liberty4 ,this last plant is just now awaiting its greatest development4 ,the ,pennsylvania ,railroad1 through its ownership control of the ,long ,island ,railroad1 is building an encircling line1 #d and #f tracks wide1 around ,brooklyn1 and crossing its passenger terminal yards at ,long ,island ,city4 ,this encircling line--the ,new ,york ,connecting ,railroad it is called--will be continued by a splendid bridge over the ,east ,river to an actual connection with the ,new ,haven system reaching up into ,new ,england4 ,when this is done1 one of the bugaboos of the freightmen--the slow and ofttimes dangerous movement of barges and car-floats through the ,east ,river1 past the entire length of ,manhattan ,island--will be ended4 ,greenville will become the distributing point for the bulk of ,new ,england freight that comes and goes from the south and the west through ,new ,york4 ,even at the present time ,greenville is a freight point of considerable magnitude4 ,go out to ,waverley1 the great sprawling interchange yard that reaches from ,newark almost to ,elizabeth along the edge of the ,jersey meadows1 and watch the through trains come from ,greenville4 ,they rank well to-day with the traffic that comes from ,harsemus ,cove already2 and ,harsemus ,cove is soon to be as nothing4 ,waverley is more than a mere junction4 ,it was in the first instance the neck of the bottle where the double-track line from ,greenville1 the main line from ,jersey ,city and ,harsemus ,cove1 and the cut-off freight line that carries through traffic around the heart of great and growing ,newark1 united to form the main line of the busy ,pennsylvania ,railroad4 ,being a gateway by natural location the railroad sought to make it a gateway in reality4 ,a big assorting or classification yard was built there for outgoing freight1 and another for the incoming4 ,storage tracks were added and one of the great transfer houses of the country--but of that1 more in a moment4 ,the business day ends at the many freight-houses along the waterfront of ,manhattan and ,brooklyn at four o'clock in the afternoon4 ,at that hour1 the railroad refuses to accept any more freight for the day1 car-doors are closed and sealed with rapidity2 in a short time the long and clumsy floats are being hauled by pert little tugs toward ,harsemus or ,greenville4 ,there is not much loafing at either of those points along about supper-time4 ,switching crews show feverish activity in snatching the cars from the floats1 and yardmasters bend themselves nervously toward forming the long trains that are to go rumbling toward the west throughout the night4 ,stand in the switch-tower at ,waverley1 and you will begin to cultivate a wholesome respect for the freight traffic that comes out from a great city at nightfall4 ,a through train from ,greenville is billed to ,pittsburgh1 and only hesitates long enough at ,waverley to take the switch-points at that busy junction with care4 ,three minutes behind it is a through ,chicago train from ,harsemus ,cove1 and it goes stolidly through the gateway yard without pausing4 ,you wonder why they keep an expert yardmaster and half a dozen switching crews at ,waverley4 ,within five minutes you wonder no longer4 ,they are beginning to get the unassorted cars from the terminals1 cars that are bound for more than a score of ,states4 ,the work of sorting begins4 ,the night yardmaster is a general1 and he has an army of lesser officers in the field4 ,you can trace them through the night1 as1 lanterns in hand1 they are running along the trains 7these are pulling in from the waterfront every five minutes now71 cutting out cars1 adding cars1 vamping and revamping the freight traffic of the night4 ,this track receives through freight for ,philadelphia1 the next for ,pittsburgh1 the third for ,cincinnati1 the fourth for ,washington and the points diverging therefrom4 ,so it goes4 ,when the assorting process has been in progress for more than an hour at one end of the classification tracks1 there are long trains of cars upon them ready to run solid to some large city or important distributing point4 ,after that it is a simple enough matter to bring engines and cabooses and start the trains through4 ,then the sorting of the cars is begun again and continues until the freight receiving points and the freight interchange points in the metropolitan district have been swept clean for the night4 ,the transfer-house repeats the assorting process1 only upon a smaller scale1 for it handles package freight--less than carload4 ,it is a long structure1 stretching its way down the yard and served by #h to #aj long sidings and unloading sheds4 ,it takes the ,,lcl stuff coming by night from the connecting railroads and from the metropolitan freight-houses1 and a little after midnight its workers begin the sorting of this great mass of matter1 from #bjj to #ejj carloads a day4 ,here is a really great phase of railroad energy4 ,we find our way to a gaunt freight-house1 to whose door no truck has ever backed1 and which is hemmed in by many rows of sidings and of sheds4 ,in this building one of the busiest functions of the whole transportation business goes forth by day and by night4 ,you ship a box--sixty pounds to one hundred pounds--from ,wilkes-,barre1 ,pa41 to ,berlin1 ,wis4 ,here comes another box from ,watertown1 ,n4 ,y41 to ,norfolk1 ,va4 ,a third is bound from ,easthampton1 ,mass41 to ,chillicothe1 ,o42 a fourth from ,terre ,haute1 ,ind41 to ,plainfield1 ,n4 ,j41 and so on1 ad infinitum4 ,you can readily see how in such cases the railroads have a problem in freight that closely approximates that of the ,government mail service4 ,ten thousand currents and cross-currents of merchandise rising here and there and everywhere1 and crossing and recrossing on their way to destination1 make a puzzle that does not cease when the rate-sheet experts have finished their difficult work4 ,if all the freight might be expressed in even multiples of cars the problem would not be quite so appalling4 ,but your box is a hundred pounds weight1 or less1 perhaps--,,lcl anyway4 ,from its destination it goes with other boxes in a car to the nearest transfer point4 ,at the transfer house the car in which it is placed is drilled quickly into an infreight track1 seals are broken1 doors opened1 and re-assorting begins4 ,the transfer-house is roomy and systematic4 ,if it were anything less it would resemble chaos4 ,but the chief freight points of that particular system and its connecting points have regular stands1 upon which nightly are placed cars bound for these points4 ,each city 7in the case of a large city each freight-house71 each transfer point1 has a number1 and its through car stands opposite that number4 ,when the infreight arrives and is unloaded piece by piece1 a checker1 who is nothing less than an animated guide-book1 gives each its proper number1 and it is promptly trucked off to the waiting car4 ,it is mail-sorting on a ,titanic scale4 ,nor is this an absolute order4 ,certain towns demand an occasional through car from time to time1 and a car must be assigned number and place at the transfer-house against such emergencies4 ,sometimes there is more than enough freight to fill the car allotted to any given point1 and then one of the switching crews must drill that out and find another empty to replace it4 ,beyond that1 the yardmaster's superiors are all the time demanding that he show judgment in picking the cars to be filled4 ,when a freight car gets off the system to which it belongs it collects forfeits from the other lines over which it passes1 if they do not expedite its passage2 this the railroaders know as per diem4 ,the great trick in operating is to keep per diem down2 and so the foreign cars1 so called1 must be promptly returned to their home roads4 ,we load out of the transfer-house a through car over the ,northwestern from ,chicago every day1 the man who has this yard in charge explains4 ,it's up to me to have a ,northwestern empty for that when ,i can4 ,when ,i can't1 ,i do the best ,i can4 ,he scratches his head4 ,perhaps ,i'll use a ,canadian ,pacific1 and so get her started along toward home4 ,if not1 something from the ,sault2 just as ,i am going to start that ,new ,haven car over toward ,connecticut to-night4 ,if ,i were to send that ,new ,haven car out beyond ,washington there'd be trouble1 and ,i've got to dig out something empty from the ,boston ,maine to take that stuff over to ,lowell4 ,mos' generally1 though1 when we've got a turn of ,western stuff1 ,i've got my 'empty' tracks stuffed full o' them ,new ,england cars4 ,we mention something about the transfer-house being a mighty good thing4 ,it's a necessary evil1 says our guide1 correcting us4 ,he starts to explain4 ,see here4 ,the ,x----1 over in its ,jersey ,city transfer-house1 got near a carload of that fancy porcelain brick through from ,haverstraw las' week1 and that young whelp of a college boy that's hangin' round there learnin' the railroad business gets it into his noodle that it's somethin' awful1 awful for that stuff to be goin' through to ,middle ,ohio in a ,maine ,central box1 an ',,lcl' at that4 ,so out he dumps it into a system car right here an' now1 and saves his road about one dollar and fifty cents per diem4 ,of course they pay about one hundred and thirty-five dollars for damages to that brick in the transferrin'4 ,but the boy's all right in the transfer-house4 ,if he was out on the engine he might blow up the biler4 99 99 99 99 99 ,here is another great railroad yard--this almost filling a mighty crevice between ,god's eternal hills4 ,this is within the mountain country1 and the gossip that you get around the roundhouse is all of grades4 ,you hear how ,smith and the #b1iii pulled seven ,pullmans around the ,saddleback without a pusher2 how some of the big preference freights take four engines to mount the summit2 the tales of daring are tales of pushers and of trains breaking apart on the fearful mountain stretches4 ,randall is yardmaster here1 and ,randall is the opposite of the layman's picture of a yardmaster--a slovenly1 worn1 profane sort of fellow4 ,randall does not swear2 he rarely even gets excited2 his system of administration is so perfectly devised that even in a stress he rarely has to turn to work with his own hands4 ,with him railroading is a fine1 practical science4 ,he will tell you of the methods at ,collinwood1 at ,altoona1 at ,buffalo1 at ,chicago--wherein they differ4 ,he is cool1 calculating1 clever1 a capital railroader in addition to all these4 ,illustration3 ,,something ,,over ,a ,,million ,,dollars' ,,worth ,,of ,,passenger ,,cars ,,are ,,constantly ,,stored ,,in ,,this ,,yard ,illustration3 ,a ,,scene ,,in ,,the ,,great ,,freight-,,yards ,,that ,,surround ,,chicago ,illustration3 ,,the ,,intricacy ,,of ,,tracks ,,and ,,the ,,throat ,,of ,a ,,modern ,,terminal ,,yard3 ,,south ,,station1 ,,boston1 ,,and ,,its ,,approaches ,you speak of his yard as being overwhelmingly big4 ,he answers in his deliberate way3 ,we've more than #bjj miles of track in this yard2 something more than #b1jjj switches operate it4 ,then he takes you down from his office1 elevated in an abandoned switch-tower1 and looking down upon his domain4 ,he explains with great care that1 his yard being a main-line division point and not a point with many intersecting branches or foreign roads1 its transfer-house is inconsequential4 ,the same process that goes forward with the package-freight in the transfer-houses1 ,randall carries on in this yard with cars4 ,these operations are separated for east-bound and west-bound freight and each is given an entirely separate yard1 easily reached from the group of roundhouses that hold the freight motive power of that part of the system4 ,randall's1 being an unusually large yard1 further divides these activities into separate yards for loaded and empty cars on the west-bound side4 ,no east-bound empties are handled over his road4 ,we follow him to the nearest operating point1 the west-bound classification yard for loaded cars4 ,in the old days this was a broad flat reach of about #bj parallel tracks1 terminating at each end in approaches of lead of ladder track4 ,upon each set of #c or #d tracks a switch-engine is busy in the eternal classification process4 ,in these more modern days you may see the hump or gravity-yard1 although you will still find skilled railroaders who are prejudiced against its use4 ,in the hump-yard half of the work of the switch-engines is done by gravity4 ,this new type of railroad facility has an artificial hill1 just above the termination of the parallel tracks where they cluster together1 and upon this hump one switch-engine with a trained crew does the work of six engines and crews in the old type of yard4 ,a preference freight rolls into the receiving yard for the west-bound classification4 ,its engine uncouples and steams off for a well-earned rest in the smoky roundhouse4 ,a switch-engine uncouples the caboose that has been tacked on behind over the division1 and it is shunted off to the near-by caboose track1 where its crew will have close oversight of it--perhaps sleep in it--until it is ready to accompany some east-bound freight a few hours hence4 ,blue flags 7blue lights at night7 are fastened at each end of the dismantled cars1 and the inspectors have a quarter of an hour to make sure if the equipment is in good order4 ,if the car is found with broken running-gear it is marked1 and soon after drilled out from its fellows1 sent to the transfer-house to have its contents removed1 to the shops for repairs1 or the cripple track for junk1 if its case is well-nigh hopeless4 ,with the ,o4 ,k4 of the car inspectors finally pronounced1 the train that was comes up to the hump1 and the expert crew that operates there makes short work of sorting out the cars--this track for stuff southwest of ,pittsburgh1 this next for ,cleveland and ,chicago1 the third for transcontinental2 and so it goes4 ,two lines of cars are drilled at the same time1 for just ahead of the switch-engine is an open-platform car1 known as the pole-car1 and by means of heavy timbers the pole-man guides two rows of heavy cars down the slight grades to their resting-places4 ,the cars do not rest long upon the classification-yard tracks4 ,from the far end of each of these they are being gathered in solid trains1 one for ,pittsburgh1 another for ,cleveland and ,chicago1 the third transcontinental1 and so on4 ,engines of the next division are being hitched to them1 pet hacks brought from the caboose tracks1 and the long strings of loaded box-cars are off toward the ,west in incredibly short time4 ,of course there are some trains that never go upon the classification at ,randall's yard4 ,there are solid coal trains bound in and out of ,new ,york1 of ,philadelphia1 and of ,boston1 that pass him empty and filled1 and only change engines and cabooses at his command4 ,there are through freights1 bound from one seaboard to the other1 from the ,far ,east to the ,far ,west1 that do likewise4 ,but the majority of the freight movement has the sorting out within his domain1 his four humps are busy day and night with an ordinary run of traffic1 and you shudder to think what must be the condition when business begins to run at high tide4 ,we get it a-humming every once in a while1 he finally confesses4 ,we had one day1 a little time ago1 when we received #aba east-bound trains in twenty-four hours1 more than #c1bjj cars all told4 ,that meant1 on an average1 a train every #aa-a_/b minutes4 ,that same day we got #gh west-bound freights1 with more than #c1fjj cars4 ,that meant nearly #g1jjj cars handled on the in-freight in twenty-four hours1 or a train coming in to me every #g-a_/b minutes during day and night4 ,they don't do much better than that on some of the subway and elevated railroads in the big cities2 and ,i haven't said a word about the trains and cars we despatched--just about as much again1 of course4 ,through yards such as these there are incoming streams of merchandise1 equal at least to the outgoing1 passing through classification yards in carload lots and the great transfer-houses in ,,lcl4 ,these streams must be kept separate and from clogging one another or themselves4 ,cars must carry loads whenever they are moved--empties are the bogy-men of the superintendents of transportation--and cars from foreign systems must be quickly returned to their home roads4 ,the yardmaster at a busy freight point has his own worries4 ,his puzzle is unending4 ,to it he must bend the bigness of a big mind1 he must be prepared to handle the unequal volumes of traffic that pass through his domain with an equal skill3 in dull times he must seek to keep his plant working under conditions of rare economy2 when the freight rises to flood tide1 he must fight in harness to prevent the freight from congesting4 ,the word failure has been stricken out of his vocabulary by his superiors4 ,it takes a high grade of railroader to serve as yardmaster4 ,,chapter ,,viii ,,the ,,locomotives ,,and ,,the ,,cars ,,honor ,,required ,,in ,,the ,,building ,,of ,a ,,locomotive--,,some ,,of ,,the ,,early ,,locomotives--,,some ,,notable ,,locomotive-,,builders--,,increase ,,of ,,the ,,size ,,of ,,engines--,,stephenson',s ,,air-,,brake--,,the ,,workshops--,,the ,,various ,,parts ,,of ,,the ,,engine--,,cars ,,of ,,the ,,old-,,time--,,improvements ,,by ,,winans ,,and ,,others--,,steel ,,cars ,,for ,,freight4 ,from out of the fiery womb of steel comes the locomotive4 ,we have already told of the honor that is forged in the building of the bridge2 honor of no less degree has gone into the forging of the most vital and most human thing upon the railroad1 outside of man himself4 ,that man has ever been able to create and build the locomotive1 a giant creature of some #bjj tons1 perhaps1 built together with infinite care of some #e1jjj to #g1jjj parts1 and these parts acting with the delicacy of the hair-spring of a watch1 almost passes ordinary belief4 ,the wonder becomes even greater when it is realized that this monster creature1 set upon two slender rails1 is capable of pulling a #d1jjj ton train1 through every stress of weather and over considerable grades4 ,to tell in detail of the locomotive in one chapter is short allowance to a subject that fairly demands for itself a whole book1 a technical mind for the telling1 and at least a fairly technical mind for the understanding2 a subject that in its history goes hand in hand with that of the railroad itself4 ,yet the limitations of this book forbid a more lengthy description4 ,we have already told of a very few of the earliest and most famous ,american locomotives2 the ,stourbridge ,lion1 which ,horatio ,allen brought to the ,delaware ,hudson ,company2 the ,best ,friend1 which was built in ,new ,york ,city1 and which went to ,charleston1 ,south ,carolina1 to be the first ,american locomotive to run in the ,united ,states1 the ,de ,witt ,clinton1 which awoke the echoes of the ,hudson and ,mohawk valleys in a single day2 and the ,tom ,thumb1 built by ,peter ,cooper1 which induced the directors of the ,baltimore ,ohio ,railroad to change their motive power from horses to steam1 and so opened a great new development for their property4 ,a little while after ,cooper's ,tom ,thumb had achieved the astounding feat of beating a team of horses in hauling a railroad coach1 the directors of the ,b4 ,o4 offered a prize of #d1jjj for the most approved engine that shall be delivered for trial upon the road on or before ,june #a1 #ahca2 and #c1ejj for the engine which shall be adjudged the next best4 ,it was determined in this prospectus that the engine1 when in operation must not exceed three and one-half tons weight and must1 on a level road1 be capable of drawing day by day fifteen tons1 inclusive of the weight of wagons1 fifteen miles an hour4 ,three locomotives answered this generous offer4 ,of them but one1 the ,york1 oftener called the ,arabian1 built at ,york1 ,pa41 by ,davis ,gartner1 and hauled to ,baltimore by horses over the turnpikes1 was of practical service4 ,phineas ,davis was a watch and clock maker1 but he succeeded in devising a locomotive that was the forerunner of the famous ,grasshopper upon the ,baltimore ,ohio4 ,better name was never given to a locomotive1 the rude and ungainly angles formed by rods and levers giving a distinct resemblance to the long-legged bugs4 ,yet the ,grasshoppers served their purpose4 ,in the late eighties1 the ,arabian was still in service in the ,mount ,clare yards at ,baltimore4 ,with a single exception1 it never had an accident or even left the rails4 ,that exception was just before the completion of the ,washington branch1 and ,davis was a passenger upon the engine4 ,it was going at a fair rate of speed when suddenly it rolled over upon its side in the ditch4 ,no one was hurt1 save ,davis1 who was instantly killed4 ,it seemed a strange caprice of ,fate1 for although careful examination was immediately made1 both of the engine and of the track1 no reason could ever be assigned for the accident4 ,in that same year1 #ahca1 the ,john ,bull1 which was built by ,george ,robert ,stephenson ,company1 of ,newcastle-on-,tyne1 in ,england1 was received in ,philadelphia for the ,camden ,amboy ,railroad4 ,as long as the locomotive continues to serve the railroad the name of ,george ,stephenson1 its inventor1 must be indissolubly linked with it4 ,the ,john ,bull was easily the most famous ,stephenson engine ever sent to the ,united ,states4 ,it has been shown at all our great expositions1 and now occupies a position of honor in the great ,smithsonian institution at ,washington4 ,of these early engines1 which it was found necessary to bring from ,england1 a volume once issued by the ,rogers ,locomotive ,works1 of ,paterson1 ,n4 ,j41 has said3 ,these locomotives 444 furnished the types and patterns from which those which were afterwards built here were fashioned4 ,but ,american designs soon began to depart from their ,british prototypes1 and a process of adaption to the existing conditions of the railroads in this country followed1 which afterwards differentiated the ,american locomotives more and more from those built in ,great ,britain4 ,a marked feature of difference between ,american and ,english locomotives has been the use of a forward truck under the former4 ,as a matter of fact1 the ,english engines1 built for use on long straight stretches of line would never have served on the early roads in this country with their steep and curving routes through the mountains4 ,so1 in the latter part of the year #ahca1 ,john ,b4 ,jervis invented what he called a new plan of frame1 with a bearing-carriage for a locomotive engine for the use of the ,mohawk ,hudson ,railroad1 in which he introduced the forward truck which is to-day a distinctive feature of ,american engines4 ,its effectiveness was at once recognized1 and its almost general adoption immediately followed4 ,five years later1 ,henry ,r4 ,campbell1 of ,philadelphia1 had patented his system of two driving-wheels and a truck1 and the distinctive type of ,american locomotive was born4 ,in the development of that peculiarly successful type1 great names have been written into the history of ,american locomotive-building--the names of such men as ,rogers and ,winans and ,hinckley and ,mason and ,brooks and ,matthias ,baldwin and ,william ,norris2 the last two both of ,philadelphia4 ,norris1 after some interesting smaller engines1 built the ,george ,washington in #ahce4 ,this engine was not one whit less than a triumph4 ,it ascended the steep plane of the ,columbia ,railroad in ,philadelphia1 a grade of #g-a_/b per cent1 carrying two passenger cars in which were seated #ec persons4 ,it came to a stop on that grade and started up again by its own efforts4 ,after reaching the summit1 the engine was turned around and came down1 stopping once in its descent4 ,that was the only time that a locomotive ever essayed the ,columbia plane1 and the performance of the ,george ,washington has not been attempted in all these years save in the case of ,latrobe's temporary line at ,kingwood ,tunnel4 ,the ,english newspapers of that day ridiculed the experiment1 pronounced it a ,baron ,munchausen story1 yet in #ahci ,norris sent an engine overseas that successfully climbed the then famous ,lickey plane1 in ,england4 ,after that he was besieged by foreign orders1 sending #af ,american locomotives to ,great ,britain in #ahdj1 and1 during the next few years1 #agj others to ,france1 ,germany1 ,prussia1 ,austria1 ,belgium1 ,italy1 and ,saxony4 ,william ,norris did his full part in giving ,europe a measure of respect for the growing nation across the ,atlantic4 ,matthias ,baldwin1 like ,phineas ,davis1 of ,york1 was a watch maker in the beginning of his life4 ,he lived long enough to lay the foundation of one of the greatest of ,american single industries1 to give his name to a firm that has carried the fame of ,american locomotives around the world and kept it alive in every nation of the earth4 ,baldwin's first locomotive was built in #ahcb for the ,philadelphia1 ,germantown1 and ,norristown ,railroad2 and that it was a good locomotive is proved by the fact that it performed twenty years of faithful service upon that line4 ,his second engine1 built two years later1 went south to that famous old ,charleston ,hamburg ,company4 ,after that his works were regularly established1 their head to give his patience and untiring genius to the perfecting of the locomotive4 ,the history of ,baldwin locomotives is1 in an important sense1 the history of the industry in the ,united ,states4 ,it was not long before the pioneer engines were considered too small for much practical value1 and ,mr4 ,baldwin was building a much bigger locomotive for the ,vermont ,central ,railroad4 ,this engine1 named the ,governor ,paine for a famous executive of that ,state1 was delivered in #ahdh1 and for it was paid the unprecedented price of #aj1jjj4 ,it had a pair of driving-wheels1 six and one-half feet in diameter placed just back of the fire-box1 a slightly smaller pair being placed forward4 ,baldwin must have given full value1 for it is related that the engine could be started from a state of rest and run a mile in forty-three seconds4 ,the ,pennsylvania ,railroad ordered three of the same sort1 and one of these once hauled a special train carrying ,president ,zachary ,taylor at sixty miles an hour4 ,in weight1 the locomotive was steadily increasing4 ,in the beginning1 these engines weighed from four to seven tons each2 by the late forties engines of twenty-five tons each were being built for the ,reading ,road1 and these were regarded as monsters4 ,year by year the locomotive was being perfected in all its details4 ,the cab made its appearance and was first opposed by the engineers1 who imagined that they would be badly penned in1 in case of accident4 ,the ,erie contributed the bell-rope signal from the train2 we have already heard of that first whistle on the locomotive of the ,sandusky and ,mad ,river ,railroad4 ,the ,boston ,worcester devised the headlight1 so that time might be saved by handling freight at night4 ,more important than these were the experiments by ,ross ,winans and by ,s4 ,m4 ,felton that led to the substitution of coal for wood as a fuel1 and the development by ,rogers at his ,paterson works of the link device1 so necessary in stopping1 starting1 and reversing the locomotive4 ,gradually the size of the locomotive increased to #bh and #cj tons in the late fifties4 ,finally ,james ,milholland1 engineer of machinery for the ,philadelphia ,reading ,railroad1 built in #ahfc a pusher engine for coal trains that weighed something over #ej tons4 ,when folk saw that engine they almost gasped1 and wondered what the railroads were coming to4 ,but the wiser men kept silent4 ,they knew that as long as bridges and roadbeds and fine steel rails were increased in strength1 the limit of size of the locomotive had not been reached4 ,the greater grip the locomotive has upon the rail1 the greater its pulling power1 the greater its efficiency4 ,sheer weight1 and weight alone1 gives that grip4 ,it certainly takes a weight of seven tons to give a grip of one ton upon a dry rail2 in the case of wet rails this ratio becomes ten to one4 ,then wonder not that the locomotive steadily increased in size1 that the ,moguls with six driving-wheels1 and the ,consolidations with eight1 came into vogue a few years after the close of the war1 and that these kept increasing in weight all the while4 ,height and width were and still are rigidly limited by the clearance of the line4 ,the locomotive must stand no more than fourteen or sixteen feet high and from nine to eleven feet wide2 in length the problem only meets the genius of the designer4 ,but it is altogether possible that the limit of the size of the locomotive would have been reached long ago if it had not been for the coming of the air-brake4 ,this most important assurance of the safety of the railroad passenger came into its being in #ahfi1 when ,george ,westinghouse1 its inventor1 was permitted to try it on a ,panhandle train4 ,from the beginning of railroads the necessity for brakes was apparent1 and in #ahcc ,robert ,stephenson patented a steam brake for the driving-wheels4 ,that same brake1 with compressed air substituted for steam1 is essentially the ,westinghouse device of to-day4 ,but ,westinghouse made the air do the work of steam4 ,after he had developed the idea he offered it to leading ,eastern railroads1 but they one and all declined it4 ,finally1 he was permitted to place it on a ,panhandle train1 full assurance having been given to the railroad officials that he would be personally responsible for any injury done to their equipment4 ,four cars and an engine were fitted with the new device and the train started forth from ,pittsburgh to ,steubenville4 ,on the way its progress was halted by a farm wagon which was caught in the rail at a highway crossing4 ,the engineer whistled for the handbrakes in the good old-fashioned way but he knew that he was too late4 ,then he thought of the air-brake4 ,he had little faith in the contraption1 but he gave its handle a wrench and the train stopped ten feet from the wagon4 ,several lives were saved and the air-brake was proven4 ,from that day forth it was simply a question of developing the device to its fullest possibility1 and ,mr4 ,westinghouse has proved himself able to do that very thing4 ,the air-brake was a fact4 ,steel had come into use for axles1 driving-wheel tires1 frames1 and every other vital or bearing part of the locomotive2 and the designers were again increasing its size4 ,they passed the ,consolidation and built the ,mastodon4 ,these were freighters--each with ten drivers--drivers with tremendous gripping force4 ,they went through what ,m4 ,n4 ,forney has called a period of adolescence in railroad progress1 and in that period they experimented with huge driving-wheels only to discard them once again4 ,then they built bigger engines than even the ,mastodon2 the ,decapod1 with twelve driving-wheels2 the ,el ,gobernador which was built by the ,southern ,pacific at its ,sacramento shops in #ahhd1 weighing1 with engine and tender fully equipped1 #aac tons4 ,still the locomotive grows and its progenitors talk of the #ejj-ton machine4 ,they have recently built the ,mallet articulated compound1 which because of its very great weight has splendid gripping force and is especially adapted for pushing-service on heavy grades4 ,the ,baltimore ,ohio1 the ,erie1 the ,new ,york ,central1 the ,great ,northern1 and the ,santa ,fe have already become committed to this type of engine4 ,the ,american locomotive ,company has just completed for the ,delaware ,hudson several ,mallet articulated compounds that are among the most powerful locomotives yet constructed4 ,they were designed for pusher service1 on heavy grades1 north from ,carbondale on the main line of the ,d4 ,h41 which average from 4#ha to #a4cf per cent4 ,up to recently the heavy northbound coal traffic up these grades has been handled by the use of two heavy pusher engines4 ,a single one of the new ,mallets will do the work of the two pushers1 and therein lies the economy in their use4 ,these new giants are1 in operation1 two #h-wheel engines1 with individual cylinders1 steam chests and supplies from a single boiler and fire-box4 ,the gripping power of #af driving-wheels under the enormous weight of #bbc tons can be imagined2 the designers estimate it at the high figure of forty-three tons4 ,the exceptional length of these monster engines--a fraction over ninety feet--is carried around the curves of mountainous lines by an ingenious joint in their solid steel frames4 ,this then is only the latest of ,american engines2 but not quite the biggest1 for the ,topeka shops of the ,santa ,fe ,railroad claim that honor with their new ,mallets1 each #aba feet long and weighing complete #haj1jjj pounds4 ,the #ejj-ton locomotive does not seem so very far away when one comes to consider the ,santa ,fe giants4 ,these engines1 which are operated in pushing freights over the heavy grades in the ,southwest1 were built from two of the ,santa ,fe's heaviest freight engines4 ,they operate with equal facility in either direction as there is not a turntable in the land which would come anywhere near accommodating them4 ,illustration3 ,,one ,,of ,,the ,,diamond-,,stack ,,locomotives ,,used ,,on ,,the ,,pennsylvania ,,railroad ,,in ,,the ,,early ,,seventies ,,prairie ,,type ,,passenger ,,locomotive ,,of ,,the ,,lake ,,shore ,,pacific ,,type ,,passenger ,,locomotive ,,of ,,the ,,new ,,york ,,central ,,atlantic ,,type ,,passenger ,,locomotive1 ,,built ,,by ,,the ,,pennsylvania ,,railroad ,,at ,,its ,,altoona ,,shops ,illustration3 ,,one ,,of ,,the ,,great ,,mallet ,,pushing ,,engines ,,of ,,the ,,delaware ,,hudson ,,company ,a ,,ten-,,wheeled ,,switching ,,locomotive ,,of ,,the ,,lake ,,shore ,,suburban ,,passenger ,,locomotive ,,of ,,the ,,new ,,york ,,central ,,consolidation ,,freight ,,locomotive ,,of ,,the ,,pennsylvania ,in recent years1 the rather graceful custom of giving names to the classification of locomotives has been extended to the passenger motive-power4 ,in #ahie1 the ,baldwins created the ,atlantic type of four-driver locomotive for high-speed service both on the ,atlantic ,coast ,line and on the ,atlantic ,city ,railroad1 from ,camden to the ocean--and the name has stuck4 ,the ,brooks plant of the ,american ,locomotive ,company at ,dunkirk similarly developed the ,pacific type for passenger locomotives with six drivers instead of four4 ,the ,prairie type was appropriately enough sponsored by the ,burlington system4 ,it is like the ,pacific type save that the forward or lead truck 7the ,englishman would blandly call it the bogey7 has but two instead of the conventional four wheels4 ,your locomotive-builder is apt to be more systematic about these types of engine1 and he falls back on what is generally known as ,whyte's classification4 ,the basis of this simple system is in the number of wheels of the engine itself4 ,each type is described by a series of three numbers1 the first of these being the number of wheels in front of the drivers1 the second the number of drivers1 and the third the number of wheels to the rear of these4 ,the eight-wheel ,american type1 the simplest for illustration here1 would thus be described as #d-d-j4 ,the trailer1 which is described by the third number in this series1 is a recent addition to the locomotive family in this country4 ,it came from the constant lengthening of the fire-box1 due to the necessity of providing greater steam-power for engines of increasing weight and cylinder capacity4 ,when the fire-box began to overhang too far1 the trailer-wheels were introduced1 and a device was affixed to the locomotive by which they might receive its weight for hill-climbing purposes4 ,this last device has not proved particularly successful4 ,but the trailer itself has become a fixed device in locomotive construction4 ,when the third figure in ,whyte's classification is a cypher it simply means that there are no trailers4 ,similarly the first figure a cypher1 indicates the absence of a forward truck or even wheels1 which is common in some forms of switch-engines1 where the weight is entirely concentrated on the drivers for better gripping power upon the rail4 ,such1 in brief1 is the development of the locomotive4 ,it has been development rather than change1 for while some designers have fretted about whether the engine's cab should be in the middle of the boiler or at its end and others have recently developed the ,walsheart gears upon the outside of the engine frame1 where it is of easier access than the old-style links1 the general design of the iron-horse remains practically the same as that given it by our grand-daddies4 ,they planned carefully and they planned for the long years4 ,the essential features of their designs have not been questioned4 ,it has simply been a problem of growth4 99 99 99 99 99 ,from out of the fiery womb of steel comes the locomotive4 ,if you would better understand the iron horse1 find your way to any of the great plants in which he is being built4 ,begin at the beginning in a factory1 which seems1 with dozens of shops and great yards1 to be almost a miniature city4 ,begin at the draughting-rooms where each locomotive is given a whole ledger page--sometimes two or three--for specifications4 ,from those specifications1 the young draughtsmen take their instructions4 ,they work out their charts and elevations1 their detailed plans2 and the ink is hardly dry upon their drawings before they are being whisked away to the blueprint rooms4 ,the blueprints are still damp1 when in turn they are hurried to the different construction shops of the plant4 ,you see these shops1 one by one1 in care of an expert guide4 ,you see the wooden patterns going to the blast furnaces at the foundries and to the sullen tappings of the trip-hammers4 ,you leave the blacksmiths and stand for a moment--not long--under the terrific din of the boiler-makers4 ,the boiler1 the great trunk of the locomotive1 is built of steel plate--plate that is the very pride of the rolling-mills4 ,in some foreign lands1 copper fire-boxes are demanded2 but the real ,american locomotive has these also of steel4 ,the steel plates are rolled to form the boiler itself1 flanged by angle-workers into the square fire-box4 ,finally the boiler and the fire-box are riveted together1 section by section--made as fast by steel thread as man's ingenuity can make them4 ,together they form a unit4 ,another unit is being formed in an adjacent shop1 the solidly welded steel frame in which the boiler shall yet set1 and to which truck and drivers will be firmly fastened4 ,forward on this frame will sit the cylinders2 in another corner of this shop they are being made ready4 ,cast-iron still remains the best material for the cylinders and the steam-chests4 ,these are cast in one piece and the rule holds good where there are two cylinders1 as in the case of the compounds4 ,the cylinders1 and steam-chest for one side and half the saddle of the locomotive1 upon which the forward end of the boiler rests1 are nowadays generally made in a single casting4 ,after that it is a simple enough matter to smooth down the outer surface1 bore the cylinders to perfect surfacing1 and line the steam-chests with a bushing that can be readily removed once it is worn out4 ,the driving-wheels are an important detail of the construction of the locomotive4 ,they are made in rough castings--of steel for fast passenger engines1 and of iron for other forms of motive power--and are then made true in giant lathes4 ,the steel tires are shrunk on the wheels1 a work of astounding nicety2 and in turn the wheels themselves are heated and shrunk upon the axles--of the best steel that man can forge4 ,to place these wheels upon the axles is hair-line work4 ,a #i-;inch hub receives an axle just #h4igc inches--no more1 no less--in diameter4 ,it is keyed and then under the slight expansion of a gentle heat it is rammed upon the axle-end4 ,it goes on to stay1 and stay it must4 ,from all these shops1 a busy industrial railroad brings the different parts to the great and busy hall of the erecting-shop1 a vast place of vast distances and filled always with the noisy clatter of great industry4 ,here the different parts1 which have been carefully built by skilled artisans1 are assembled into the finished whole4 ,the cylinders and saddle-halves are placed and firmly riveted together4 ,into the collar of that saddle a giant overhead crane carefully sets the boiler and the fire-box4 ,they are quickly riveted to the upper flange of the saddle3 the locomotive is coming into a semblance of itself4 ,the cab is fastened into position2 then the boiler-makers descend upon the unfinished engine and place the #bjj or more flue-tubes that run from fire-box to smoke-box1 just underneath the stack4 ,they make every tube and joint fast--put into the growing locomotive all the energy and all the skill of good workmanship4 ,when they are gone the giant crane again comes noiselessly down along the ceiling4 ,it reaches down1 grasps the engine-trunk1 and swings it high aloft4 ,down there1 resting on real railroad tracks1 are the driving-wheels and the lead truck1 carefully spaced in anticipation4 ,the crane1 lifting the fifty tons of boiler and frame with no apparent effort whatsoever1 places its load squarely upon the wheels that are to carry it4 ,again the mechanics are busy2 the engine is growing into a solid unit4 ,upon their heels follow testers1 men who must look for steam or water leaks4 ,they work under a test of air1 carrying lighted candles into every nook and cranny of the giant4 ,if the candle flutters1 air is escaping1 and the leak must be found4 ,finally comes the report ,o4 ,k4 from the testing crew4 ,the stacks1 the steam and sand domes1 and the air-brakes are being made fast4 ,the engine is hurried off to the paint-shop4 ,there it may find its companion in life1 the humble useful tender already awaiting it4 ,it came direct from the tender shop2 for the appendage of the locomotive is no longer a specially rigged flat-car but a solid steel plate construction built to carry some #i1jjj gallons of water and about #af tons of coal4 ,only a little time ago1 a ,new ,yorker1 scion of a wealthy and famous family of railroaders1 proved himself worth his oats by designing a tender of great practicability and of great economy of construction4 ,when the engine emerges from the paint-shop it is gorgeous and refulgent--brilliantly new4 ,unless it is going to foreign lands1 when it must be partly dismantled and crated1 it will ride its own wheels to the road which has purchased it4 ,a string of new locomotives may be sprinkled through a freight train--never coupled together--in charge of an inspector from the locomotive company1 who will bunk in one of the cabs and never leave his charges until they have been receipted for4 ,after that the locomotive begins to bend to the work for which he was created4 ,unless he is of a very unusual sort or was built for some very especial purpose1 he soon loses his identity4 ,the days are gone when locomotives were christened after the fashion of ships4 ,there are too many of them4 ,each is given the cold informality of a number1 marshalled for service in a mighty company4 ,cars came as corollary to the locomotive4 ,in the beginning the passenger coaches were nothing more or less than old-time stage-coaches which had been set upon wheels so flanged as to enable them to stay upon the rail4 ,so it was that the first cars built for the railroad followed stage-coach models4 ,it was a practical necessity from the first to draw more than one small coach at a time1 so the couplings and the bumper devices came as a matter of development4 ,then came the day when an aspiring inventor grouped several stage-coaches together on a single rigid frame and he had really developed a form of railroad coach--a form which our ,english and continental cousins still cling fondly to1 in despite of its most apparent disadvantages4 ,four wheels quickly gave way to eight4 ,in the early thirties1 ,ross ,winans developed a double-truck car for use on the ,baltimore ,ohio4 ,compared with anything that had gone before it was certainly a pretentious vehicle4 ,it was thirty feet in length1 four-wheel trucks being attached at the ends1 very much after the present fashion4 ,there were seats on the flat roof1 which were reached by a ladder in the corner1 and the car itself was divided into three compartments4 ,a little later ,winans tore out the cross partitions in the car and introduced the end doors and the centre aisle1 thus establishing the ,american passenger coach of to-day4 ,the ,baltimore ,ohio manufactured a number of these coaches at its famous ,mount ,clare shops4 ,they were known for years as the ,washington cars1 probably because they were the first run on the ,washington branch4 ,if ,winans had been able to establish his patent rights to the double-truck car he might have reaped a fortune from its royalties alone4 ,but when he went to assert his right as an inventor1 it was discovered that the idea was not absolutely new4 ,gridley ,bryant1 in his old ,quincy ,granite ,railroad1 just south of ,boston1 had used the device in crude form4 ,the four-wheeled flat cars which he had employed in bringing stone from the quarries down to the dock were not long enough for granite slabs4 ,he had met that emergency by fastening two of them together with coupling-rings1 and thus in a way had created the eight-wheel car4 ,so ,winans lost his patent although credit is given him for having really developed the passenger car of to-day4 ,the form1 once set1 came quickly into vogue4 ,in a few of the ,southern ,states1 old-fashioned gentlemen followed the early ,english fashion of having their private carriages attached to flat freight-cars whenever they went on railroad trips1 but even this was a passing fad4 ,at that time carriages were no novelty1 and railroad cars were4 ,they were stuffy little affairs compared with the coaches of to-day1 miserably lighted and heated and ventilated1 but ,americans were very proud of them4 ,the fashion that made early locomotives gay with color1 with brass and burnished metals of other sorts1 found full scope upon the passenger cars1 both inside and out4 ,they were pannelled and striped1 ornamented and lettered to the limit of the skill of gifted painters4 ,a coach1 named the ,morris ,run1 on the old ,tioga ,railroad1 which began running south from ,elmira about #ahdj1 was decorated in red and green and yellow and blue and gilt and several other colors4 ,it would have made a modern circus band wagon inconspicuous4 ,but the day came when the brass stars and the red stack-bands began to disappear with the names from the locomotives and in that day the railroad cars became subdued in colorings4 ,some of the gay frescoes of the interiors1 typical of the taste of an earlier day1 were in use within the present generation4 ,while the ,washington cars set a type1 there was much yet to be accomplished in the development both of the passenger coach and of the freight car1 and this much was chiefly in the line of the development of safety devices4 ,the old-time passenger rode in a very decent fear of his life4 ,sometimes a loosened end of one of the strap rails would come plunging up through the flimsy floor of the coach and impale some unfortunate passenger upon its end against the ceiling2 other times the cars would go rolling off the banks and crashing into kindling-wood against one another4 ,they were lightly built contrivances1 incapable of standing any sort of shock or collision4 ,but improvements came one by one--better devices for coupling them together1 culminating in the modern automatic jaw coupler1 better framing1 better platforms1 better trucks1 improved hand-brakes2 and after them the now universal air-brakes made life safer both for the traveller and the railroad employee4 ,finally came the steel-end vestibule2 and where cars have been equipped with this very comfortable device1 telescoping in collision1 a very common and disastrous accident in which one car-shell enveloped another1 has been rendered impossible4 ,the car-platforms for many years remained a menace and a problem4 ,an early railroad in ,new ,jersey sought to emphasize their danger by painting on an inner panel of each car-door a picture of a newly made grave1 surmounted by a tombstone1 on which was inscribed3 ,sacred to the memory of a man who stood upon a platform4 ,the railroad used every method to keep its passengers off the platforms at first4 ,afterwards they began to encourage it and to devise means to promote a general intercourse between the cars4 ,the dining-car1 of which much more in another chapter1 was a prime factor in this change of attitude on the part of railroad officers4 ,its use necessitated passengers going the length of the train1 a movement which1 in itself1 was facilitated by the main design of ,american cars1 as differentiated from those of ,english railroads4 ,when the ,english roads began the universal use of dining-cars they had to revamp the entire plan of their car construction and produce what are still known across the ,atlantic as corridor trains4 ,to make such communication safe1 ,george ,m4 ,pullman1 the sleeping-car man1 set forth to devise a platform protection4 ,back in the fifties there had been something of the sort on the old ,naugatuck ,railroad in ,connecticut1 rough canvas curtains enclosing the platforms2 but these had been built to facilitate car ventilation1 and failing in this1 they were abandoned after three or four years of trial4 ,pullman did better4 ,he devised a platform enclosure of folding doors and placed a steel frame at the end of his vestibule that did more than merely protect passengers from the stress of weather2 these1 of course1 then served as effective anti-telescoping devices4 ,the ,pennsylvania ,railroad began the use of these vestibules in #ahhf and they were soon universally adopted by ,american railroads on their fast through trains4 ,after that a better vestibule was devised by ,col4 ,w4 ,d4 ,mann1 one that extended the full width of the car4 ,in fact the platform of the car had practically ceased to exist1 the structure being full-framed to include its entrances at both ends4 ,after the vestibule came the steel car1 introduced within the past ten years for freight service1 and within the past five or six for passenger equipment4 ,it has everything to commend it1 save a slightly increased original cost1 which is more than compensated by economy of maintenance1 to say nothing of the intangible but certain raised factor of safety4 ,it is to become universal2 the wooden car will become extinct upon ,american railroads almost as soon as the present equipment is worn out and sent to the scrap-heap4 ,of the forms and varieties of railroad passenger coaches there are many1 and these will be described when we come to consider in a later chapter the luxury of modern railroad travel4 ,but the variety of passenger equipment quite pales before that of the freight service4 ,flat-cars1 coal-cars1 box-cars1 grain-cars1 live-stock cars--the list runs on into catalogue form4 ,there are refrigerator cars that are kept filled with salt and ice or ice alone1 precooled cars that are merely kept air-tight1 and ventilator cars employing a distinct reverse of that method2 and up in northern climates there are heater-cars which are kept warm by lamps or by stoves and which are used for the transportation of fresh fruit and vegetables in winter just as the refrigerator-cars and the precooled cars are used for that same purpose in summer4 ,almost all the safety devices that have been added to the running-gear of the passenger equipment have been added to the freight equipment also1 to the great safety and peace of mind of the railroad employee4 ,the car itself remains the simple essential of the very beginnings of the railroad4 ,its change has been a change in size1 in weight1 and in strength4 ,the first freight cars of the very old railroad at ,mauch ,chunk weighed #a1fjj pounds each1 and were permitted to carry a weight or burden of only #c1bjj pounds4 ,when the ,boston ,albany first began using freight cars #cj feet long1 it was so confused that it gave each end of the car a separate number for convenience in billing and designating consignments4 ,nowadays #dj tons is the right load for an efficient car1 although they go as high as #ee and #fj tons' capacity2 the car itself may weigh approximately half that figure4 ,freight cars by hundreds of thousands go bumping all over the different railroads of the land1 and all the while they are getting bumped and broken in accidents--large and small4 ,in such cases they are hauled to the nearest shop of the railroad upon which they are travelling and there repaired at the cost of the road that owns them4 ,in earlier days1 the job of master mechanic was no sinecure1 for each road built its cars upon its own plans and no two of these plans were alike4 ,a simple broken part necessitated the manufacture of a new part4 ,it was a matter of great confusion and expensive to every line4 ,the organization of the ,master ,car ,builders1 in #ahfg1 solved that problem4 ,this organization1 through committee1 made first the freight car standard and then the passenger standard4 ,axles1 bolts1 king-pins--every one of the intricate car-parts--were brought to standard and numbered sizes4 ,after that all that a master mechanic had to do was to keep an assortment of standard car parts in his store-room1 and he could make reasonable repairs to any car that travelled rails4 ,the standardization has gone steadily forward year by year2 it has included a variety of things1 even such details as systematic numbering and lettering of cars4 ,it is one of the evidences of the constant bettering of the ,american railroad1 the steady effort to bring it to an economical and scientific basis4 ,recently some of the railroads have made intelligent experiments1 seeking to devise a vehicle that should be both locomotive and car1 and that should be especially adapted for small side-lines1 where traffic runs exceedingly light4 ,some success has been found in the use of a passenger coach1 into which a gasolene engine has been introduced1 and several of these cars are in regular use in the ,west4 ,two or three of them have been employed for three or four years on ,union ,pacific branches in and around ,denver4 ,they render a possible solution for one railroad problem--the problem of providing sufficient service for some branch where local traffic is slight4 ,the gasolene car requires but two men1 as against a minimum crew of five men for even the smallest steam passenger train4 ,it can be quickly handled1 will make many successive stops readily1 and generally provides an efficient addition to the regular passenger equipment4 ,a few years ago it would have given the standard steam railroads an excellent weapon against the constant encroachments of paralleling electric roads through their good passenger traffic districts2 even to-day it offers a possible solution of the difficult problem of the very small branch side-lines4 ,,chapter ,,ix ,,rebuilding ,a ,,railroad ,,reconstruction ,,necessary ,,in ,,many ,,cases--,,old ,,grades ,,too ,,heavy--,,curves ,,straightened--,,tunnels ,,avoided--,,these ,,improvements ,,required ,,especially ,,by ,,freight ,,lines4 ,to the operating heads of the great railroad systems1 rebuilding a line is to-day a far more important problem than the building of new routes4 ,the country has grown--grown in wealth1 among other things4 ,the causes that demanded the very greatest economy in the building of early railroad lines no longer exist4 ,the hill that the early engineer carefully rounded with his line is now pierced without a second thought4 ,grades that were once deemed slight are now classed as impossible4 ,the almost infinite development in the operation of the railroad has seen the grade or the curve1 not as a slight matter1 but as a matter which1 however slight in a single instance1 becomes in the course of constant operation a heavy operating expense4 ,to-day the operating folk of the big railroads are counting the pennies where they countlessly multiply in these fashions2 it is one of the greatest factors in the grinding operation competition between the great railroad systems of the country4 ,it is all quite as it should be4 ,the early builders did the best that they might do with the opportunities that were theirs4 ,they got the railroad through4 ,it developed wealth for itself1 as well as for the territory it served2 and with that wealth it is enabled in these piping days of peace and plenty to correct the alignment errors of the early builders4 ,moreover1 there are frequent cases where the steady increase of traffic has rendered it necessary for a railroad to parallel its trunks with new lines1 quite aside from the consideration of grade and curve4 ,as far back as the early fifties this great work of rebuilding the trunk-line railroads was begun4 ,certain serious errors in the original alignment of the ,baltimore ,ohio ,railroad between ,baltimore and the ,potomac ,river were corrected1 even though at a considerable expense4 ,as time went on1 other railroads continued this correction work4 ,it is still being prosecuted east and west of the ,mississippi4 ,ten million dollars1 fifty million dollars1 looks like a lot of money to the stockholders of any company1 when their president tells them that this is to be the cost of this new relief line1 this reconstruction1 that cut-off2 but what is #a1jjj1jjj when it is going to save more than #ajj1jjj a year in the operation of your railroad8 ,it is the big sight of the big situation that the railroads make nowadays at this reconstruction work4 ,mr4 ,harriman1 with his transcontinentals from the ,mississippi watersheds west1 was almost the pioneer in this work of wholesale reconstruction4 ,the wholesale operating benefits that have resulted from it in the case of his group of ,pacifics have been largely responsible for his preminence in the railroad world4 ,and yet1 once his method was tried1 it all seemed simpler than ,a1 ,b1 ,c4 ,take the case of the ,lucin cut-off on his ,southern ,pacific4 ,when the ,union ,pacific was being pushed across the plains and threaded over the ,rockies and the ,sierras1 the ,great ,salt ,lake of ,utah lay directly in its path4 ,the railroad did the obvious thing and carefully made a detour around the lake4 ,when ,mr4 ,harriman took over the ,union ,pacific1 then in a state of physical decadence1 and linked it with his ,southern ,pacific1 and surveyed the situation carefully1 he decreed that the ,great ,salt ,lake should no longer cause a trunk-line railroad to double in its path4 ,he caused a line to be surveyed direct across the marshy lake from ,ogden to ,lucin and when that was done he had a line--on paper--#ajc miles long as against #adg miles by the old line4 ,the engineer hesitated1 but ,harriman urged and they courageously began the construction of miles and miles of embankment and of trestle4 ,then new difficulties arose4 ,sink-holes developed4 ,in a few minutes structures that had been the work of long months silently disappeared4 ,the engineers in charge came to ,harriman4 ,it is not possible1 they told him4 ,you must carry it through whether it is possible or not1 ,harriman replied4 ,eventually they carried it through4 99 99 99 99 99 ,when it was done1 the ,union ,pacific had not only shortened its transcontinental line #dd miles1 but it had eliminated more than #a1ejj feet of heavy grade and #c1iai degrees of curvature4 ,an operating economy of between #ijj1jjj and #a1jjj1jjj a year had been effected and the stockholders of the company had a good investment for the #aj1jjj1jjj that the ,lucin cut-off had cost them4 ,nor was that all on the ,union ,pacific4 ,on other sections of its main line similar reconstruction work has added to the economy of operation by millions of dollars each year4 ,for twenty miles west from ,omaha1 where the old historic transcontinental formerly dipped south to avoid a series of undulating hills1 the new ,lane cut-off cuts squarely across them--#bj miles of deep cuts and heavy fills--heavy railroad1 as the engineers like to put it4 ,and again1 where the old line twisted and wound itself over the ,black ,hills1 and wobbled unsteadily through ,wyoming1 the reconstruction engineers pressed their work4 ,illustration3 ,,where ,,harriman ,,stretched ,,the ,,southern ,,pacific ,,in ,a ,,straight ,,line ,,across ,,the ,,great ,,salt ,,lake ,illustration3 ,,line ,,revision ,,on ,,the ,,new ,,york ,,central--,,tunnelling ,,through ,,the ,,bases ,,of ,,these ,,jutting ,,peaks ,,along ,,the ,,hudson ,,river ,,does ,,away ,,with ,,sharp ,,and ,,dangerous ,,curves ,illustration3 ,,impressive ,,grade ,,revision ,,on ,,the ,,union ,,pacific ,,in ,,the ,,black ,,hills ,,of ,,wyoming4 ,,the ,,discarded ,,line ,,may ,,be ,,seen ,,at ,,the ,,right ,it is not generally understood that the summit of the ,union ,pacific is in the ,black ,hills1 which are the first foothill range of the ,rockies1 rather than in the mountain crest beyond4 ,the ,black ,hills have always been a baffling proposition1 with their short1 steep slopes4 ,the engineers wrinkled their brows at the thought of correcting the old line through there1 but ,harriman simply said that they must1 that the board--which meant ,e4 ,h4 ,harriman himself--had directed that #bdg feet be cut from the road's crest there2 and #bdg feet1 almost to the inch1 was cut4 ,it took giant fills and embankments and an army of men but the grades were brought to a minimum for a ,rocky ,mountain stretch4 ,wooden trestles1 old and affording a constant fire-risk1 were swallowed up in embankments2 a single slice through a hill-top1 a quarter of a mile long and eighty feet deep1 did its part in reducing the grades2 antiquated cars disappeared before equipment of the modern class2 dilapidated shanties were supplanted by fine1 permanent railroad stations4 ,the new ,union ,pacific is a monument to the reconstruction engineer--and to ,e4 ,h4 ,harriman4 ,the ,canadian ,pacific ,railway1 while traversing but one small northeastern corner of the ,united ,states1 is essentially an ,american railroad1 both in equipment and in operation4 ,it forms an important half of that all-,british ,red ,line encircling the globe1 of which any ,englishman is so very proud4 ,when the ,canadian ,pacific ,railway was completing its last link in this unbroken line of rails from ,st4 ,john1 ,n4 ,b41 and ,montreal1 to ,vancouver1 the question of grades was indeed a secondary one4 ,the vital thing was to cut the line through1 and to that end great sacrifices of grade efficiency were made4 ,so that when the line was through1 and the first ,imperial ,limited was making its way from the ,atlantic to the ,pacific over a single railroad system1 it was indeed a line with structural defects4 ,at one point--the famous ,big ,hill1 near ,field1 ,alta4--in order to overcome the steep ,rocky ,mountain climbs1 it was necessary to use from four to six engines for comparatively light freight and passenger trains4 ,and at that1 it was difficult to attain a speed of more than four or five miles an hour4 ,within the last three years1 this fearful grade has been corrected by the very first spiral tunnels ever built upon the ,american continent4 ,spiral tunnel construction of this kind is not new4 ,it has been used with remarkable success by the railroads of ,continental ,europe1 in piercing the ,high-,alpine boundaries between ,france1 ,germany1 ,austria1 and ,italy4 ,coming from the east on the ,canadian ,pacific ,railway1 the train first enters the spiral tunnel--they call it the corkscrew out in ,alberta--under ,cathedral ,mountain4 ,this first bore is some #c1bjj feet in length4 ,emerging from it1 the train runs back east across the ,kicking ,horse ,river1 then enters the eastern spiral tunnel1 and after describing an elliptic curve1 emerges1 and again crosses the ,kicking ,horse westward4 ,this whole thing is a perfect maze--the railroad doubling back upon itself twice1 tunnelling under two mountains1 and crossing the river twice in order to cut down the grade4 ,the work cost #a1ejj1jjj4 ,the mere cost of the explosives came to over #bej1jjj4 ,it was one of the really great tunnel jobs of the world4 ,yet despite the complicated work caused by the spiral shape of the tunnels1 they met exactly4 ,the worth of the thing to the ,canadian ,pacific is shown in the fact that those same trains that formerly required four to six engines1 are now handled easily over this ,big-,hill grade with but two engines1 and at a speed of about twenty-five miles an hour4 ,other railroads by the dozen1 whose lines traverse mountainous or even hilly country1 are engaged in this proposition of lowering their grades4 ,f4 ,d4 ,underwood1 president of the ,erie1 and known as one of the ablest operating heads in this country1 has been engaged in cutting off some of the heavy hill-climbs on that old-time route from the seaboard to the lakes4 ,underwood has already seen ,erie's hopes of success in developing the property as essentially a freighter and for the immediate improvement of that portion of its facilities he has built three new relief lines1 a small stretch near ,chautauqua ,lake in western ,new ,york1 and then through the upper ,genesee ,valley1 the third and most important eastward from a point near ,port ,jervis and piercing the summit of the ,shawangunk ,mountains4 ,the line through the ,genesee ,valley extends from ,hunts1 on the ,buffalo division1 about #bj miles west of ,hornell1 to ,hinsdale on the main line1 and is #cc miles long4 ,it cuts off a heavy grade between ,hornell and ,hinsdale on the main line--a little over one per cent--for both east-bound and west-bound freight4 ,at that particular point1 ,erie's west-bound freight approximates #ge per cent of the east-bound1 and so the new line recognizes that fact by establishing the west-bound maximum grade at #c-aj of one per cent1 as against a maximum of #b-aj of one per cent in the other direction4 ,brought to a plain understanding1 a single locomotive has no difficulty in handling #hj cars1 each bearing #dj tons of coal1 over this new low-grade line4 ,to take one-half that load over the old main line required a pusher4 ,on the east end of the line1 where ,erie's engineers built their greatest low-grade cut-off1 the coal rolls down to the seaboard in such quantities as to make the west-bound tonnage only a quarter of the east-bound2 so the reconstruction engineers were satisfied with a maximum west-bound grade at #f-aj of one per cent as against the maximum of #b-aj east-bound1 in the direction of the heavy traffic4 ,the cut-off1 which is double-tracked and is #db-a_/b miles long1 increases the distance from ,new ,york to ,chicago #h miles2 but this is not an essential fact1 for1 like the ,genesee ,valley ,road it is built exclusively for freight service1 and not only almost triples the hauling capacity of a locomotive but actually permits of faster running time for the freight trains between ,jersey ,city and ,port ,jervis4 ,to build the cut-off required a really great expenditure1 for like all these new lines it was heavy work1 embracing a tunnel nearly a mile long under the crest of the ,shawangunk ,ridge1 and a steel trestle over the ,moodna ,valley1 #c1bjj feet in length and #aij feet high4 ,still ,president ,underwood can contemplate his locomotives hauling three times their old loads over it4 ,the economy of such a proposition becomes apparent upon the face of it4 ,the ,baltimore ,ohio1 the ,southern1 and the ,norfolk ,western have recently lowered their grades and straightened their curves in similar fashion2 the ,lehigh ,valley1 by the erection of a great new bridge at ,towanda1 ,pa41 has taken a bad link out of its main line2 the ,chicago ,alton1 when the engineers told it that it must abandon miles upon miles of its main line 7for long years its pride7 and build anew1 told those engineers to go ahead4 ,stretch by stretch the old road was revamped to meet in every way modern conditions4 ,a steel bridge across the ,missouri1 which was the first steel bridge built in ,america1 and which cost #ejj1jjj1 was sent to the scrap-heap while the old-timers groaned4 ,that which yesterday was a railroad marvel becomes a curiosity to-morrow1 observes ,frank ,h4 ,spearman1 in speaking of this very thing4 ,the rebuilding of the ,chicago ,alton was a clean-cut affair4 ,the #gj-pound rails were torn from the main line and sent to sidings and branch lines in favor of the #hj-pound rails2 for while men were tearing at the tracks1 the shops were working overtime2 #ee-ton freight engines that could haul #cj cars were to give way to #afe-ton motive power1 capable of picking up and carrying a hundred cars with ease4 ,that was why the old bridge had to go in favor of one which cost an even million dollars4 ,and when the ,alton built heavy new bridges at dozens of other points besides the ,missouri1 it built them after the new fashion1 with solid rock ballast floor1 affording additional comfort and safety to its patrons4 ,in a flat ,state like ,illinois there were no very serious grade defects to be corrected1 but through the gentle undulations of rolling country the line twisted and turned like a lazy brook4 ,the rebuilders stopped that4 ,when they were done there was a single section of #dj miles1 straight as the arrow flies1 and many tangents of from #ae to #bi miles4 ,in some cases when the trains were transferred to the completed line1 the old1 spindly1 wobbly affair could be seen for miles in roadbed1 to the one side or the other of the new4 ,in some cases1 this abandoned right-of-way was sold to interurban electric railroads2 in one particular case one of the abandoned bridges was included in the sale4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the ,delaware1 ,lackawanna1 ,western is one of the old time ,eastern ,roads that have waxed immensely prosperous with the years4 ,originally built as an anthracite coal carrier from the ,eastern ,pennsylvania ,mountains to the seaboard1 it has developed into a through freight and passenger carrier of importance4 ,the old-time engineer knew how to plan good railroads2 the ,pennsylvania to-day is building its new low-grade freight line on the very surveys made by its pioneer surveyors three-quarters of a century ago2 but1 as we have already intimated1 those railroads were financially weak4 ,early annual reports of the ,pennsylvania tell how its stock was peddled in ,philadelphia from house to house--up one street and down another--and how sometimes two houses joined together to buy a single share4 ,money was not plentiful in the middle of the last century4 ,so the ,lackawanna engineers were compelled to build their road in semi-mountainous districts1 along the lines of least resistance1 rather than by the most direct routes4 ,as it came east from ,scranton over the ,pocono ,mountains it found its way in a roundabout course to the middle of ,northern ,new ,jersey4 ,the road wound south and then wound north again1 its grades were steep1 some of its curves were short1 and it dipped through two tunnels--one at ,oxford ,furnace1 the other at ,manunka ,chunk4 ,to iron out those time-taking dips1 the sharp curves1 the grades1 and the tunnel1 the ,lackawanna cut-off--the heaviest bit of railroad in the world--was begun three years ago4 ,a new route #bh-a_/b miles long was surveyed diagonally across from ,port ,morris on the main line in ,new ,jersey to the main line again at the ,delaware ,water ,gap4 ,despite the fact that it must cross the watersheds diagonally--the watersheds formed by deep valleys and high rocky ridges--the line as surveyed and built is only three miles longer than an absolute air-line4 ,it shortens the ,lackawanna's main stem from ,new ,york to ,buffalo--already the shortest route between these two cities--by #ae miles1 and brings that busy lake port a trifle within #djj miles from the seaboard4 ,to cross those watersheds at a sharp diagonal meant heavy work2 and the engineers1 to run their straight-cut1 low-grade line1 found that they would have to make tremendous cuts and fills--these last alone totalling #ad1fjj1jj cubic yards4 ,the ,lackawanna's engineers will give you a faint idea of the stupendous size of these embankments4 ,to build them up of stone and earth at the rate of a cartload a minute for each working-day of the year would require #ha years for the job4 ,to do it in less than three years has meant the employment of whole trains of dump-cars1 the purchase of #fjj-;acre farms for single borrow-pits1 the energy and administration of real engineers4 ,there have been cuts through solid rock1 #fe bridges and culverts to be wrought of concrete1 a single embankment 7at the ,pequest ,river7 three miles in length1 #aaj feet high1 and #cjj feet wide at its base4 ,the traveller who rides over the completed double-track road will have but a faint idea of the human labor and the human energy that have gone to construct it4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the great railroad that traverses the ,state of ,pennsylvania is another monument to the engineer4 ,the ,pennsylvania ,railroad was no wobbly affair at any time4 ,its grades and curves1 considering the character of the country through which its trunk rests1 are not excessive4 ,it has been a good standard railroad for a good many years past4 ,but in #aijb1 the ,pennsylvania found that its troubles rested in the volume of traffic that was being offered it4 ,over its middle division from ,harrisburg to ,pittsburgh it was handling as much tonnage as ,j4 ,j4 ,hill's entire ,great ,northern system4 ,the heavy tonnage business began to clog the road's fast passenger traffic 7its especial pride7 and the fast freight traffic 7the mainstay of its shippers71 and appeal was made to the reconstruction engineers4 ,it was no slight appeal at that4 ,pittsburgh1 handling #djj1jjj freight cars a month1 was clogged1 congested with such streams as had never before tried to crowd through that narrow neck of the ,pennsylvania's bottle and the orders that went forth for relief were emphatic4 ,vice-presidents1 general managers1 superintendents and general superintendents1 and engineers of every sort crowded into the president's office in ,broad ,street ,station1 and out of that conference the plans for an exclusively low-grade freight line from ,new ,york to ,pittsburgh and for the traffic relief of ,pittsburgh itself were born4 ,every large city has become1 in a sense1 a bottle-neck for the important railroads that pierce it4 ,in some cases like ,chicago or ,st4 ,louis or ,kansas ,city or ,indianapolis1 the situation has been solved by the creation of belt-line freight railroads partly or entirely encircling the town4 ,at ,buffalo1 the ,new ,york ,central lines have built a connecting line to enable through traffic to escape the congestion of city yards and terminals1 while at ,new ,haven1 the road of the same name has recently spent several million dollars in enlarging its narrow throat in the middle of the town4 ,but nowhere else did the situation approach that at ,pittsburgh4 ,through the ,pennsylvania's passenger station there poured not only an abnormally heavy passenger traffic1 owing to a heavy suburban service1 but every pound of freight bound between the parent company and its two great subsidiaries1 the ,panhandle and the ,fort ,wayne4 ,there were further complications right at the station1 owing to the proximity of two of the very worst grade-crossings in ,america1 where ,penn and ,liberty ,avenues swept their busy tides of city traffic all day long over the ,fort ,wayne's main line tracks4 ,it was a problem that called for the best in engineering skill--and received it4 ,the ,pennsylvania dug deep into its pocket-book and solved the problem magnificently4 ,it began by going back to the vicinity of its great ,pitcairn freight-yards at the east of the city1 and from them building two connecting laterals 7the one to the south and across the ,monongahela ,river to connect with the ,panhandle tracks1 the other to the north--known as the ,brilliant cut-off7 across the ,alleghany and connecting with the tracks of the ,west ,penn ,railroad1 which in turn connected with those of the ,fort ,wayne in the one-time city of ,allegheny4 ,that sounds simple1 but it was in reality a fearfully expensive undertaking4 ,the mile of ,brilliant cut-off1 heavy work every inch of it1 cost #e1ejj1jjj1 and is to-day the most expensive mile of railroad track in the world4 ,but the gripping hand was off the traffic throat of ,pittsburgh and commercial ,pittsburgh breathed more easily once again4 ,the ,union ,station and its approach tracks were restored to passenger uses2 and in the course of things the ,pennsylvania tore down the old station1 built a new one1 and wiped out the two wicked city crossings1 as with the stroke of an ,aladdin's hand4 ,so much for ,pittsburgh4 ,now consider the great new freight line leading to the east from there4 ,not all of that railroad has yet been built1 but the greater part of it is already completed1 and every part of the old road that was under tension because of freight congestion has already been relieved4 ,to build this new double-track railroad across #cej miles of a mountainous ,state1 the engineers studied two points--grade and curvature4 ,distance was no object1 for speed is the very last attainment of heavy tonnage movement4 ,the new route consisted in part of the enlargement of the old routes1 and in part of the construction of brand new line4 ,it started east from ,pittsburgh1 where the great ,brilliant cut-off had been built to relieve the tremendous terminal freight congestion1 and followed up the valley of the ,alleghany ,river on the route of the ,west ,penn ,road1 a ,pennsylvania property4 ,the main line of the ,pennsylvania comes east from ,pittsburgh up the valley of the ,monongahela for a distance1 and then across country to ,blairsville ,intersection1 #ej miles east of ,pittsburgh1 where it is intercepted by the low-grade freight route4 ,from ,blairsville to ,gallitzin1 the road winds through the narrow and forbidding ,conemaugh ,valley most of the way4 ,it twists itself through the slender defile of ,packsaddle4 ,a dozen years ago or more1 when the ,pennsylvania's engineers were ordered to four-track the original double-track through that narrow defile in ,god's great world1 they shook their heads dubiously2 then--after the fashion of engineers--they went ahead and did it4 ,when the order came for two more tracks in the same narrow pass1 they placed them there1 although they had literally to blast out a shelf on the side of the fearfully steep mountainsides for the low-grade line4 ,just beyond ,gallitzin1 where the ,pennsylvania pierces with two great tunnels the very summit of the ,alleghanies1 the low-grade line takes its own course once more1 breaking farther and farther away from the main line1 and for long sections following the trail of the long-since abandoned ,portage ,railroad4 ,the day is coming when ,gallitzin ,tunnels are to be left high in the air4 ,the ,pennsylvania's officers tell you that frankly4 ,we have plans for a six-mile tunnel1 to be handled by electric motive-power already made1 said one of them1 just the other day1 and every year we wait1 that tunnel grows longer1 the approaching grades less and less4 ,it will cost money--money into millions of dollars--and it will earn #aj per cent on the investment4 ,from ,gallitzin1 the low-grade line delves far south to ,hollidaysburgh and then follows the tracks of a former branch line up to ,petersburg on the main line1 which it parallels to the ,susquehanna4 ,where the main line crosses the ,susquehanna at ,rockville1 the low-grade freight route diverges once again and follows the west bank of the river for a number of miles1 completely avoiding in that way ,harrisburg and the steel-making towns to the south of it with all of their conditions of congestion4 ,the freight route crosses the broad ,susquehanna at ,shock's ,mills1 eight miles north of ,columbia1 and follows the east bank of the river for twenty miles to ,shenks ,ferry1 where it turns abruptly eastward through the rugged hills of ,lancaster ,county to a connection with the main line at ,parkesburg4 ,from thence it follows the main line nearly all the way to ,glen ,loch1 crossing and re-crossing it but at all times retaining its nominal grades4 ,at ,glen ,loch it makes a wide detour around ,philadelphia and its suburbs and reaches with a long straight short cut over to the main line at ,morrisville near ,trenton4 ,so much for the location of this great line of reconstruction4 ,in grades and in curvatures it has achieved real triumphs4 ,the great tonnage here is also always east-bound--coal and iron coming to the seaboard4 ,its grades also are chiefly consequential then to the east-bound movement4 ,to that movement the heavy grades are again at the almost incredible figure of #c-aj of one per cent--some seventeen feet to the mile4 ,that will mean more when it is understood that that figure is equal to the pull that is required of an engine to start a heavy freight train upon an absolutely level track4 ,with such a pull1 grades become as nothing1 and the ,pennsylvania's operating department is enabled to run #ge trains an hour over this low-grade line2 hour after hour upon a #ae minutes' interval4 ,ask a ,pennsylvania officer what he would do with such traffic on his old main line to-day1 and he will tell you that he would rather resign than tackle the proposition4 ,the same thing is true on the ,new ,york ,central lines4 ,like the ,pennsylvania1 that railroad thought a little time ago that with its four tracks it might move all civilization4 ,its acquisition of the bankrupt ,west ,shore ,railroad in the eighties gave it two extra tracks across ,new ,york ,state that for a long time were carried on the company's books as deadwood4 ,now they are filled with freight operation and bringing in a healthy return to their owners4 ,the growing land is always catching up to its new railroad facilities1 no matter how rapidly they may be constructed4 ,to-morrow8 ,the railroad operator does not like to think of that4 ,he meets to-day and he plans as best he may against that to-morrow4 ,to meet the great unknown he bids the engineers--those who construct and those who reconstruct--to him1 and begs that they exercise their best wits to help him to see a little way into the dim and shadowy future4 ,,chapter ,x ,,the ,,railroad ,,and ,,its ,,president ,,supervision ,,of ,,the ,,classified ,,activities--,,engineering1 ,,operating1 ,,maintenance ,,of ,,way1 ,,etc4--,,the ,,divisional ,,system ,,as ,,followed ,,in ,,the ,,pennsylvania ,,road--,,the ,,departmental ,,plan ,,as ,,followed ,,in ,,the ,,new ,,york ,,central--,,need ,,for ,,vice-,,presidents--,,the ,,board ,,of ,,directors--,,harriman ,a ,,model ,,president--,,how ,,the ,,pennsylvania ,,forced ,,itself ,,into ,,new ,,york ,,city--,,action ,,of ,a ,,president ,,to ,,save ,,the ,,life ,,of ,a ,,laborer',s ,,child--,,keep ,,right ,,on ,,obeying ,,orders--,,some ,,railroad ,,presidents ,,compared--,,high ,,salaries ,,of ,,presidents4 ,all the widely divergent lines of human activity in the organization of the railroad converge in the office of its president4 ,he is the focal point of the entire system4 ,more than that1 he is its head and front4 ,if he is anything less1 the sooner he is out of his job the better for both the railroad and himself2 for1 although there is a great variety of departments in the organization of steam railroad transportation and each department will have still greater varieties of activities1 there is but a single activity delegated to the office that bears only the modest word president in gilt letters upon its door4 ,the function of that office is to supervise4 ,to understand that supervision better1 consider for a moment the rough structure of the railroad4 ,its activities are grouped into classes4 ,the activity of soliciting business1 both freight and passenger1 forms the traffic department1 in many ways the most important of all2 for from it comes nearly all the vast revenue needed for the maintenance of the organism4 ,the legal department looks after the railroad's rights--its franchises1 its charters1 the law fabric of its almost innumerable relations with the various railroad commissions1 legislatures1 city councils1 and town and country boards4 ,if the road be really sizable--with #h1jjj or #aj1jjj or #ab1jjj miles of track--it will probably organize into separate departments the buying of its great quantities of supplies1 the keeping of its intricate books1 and the handling of its money4 ,the business of building its lines and structures will need special talent for an engineering department4 ,the department that will employ the great rank and file of the railroad's army of employees is the operating department1 called by some big roads the transportation department4 ,there are two other great factors of conducting a railroad2 maintaining its lines--the tracks1 bridges1 tunnels and other features of the permanent way2 and keeping both cars and engines fit for service4 ,this last work1 organized as the mechanical department1 will probably rank next to operating in the number of its employees1 and the value of its equipment is one of the greatest assets of the railroad4 ,it is generally expressed in great shops located here and there and everywhere1 at convenient points upon the system4 ,generally the maintenance-of-way department comes under operating--it is only fair that a general manager should supervise the condition of the line over which he is expected to operate his trains at high speed and in absolute safety4 ,the same argument should hold true as to the equipment4 ,but right here is the great rock upon which the principle of ,american railroad organization splits in twain4 ,from the president's office downward1 the system of organization may be divisional or departmental4 ,in the former case1 the division superintendent is the real unit of railroad operation3 under his guidance and responsibility come not only the operation of the trains but the maintenance both of the line and of the rolling-stock4 ,in the case of departmental organization that superintendent--and also1 above him1 the general superintendent--exercises no authority over the engineers of maintenance-of-way or the master mechanics of the shops along the system4 ,those lines of railroad activity do not converge with that of train operation below the office of the general manager4 ,the greatest outside power that is given to a division superintendent on a purely departmental road is a sort of coperation with the master mechanic in the matter of the men who handle the road's motive power4 ,this coperation is many times intricate and involved4 ,if the master mechanic and the division superintendent are not harmoniously inclined toward one another1 and things very naturally go wrong with the motive-power1 it is a difficult matter to locate responsibility4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the ,pennsylvania system1 which is one of the most perfectly organized in the world1 is strongly organized upon the divisional system4 ,the division superintendent upon the ,pennsylvania is indeed a prince above his principality1 and he is well trained for his rulership4 ,pennsylvania men go through the mill4 ,it takes a pretty capable man to combine the ability for handling trains and handling men with the intricate knowledge for command over an engineering corps devoted to maintenance-of-way1 as well as command over a machine-shop which may employ a thousand skilled workmen4 ,in order to give its division heads that tremendous training1 the ,pennsylvania sends its men through its own ,west ,point1 the great shops at ,altoona4 ,the men who have sat in the big1 roomy office in ,broad ,street ,station1 ,philadelphia1 and who have been addressed as president1 have been proud of the days when they were up in the hills of the ,keystone ,state1 standing their trick in overalls at the lathe1 or carrying chain and rod over long stretches of track4 ,to-day every ,pennsylvania superintendent1 possibly with a single exception or two1 is a civil or mechanical engineer4 ,illustration3 ,,the ,,old ,,and ,,the ,,new ,,on ,,the ,,great ,,northern--,,the ,,william ,,crooks1 ,,the ,,first ,,engine ,,of ,,the ,,hill ,,system1 ,,and ,,one ,,of ,,the ,,newest ,,mallets ,illustration3 ,,the ,,southern ,,pacific ,,finds ,,direct ,,entrance ,,into ,,san ,,francisco ,,for ,,one ,,of ,,its ,,branch ,,lines ,,by ,,tunnels ,,piercing ,,the ,,heart ,,of ,,the ,,suburbs ,illustration3 ,,portal ,,of ,,the ,,abandoned ,,tunnel ,,of ,,the ,,alleghany ,,portage ,,railroad ,,near ,,johnstown1 ,,pa41 ,,the ,,first ,,railroad ,,tunnel ,,in ,,the ,,united ,,states ,on the other hand1 the ,new ,york ,central has also been brought into a high state of organization1 and stands firmly on the departmental plan4 ,we believe that our superintendents should specialize in train operation1 says one of the high officers of that road4 ,in other words1 we do not believe that a man1 to get his traffic through over a stretch of line1 should necessarily know to a fraction of an inch the best wheel-base for an engine of a given type or the precise construction of a truss bridge4 ,such requirements take away from the special training that is to-day needed for every high-class railroader4 ,a railroader is made better by sticking to one thing and sticking to it faithfully2 and our departmental method1 by which the maintenance of line and rolling-stock comes under the sole supervision of men expert in those specialties1 we think the best4 ,sometimes we develop a very wizard in traffic handling1 who has never had a chance at a technical education4 ,and there you have the very essence of the other side of the proposition4 ,between these two sides there are various shadings and gradings1 but the question has never been definitely solved4 ,it has reduced the vast complexity in the organization of the modern railroad of the larger size4 ,that has become so very complex it fairly cried for expert relief4 ,one man has recently spent a busy term of years in simplifying the organization of the ,harriman lines4 ,to cut the intricate lines of red-tape in a big railroad office1 to reduce to a minimum the vast needless correspondence between departments and between branches of a single department1 is a problem that calls for genius--and offers for its solution no small reward4 99 99 99 99 99 ,in other days--and we refer to no ancient history1 for the electric light was proved and the hundred-ton locomotive already increasing the average tonnage of the ,american freight train--the presidents of the biggest roads were content to worry along with one or two assistants4 ,but two decades ago1 the railroads were still simple matters2 there did not exist the intimate relations between one and the others of them1 as shown by stockholdings in competing and feeding lines to-day--the constant waiting of their executives upon the sessions of the different railroad commissions4 ,these complications of ,american railroading have also further complicated the organizations of the different systems1 and have brought a demand for executives of the keenest type4 ,it is no slight strain that a man works under when he becomes the head of a ten-thousand-mile railroad4 ,so to-day the president of the railroad has fortified himself in the only possible way--by creating vice-presidencies4 ,each ranking department to-day is apt to be recognized in council by a vice-president2 and these heads form a cabinet as informal as that of the ,federal ,government and1 in its way1 quite as important4 ,legal traffic1 and engineering traffic each demands a vice-president at that cabinet-board1 and gets him4 ,the general manager usually is the vice-president representing operation4 ,one big road has eight vice-presidents4 ,it is indeed a poor property that cannot show three or four men that are the fittest to hold this title4 ,there is another cabinet where the president must sit1 which is formal and recognized2 it is the board of directors4 ,between it and the lesser cabinet the president must take good care that he is not ground as between millstones4 ,the cabinet of his department heads will tell him how he can spend his money2 but he must get it from the upper cabinet4 ,it is not always harmonious pulling in the upper cabinet4 ,imagine for a moment the troubles that sometimes arise in the lower4 ,you are sitting in the office of a big railroad president1 talking straight to that big-shouldered soul himself4 ,outside is the shadowy roof of the train-shed of a terminal1 which is filled with long lines of cars that come and go1 of platforms that are black with humans one instant and quite deserted the next4 ,the room has the quiet elegance of a comfortable home library4 ,there are long rows of books upon the shelves2 a great table is set squarely in the centre4 ,but it is business--for a ticker is slowly spelling the fate of that railroad and every other railroad1 upon the endless tape2 a huge map of the system--many thousands of miles of high-class railroad--lies under the glass that covers the table top4 ,they don't always pull together1 the president of the railroad admits1 when you ask him about the lower cabinet4 ,sometimes they pull apart when they have honestly different ideas as to policy1 and other times--there's to be a big college football game up at ,g---- next ,saturday4 ,we have only two private cars for our four vice-presidents1 every single blessed one of whom wants to go4 ,i don't want to go myself1 and ,i've contributed my car1 but we're one short then1 and the man that's left is going around like a boy who's had a chip knocked off his shoulder4 ,he's just been in here1 and ,i've settled the matter by hiring a car for his party from the ,pullman folks and footing the bill myself4 ,i sent him out ashamed of himself4 ,that's ,pete every time4 ,flares up quick1 and every time he flares up ,i can remember when we were working the day-and-night tricks in a ,god-forsaken junction out on a prairie stretch of the ,great ,west4 ,he's like a boy in some ways--awfully fussy about the rights and prerogatives of his department2 and he'll go all to pieces over some little thing if he thinks another man has stepped over on to his side of the line4 ,but let a big situation arise--a flood that sets a whole division of our lines awash2 a wicked congestion of traffic in midwinter blizzards2 a nasty accident that takes away our nerve--and you ought to see ,pete6 ,he'll be handling the thing as if he were putting a ball up on the links1 and he'll never lose his confident smile4 ,that man in one such emergency is worth the hire of a dozen ,pullmans4 ,you ask about the upper cabinet1 and the president lowers his voice4 ,the board is no matter for light conversation4 ,he steps to the window and points down into the concourse of the train-shed4 ,i happen to know that young fellow over there by the mailbox1 he answers4 ,he's one of our travelling freight-agents4 ,he's lucky4 ,he works for one boss1 and is responsible to him2 ,i work for a whole regiment of bosses1 and am held responsible by a group of pretty keen old citizens who gather around this table and put me on the rack4 ,there are many interests in this property1 and some of them are too big to sleep in the same bed4 ,i have three directors who never speak to one another outside of this room1 and rarely ever in it4 ,there is another who represents the holdings of a road that fights this at every turn1 and he hurts the property worse than any good husky plague4 ,a big estate1 with a bitter aversion to spending money for any purpose whatsoever1 has another director here2 and a banking interest presents a director who seconds him in every move1 fool or good4 ,that is the crowd ,i have got to work with when ,i want ten or fifteen millions to hold our own against some other fellow who is crowding us hard for business in our competitive territory or threatening to run a line into one of our own private melon-patches4 ,that boy down there is lucky4 ,he has only got to get out and land a couple of hundred carloads from a shipper who hates corporations worse than politics1 and who has just had a claim for spoiled goods turned down by this particular corporation4 ,that boy has the cinch job4 99 99 99 99 99 ,this imaginary railroad president has told you of one of the vital points in the business of the railroad1 the necessity for constant teamwork4 ,a railroad head may have the genius of a ,napoleon1 the stubborn persistence of a ,grant1 or the marvellous executive ability of a ,pierpont ,morgan1 and be worthless if his board is not working enthusiastically with and for him4 ,it is not all pie and preserves by any means4 ,the board may set its sweet will straight against his1 and he may be forced to execute a policy of which in his own mind he has no trust4 ,it is only once in a generation that a man like ,harriman1 who can bend a whole mighty directorate to his absolute will1 arises4 ,harriman was a railroad president in the fullest sense of the word4 ,he rode in his car north from ,ogden one day1 toward the great ,national ,park of the ,yellowstone4 ,at that time the only direct rail entrance to that splendid reserve was by the rival ,hill lines4 ,harriman had called for a report upon the opportunities for the ,southern ,pacific to strike its own line into the west edge of the ,park4 ,that report was being explained to him in great detail as he rode north from ,ogden4 ,his chiefs had a hundred practical reasons against building the line4 ,harriman listened faithfully to the explanation1 as was his way4 ,then he turned to one of the signers of the report1 a high officer of his property4 ,you have never been in the ,yellowstone8 he asked4 ,the officer admitted that he had not4 ,i have1 said ,harriman triumphantly1 and ,i am going to build that road4 ,that road was built and became successful from its beginning2 but ,harriman was a railroader with the intuitive sense that gives genius to a great statesman or to a great general4 ,the average railroad president does not hold a controlling interest himself and he must be guided pretty carefully by the judgment of his department heads2 he must win the coperation of his board by tact and subtlety rather than by the display of an iron will2 and where he leads he must take the responsibility4 ,the ,pennsylvania ,railroad1 as has already been told in an earlier chapter1 recently forced its entrance into ,new ,york ,city and marked its terminal there with a monumental station4 ,that move was a strategy of the highest order1 and was made that the road might place itself upon an even fighting basis for traffic with its chief competitor4 ,but it cost4 ,two mighty rivers had to be crossed1 whole blocks of high-priced real estate secured1 a busy city threaded1 the opposition of local authorities 7who stood with palms outstretched7 honestly downed4 ,that all cost4 ,that would have been a mighty expenditure for the ,federal ,government2 for a private corporation it was all but staggering4 ,when the station was finished1 a rarely beautiful thing with its classic public rooms1 its long vistas1 and its vast dimensions1 that private corporation built1 within a niche of the great waiting-room1 a bronze figure of its former president1 the late ,a4 ,j4 ,cassatt1 where all hurrying humanity might see it4 ,but1 though a thousand nervous travellers see that statue in the passing of a single hour1 not a hundred of them will know the splendid tragedy it represents2 for many of the high officers of that railroad--some of the men who caused the bronze to be erected--to this day believe that the production of that great station was the cause of the death of their chief4 ,he had dreamed of that terminal for years2 his engineer had deemed it all but impossible1 and he had sent overseas for other engineers4 ,one of these1 who had conquered the busy ,thames1 said that he could tunnel the two great rivers4 ,he was asked the cost1 and he gave it4 ,his first figures were staggering1 but the railroad president did not abandon his hope4 ,he summoned his board and put the problem to them4 ,there was pulling power between that president and his board1 and the pulling was all in a single direction4 ,their system--a railroad that acknowledged no superior--could not keep in the very front rank without its terminal in the heart of the seaboard city1 eliminating forever the delays and the inconveniences of a ferry service2 the road could not afford to drop into second rank1 and so it assumed the great undertaking4 ,that meant many things more than laymen understand2 the selling of securities in delicate markets1 home and foreign1 which fluctuate wildly on the promulgation of anticorporation talk2 the evading of untiring competitors2 the appeasing of hungry politicians1 only too anxious to feed at the hands of a wealthy corporation4 ,in this case1 it meant more than all these things1 for the two rivers were quite as treacherous as the ,american engineers had pronounced them4 ,they would sound in their tunnel bearings and find rock which seemed soft1 and their dynamite charges would be sufficient4 ,then it would prove hard1 and their blast as inefficient as that of a child's toy cannon4 ,again1 the rock would drill as hard as the hardest gneiss--the very backbone of ,mother ,earth herself1 and the hard-rock men would prepare a heavy charge of dynamite4 ,then the stuff was as soft as gravel1 and their heavy charge would have torn off the roofs of half a dozen houses4 ,when they were under one of the rivers they found its bed--the roof of their tunnel--as soft as mud4 ,there came a day when the little foaming swirls of water above their headings became a geyser3 the river-bed had blown entirely out4 ,after that1 some of the younger engineers felt like throwing themselves into the wicked river1 but the biggest engineer of all never lost his faith4 ,he sent upstream and brought down a whole ,spanish ,armada of clumsy scows1 each heaped high with sticky clay4 ,that clay--in thousands of cubic yards--made a new river-bottom and the tunnel shields went forward4 ,there were other obstacles and discouragements1 almost an infinite array of them1 to be surmounted1 but this railroad president had steeled his mind to the accomplishment of that terminal4 ,in the making of it he gave his life4 ,when the day came for the drafts upon the railroad's treasury1 mounting higher and higher1 he was cheer2 when bad news came from the burrowing engineers1 he was courage2 when timid stockholders and directors began to worry1 he was comfort4 ,he gave of his vitality to the organization1 to the making of the terminal1 until the day came when he gave too much--and his life went out while he was still like a mighty king in battle4 ,he did not live to see the classic lines of the great station building4 ,as he stands in the waiting-room1 he stands in bronze4 ,those bronze eyes are powerless to see the splendid fruition of his endeavors4 ,that sort of thing--heroic courage and death-bringing devotion to an enterprise--repeats itself now and then among the executives of the railroads4 ,when the panic of #aijg reached high tide1 there was a certain railroad president who1 like his fellows1 viewed it with no little alarm4 ,he had lunched with a big steel man1 the kind the newspapers like to call a magnate1 and the steel man had scared him4 ,the company for which the former labored was going to close half a dozen of its plants--was going to throw some thousands of poorly provided men out of work4 ,the railroad president took that bad news back to his comfortable office2 at night it travelled with him in his automobile to his big and showy house4 ,it would hit his company hard in its heavy tonnage district1 but that was only a single phase of the situation4 ,he thought of things becoming more disjointed when the news became public--before that week had run its course4 ,that night the president made up his mind to take a big step4 ,it was risky business1 but he thought it worth the risk4 ,he sent for the steel man in the morning and asked him what was the best price he could make for his product4 ,the steel man cut his regular profit in half1 but the president was not satisfied4 ,you'll have to show me a better margin than that1 he said4 ,we'll eliminate profits1 said the steel man1 and give you the stuff at cost1 to save shutting down our plant4 ,is that the best you can do8 persisted the president4 ,before he was done1 the steel man had also eliminated depreciation on plants and half a dozen minor expenses4 ,he agreed to deliver at the mere cost of raw material and labor4 ,then he received an order that would have broken some records in prosperous times4 ,the road was committed to some big building projects and it needed whole trainloads of girders and columns2 bridges by the dozen4 ,the railroad president went further1 and helped out the steel man's car-building plant4 ,he ordered #c1jjj steel freight cars1 and every day he was getting reports from his general manager of a further falling of traffic tides4 ,they had motive-power rusting on sidings1 and they were dumping freight cars in the ditches along the right-of-way because they did not have storage-room for them4 ,that took courage of a certain high-grade sort4 ,when those freshly-painted new steel cars began to be delivered in daily batches of sixty1 some of his directors asked him where he was going to find room to store them4 ,he did not answer1 for he did not know2 but in the long run he won out4 ,his company had a new equipment for the returning flood-tide of traffic which had cost it #be per cent less than that of its competitors4 ,when the time came to build its big improvement it had the steel all stored and ready4 ,the president was able to tell his directors then that he had saved them #a1gjj1jjj on that close bargain that he had driven in panicky times4 99 99 99 99 99 ,sometimes a little thing makes a railroad president big4 ,the head of a busy road in the ,middle ,west was hurrying to ,chicago one day to attend a mighty important conference of railroad chiefs4 ,his special was halted at a division point for an engine-change1 and the president was enjoying a three-minute breathing spell walking up and down beside his car4 ,an ,italian track laborer tried to make his way to him4 ,the president's secretary1 who was on the job1 after the manner of presidents' secretaries1 stopped the man4 ,the signal was given that the train was ready1 but the president saw that the track-hand was crying4 ,he ordered his train held and went over to him4 ,the story was quickly told4 ,the track-hand's little boy had been playing in the yards and had hidden in an open box-car2 so his small companions had reported4 ,afterwards the car had been closed and sealed by a yardmaster's employee4 ,somewhere it was bumping its weary way in a lazy freight train1 while a small boy1 hungry and scared1 was vainly calling to be let out4 ,perhaps that president had a boy of the same size--they always do in stories2 and perhaps--this being reality--he did not4 ,but he stopped there for three precious hours1 at that busy division point1 while he sent orders broadcast to find the boy1 orders that went with big authority because they came from the high boss himself4 ,he was late at the conference1 because that search was taking his mind and his attention4 ,he hung for hours at a long-distance telephone1 personally directing the boy-hunt with his marvellously fertile and resourceful mind4 ,when action came entirely too slowly he ordered the men out of the shops and all interchange freight halted1 until every one of #ab1jjj or #ad1jjj box cars had been opened and searched4 ,finally1 from one of these they drew forth the limp and almost lifeless body of a small boy4 ,the railroad chief died a little while ago and was buried in a city #ejj miles away from the line that he had controlled4 ,the track-hands of his line1 with that delicate sensibility that is part and parcel of the ,italian1 dug deep into their scanty savings and hired a special train1 that they might march in a body at his funeral4 ,it sometimes takes a big man to do a little thing in a big way4 99 99 99 99 99 ,here is ,underwood1 the railroad president who took hold of the ,erie when the property was a byword and a joke1 who began pouring money into it to give it real improvements and possibilities for economical handling1 and made it a practical and a profitable freighter1 a freighter of no mean importance at that4 ,he once issued an order that any car on the road 7no matter of what class of equipment7 with a flat wheel should be immediately cut out of the train4 ,the order was posted in every yardmaster's office up and down that system4 ,some time after it went into effect1 ,underwood was hurrying east in his private car4 ,it was essential that he should reach ,jersey ,city in the early morning1 for he had a big day's grist awaiting him at his office4 ,a real railroad president1 working #ah hours a day1 can brook few delays4 ,but when the president awoke1 his car was not in motion2 the foot of his bunk was higher than the head4 ,he looked out and found himself in a railroad yard three or four hundred miles from his office4 ,when he got up and out he saw why his bed had been aslant4 ,the observation end of his car was jacked up and the car-repairers were slipping a new pair of wheels underneath it4 ,a car-tinker bossed the job and ,underwood addressed him4 ,who gave you authority to cut out my car8 he asked4 ,if you will walk over to my coop1 said the car-tinker1 politely1 you will find my authority in orders from headquarters to cut out any car 7no matter of what class of equipment7 with a flat wheel4 ,when the new wheels were in place the president of the road put his hand upon the shoulder of the car-tinker and marched him uptown4 ,the man obeyed1 not knowing what was coming to him4 ,underwood walked him straight into a jeweller's shop1 picked out the best gold watch in the case and handed it to the car-tinker4 ,you keep right on obeying orders1 he said4 ,the relations between a railroad president at the head of the organization1 and some man who struggles ahead in the army of which the president is general1 would make a whole book4 ,they still tell a story in ,broad ,street ,station1 ,philadelphia1 of ,mr4 ,cassatt1 the ,pennsylvania's great president1 and the brakeman4 ,it seems that one of the suburban locals that took ,cassatt to his country home up the main line was halted one night by an unfriendly signal4 ,the president1 mildly wondering at the delay1 found his way to the rear platform4 ,on the lower step of that platform1 in plain violation of the company's rule1 sat the rear brakeman4 ,cassatt was never a man who was quick with words1 but he said in a low voice3 ,young man1 isn't there a rule on this road that a brakeman shall go a certain distance to the rear of a stalled train to protect it by danger signal8 ,the brakeman spat upon the right-of-way and1 without lifting his eyes from it1 said3 ,if there is1 it's none of your damn business4 ,cassatt--the man who could strike an arm of ,pennsylvania into the heart of metropolitan ,new ,york at a cost of many millions of dollars--was much embarrassed4 ,oh1 certainly it isn't1 he said with an attempt at a smile4 ,i was merely asking for information4 ,the next morning the president of the ,pennsylvania summoned the trainmaster of that suburban division to his desk and reported the matter4 ,the trainmaster turned three colors4 ,it was lse-majest of the most heinous sort4 ,he proposed the immediate dismissal of the offending brakeman4 ,cassatt ruled against that4 ,he was too big a man to be seeking to rob any brakeman of his job4 ,just tell him1 he said to the trainmaster1 with a suggestion of a smile about his lips1 that he cussed the president1 and that1 as a personal favor1 ,i should like him to be more polite to passengers in the future4 ,no two railroad presidents come up to their problem in quite the same way4 ,take the two members of the ,western railroad world--one gone now--,hill and ,harriman4 ,in ,j4 ,j4 ,hill's domain the personality of the man counts for everything4 ,he picks his men1 advances them1 rejects or dismisses them1 by a rare intuitive sense1 with which he judges character4 ,a high chief in his ranks once asked for a vacation in which to take his family to ,europe4 ,hill granted it4 ,when the man came back from ,europe another was at his desk4 ,hill did not approve of long vacations1 and that was his method of showing it4 ,the department head should have known better4 ,on the other hand1 ,harriman measured his men impersonally--as if in a master scale4 ,he measured them by results4 ,a man might personally be somewhat repugnant to him1 but if he accomplished results for the road1 he held his place1 at least until some one came along who could do even better4 ,w4 ,c4 ,brown1 of the ,new ,york ,central1 and ,james ,mc,crea1 of the ,pennsylvania1 are the heads of two railroads great in mileage and in volume of traffic2 yet their methods are in many essentials radically different4 ,mc,crea is the essence of ,pennsylvania policy--coldly impersonal4 ,it is easier to gain an audience with the president of the ,united ,states than with the president of the ,pennsylvania4 ,no ,pennsylvania man from president down to the lowest ranking officer1 grants an interview to a newspaper reporter4 ,it would be risky business for any officer of the ,pennsylvania to have his photograph published or himself glorified by reason of his connection with the company4 ,the company is the corporation4 ,when it speaks1 it speaks impersonally through its press agent1 a clever young man with clever assistants1 who both answers newspaper questions and advances newspaper information4 ,his function is a new one of the ,american railroad1 and allies itself directly with the office of the president4 ,w4 ,c4 ,brown1 of the ,new ,york ,central1 probably stands preminent to-day among ,american railroad executives4 ,he has shouldered himself up from the ranks of the railroad army1 and only good wishes have gone to him as he has stepped from one high post to a still higher one4 ,he has come1 as nine out of ten successful executives have come1 from the operating end of the railroad4 ,brown is particularly accessible to newspaper reporters4 ,he talks with them1 carefully and painstakingly1 and sees to it that they are correctly informed as to each of the great railroad problems of the day4 ,he believes sincerely that the head of a railroad should be personality and that the personality should stand forth directly in the guidance of the property4 ,in his own case1 at least1 he has demonstrated the value of his theory4 ,for all this work and all this strain1 the railroad president demands that he be adequately paid4 ,he has a good many perquisites--chief among them a comfortable private car at his beck and call2 but perquisites are not salary4 ,the head and front of the ,american railroad to-day receives anywhere from #ae1jjj to #ge1jjj2 an astonishingly large percentage of railroad presidents are receiving at least #ej1jjj annually4 ,but they work for their pay--sometimes with their life-devotion1 as in the case of the big man who built the big terminal2 other times with the hard sense of the president who bought his steel girders and cars in the time of panic4 ,here is a case in point4 ,a road in the ,middle ,west1 which was so compact as to make it quite local in character1 had a big traffic proposition to handle and was handling it in a miserable fashion4 ,one local celebrity after another tackled it1 until the directors were laying side bets with one another as to the precise day when the receiver should walk into the office4 ,finally1 ,eastern capital1 which was heavily interested in the property1 revolted at the local offerings1 and sent out an operating man with a big reputation to take hold of it4 ,the directors received him with a certain veiled distrust as coming from another land1 but in the end they hired him4 ,the matter of salary came up last of all4 ,fifty thousand1 said the ,new ,yorker in a low voice4 ,one of the local directors spoke up4 ,fifteen thousand6 said he4 ,it's out of the question4 ,we've never paid more than twelve4 ,so ,i should imagine1 was the dry response4 ,but ,i said fifty1 not fifteen4 ,the consternation that followed may be imagined6 ,in the end the ,new ,yorker carried his point4 ,at the end of just twelve months he had1 through his acquaintance in ,wall ,street1 and his keen insight into the big channels of finance1 cut that little road's interest charges just #hjj1jjj a year4 ,the receiver has not come yet4 ,the road has accomplished a miracle and has begun to pay dividends4 ,there is another miracle to relate4 ,last spring1 the directors of the road voted an increase in salary to their president--and he courteously refused it6 ,i think the presidency of this road is worth #ej1jjj a year1 he said1 frankly1 and not one cent more4 ,that is the way a president should stand above and with his board4 ,only a little time ago1 another president1 who had no easier proposition to set upon its feet1 was criticised by a querulous old director for his lavish use of private cars and special trains4 ,that president was having his own troubles--his job had no soft places2 but he said nothing when the testy old fellow lectured him as he might have lectured a sin-filled schoolboy4 ,when the director was done1 the president spoke in a low voice4 ,gentlemen1 my resignation is on the table1 was his reply to the censure4 ,the next moment there was consternation in that board4 ,the president slipped out of the room and left them to consider the matter4 ,when he returned1 the chairman of the board1 who had nodded in half approval at the censure1 was at the door to greet him4 ,we refuse to accept your resignation1 he said2 but the board does feel that you ought to have a new car--the present one's getting shabby1 ,phil4 ,and in that moment the president felt that his work had gained one little ounce of appreciation4 ,,chapter ,,xi ,,the ,,legal ,,and ,,financial ,,departments ,,functions ,,of ,,general ,,counsel1 ,,and ,,those ,,of ,,general ,,attorney--,a ,,shrewd ,,legal ,,mind',s ,,worth ,,to ,a ,,railroad--,,the ,,function ,,of ,,the ,,claim-,,agent--,,men ,,and ,,women ,,who ,,feign ,,injury--,,the ,,secret ,,service ,,as ,,an ,,aid ,,to ,,the ,,claim-,,agent--,,wages ,,of ,,employees ,,the ,,greatest ,,of ,a ,,railroad',s ,,expenditures--,,the ,,pay-,,car--,,the ,,comptroller ,,or ,,auditor--,,division ,,of ,,the ,,income ,,from ,,through ,,tickets--,,claims ,,for ,,lost ,,or ,,damaged ,,freight--,,purchasing-,,agent ,,and ,,store-,,keeper4 ,at the very elbow of the railroad president stands the general counsel4 ,he is shrewd1 resourceful1 diplomatic4 ,he has quick perception and action1 the faith and the loyalty of a friend4 ,in many cases he is a personal officer of the president--in the highest sense4 ,if there is a change of administration of the railroad1 there is apt to be a change in the office of the general counsel4 ,if ,b----1 who has been guiding the destinies of the ,t4 ,s41 goes to ,transcontinental1 he is apt to take ,y----1 his general counsel along with him4 ,for except in the case of some exquisitely organized roads like the ,pennsylvania1 for instance1 the general counsel is in every sense personal to the president4 ,he advises him privately1 urges him to this step1 cautions him from that4 ,on the other hand1 the general attorney is more apt to be the legal officer of the railroad4 ,like the general counsel he has an old-fashioned pride in his profession that makes him hesitate at accepting a vice-presidency2 he likes the ring of general attorney or general counsel in his own ears4 ,railroad history and tradition both go to prove that4 ,he will hardly drop those titles for anything less than that of president4 ,the general attorney1 unlike the general counsel1 in most cases will make his offices in the railroad's headquarters4 ,he will handle its litigation1 and if in half a dozen years he can bring down its verdict costs from #a1bej1jjj to #gej1jjj for an average twelve month1 as one man did1 he will be well worth the large salary that he demands and gets4 ,and his salary will be only one of many of the heavy expenses of the legal department4 ,when that functionary asks for money he gets it and without many questionings4 ,the operating department1 the traffic department1 the engineers1 may have to give sharp account for their appropriations2 the legal end of the railroad is trusted to accomplish accurate results1 without detailed accounting4 ,in some cases it might prove embarrassing4 99 99 99 99 99 ,you want to know the value of the shrewd and perceptive legal mind to a big railroad8 ,here is a case that proves his worth3 ,a certain transportation company in the ,east had a legal vice-president who many people supposed was a political heritage to the road1 a man for whom it was supposed a berth had been made by the owner of the property1 who was something of a politician himself4 ,a quick turning of the wheel of fortune had thrown one political party out of business at the capital1 and another in4 ,the man was given a place in the railroad offices1 and a little later was made a vice-president4 ,it so happened that the vice-president knew more than supposers might even imagine2 but he was a quiet man1 and sometimes some of his own clerks wondered why he drew his big salary4 ,after he had been at his desk a dozen years they found the reason4 ,in gathering up a number of railroad properties to make the parent company--after the fashion of modern railroad practice--one of the most important of these old-time units was found to be in woefully shabby physical form4 ,it was a valuable road in the consolidation4 ,the new parent was willing to guarantee an annual rental of #aj per cent on its stock2 but as a railroad it fairly shook at the knees4 ,it stood in dire need of reconstruction1 and the men who were offering it a high rental made that a provision of the deal4 ,the old road finally agreed to spend #ab1jjj1jjj in revising its line and in buying new locomotives1 cars1 and bridges4 ,with much ado it accomplished its revision1 and brought itself up closer to modern standards of railroading4 ,a decade later when the governmental supervision of the railroads had come into the full flush of its authority1 the quiet vice-president had an armful of ,state commission reports and vouchers brought to his desk4 ,he locked himself in his room1 and in a week he had made from them a #bj1jjj-word abstract in long hand4 ,then he took his report in to the president of the road4 ,the acute mind of that general counsel--you see that he was vice-president in this particular case--searching here and there and everywhere1 had discovered a mouse-hole4 ,the old-time road had not fulfilled its part of the contract4 ,it had found that it could revise its lines at a cost of a little less than #i1jjj1jjj and had quietly pocketed the change4 ,the big rent-paying consolidation went into the courts1 after its cool1 impassive way4 ,the case went to a referee and the referee took four years to hear the case and decide it4 ,there were #e1jjj exhibits offered in evidence and #h1jjj closely written pages of evidence1 making a case nearly equal to that of the receivership of the ,metropolitan ,street ,railway ,company of ,new ,york ,city1 which fills twenty pudgy volumes of some #hjj pages each4 ,the referee decided in favor of the parent company1 and rendered a verdict close to #f1jjj1jjj1 principal and interest4 ,the case was appealed1 and sustained4 ,that vice-president had proved his worth4 ,the president of the defendant road came to him4 ,we simply can't pay1 he pleaded4 ,we've no reserve fund4 ,then we will take it out of your rental1 was the emotionless reply of the quiet vice-president4 ,that type of man stands forth as a possibility to every one of the dozens and dozens of young men who make the main staff of the railroad's legal department4 ,those fellows come to the railroad fresh from the law schools4 ,their salaries are small but their experience and their opportunities are enormous4 ,it is a far better career at the beginning than a briefless existence in one's own office1 even though one's own name is emblazoned in brilliant gilt letters upon the door4 ,a young man coming into the legal department of a large railroad has a diversity of work offered him4 ,he draws up the simplest of papers at first1 acts as assistant to a trial lawyer1 then finally comes to the time when he will alone fight the railroad's case in some minor cause in a small court4 ,after that the causes get bigger1 the courts more important1 he begins to delve into law libraries and to write briefs4 ,gradually he emerges into a full-fledged lawyer4 ,he may eventually become general attorney or general counsel1 and he may find himself welcome to the partnership of some really important law firm4 ,he has knowledge that may be of value in fighting the railroad2 whether he will use that knowledge in afterwards fighting his employer is a matter for his own conscience to determine4 ,there are special departments under the main heading of the law department4 ,counsel1 the ablest of counsel1 is retained at each important point reached by the railroad1 and these counsel must act in conjunction and coperation with headquarters4 ,special tax counsel have an important office by themselves1 for the railroad sometimes finds itself in a difficult position4 ,in its pride it may announce to the world1 through the newspapers1 that the new ,bingtown depot has cost #djj1jjj1 but when the ,bingtown appraisers come around1 possessing in their bosoms no inherent love for the railroad1 those newspaper clippings in their hands1 the tax counsel begins to earn his salary4 ,in these days of ,federal and ,state supervision and regulation of railroad management1 with now and then an aldermanic chamber or a county board of supervisors trying its hand at the game1 there is sure to be special counsel1 generally known as the commerce or commission counsel1 assigned to the complaints and hearings4 ,for intricate1 involved1 or unusual cases the road may go outside of its own ranks and hire special counsel--lawyers who are specialists in the very thing involved4 ,just as the big and tactful attorney stands back of the railroad's president1 so there crouches at his feet the claim-agent of the company1 who is its watch-dog and its scenting hound4 ,back of this claim-agent1 who must have achieved a reputation for keen-sightedness and marked ability before receiving his position1 is a busy company of claim agents1 at headquarters and every division headquarters upon the system4 ,together1 these form a militant organization that stands with the legal department to defend the railroad's treasury against indiscriminate raiding4 ,sometimes1 because the work dovetails in many ways closely with that of the operating department1 these claim-agents work under the order of the general manager and the division superintendents4 ,a sly old fellow who once headed a big road in the ,middle ,west once explained the reason why--in the case of his property--without even a trace of a smile4 ,john says1 he was speaking of his own general counsel1 that a claim-agent can't be yanked up before any of these touchy bar associations and charged with unprofessional practices if we can show cases--that they're just railroad men and not lawyers1 at all4 ,that was an exaggerated case4 ,as a rule1 the young claim-agent has abundant need to be upon his mettle4 ,the public1 with an inborn itching against the corporation1 keeps him upon that mettle4 ,the man who has had a slight bump upon a railroad train--to make an instance--hunts out the claim office at headquarters4 ,he gets quick treatment and mighty courteous treatment4 ,if he can prove himself in any way entitled to a reimbursement1 he gets it--in cash upon the spot4 ,likewise he signs a release--a most ponderous and impressive document4 ,when his ,john ,smith goes upon that document he has1 in its own magnificent phrasing in consideration of money received released the railroad company from all obligation to him from the beginning of the world1 the fall of man and the decline of the ,roman ,empire up to the very moment of the signing4 ,he goes home1 pretty well satisfied with himself4 ,it was only a little bump at that4 ,a twenty-five cent bottle of arnica had made him physically himself once again2 and as for his suit1 well1 that was pretty well worn1 anyway1 and three dollars to a tailor would make it a good second best for next winter4 ,he feels that the ten dollars that the railroad gave him was pretty abundant compensation4 ,but wait until he sees his neighbor4 ,the neighbor almost froths at the mouth when he hears of the transaction--of the impressively worded release that was signed4 ,you're a chump1 he says4 ,you could have gone to bed1 stayed there a week and they would have been glad to give you a hundred4 ,after which the man looks upon his ten dollars with contempt and a feeling of injury1 and becomes a corporation hater4 ,or perhaps he was really hurt and had some sort of a bill from his doctor and his druggist1 lost time to be compensated at his job4 ,the railroad has figured these together and paid him the sum1 with the signing of the release as a necessary feature of the transaction4 ,the thing was not very serious1 we will say1 in this instance also1 and the hundred dollars that he received was really a fair compensation4 ,now watch the neighbor1 who it happens is a pretty shrewd attorney3 ,let me take the case1 even now1 he urges slyly4 ,i'll get a verdict of five thousand for you1 if you are wise1 and we will divide the proceeds4 ,but ,i've signed their release1 groans the other4 ,the shyster laughs in his face4 ,you were drugged1 he whispers1 drugged1 and we will prove it4 ,that is not an exaggerated case4 ,it is the sort of thing that the railroad's claim-agents are combating every day of the year2 and then wonder not1 that some of them finally lose the fine sense of honor1 themselves4 ,and beyond this class of folk1 is another--nothing less than criminal4 ,there are men and women in this broad land who make a business of feigning injury1 and make it a pretty astute business1 too1 so that they may dig deep into the strong-boxes of the railroad4 ,the most dramatic of this particular brand of nature fakirs has been ,edward ,pape1 the man with the broken neck4 ,pape has a most remarkable deformity and has not been slow to avail himself of it as a money-making device far beyond the figures that might be quoted for him by circus side-shows or dime museums4 ,pape makes a specialty of the trolley companies4 ,he can so alight from a car1 coming slowly to a stop1 that he will fall and go rolling into the gutter4 ,instantly there is excitement and a group of men to pick up the prostrate form4 ,he is found to be badly injured and is hurried to a hospital4 ,there the internes discover that he has a broken neck4 ,a marvellous set of ,x-ray photographs are made1 and the railroad is usually willing to settle a large cash sum rather than stand suit4 ,within a week he will probably be away and practising his trick on some unsuspecting railroad4 ,there was a time over in ,philadelphia that was hell1 ,pape once told the writer4 ,i'd just finished my fancy fall1 and they got me into the sickhouse and rigged out most to kill4 ,they put hip-boots on me there in bed1 with their soles fastened to the foot-board and a rubber bandage under my chin and over my head4 ,they put seventy-five pounds in weights on a cord and a pulley-jigger to that bandage and it nearly killed me all day long4 ,at night ,i used to wait until it was dark and then ,i'd haul up the weights and put them under the blanket with me4 ,otherwise1 ,i don't know how ,i'd 'a' got my sleep4 ,illustration3 ,,the ,,freight ,,department ,,of ,,the ,,modern ,,railroad ,,requires ,a ,,veritable ,,army ,,of ,,clerks ,illustration3 ,,the ,,farmer ,,who ,,sued ,,the ,,railroad ,,for ,,permanent ,,injuries--,,as ,,the ,,detectives ,,with ,,their ,,cameras ,,found ,,him ,little things like the discomfort of hospital treatment and searching examinations by railroad surgeons do not seem to discourage these criminals4 ,they take these as necessary hardships that go with their profession4 ,inga ,hanson1 the woman who impersonated deafness1 dumbness1 blindness and paralysis to win a heavy verdict from the ,chicago ,city ,railway ,company1 and who was afterwards convicted of perjury1 was wheeled daily into the court-room in a chair apparently nothing more than a living1 inert1 shapeless mass of humanity1 exquisitely trained to enact her role of deception4 ,sometimes the claim-agents1 working in conjunction with the railroad's secret service1 have used the camera to great advantage4 ,a farmer who lives in ,new ,jersey drove into a seaboard city with a load of produce4 ,at a grade crossing1 a switch-engine overturned his craft1 about as gently as such an accident could be accomplished4 ,the farmer was lucky in that he was bruised1 rather than seriously hurt4 ,then he saw a lawyer and learned that he was incapacitated for life by severe internal injuries4 ,he entered suit for #be1jjj against the railroad4 ,there was a case for the secret-service bureau of the railroad1 and it took little time to find the right detectives1 husky enough to get out into the fields and work for four long weeks as farmhands4 ,when the ,jersey farmer began haying that ,august1 he found less trouble than he had ever before experienced in hiring low-priced help4 ,he was able to get two big lads1 who were hard workers4 ,it was a big hay year and the farmer was not averse to turning in to do his part of the work4 ,he liked to be with the boys he had hired and one of them had a camera that he could take great pictures with4 ,he showed him some of the pictures that he took those ,august days on the ,jersey farm4 ,the farmer liked them immensely4 ,he liked them rather less when his attorney came down from the city one day1 with prints of the same pictures that had been sent him by the law department of the railroad4 ,the farmer was given a chance to withdraw from the limelight or else stand a criminal trial for perjury1 with the penitentiary's gray walls looming up behind4 ,he took the chance4 ,few of the dishonest claimants will proceed after such evidence has been put before them4 ,as for the railroad1 it usually works better through getting signed confessions of guilt than by going through the somewhat intense workings of a criminal trial4 ,the secret service stands just back of the claim-agents4 ,it has greater or less recognition in the case of different railroads but its work is generally much the same4 ,it is police4 ,sometimes it is organized like the police department of a small city1 with captains and inspectors at various division headquarters1 and at other times its very existence is denied by the railroad heads4 ,but its work is much the same4 ,its men1 generally chosen for fitness from city police or detective staffs1 sometimes root out tramps or small thieves along the line and in the freight-yards1 sometimes in gay uniform patrol the platforms of crowded passenger terminals1 sometimes work with greatest secrecy in plain clothes--which in this case may be jeans or overalls--to detect theft or treason among employees1 and sometimes they receive their greatest laurels in connection with the fake suits that are brought against the railroad4 ,the secret-service works night and day4 ,its members1 with the claim-agents1 are at the scene of a serious accident as quickly as the wrecking-train itself4 ,together with the railroad's own corps of surgeons1 retained in every important town1 and chosen for absolute honesty and integrity1 they form an important adjunct of the personal injury claim service4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the financial officer of the railroad is1 of course1 the treasurer4 ,it is he who receives its earnings--running possibly into a hundred millions dollars in the course of a twelvemonth--and disburses them for supplies and for wages1 for taxes and for bond coupons1 and1 it is to be hoped1 for dividends4 ,he works through appointed banks2 and the bank president who can go out and capture one or two good railroad accounts for his institution has earned his salary for several years to come4 ,the selection of the banks is one of the dramatic phases of the inside politics of railroading2 it is a cause of constant wire-pullings and heartburnings4 ,do you see that whited sepulchre down there8 a big railroad head laughs to you as he points to a white marble skyscraper closing the vista of a city canyon4 ,this road built that temple of business4 ,our account is its backbone4 ,sometimes we deposit a million dollars a day and it is no uncommon thing for our balance there1 approaching coupon or dividend times to reach sixteen or seventeen million dollars4 ,he laughs again1 then grows confidential4 ,we're in a bit of a hole1 he admits4 ,some of the big manufacturers downtown are organizing a bank1 and it looks as if it was going to be a pretty solid sort of institution4 ,they want a big account from us1 and our traffic people are urging their cause4 ,in the long run they'll get the account4 ,then he explains to you that the railroad endeavors to hold down its bank accounts1 although it must have them in a large number of different cities1 to avoid the long shipments of large quantities of money4 ,the agents and the conductors will1 following a carefully arranged system1 send their receipts to the nearest designated banks1 mailing memorandum slips of the deposit both to the treasurer and to the comptroller4 ,the bank in its turn1 sends receipt slips to both of these officers1 so the deposit transaction is hedged about with a sufficient degree of formality and detail4 ,when it comes to pay out its money1 the railroad has no lessened degree of formality and detail4 ,for the wages of its employees--generally the greatest of all expenditures--the railroad has proper system and order4 ,the paymaster makes out the voluminous pay-rolls1 they are each properly attested by the heads of departments2 and for his pay-roll totals1 the necessary vouchers are issued to him by the treasurer4 ,he may pay the railroad army by check or he may send his deputies out over the system in the pay-cars4 ,the pay-car is one of the pleasantest of the surviving old-time railroad customs4 ,the shriek of the whistle of the engine that hauls it is the pleasantest melody that can come to the ears of the man out upon the line4 ,to shuffle in a long line up to its platform window where the railroad's money is being paid out in tiny envelopes1 as each man signs the impressive roll1 is one of the greatest joys that anticipation can hold out4 ,as the car makes its routine trip over the line each month or each fortnight1 it draws its money from the various repository banks1 or else the cash is forwarded to it at division points from headquarters4 ,but1 like many old customs1 the pay-car is disappearing4 ,the railroads are more and more paying their men by check4 ,it is a better system in many ways4 ,it avoids the handling of large sums of money1 and many of the men prefer not to have a roll of bills thrust into their hands4 ,the old prejudice among them against checks is practically over4 ,the checks are constant incentives toward saving1 the small banks in the little town are shrewdly reaching for the accounts of the thrifty railroaders4 ,there may not be much for the bank in just one of these accounts1 but they can quickly multiply into considerable sums4 ,we have already spoken of the comptroller2 he is called the auditor upon some of our railroads4 ,the comptroller is the most passionless and unemotional of all railroad officials4 ,he measures the worth of his fellows by cold mathematical rules1 by addition1 by subtraction1 by multiplication1 by division4 ,even as big a man as the president may shudder at the result of such coldly accurate measurings4 ,no moneys are received1 none spent1 without the knowledge and approval of the comptroller4 ,he is really a fine balance-wheel of the system1 a governor working in exact accord with the laws of the ancient and wonderfully accurate science of numbers4 ,by his computations men rise1 men fall4 ,he is the keeper of the rule and keeper of the weight4 ,his office organization reflects his own measure of accuracy4 ,as a rule1 an auditor of disbursements and auditors of tickets and of freight receipts report are his chief assistants at headquarters4 ,a corps of sharp-eyed young men1 each also having an almighty respect for mathematical accuracy1 will be up and down the line for him1 catching up careless agents on the one hand1 and on the other gently showing them how to keep their accounts better1 and conform more carefully to the company's established standards4 ,sometimes the car accountant1 a man who watches the mileage of the company's cars travelling over other roads1 and the equipment of other roads scurrying over the home system1 reports to the comptroller1 oftener1 however1 directly to the operating department4 ,all these make a considerable office--an office which usually treads its monotonous path and rarely becomes nervously excited2 an office to be well considered in the organization of the railroad4 ,the work of that office falls quite naturally into three channels--as we have already indicated--passenger receipts1 freight receipts and disbursements1 and general accounts4 ,in the passenger receipts the accounting has1 of course1 to do with the sale of tickets1 and the cash fare collections made by conductors upon the trains4 ,this would be simple enough bookkeeping if a good many years ago the interline or coupon ticket1 entitling the bearer to ride upon several different roads1 had not come into popularity4 ,to apportion the revenue of a ticket between the half-dozen different lines upon which it has been used requires almost no end of system and accounting4 ,once a month each road has an accounting with its fellows1 with whom it is engaged in selling through tickets4 ,the coupons themselves are the vouchers1 and cash balances of a single road--because of the freight as well as the passenger business--may be kept standing in the treasuries of several hundred other roads4 ,it is a system quite as intricate1 in itself1 as the relations between city and country banking and yet it is only a single small phase of the conduct of the railroad4 ,the auditor of ticket receipts must also1 through this staff organization1 make sharp examination of the tickets that are turned in by the conductors at the end of each day's run4 ,he must see to it that the conductor is neither careless nor anything worse4 ,in either of these cases he will bring the matter quickly to the attention of the operating department4 ,in addition to the railroad selling its tickets there are also railroad passenger traffic organizations1 half a dozen or more important ones across the country1 which are engaged in selling various forms of railroad transportation4 ,in some cases this takes the shape of a mileage-book which may be honored by fifteen or twenty different lines4 ,the book will perhaps be sold for #be4jj and will permit of #a1jjj miles' riding at a saving over local fares1 if the purchaser comply with its provisions4 ,if he has complied with its provisions within the year's life of the book1 he will be paid #e rebate upon return of its cover which has given him his riding at two cents a mile4 ,sometimes these books take the form of scrip which is silent upon mileage but which has its strip divided into five-cent portions1 sold at wholesale1 as it were1 at a fraction less than five cents each4 ,in any case1 there is more work for the auditor who handles passenger receipts1 and if the railroad is in ,new ,york ,state1 for instance1 where there is quite a model law in effect regulating these things he will have to be very careful how he handles the accounts for these peculiar mileage books4 ,the law tells him that he must not credit the whole #be to passenger receipts1 for the law seems to point to even finer lines than the comptroller4 ,he cannot even subtract the #e which will probably return to the purchaser1 and charge the #bj to receipts4 ,the mileage-book sales must be credited to a separate account1 and only transferred to the main receipts of the railroad as the strip is turned in for passage1 a few miles at a time4 ,do you wonder then that the comptroller sometimes grows gray-haired1 that the vast routine of his office swells tremendously from year to year8 ,the passenger receipts are almost always less than half of the income accounts of his offices4 ,they are the ,a1 ,b1 ,c compared with the delicious tangle that comes when the freight waybills come in by the hundred thousand1 and each little road must receive the last penny due to it4 ,that feature alone will sometimes keep #djj clerks scratching their pens in a single office1 will involve many1 many more balances and cross-balances between the railroads4 ,and beyond that complication is still another1 the constant investigation and settlement of freight claims that come pouring in against the railroad4 ,there is another job for a staff of competent men4 ,if it is an overcharge claim1 the routine is comparatively simple4 ,the audit office should have information at hand sufficient to decline the claim or settle it immediately4 ,but if the claim is for lost or damaged freight1 the thing complicates4 ,before the freight claim department will draw a voucher against the treasurer1 it will have to assure its own conscience that the claim is fairly substantiated by the facts4 ,from these receipts1 combined with those from rentals of express or telegraph privileges or the like1 the railroad pays its bills--pays its men1 as we have already seen4 ,it pays its taxes and its bond coupons and its fire insurance1 and apportions these as far as possible over the twelve months of the year that it may keep a fairly even balance between receipts and expenditures4 ,the other bills are paid by properly signed and attested vouchers1 which are bankable like checks1 and which are indeed the very best form of check1 because they are upon their face a receipt stating the precise reason for which a certain sum of money was paid4 ,in recent years the comptroller1 or the auditor1 as you may prefer to call him1 has become more and more of a statistician4 ,he prepares tables as to locomotive performances1 obtaining his figures from the mechanical department2 he can tell you to an ounce the average carload of the system for any given month4 ,he fairly seems to revel in his own development of the science of numbers4 ,train and car statistics will probably show the number of trains of different classes1 the mileage of the same1 the mileage of empty and of loaded cars1 and the direction of their movement4 ,locomotive statistics run to mileage1 consumption of fuel and of stores1 and the cost of labor and material for repairs4 ,in addition to all these the comptroller will probably prepare statistics of locomotive performances--so many miles to one ton of coal and one pint of oil4 ,then he will show the average cost of coal by the ton and of oil by the gallon1 for the railroad never forgets the cost4 ,it is cost that really makes the excuse for these great statistics2 cost and revenue1 analyzed and reanalyzed in half a hundred different ways4 ,the statistics are the thermometers1 the very pulse by which the health of the railroad is acutely judged4 ,sometimes the statistics become graphic1 and the comptroller1 through some of the keen-witted men in his office1 prepares charts1 in which statistics become curves of averages or jotted and wriggling lines1 with each jot and each wriggle full of meaning4 ,government by draughting-board1 sniffs the old-time railroader as he sees these great cross-hatched sheets with their crazy lines of intelligence spun across them1 but it is government by draughting-board that has made the old-time railroader--well1 the old-time railroader4 ,the new-time railroader gives heed to those charts--the pulse readings of the creature that he is directing--guides his course in no small way by them4 ,they are veritable charts by which he may pick his way quickly and safely4 ,branching1 as a rule1 direct from the president's office and occasionally from the general manager's1 are the purchasing agent and the store-keeper1 many times one and the same1 or the former acting as superior to the latter4 ,the purchasing agent has no easy role4 ,if he is not above sharp practices--the gift of a bit of furniture or a theatre box1 in the least instances--he will fulfil only part of the reputation of his office2 and if he is--as many1 many of them are--absolutely honest down to the keenest degree of an acute conscience1 he will probably still be under the suspicion of some querulous minds4 ,his opportunities for deceit and guile are many1 so much the more must he be an honest man in every full sense of that word4 ,he brings the modern railroad's passion for standardization down to the purchase of its every sort of supplies2 for his office goes out into the market for anything1 from a box of matches to a locomotive4 ,the very fact that his department is a non-revenue department1 save for an occasional sale of scrap-iron or discarded materials1 only serves to put him the more upon his guard4 ,he must not yield to the wiles of crafty salesmen4 ,he must measure their wares by a single standard--economy1 as expressed in selling-price1 in durability1 and in cost of maintenance2 and upon that standard he must decide between them1 as impartially as a justice upon the bench4 ,he must be guided by standard4 ,if it be typewriters1 he must struggle against the preference of this department or that for some particular machine1 and bring all to the test of his three-headed economy4 ,the successful machine will then be adopted for the system and brought as such4 ,no small responsibility rests upon his accuracy of judgment4 ,his store-keeper must see to it that there is no waste of supplies4 ,he must see to it1 for instance1 that the engineers are as careful in their use of oils as the clerk in that of stationery4 ,we use #d1jjj worth of lead pencils alone in the course of a single year1 says one of them2 and if we didn't keep hammering at the boys1 that figure would jump to #e1jjj or #f1jjj without realizing it4 ,he keeps check on the supplies that he issues4 ,his stock of blank forms1 alone1 would do credit to a wholesale stationery house in a sizable city2 for the railroad is a liberal user of printer's ink in its own devices4 ,he must be thrifty and he must be economical2 he must look to it that the railroad's money is not wasted in the purchase and use of its supplies4 ,together with the general counsel1 the general attorney1 the claim-agent1 the treasurer1 and the comptroller1 the purchasing agent and the store-keeper stand as guardians of the railroad's strong-box4 ,,chapter ,,xii ,,the ,,general ,,manager ,,his ,,duty ,,to ,,keep ,,employees ,,in ,,harmonious ,,action--,,the ,,superintendent ,,deals ,,with ,,men2 ,,the ,,general ,,manager ,,with ,,superintendents--,,the ,,general ,,manager ,,is ,,really ,,king--,,cases ,,in ,,which ,,his ,,power ,,is ,,almost ,,despotic--,,he ,,must ,,know ,,men4 ,the general manager operating the railroad is held strictly responsible for the economical movement of the trains and the maintenance of the property4 ,to the greatest portion of the railroad army 7nine-tenths of it employed in the operating department7 he is an uncrowned king4 ,the superintendent1 as we shall presently see1 is the unit of the operation of the road1 just as the division over which he is head is one of the physical units that go to make up some thousands of miles of first-class railroad track4 ,the division superintendent deals in men2 the general manager deals in division superintendents2 and right there is the radical difference between the two4 ,the superintendent must see to it that his men get a square deal4 ,if he does not see to it in the first instance they will see to it in the last1 and woe to him if such be the case4 ,for the men who work on the steam railroad are well-paid1 well-read1 keenly sensitive as to their privileges and their rights4 ,and from these men have come the division superintendents1 as different each from the other as men can be grown4 ,it is the general manager's chief duty to bring these very different men into harmonious action4 ,that is absolutely essential to the successful operation of the railroad4 ,the general manager must have absolute firmness with his superintendents4 ,he can appoint or discharge them as they can appoint or discharge their trainmen--more quickly in fact1 for up to the present time there is no brotherhood of railroad superintendents4 ,a certain division superintendent in the ,east had #aej miles of busy double-track trunk line under his direction4 ,at his headquarters were a big classification yard and a coaling-station for the engine of the two divisions that intersected there4 ,in the course of gradually increasing business1 the coaling-station1 which stood in a narrow ledge beside the main-line tracks and under the breast of a steep mountain-side1 had to be enlarged4 ,in so small a place1 that was a difficult engineering problem4 ,it was necessary to build much bigger coal-pockets and while the engineers were removing the old and building the new station1 temporary coaling facilities had to be provided for the busy engine point4 ,that part of the problem--more operating than engineering--was finally solved by going across the main-line tracks and locating a temporary coaling-station there4 ,that made a bad situation--with the heavy main-line traffic constantly intersecting with engines drilling back and forth to their coal supply1 and the general manager was quick to realize it4 ,he went up there and warned his superintendent4 ,this is a danger place1 he said1 and a mighty bad one at that4 ,that tower's too far away to guard this cross-over4 ,i want you to put two flagmen here at all hours and let them personally signal and safeguard every engine that crosses these main-line tracks4 ,then he went back to his own big office1 feeling that the responsibility for that danger place was off his own shoulders1 in part at least4 ,the division superintendent put in the requisition for the four men he needed4 ,the requisition enmeshed itself in the red-tape at the general offices of the system4 ,some smart young assistant auditor there1 who couldn't tell a coal-pocket from a gravity-yard1 and who was #djj miles away1 remembered that he had been ordered to cut the pay-roll--and the requisition went into the waste-basket4 ,the division superintendent did not try to get another requisition for those flagmen through4 ,he did the next best thing and told the towerman in the cabin--almost half a mile away--to keep as good a watch as possible of the cross-over4 ,the inevitable came early one evening1 in an ,october fog4 ,the ,chicago ,fast ,mail ran into an engine returning from the coal-pockets and there were half a dozen dead when the wreck was cleared away4 ,the division superintendent was hurriedly summoned down to the general manager's office4 ,i cautioned you against trying to operate that cross-over without special signalmen1 that officer said1 as he discharged the superintendent and so cleared himself of the responsibility4 ,and that is where the modern system of excessive consolidation in our big land carriers turned one good1 faithful railroad executive into a howling anarchist4 ,an illogical system has developed from this rapid expansion of the great individual railroad properties4 ,as its most interesting phase1 it offers the man who is farthest away from the detail of operation as the man who decides4 ,one man takes the judgment of another and both of them are far removed1 perhaps1 from the seat of the very trouble that they seek to remedy4 ,the man on the ground is powerless in the matter4 ,here is the yardmaster at a great interior railroad centre--we call it ,somerset for the sake of convenience4 ,his is one of the biggest yards in all this land1 and he is a man whose judgment should be solidly respected4 ,there are four improvements in his yards that he deems absolutely necessary in the face of a rapidly increasing traffic1 and for a portion of the property that depreciates rapidly under hard usage4 ,his is a most important position2 and yet as he cannot spend a cent himself for the use of the railroad1 not even to buy matches1 he embodies his four requests for necessities into a requisition and forwards it to headquarters--at a seaboard city4 ,his superior officer thinks that ,somerset is asking a good deal1 and he cuts the request down to three items4 ,the next link in the chain is a man--an auditor1 perhaps--who happens to be imbued with a strong streak of economy at that time4 ,middle division has had its appropriation cut thirty-three per cent1 so off comes another item from ,somerset yard4 ,after a time1 the yardmaster is lucky to get one single item through--and that is sure not to be the essential item that he needed most of all4 ,good1 plucky1 valiant railroader that he is1 he is sure to think the whole outfit in the general offices a set of arrant fools4 ,perhaps the big accident comes1 and then perhaps he has full opportunity to set himself straight4 ,it is more likely that he does not1 and that he is made the target for ,grand ,jury indictment and a lot of other fireworks4 ,that is an instance of the complications of the modern railroad--the vast intricacy of organization4 ,wonder not1 then1 that many a general manager of to-day must think twice before he remembers that some particular inland town is one of the obscure branches of his property4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the superintendent deals with men2 the general manager1 with superintendents4 ,that statement is open to a slight modification4 ,the superintendent deals with the operating army in individual cases2 the general manager deals with them collectively4 ,somewhere in rank between the division superintendent and the general manager stands the general superintendent1 but in the rapidly changing structure of ,american railroad operation1 his office is fast losing its individuality1 is to-day in real danger of utter extinction4 ,on some railroads he is hardly more than a chief clerk to the general manager1 a rubber-stamp whose signature goes mechanically upon papers bound upwards from division superintendent to general manager4 ,at the most he is to-day an outside man1 getting up and down the line and making constant reports to his boss1 the general manager4 ,illustration3 ,,oil-,,burning ,,locomotive ,,on ,,the ,,southern ,,pacific ,,system ,,the ,,steel ,,passenger ,,coach1 ,,such ,,as ,,has ,,become ,,standard ,,upon ,,the ,,american ,,railroad ,,electric ,,car1 ,,generating ,,its ,,own ,,power ,,by ,a ,,gasoline ,,engine ,,both ,,locomotive ,,and ,,train--,,gasoline ,,motor ,,car ,,designed ,,for ,,branch ,,line ,,service ,illustration3 ,,the ,,biggest ,,locomotive ,,in ,,the ,,world3 ,,built ,,by ,,the ,,santa ,,fe ,,railroad ,,at ,,its ,,topeka ,,shops ,for the general manager is really king of the entire situation4 ,just now his reign is threatened from a new quarter1 and you find him receiving the opposition with both distrust and anger4 ,this is the fine figure of a fine man4 ,he has come up the ladder1 rung by rung--station assistant1 telegraph operator1 despatcher1 train-master1 assistant superintendent1 superintendent1 general superintendent1 general manager2 he knows railroading1 stick and wheel4 ,his own railroad he knows as he might know the fingers of his hand4 ,when we come into his office1 the last of a committee of well-dressed citizens is slipping out of his door2 they are citizens from a prosperous town in an adjoining ,state1 and he may tell us of their errand4 ,k---- is a good town1 he will say1 and gives us a good and growing traffic4 ,we've a lot of nasty grade-crossings there1 for the two of our big lines that right-angle into there seem to get over about every street in the place at level4 ,they want us to elevate or depress our tracks through there1 and it should be done4 ,this road wants it as much as ,k----wants it2 for it's one of the worst bottle-necks on our main line1 and ,lord only knows how many thousands of dollars it's cost us in delayed traffic4 ,this king of the railroad points to a sheaf of blueprints upon his desk4 ,that tells the story1 he says simply1 and the end of the chapter is a bill for nine millions of dollars to get rid of those crossings4 ,according to law1 ,k---- will have to stand about half of the cost of the work1 and ,k----1 like most progressive ,american towns1 has been running pretty close to her debt limit4 ,she is staggered at the thought of having to dig out three or four millions of perfectly good dollars1 and so her mayor has made the naive suggestion that we advance the money and let them pay back their share in the shape of refunded taxes and annual payments4 ,we advance that money--and the big boss has to slip over to ,france and try to sell our securities for mere necessities4 ,the truth of the matter is that we haven't the money to advance4 ,we're grubbing to get enough cash to buy locomotives and cars to keep pace with our business1 not running a loan business for upstart towns that have run through their capital4 ,in comes a second delegation1 this one another group of commuters4 ,they have been asking for an additional train in on the ,valley branch4 ,the general manager has said that the road cannot afford it1 for the train would have to be operated at a loss4 ,he proves his statement4 ,but1 urges the spokesman of the party1 you will make traffic by it1 and eventually the train will pay4 ,eventually isn't to-day1 said the ,g4 ,m4 stanchly1 and it is on to-day that we are being judged4 ,you gentlemen come here and ask me to place a train in service that is a sure loser2 and then you will go down to your office1 and when the difference between my net and gross comes to you upon your ticket sheets1 you will damn me as being a rank incompetent4 ,but this one train8 protests the spokesman4 ,violates that very principle1 replies the general manager4 ,not another car that does not pay its way4 ,and as that little group files its way out of the big office1 uttering sundry threats about going to the commission1 the general manager stretches his leg over his big desk4 ,under the glass top of that desk is a big map1 in colors1 of his system--miles and miles and miles of first-class railroad4 ,they come to me--towns like ,k---- and tell me of their troubles1 he says1 as if ,i already did not know of them4 ,i've a reconstruction plan for every ten miles of our main-line4 ,his finger traces upon the map to a great division point4 ,take ,somerset here1 and ,somerset yard4 ,that is some yard1 as the boys say4 ,we have #aaj miles of track in it1 enough for a good-sized side-line division1 and that yardmaster has to be the equal of a superintendent4 ,you would take a good look at that yard1 with its roundhouses and its shops1 its gravity-humps and its classification sections1 and you would think it big enough to handle every freight car that goes between here and ,chicago4 ,it isn't4 ,it isn't really big enough to handle our decent share of that traffic to-day4 ,we're trying to pour the business through it to-day1 and are succeeding only by the narrowest measure4 ,it's a weak valve in our biggest artery1 and some day it's going to clog4 ,it won't be five years before ,somerset has me throttled again4 ,five years ago it was as bad4 ,it took us three to four weeks to put a carload of freight through it in winter1 and the shippers were howling bloody murder4 ,they got mad enough then to scare our directors and ,i got separate east-bound and west-bound classifications yards1 relief that ,i'd been fairly down on my knees for1 three years at least4 ,i was the goat in that thing4 ,i always am2 that's part of the job of general manager4 ,i know just what the steady increase in traffic is going to bring me to1 at this point and at that4 ,here's where a couple of our biggest feeders from the north come into our main-line2 here are a couple of friendly haulers dumping down into us from ,canada2 here1 in the mountains1 is where we pick up our stuff from the south and the southwest4 ,every yard on our system is beginning to stagger under the traffic that shows no let up1 and we've got to spend millions to keep ourselves from getting throttled4 ,don't think ,i don't know every bit of that4 ,i can see necessary improvements all the way up our main line2 but every one of them takes money1 and just now the big boss has to hustle to sell his securities and raise the money4 ,but when we know and can't improve--that's railroading4 ,a secretary tiptoes in4 ,this railroad king looks up and smiles quite frankly at us4 ,committee from the ,chamber of ,commerce at ,zanesburgh1 he announces4 ,they want a new depot in ,zanesburgh1 and they're entitled to a new one1 costing at a fair ratio about #dj1jjj4 ,a #dj1jjj-;depot would give them every comfort and convenience but they demand that we spend #ajj1jjj because ,great ,midland has spent #hj1jjj in an architectural wonder in ,stenton2 and the old time town rivalry makes ,zanesburgh want to go ,stenton one better4 ,you've got a lot of these delegations8 we venture4 ,i lose track of them1 says the general manager4 ,it's all a part of the day's work2 it's railroading4 ,we know4 ,last night1 this general manager was at a big freight terminal there in the headquarters city1 seeing with his own eyes until midnight the fast freight and the express traffic under handling4 ,the night before he was there1 and the night before that he was also there1 and three days before that he was out pounding over the line in his car1 working eighteen hours a day4 ,that's railroading1 too4 ,the freight house in this terminal city is one of his biggest problems4 ,his biggest local freight yard is in a narrow valley between high hills2 and these1 together with fearful realty values1 absolutely circumscribe its area4 ,the traffic is growing all the while1 and all the local freight for his road--running in strongly competitive territory--comes to this terminal4 ,three hundred and fifty cars must be despatched every night for different points1 and yet a dray coming into the yard must be able to find any one of those cars without an instant's delay4 ,and still the narrow physical limitations of that yard prevail4 ,there is a big problem for a big man4 ,and sometimes the big man must stoop to examine carefully into the little things4 ,when ,mc,crea1 the present president of the ,pennsylvania1 was a general manager off on the western end of that system1 his car was halted in the middle of the night by a bad wreck on a single-track side-line4 ,he might have remained in his comfortable bed1 but that would not have been ,mc,crea4 ,he got up and dressed1 went outside and offered his services to the wrecking-boss4 ,the wrecking-boss was competent and he knew it4 ,there's nothing you can do1 boss1 he said4 ,do you mean to tell me that there is nothing that ,i can do--with a road blocked on both sides with wreckage and stalled trains and track to be laid8 said ,mc,crea4 ,well1 let me tell you that there are ties down there in the ditch that will have to be placed before another train goes over here1 and we might as well be beginning4 ,and with that ,general ,manager ,mc,crea suited action to word4 ,he went down into the ditch1 picked up a heavy tie1 put it over his shoulder1 and brought it up into position4 ,in an instant he was in the ranks1 working to bring order out of chaos4 ,that was the way a big man could do a little thing in a big way4 ,it takes a really big man for that very sort of thing4 ,and the big man1 general manager of several thousand miles of railroad1 must understand the smaller men beneath him--any one of whom is apt in some future day to supersede him4 ,here is a man who has been known as one of the best general managers in the whole land4 ,soon after he was made operating head of a really big road1 a certain train on which he was travelling was much delayed4 ,the new ,g4 ,m4 inquired the exact reason for the trouble4 ,he was not so much concerned for his own convenience as he was curious to know why one of the road's best through trains should have halted until assistance should come from the nearest roundhouse4 ,the fireman lost his rake1 was the somewhat perfunctory report that the ,g4 ,m4's secretary returned to him4 ,but if that young man thought that his boss was going to be satisfied with that report1 he was mistaken1 decidedly4 ,bring the fireman to me1 commanded the chief4 ,that fireman was not of the sort that is easily feazed4 ,he stood stockily and in a low voice gave a very circumstantial explanation of the whole occurrence4 ,it seemed that he had missed the rake that morning when they had started out from the yard roundhouse to take the ,limited down over the division4 ,he was just going back for another1 when they were called to lend a hand at a small yard wreck4 ,when they were done shoving and bunting there1 they had no time to run back to the roundhouse and get a rake4 ,they had barely enough time to get to the passenger station for the engine change4 ,that was a good story1 with a deal of explanation1 and the fireman thought that the ,g4 ,m4 must be impressed with it4 ,the ,g4 ,m4 was not in the least impressed4 ,he looked the coal shover up and down1 from head to feet1 then said3 ,how about those seven freights that you passed laid out on sidings8 ,you could have forced any one of those engineers to lend you his rake rather than lay out this train4 ,the effect of that slight observation from the ,g4 ,m4's car was not lost on a man on the system4 ,the new man made good4 ,from that time forward word went out to the far corners of his road that the new boss knew railroading2 that he had four eyes in his head and that you had to be pretty careful what sort of a story you put up to him4 ,calculate1 if you can1 in dollars and cents the moral effect of such a stand upon the rank and file of the king's army4 ,the general manager1 as we have already said1 must know men4 99 99 99 99 99 ,you are back with your first general manager again4 ,he is tired of all these problems1 and yet he is now turning to another4 ,this is formally entitled the ,situation4 ,it is placed upon his big desk every morning4 ,it is a morning paper1 if you please1 prepared for a single reader4 ,the general manager is ,old ,subscriber1 in good measure2 and if the paper lacks both editorials and advertising1 it is none the less interesting to its star reader4 ,its news is as exclusive as its reader1 and exclusively the news of his system4 ,by it he knows first of the traffic that has been handled in twenty-four hours1 by cars and by trains4 ,he knows by it the reserve forces of the railroad1 in cars and in locomotives1 and just where they are located4 ,by the ,situation1 he can discover the over-massing of equipment upon one division1 the shortage upon another4 ,after that he can begin to give orders to his general superintendents and his superintendents of transportation--these last the men who are directly responsible for car movement--toward bringing a better balance between traffic and equipment4 ,the ,situation is on his desk at ten o'clock in the morning4 ,by eleven1 whole brigades of locomotives may be under way1 moving from their stalls in some giant roundhouse out toward another division whose superintendent is fairly shrieking for power4 ,but the ,situation tells more than merely this4 ,it goes into history1 and in its own cold-blooded fashion tells what the road is doing by comparison4 ,it gives weather conditions and traffic for the corresponding day1 one year1 two years1 three years1 five years before2 and the general manager will do well if he avoids giving mere cursory examination of such tables4 ,the ,situation not only notes weather conditions1 it brings to the eyes of the man whom we have called king in railroad operation the more important train delays and the reasons that have caused them4 ,every fact or incident that may affect the traffic or the operation of the road is noted in its fine-filled pages4 ,it is in every way a guide and a barometer of the condition of a great property up to the very hour that the general manager comes to his desk4 ,but the ,situation does not tell the entire story4 ,out in the nearest passenger yard is a big private-car1 almost as handsome and as well equipped as that of the president of the road1 and that car is in service as many days as it stands idle there upon the siding4 ,this man has #d1jjj miles of railroad empire in his domain2 there are nearly #gj1jjj faithful privates for his army4 ,to cover that territory means constant travel4 ,there are side-lines of less importance that sometimes do not see him for six months at a time4 ,of less importance1 did we say8 ,we had better not let him hear us breathe that1 for there are men in his employ who remember the first council of the operating department staff after this ,g4 ,m4 came to the road4 ,they were gathered there for the time-table meeting--a general superintendent1 a whole round dozen of division superintendents1 serious traffic-minded folk from the passenger department1 an auxiliary corps of chief clerks and stenographers4 ,division by division1 the passenger time-table problem was adjusted4 ,this superintendent asked a little more running time1 for they were putting in a cluster of new bridges1 which made slow orders necessary2 another was thereupon forced to shorten his schedule1 for the total running time between main-line terminals of a road in hot competitive territory could not be increased a single sixty seconds4 ,finally1 after a vast amount of argument1 the main-line divisions were settled1 and attention was given to the side-lines4 ,the first of these ran through a section purely rural1 but there was not a busier #ejj miles of single track in the ,east4 ,the general superintendent called attention to it1 with a laugh4 ,we'll now tackle the hoejack1 said he4 ,it was an old joke1 and the division heads began to laugh4 ,they stopped laughing the next instant4 ,the new general manager was on his feet and pounding thunderously upon his table top4 ,his face was crimson1 as he demanded attention4 ,gentlemen1 said he1 scathingly1 the great railroad from which ,i have had the honor to come has prided itself upon being a standard railroad4 ,its standard is universal wherever its cars and engines run1 and its jurisdiction extends4 ,some of its lines are the busiest traffic-haulers in the land4 ,the four and even six tracks to each of them are hardly enough for the great volume of high-class freight and passenger traffic that press upon their rails4 ,there are some side-lines1 with but two or three trains a day--side-lines that reach the main-line only through other branches4 ,but there are no hoejacks1 nor peanut branches1 nor jerkwaters upon that system4 ,hereafter there are to be none upon this4 ,the man who is hauling a train on the most remote corner of this railroad is doing its work quite as much as the biggest trainmaster here at the terminal4 ,i trust you follow me8 ,they followed implicitly2 and to that general manager has been finally accorded the credit for bringing an operating department1 torn by inefficiencies and by jealousies1 into one of the first rank among the railroads of the land4 ,but he admits that he is going out upon side-line2 and that particular side-line brings a story to the mind of his chief clerk4 ,when he has us quite aside he tells it to us3 ,the next to the last time the boss went up the ,upper ,river ,division1 they got his goat4 ,we halted at the depot up at ,west ,lyndonbrook1 to fill the tanks4 ,the boss thinks that he will get out and stir his feet for a minute on the right-of-way4 ,up comes a villager4 ',are you the general manager of this 'ere road8' he says to the boss4 ,boss thinks he was some gentle bucolic soul1 and he says 'yes1' and offers him a real cigar4 ,but the gentle bucolic doesn't smoke anything cleaner than a pipe1 and he just up and says1 ',well1 ,general1 here's somethin' fer ye1' and shoves a paper with a big red seal into the boss's hand4 ,it seems that up in that neck o' woods they get grade crossings removed as a last resort by going to the county court and the paper that the constable served was one for the boss to come down there in a fortnight for a hearing on an order to put a flagman and gates at our crossing in ,west ,lyndonbrook4 ,the boss was mighty mad1 and almost discharged the agent for letting that constable hang around the depot4 ,there isn't enough traffic over that line to do more than keep the rust off the rails1 and we never had an accident in the sixty odd years that crossing has been in use4 ,and at that the boss might have fallen for a flagman4 ,but the way they rubbed it into him riled him4 ,they might have gone at the thing in a decent way--first sent a committee down to the division superintendent to request that flagman4 ,he went down on the appointed night to the old ,town ,hall4 ,before he got there he started a guessing contest in that smart-aleck burg4 ,the crossing was right 'in the heart of the community1' as they put it themselves1 and the big citizens' houses were all within an eighth of a mile of our right-of-way4 ,three days before the big flight of oratory down at the ,town ,hall1 the boss starts something4 ,they hardly get away from their houses in the morning before there is a bunch of those bright tech-school boys with their rods and sextants and steel tapes measuring lines over the front lawns4 ,and the next thing they were planting bright new stakes in all the flower-beds4 ,there hadn't been so much excitement in ,west ,lyndonbrook since the last time ,theodore ,roosevelt talked there1 and the townfolk hustled down to the depot4 ,the agent didn't ease their minds4 ,the boss wasn't working hand in glove with him4 ,when the night came for the big time at the ,town ,hall1 it was a regular 'standing-room only' business4 ,the boss kept in the background while the great minds of the township did their best4 ,when it came his turn he clamped across the platform like an avenging angel4 ,he is a big fellow1 and that night he looked seven-foot-six1 as he stuck his long fingers out over that intelligent body politic and asked what it meant by trying to cow the only first-class railroad that had ever had enough energy to put its rails down in that township4 ,then he calls up an engineer from our construction department4 ',mr4 ,blinkins1' he says1 in a voice that you could have heard across the public square1 'this railroad has decided to temporize no longer in this highway crossing situation on its lines4 ,how much will it cost to put a subway under our track at this crossing8' ,the engineer dove into his drawings and said3 ',it'll be quite a big job1 and we'll have to cut quite a way into some of the front yards to get the foundations for our abutments4 ,my estimate of the cost of the proposed improvement is #afj1jjj4' ,then it was the boss's turn again4 ',under the state law1 work on abolishing a grade crossing begins by the railroad expressing its willingness1' he told them4 ',the cost is divided--half being borne by the railroad1 the other half being divided between the township and the ,state4 ,west ,lyndonbrook's share will reach #dj1jjj4' ,forty thousand dollars--why #dj1jjj would have built either the new union school or the waterworks that that burg had been hankering for and thought it couldn't afford4 ,when the boss breathed about that #dj1jjj it started the old feuds between the waterworks crowd and the school crowd4 ,they forgot all about the crossing and our sin-filled railroad1 and got to hammering anew on the old issue4 ,we slinked out while they were still at it--had the car hooked on to the rear of thirty-eight and got started while the oratory was taking a fresh turn4 ,the boss8 ,the boss is a diplomat4 ,that's how he keeps his job4 ,,chapter ,,xiii ,,the ,,superintendent ,,his ,,headship ,,of ,,the ,,transportation ,,organism--,,his ,,manner ,,of ,,dealing ,,with ,,an ,,offended ,,shipper--,,his ,,manner ,,with ,,commuters--,,his ,,manner ,,with ,a ,,spiteful ,,kicker--,a ,,dishonest ,,conductor ,,who ,,had ,a ,,pull--,a ,,system ,,of ,,demerits ,,for ,,employees--,,dealing ,,with ,,drunkards--,,with ,,selfish ,,and ,,covetous ,,men4 ,if the general manager is king in modern railroad operation1 the division superintendent is not less than prince4 ,his principality is no mean state4 ,it may consist of some #ejj miles of what he modestly admits is the best sort of railroad in all this land2 or it may be a little stretch of #ajj miles1 or even less1 losing its way back among the hills2 but it is a principality1 and his rule is undisputed4 ,if ever it be questioned1 it will then be high time for him to abdicate4 ,just as the division is the physical unit of railroad operation1 so is its superintendent the human unit4 ,by him the transportation organism stands or falls4 ,if it stands1 he is able to go forward2 the path from his door leads to the general manager's office4 ,if it falls--,well1 there is to-day in ,central ,illinois a gray-haired station-agent who once held his own principality--#d1jjj men to take his orders4 ,we only discharge for disobedience or dishonesty1 said the president of that railroad at the time he signed the order reducing the prince to the ranks4 ,when we fail to get the real measure of a man1 it is our fault1 not his4 ,we never turn out a man who has done his level best for us4 ,this man is superintendent of one of the most prosperous of the trunk-line railroads that reach the metropolis by stretching their rails across ,new ,jersey4 ,his is a terminal division1 so called1 and he has assumed command of one of the busiest city gates in all ,america4 ,his railroad day begins almost as soon as he is awake4 ,there is a telegraph outfit in the corner of his bedroom1 and as he dresses and shaves he listens mechanically to its scoldings--to the gossip of the division4 ,it comes as casually to his ear as the prattle of his children2 the key began to be music to him long before he left the little yellow depot where he first began to be a railroader4 ,they're in pretty good shape this morning1 ,john1 laughs his wife4 ,she1 too1 has been listening half unconsciously to the gossip of the wire4 ,years ago she stood her trick with her husband back in that little yellow depot4 ,got a coal train in the ditch up the other side of ,greyport1 is his reply4 ,we'll rip out that nasty cross-over up there some day1 when the big boss wakes up to the cash we've put out in wrecks at ,,gp4 ,going up there8 ,not this morning1 ,maggie1 he laughs4 ,i've a committee from the firemen coming in to see me4 ,they're nagging for a raise4 ,he lowers his voice1 as if he almost thought that the walls had ears4 ,it's beginning to grind the boys1 too--butter #dh cents1 eggs #de1 and all their hungry kiddies4 ,but the big boss--whew6 ,he whistles1 goes to his key1 cuts in1 and begins to give orders to the wrecking-boss up at ,greyport4 ,steady1 ,jim1 he says1 in a low voice4 ,you've got all day on that job if you need it1 only watch out for the number two track with your crane4 ,we can't risk a side-swipe on one of our pretty trains4 ,we're detouring the east-bound passengers over the ,central4 ,how's ,hinckley8 ,he closes the circuit softly4 ,poor ,hinckley1 he says gently4 ,do you remember1 ,maggie8 ,he was married the same summer we were4 ,through with his breakfast1 he hurries down to the station1 and before he slips aboard the suburban train that is to carry him in to his ,jersey ,city office1 he has had the wire again into ,greyport4 ,they are getting things cleaned up there a bit2 a baggage-car has been sent up with a special engine for ,hinckley4 ,the superintendent turns from these4 ,one of the little trains that come out from town in the dusk of early dawn has brought a leather bag filled with mail4 ,he runs through it as his train slips across the meadows4 ,by the time he is in his roomy office it is ready to be answered1 a pencilled memorandum on each is sufficient guide for his chief clerk4 ,throughout the morning his calendar is a crowded thing4 ,there is a constant line of restless men sitting on the long bench just without the guarded rail of the outside office4 ,one by one these are called2 they disappear behind swinging baize doors to stand in front of the superintendent4 ,for the first of these there is a smile--the caller is a big shipper1 big enough to go to the head of the line and have instant access to the boss4 ,this shipper is the sort who gives the railroad tonnage in trainload lots4 ,he is hot4 ,he cannot get cars4 ,he will begin to route over the ,triple ,b----1 even though his siding facilities are wrong for it4 ,they'll dig him out the cars he needs1 they have folks over there who make it their business to find cars4 ,and while he is on the subject it seems pretty bad to have stuff coming twelve and fourteen days through from ,chicago4 ,perhaps he'd better be getting after the ,commission4 ,the shipper is very hot4 ,he expatiates upon his wrongs1 hammers upon the superintendent's desk1 grows scarlet in his heavy face4 ,the superintendent's smile never wavers4 ,he gives close attention1 does not grow excited4 ,a few orders over the telephone1 a word of explanation1 the shipper smiles now4 ,down in his heart he begins to be sorry that he made these threats about the ,triple ,b----4 ,that is getting traffic1 you say1 and the superintendent is an operating man4 ,you are a bit wrong there4 ,the superintendent is a railroad man and that means that any part of the railroad business is his business4 ,there is a man1 by name ,a4 ,h4 ,smith1 who is to-day operating vice-president of the ,new ,york ,central system1 who held to that idea from the beginning4 ,in the beginning1 ,smith was the superintendent of a little side-tracked division of the ,lake ,shore ,michigan ,southern which centred in at ,hillsdale1 ,michigan4 ,it was a strong competitive territory1 and ,smith found that the traffic that came to his road was so slight that it did not take a great deal of his time to move it4 ,the superintendents before him had had a lot of time to speed their fast horses and fuss around their gardens4 ,not so with ,smith4 ,he went into the business of making traffic4 ,it was a decade that took keen delight in singing societies1 and ,smith's robust voice allied itself to every choir of importance in three counties4 ,he sang himself into personal popularity1 he sang traffic into coming over the ,michigan ,southern4 ,after a while1 the folks over in the general offices at ,cleveland began to take notice4 ,the traffic folks were the first to notice1 after that--well1 a long story's short when you know that ,smith found himself on a short cut to his present job4 ,the superintendent's smile remains while a solemn-faced delegation of commuters files into his room4 ,these grave folk have been coming into town on the #h3eb almost since the road first laid its rails4 ,it is part of their lives1 and they fondly imagine that it is a big part of the road's--that the twenty-hour train over the mountains to ,chicago is a matter of considerably less importance than the #h3eb4 ,the superintendent broadens his bland smile and rings for his train sheets4 ,there are other trains than the #h3eb coming into that terminal--almost a train a minute from a little before eight o'clock until half-past nine4 ,the superintendent's finger runs for corroboration over the train sheets4 ,twenty-five days this month when #id per cent of his suburban trains come under the protection of the big shed of the terminal right on the scheduled moment--how was that for consistency of operation8 ,the commuters' committee seem a little dazed4 ,individually1 the men are expert on a good many things--printing1 indictments1 breakfast foods1 patents1 wholesale feathers2 but consistency of train operation and train sheets are a bit confusing4 ,the #h3eb has been late a whole lot recently1 doggedly affirms the chairman4 ,last ,thursday we were pretty near fifteen minutes late4 ,a gleam of triumph comes into the superintendent's eye4 ,he fumbles anew among the flimsy train sheets4 ,his forefinger alights upon a line of the typewritten copy4 ,last ,thursday1 he comments1 you can see that we were all laid out by the ,hackensack ,river draw4 ,a schooner filled with brick got caught by the ebb tide and laid down on us in the open draw4 ,what you want to see1 gentlemen1 is the ,treasury departments down at ,washington4 ,it is outrageous that the antiquated navigation laws should be allowed to hold up business in that way4 ,the committee confer among themselves and decide to make the life of the ,secretary of the ,treasury uncomfortable for a while4 ,you cannot hope for anything better with that ,hackensack ,bridge1 urges the superintendent almost malevolently4 ,he does not tell them1 but the boys out on the line know his own experience with the ,hackensack ,river bridge4 ,last ,december and just in the evening rush-hours they found that the cabin that stands perched at the top of the trussed draw was afire4 ,the trains bringing home the tired suburbanites were beginning to line up back of the fire for solid miles4 ,the tired suburbanites were saying things about this particular railroad4 ,it chanced that this superintendent was a passenger on one of the trains4 ,he went forward to the blaze4 ,the towerman had beat a retreat4 ,the superintendent started to climb up the ice-covered ladder tower toward the burning cabin4 ,the towerman halted him4 ,the wiry superintendent turned upon him with a look of infinite scorn3 ,we've got to hand signal those trains across here--there's thousands of folks out here in the meadows that we can't let miss their supper-- ,i've got a family-- began the towerman4 ,that's all right4 ,i'll signal these across4 ,that ain't it1 boss4 ,back o' th' cabin's the gasolene tanks1 the stuff for openin' th' draw4 ,the superintendent gave a low whistle4 ,that settles it1 he said4 ,we've got to put this fire out4 ,i can't risk cutting this draw out of service4 ,it is a matter of record on that railroad that he climbed alone to the top of the draw and began to put out the fire with his own stout endeavors4 ,he was not alone for long4 ,inspired by him1 the men that gathered there--engineers1 firemen1 trainmen1 and conductors1 crawled up upon that freezing cold draw and lent him their efforts4 ,in a half-hour the fire was out1 and the stalled trains were moving again4 ,this1 then1 is the measure of the man who sits across the wide office table from you4 ,the mollified commuters are marching out4 ,you don't encourage kicking8 you ask4 ,we don't discourage it1 he replied4 ,he is reminded of a story and tells it to you4 ,when they made ,blank superintendent over there at ,broad ,street1 in ,philadelphia1 he went in to make a clean record4 ,he called his chief clerk to him4 ',mind you1 if you hear kicks1 don't let them get in one ear and out the other4 ,you bring them in here and we'll investigate4' ,in three days the chief clerk was busy4 ',lots of trouble with the suburban traffic to-day1' he would say4 ',wilmington train laid out at ,grey's ,ferry2 third day that's happened4' ',ugly trainman on the main line wouldn't close the rear doors4 ,that fellow's unpopular4' ',not enough equipment on the ,central division4' ',no fire in the stove at ,lenden ,road1'--a long string of commuter troubles4 ,after ,blank had heard this for a week he began to get nervous4 ,he called his chief clerk to him4 ',see here1' he demanded1 'what's the matter with our service8 ,where are all these kicks coming in from8' ,the chief clerk looked at him--never a snicker4 ',you said you wanted the kicks1' he replied4 ',well1 ,i've been letting the head barber downstairs shave me after he was done with the commuters4 ,he gets every one of the howls4' ,sometimes the kicks represent a serious side of the superintendent's problem4 ,a while ago a man came to a railroad superintendent in ,boston and demanded that a certain ticket-examiner in the passenger terminal be dismissed4 ,there had been some sort of dispute and the man insisted that the ticket-examiner be discharged1 nothing less4 ,the ticket-examiner1 on his part1 told a pretty fair sort of story4 ,moreover1 he said that if in the heat of the dispute he had transgressed on good manners he was frankly sorry and that it would not happen again4 ,back of all that he had a good record3 no complaints had ever before been registered against him4 ,the superintendent then wrote a letter to the man who had complained and stated that the offending ticket-examiner had been reprimanded and that the offence would probably not be repeated4 ,illustration3 ,,the ,,conductor ,,is ,a ,,high ,,type ,,of ,,railroad ,,employee ,illustration3 ,,the ,,engineer--,,oil-,,can ,,in ,,hand--,,is ,,forever ,,fussing ,,at ,,his ,,machine ,illustration3 ,,railroad ,,responsibility ,,does ,,not ,,end ,,even ,,with ,,the ,,track ,,walker ,illustration3 ,,the ,,fireman ,,has ,a ,,hard ,,job ,,and ,a ,,steady ,,one ,that did not satisfy the man who complained4 ,he was of the sort that are supposed to have a pull1 and he threatened to use his pull if the ticket-examiner were not discharged4 ,he refused to accept apologies or explanations4 ,he said he was hot4 ,so was the superintendent4 ,he keenly resented anything that approached interference with his discipline1 and he refused to discharge his employee4 ,pressure was exerted1 the pull was doing its fine work4 ,the superintendent was--like every other railroad superintendent in this land--a fine diplomat4 ,he took the man from the train gate in the terminal and gave him an equally good job in a city a hundred miles distant from ,boston4 ,he flattered himself that he had seen the last of the man with the pull4 ,not a bit of it4 ,that brisk soul chanced to pass through the distant town1 and gasped at sight of the former ticket-examiner still drawing pay from the railroad4 ,he hastened into the superintendent's office in ,boston and demanded that the subterfuge end--that the man be actually discharged from the road's employ4 ,the superintendent looked at him coolly1 not speaking4 ,the man again threatened his pull4 ,the railroad boss looked at him through slitted eyes4 ,it was a real crisis for him4 ,his diplomatic smile was ready4 ,he pointed with his lean forefinger toward the door4 ,the case is closed4 ,good-morning1 was all he said4 ,after that he began wondering what road would have him after that pull was exerted4 ,he wondered for a day1 for a week1 then a month4 ,then he forgot the occurrence4 ,the pull1 like many other sorts of threats1 was thin air4 ,of a different sort was the problem that confronted a superintendent in ,chicago4 ,on a certain suburban train for many years the conductor had remained with an unchanged run4 ,gossip had come into the super's office that this conductor was systematically stealing from the company4 ,the boss started a quiet investigation4 ,the conductor with apparently no other income than his #c a day1 had purchased a neat home in the suburbs1 had sent his boy to ,yale1 his girl to ,vassar4 ,that was ,thrift1 with a capital ,t4 ,the superintendent took the case sharply in hand and summoned the conductor before him4 ,he was one of the older sort1 gray-haired1 kind-faced4 ,johnson1 said the boss1 you've been with the road a long time and never had a vacation4 ,i want you to lay off a month and run over to either coast4 ,i'll get the transportation for you4 ,johnson protested4 ,he belonged to a generation of railroaders that was not educated to vacations4 ,the superintendent insisted and had his way1 as superintendents generally do4 ,johnson started on his vacation1 and a substitute1 knowing nothing of the real situation1 replaced him4 ,the returns from that daily run doubled1 and the superintendent knew that he was right4 ,nowadays when a railroad finds that a conductor is stealing1 it invokes the majesty of the ,interstate ,commerce ,law and prepares to hurry him off toward a ,federal prison4 ,in that day they were content to fire ,johnson2 that was sufficient disgrace to the old man4 ,the railroad could not begin to get back the money that had been trickling out throughout the long years4 ,but ,johnson showed fight4 ,his was an important train in the ,chicago suburban service1 and his passengers were important merchants and manufacturers--big shippers4 ,they got together1 under ,johnson's supervision1 and made the hair on the heads of the traffic men turn gray4 ,those fellows were ,johnson's friends1 and they were not going to see the ,n---- turn out a faithful employee4 ,johnson said that he had not stolen1 and ,johnson was not the sort to lie4 ,it might do the ,n---- good to send some tonnage over to the ,m----4 ,the traffic department and the operating locked horns1 as ofttimes they do on roads1 both big and little4 ,traffic won4 ,the superintendent lost1 ,johnson went back to his job1 and the road put on a checking system that made its conductors wonder if they had held convict records4 ,that case was an exception4 ,there are not many superintendents who are compelled to back water1 mighty few ,johnsons among the thousands of conductors across the land4 ,we are still in that superintendent's office in ,jersey ,city4 ,the boss's smile is gone4 ,a big railroader just in from the line1 his jeans covered with engine grease1 shuffles into the place and stands before the super1 hat in hand1 like a naughty boy ready to be whipped4 ,the superintendent speaks in a few low sentences to him1 makes a notation on an envelope4 ,the big man trembles in front of the little4 ,a bit of a smile comes to the lips of the boss4 ,you think of the wife and the kiddies first next time1 he says4 ,good-bye and good luck to you4 ,i'm not much for lecturings1 he adds1 after the man has gone4 ,a little later he begins to explain4 ,that big fellow had to be disciplined4 ,there was no two ways about it for either of us4 ,he's an engine-man1 got a good train1 too2 but he's been running signals4 ,we've caught him twice on test4 ,we can't stand for that4 ,suppose we have a nasty smash and the coroner's jury begins to ask nosey questions8 ,i had to put black on his envelope4 ,he goes into further detail4 ,in other days he would have been forced1 in order to uphold his discipline1 to suspend the engineer for from five days to two weeks--the punishment preceding discharge4 ,there was a possibility--disagreeable to the superintendent--that the engineer's family might have been crowded for sufficient food for a fortnight4 ,some of those fellows live pretty close to the proposition all the while4 ,nowadays the offender is demerited--once again like the schoolboy4 ,that is what the superintendent meant by that reference to the envelope1 the road's record of the man's service with it4 ,sixty demerits--dismissed4 ,that's the rule of one big road4 ,but the record does not always continue to be negative4 ,its positive side rests in the fact that for every month a man keeps his envelope clear five demerits are taken from the black side of his envelope4 ,a trainman might have forty-five demerits against him1 be on the narrow edge of discharge1 and in eleven months1 after turning the new leaf1 have as clean a sheet as the best man on the division4 ,this is as it should be4 ,the demerit plan--often called the ,brown system--represents the triumph of modern railroad operation over the old4 ,the superintendent may have all the advantages of a time-tried disciple and a modern record system2 have the prestige and the reputation that come from the operation of #ejj miles of railroad1 and still have a hard row to hoe4 ,out in the ,middle ,west there was1 until recently1 a stretch of what was known as booze railroad4 ,it was a division where reputations and records alike counted for naught1 where discipline was a mockery4 ,train-crews went from their runs direct to saloons and1 what was a deal worse1 began their day's work within them4 ,the wreck record of that division that went forward to the ,state ,commission was appalling--and half the wrecks were not reported4 ,yardmasters were busy day after day stowing away damaged equipment far from the curious eyes of passengers--the wrecking crews were hammering for big over-time pay4 ,it was a thoroughly demoralized stretch of railroad4 ,the distressed president of the system sent ,east for a superintendent who had a reputation4 ,he thought he had his man4 ,the new broom was a book-of-rules man4 ,he had a quarter of his operating force laid off all the time1 to go before him4 ,he was a man fond of words1 and he lectured those old fellows as if they had been school children4 ,he might have done quite as well with his division if he had been operating it from ,kamchatka4 ,the men began to call their rule-books the ,joe ,millers4 ,the superintendent got mad and was lost--hopelessly4 ,he began discharging right and left1 and the wrath of the gods and of the brotherhoods 7the great labor unions of the railroads71 was upon him4 ,the road was threatened with a big strike at the very time that it could least afford it4 ,he avoided that strike only by acceding to the demand of the brotherhood chiefs that the superintendent's head be given to them on a silver platter4 ,after that the ,man ,without a ,country was in a more enviable position4 ,there was not a railroad in the country that dared employ him1 despite his excellent technical training4 ,he drifted up into ,canada1 got a job running a state-operated line4 ,he held that job less than a year4 ,he was murdered of a winter's night in a shadowy railroad yard1 shot down by a discharged train hand4 ,the grim situation on the booze division grew much worse4 ,the president of that system gave the matter his keen personal attention2 he began scouring the entire width of the land for material1 without much success4 ,when he was thoroughly discouraged1 a raw-boned trainmaster from a far corner of the demoralized division applied for the job of superintendent2 he reckoned he could handle the situation4 ,he had caught the president unawares standing outside of his private car4 ,the president told him that he was superintendent4 ,there was something in ,matt's eye that took me1 he confessed afterwards4 ,you do see something in a man's eye now and then that beats a whole barrel of references4 ,so ,matt ,jones 7that is nothing like his real name71 took up the nastiest operating proposition in the country4 ,he did not lecture nor discharge1 not he2 but the men knew that there was a boss behind the super's desk4 ,the fellows who began trifling with the new broom were down in his office the next morning4 ,jones selected the leading spirit2 he had the advantage of knowing him4 ,pete1 he said in a quiet way1 you've been drinking4 ,it doesn't go4 ,i'm not going to discharge you1--he gave grim thought to the fate of his predecessor--but in thirty days you are going to send in your resignation voluntarily and leave our service4 ,the man protested4 ,he had not been drinking2 and ,matt ,jones had better not try that game anyway4 ,the superintendent wished him a pleasant good-morning and bowed him out of the office4 ,in five days the engineer was back1 uncalled4 ,the superintendent saw him1 even though he had no more to say than he had not been drinking2 that is1 he had quit drinking long ago4 ,in ten days he was back again4 ,this time he admitted that he had been drinking up to the day that ,matt ,jones took office4 ,the superintendent said nothing4 ,he bowed the engineer out again4 ,a month is a short thing at the best4 ,at the end of the twenty-second day1 the engineer again found his way to the superintendent's office4 ,he seemed like a man who had been through a sickness4 ,big human that he was1 he began crying at the sight of the man who was a real boss4 ,for ,god's sake1 ,matt1 don't forget the old days up on the branch4 ,i can't get out from the old road1 he said4 ,i gave you thirty days' chance to get on another road1 was all the satisfaction that he got4 ,but on the thirtieth day the engineer went to work with a clean envelope and the new superintendent had an ally of no mean strength4 ,the patient grinding won2 complete victory was only a question of time2 the president five hundred miles away began to notice4 ,you may say what you want1 railroad executives are born1 not made4 ,this reads like romance1 but it is truth4 ,matt ,jones is to-day general manager of that system1 and a little while ago a ,new ,york paper said he was going to take charge of one of the big transcontinental that needs a firm hand at its reins4 ,this superintendent has his division #djj miles away from ,new ,york1 a clean stretch of busy railroad1 making a link in one of the stoutest of the transcontinental chains1 #cjj miles of line1 making traffic and handling it4 ,the superintendent is a personage in the little inland city where headquarters are located2 his opinion is eagerly sought by the local reporters each time a new civic problem is tackled4 ,if he were in the metropolitan district he would be unknown except to a little coterie of railroaders2 up here he is the voice of the railroad4 ,he is far more real to the folk of half a dozen populous counties than is the president of the road1 a stuffy gentleman who comes up in a private car once in a dozen years to the dinner of the local ,chamber of ,commerce and tells the townspeople to thank ,god that they have the main line of the ,k4 ,m4 running through their lovely little city4 ,you may listen for the clatter of the telegraph key in his house and be entirely disappointed4 ,i would have poor system if ,i had to listen to all the gossip of the wire1 he tells you quietly4 ,we've organization on this stretch of line4 ,he says this with a bit of pride4 ,we have men and we have system4 ,my train-masters are in effect assistant superintendents3 they are expected to organize beneath them4 ,watch this sort of man4 ,he is the kind that ,american railroading is hungry for to-day4 ,of him the big executives are being made each year4 ,he enters his office in the morning and gets a few brief reports of the situation on the line3 first weather1 then congestion conditions in the big yards4 ,after that he talks over the long-distance 'phone with the ,g4 ,m41 four hundred miles away4 ,he gives a summary of the situation to headquarters1 just as the summaries came in to him from his train-masters at junctions and at terminals4 ,he holds the telephone receiver for a minute3 the 'phone is rapidly coming into general railroad use since the telegraphers made ,congress pass a bill limiting their working hours to eight each day4 ,that bill promises to make trouble yet for the men who were supposed to benefit by it4 ,the telephone speaks to him a moment4 ,he hangs up the receiver and speaks to his chief clerk4 ,w4 ,h4 ,t4 is coming up the line this afternoon4 ,tell the boys not to get rattled1 he says4 ,that is all4 ,the passage of the ,president of the ,united ,states over his three hundred miles of well-ordered track makes no flutter in this superintendent's heart4 ,if it were ,europe--the troops would be drawn out1 all other trains brought to a standstill1 pilot engines run in advance of the royal train1 in infinite pow-wow over the railroading of nobility4 ,but it is not ,europe1 it is this blessed ,united ,states1 partly blessed because it so excessively differs from ,europe4 ,only the military aides of the ,president lament upon the informality of his travel4 ,some time since a great executive was making the familiar loop throughout the ,west4 ,the superintendent of a division of line the far side of the ,missouri was a worrier1 and was personally watching the progress4 ,in order to facilitate rear platform oratory the ,president's cars were placed at the rear of a train that hardly ranked as express4 ,between towns the delays grew frequent and a stuffy little aide in uniform protested to the superintendent4 ,look a' here1 sir1 he said stiffly1 why don't you let these other trains up the line wait8 ,the division was single-track4 ,you know this is the ,president's train4 ,a twinkle came into the super's eye4 ,you're wrong1 he said1 in the positive tones of a real executive4 ,this is not the ,president's special4 ,this is train number #fg of the ,b----main line1 and she hasn't many more rights on the time-card than a gravel limited4 ,now if you were snitching along on our cracker-jack ,nippon ,limited--there's some train1 sir4 ,they wouldn't lay her out4 ,she's double-extra first-class all the way through to the coast4 ,the point of that was not lost4 ,an instance of a different sort occurred some years ago1 when ,mr4 ,roosevelt went up into ,northern ,new ,york to make a speech4 ,the superintendent of the old ,black ,river road was pretty proud of his stretch of line1 and invited the then ,governor to ride in his neat inspection engine4 ,dee-lighted1 said he of the gleaming teeth1 and he climbed up into the big cab4 ,the superintendent wondered what he'd think of that nifty stretch of track just north of ,lewville4 ,col4 ,roosevelt never thought4 ,as soon as he was settled in the cab he picked a well-thumbed copy of ,carlyle's ,french ,revolution out of his pocket and read it every inch of the way from ,utica to ,watertown4 ,the ,republican party had to worry along thereafter without that superintendent's vote4 99 99 99 99 99 ,all the superintendents cannot become general managers or railroad presidents2 there is not room at the top for even a decent proportion of the best of them4 ,the real tragedy on the division comes when a ,prince grows old and for the first time realizes that he is never to be ,king4 ,when such tragedy shows its head it is time for the stove committee--the men who gossip in roundhouse corners and the yardmaster's office--to talk in whispers4 ,buffalo is no mean principality in the railroad world--it is near kingdom in itself--miles and miles and still more miles of congested freight yards1 tonnage in breath-taking volume rolling in from the wonderful lakes eight months out of the twelve1 a nervous traffic that never ceases4 ,for years there reigned in ,buffalo1 in calm command of the situation for a great railroad system1 a man who was entitled by every virtue of the word to be called superintendent4 ,they called him the lion and did not misuse that word either4 ,he was a lion1 guardian of a great railroad gate1 a stern old lion whose word and whose law were unquestioned4 ,but time aged the man1 and the day came when the clerks in his outer office began to talk in whispers2 they were having the audacity to wonder who the new ,prince would be4 ,two men thought that they were capable--one an assistant superintendent in the great yard at ,east ,buffalo1 the other holding similar rank over at ,rochester4 ,each of these men was prepared to assume greater honor1 to sit in command at the lion's great desk4 ,that old fellow sat aloof4 ,his ears were not too deaf to hear the whisperings of his clerks in the outer office1 and sometimes when one of them would creep in upon him unawares they would find him sitting alone there1 head in hands1 holding the fort4 ,the two assistant superintendents gained courage2 they went to the picayune business of pulling wires4 ,at other times they locked horns4 ,they locked horns over one great question4 ,it was not operation that set them at odds1 not a vexing practical question of how some congested yard might be lanced so that traffic should flow the more freely1 or a main line section be aided to give a greater daily tonnage4 ,nothing of that sort for the two ambitious assistants4 ,a new pony inspection engine1 with an observation room built forward over the boiler--just the sort that ,col4 ,roosevelt had once used as a reading-room--was to be built for the division1 and each assistant thought that he needed that engine for the dignity of his job4 ,each in turn went before the lion and stated his claims for the possession of the pretty toy4 ,the old man listened with grave dignity4 ,a week later he sent down to the master mechanic at the big ,depew shops and had him deliver a brand new hand-car1 with his compliments1 to each4 ,the pony-engine went into the roundhouse until the real ,prince should come4 ,then he sat long hours alone at his desk once more4 ,finally they brought a man to him1 a fine1 upstanding man4 ,the lion rose from his comfy old chair and gave greeting to the newcomer4 ,i'm glad to see you1 was all he said2 but to the general manager1 who had come up from ,new ,york1 his eyes seemed to ask3 ,you've brought the right man here at last8 ,he turned to the stranger4 ,would you like a pony engine to get over the division8 was his question4 ,i'm willing to go to hell1 and go in a caboose1 laughed the stranger4 ,the old superintendent grasped him by the hand4 ,thank ,god1 they've sent a real man to be superintendent at ,buffalo1 was all he said4 ,that was the only recognition that he gave to one who since has become one of the master railroaders of ,america1 but in that moment the act of succession had been consummated4 ,,chapter ,,xiv ,,operating ,,the ,,railroad ,,authority ,,of ,,the ,,chief ,,clerk ,,and ,,that ,,of ,,the ,,assistant ,,superintendent-- ,,responsibilities ,,of ,,engineers1 ,,firemen1 ,,master ,,mechanic1 ,,train-,,master1 ,,train-,,despatcher--,,arranging ,,the ,,time-,,table--,,fundamental ,,rules ,,of ,,operation--,,signals--,,selecting ,,engine ,,and ,,cars ,,for ,a ,,train--,,clerical ,,work ,,of ,,conductors--,a ,,trip ,,with ,,the ,,conductor--,,the ,,despatcher',s ,,authority--,,signals ,,along ,,the ,,line--,,maintenance ,,of ,,way--,,superintendent ,,of ,,bridges ,,and ,,buildings--,,road-,,master--,,section ,,boss4 ,the administration of the division runs quite naturally into several channels4 ,the routine of the work1 the making and filing of records and reports1 the handling of the mass of correspondence that must constantly arise1 is usually in the hands of a chief clerk1 who has control over the office force at division headquarters4 ,if there is an assistant superintendent1 the chief clerk will divide responsibility with him1 the theory at all times being to cut off the detail wherever possible4 ,this office work is not radically different from the office management of any other large business4 ,its clerks are about the only unorganized force in railroad employ4 ,if the management of the road is of the divisional type1 the superintendent of course is a more important executive than if it is of the departmental type4 ,in either of these cases1 as we have seen1 he will probably have at least partial authority over the engineer of maintenance of way1 whose force keeps the line and track structures in full repair1 and also looks after ordinary construction work along the division4 ,in the road of divisional type1 he will also have partial authority over the master mechanic1 in charge of the shops and roundhouses and the locomotives of the division4 ,these last are regarded by the railroad as part of its machinery1 like the planers and drills in the shops themselves2 and for the care and operation of the locomotives the engineers and firemen are held responsible to the mechanical department4 ,this is the case even upon those railroads where1 under the departmental system1 the superintendent has no direct authority over the master mechanic upon his division4 ,for the conduct of the trains which their locomotives pull1 both engineers and firemen are directly responsible to the operating department4 ,the master mechanic simply sees to it that the railroad's property is maintained to a certain degree of efficiency and that the man who operates the locomotives is capable from every point of view4 ,a reasonable amount of deterioration is expected1 and each locomotive is expected to turn in to the shops for inspection1 overhauling and repairs1 at certain stated intervals4 ,the superintendent has absolute authority over the two officials who are chiefly interested in the conduct of the trains over the division--the train-master and the train-despatcher4 ,the first of these two officers1 who must dove-tail their work both night and day1 has the assignment of the train crews4 ,his opinion will be called for whenever the vexed questions of seniority and promotion arise1 and he will be asked to help to plan all extra or special freight and passenger trains4 ,to show how this is done brings us close to the question of schedules1 and we may pause for a moment to consider how this important phase of the railroad's operating is builded together4 ,that time-table that you have just pulled from the folder rack seems at first glance an interminable mass of meaningless figures2 yet when you come to find your journey upon it1 it quickly simplifies itself1 and you begin to marvel at the relation the figures bear to one another1 how easily you may pick your course through the long columns of numerals4 ,the more extensive time-tables that the railroad employees carry are quite as simple1 and yet they are great feats of typographical composition4 ,in reality1 both these forms of printed time-tables are but transcripts of the real time-table of the division1 which is kept set out upon a great board4 ,this board is ruled in two directions4 ,the regularly spaced intervals in one direction are marked as time1 and represent time--one entire day of twenty-four hours4 ,in the other direction of the board the stations are spaced in proportion to their actual spacing upon the line4 ,the reproduction of a portion of such a board for an imaginary division of a railroad will illustrate4 ,this line runs from ,somerset to ,rockville1 #abj miles2 and portions of it are double-tracked1 the rest single-track1 as shown at the top of the diagram4 ,on the double-track1 trains going in the same direction may pass one another only at the vertical lines1 which represent station passing sidings1 and on the single-track sections this rule holds1 with the additional one1 of course1 that trains running in opposite directions may also pass one another at the vertical station lines4 ,for economy of room only the seven hours from six o'clock in the morning until one o'clock in the afternoon are shown here4 ,following an old-time practice1 odd numbers will represent up-bound trains1 from ,somerset to ,rockville2 even numbers1 the down trains4 ,so we have an early morning accommodation passenger train1 ,no4 #a1 leaving ,rockville at #f3aj o'clock and proceeding at a leisurely rate of about twenty miles an hour 7which makes allowances for local stops7 all the way to ,somerset at the far end of the division1 which it is due to reach at #aa3de ,a4 ,m4 ,it is halted for any length of time only at ,honeytown1 where upbound ,no4 #h--local accommodation--and upbound ,no4 #f--;fast express--will pass it4 ,at #f3bj o'clock an upbound local accommodation of the same nature as ,no4 #a1 and hence known as ,no4 #b1 leaves ,somerset and1 halting only at ,robbins's ,corners to permit the fast upbound ,no4 #f to overhaul and pass it1 reaches ,rockville at #a ,p4 ,m4 ,train ,no4 #ca1 which follows ,no4 #a out of ,rockville forty minutes later1 is a milk train1 and so must have a liberal allowance for stops4 ,it proceeds only as far as ,stoneville1 where the dairy country ends1 stops there long enough to turn and to water the engine1 and then returns to ,rockville as ,no4 #cb4 ,train ,no4 #aag is a way-freight1 and still slower4 ,so it follows the milk-train4 ,it is known as a low-class train by the railroaders4 ,it must wait everywhere for better class trains to pass it4 ,train ,no4 #aah is the same class of train1 proceeding in the opposing direction4 ,train ,no4 #e is a down express4 ,illustration3 ,,how ,,the ,,real ,,time ,,table ,,of ,,the ,,division ,,looks--,,the ,,one ,,used ,,in ,,headquarters ,sometimes unforeseen demands of traffic necessitate the running of extra trains1 and these may be strung across the board4 ,this board1 in reality1 has all its trains placed upon it by strings and pins1 to admit of the constant changes that the schedules are always undergoing1 and the addition of a new train is a quick proceeding4 ,as a matter of fact1 a skilled train-master or despatcher will rarely take the time actually to string an extra train4 ,he carries the schedule too completely in his head to admit of such a necessity4 ,but the extra train is best placed following1 as a second section1 some good passenger train1 as indicated on the diagram4 ,the regular train will then carry signals showing that it is followed on this particular day4 ,while the train orders protect its movement in any event1 as will be shown in a moment1 the billing of the extra train as a second section is less of an upset to the regular operation of the division4 ,practised operating men found years ago that the fewer deviations made from the regular programme of the day1 the higher the proportion of safety arose4 ,now you begin to see the use of the train-despatcher4 ,if the unforeseen never came to pass upon the railroad1 instead of coming to pass nearly every hour1 there might be no need of that officer4 ,each engineer1 each conductor1 each station agent would have his complete time-tables1 and the road would run every day in full accordance with them4 ,that was the very earliest and the most primitive way of operating railroads4 ,almost as early the need arose of having a special direction over the operation of the trains4 ,emergencies arose daily4 ,trains were often late2 storms beat down upon the line2 the snow covered its rails2 what might have been1 according to the time-card1 an orderly operation of line1 became chaos4 ,if a train was ordered by schedule to meet a train bound in the opposite direction at ,p----1 it might wait there for long hours1 not knowing that the other engine was broken down at ,a----4 ,the invention of the telegraph and its almost instant application to the railroad service made such special direction possible4 ,so now we find the explicit directions of the schedule supplemented by even more explicit directions from the train-despatcher at the head of the train movements upon each division4 ,briefly stated1 it may be said that the engineer and the conductor in charge of a train are first guided by the schedule1 which1 after many revisions1 has been compiled with great care1 and in reference to connecting lines1 branches1 and adjoining divisions4 ,this schedule acts in conjunction with certain simple fundamental rules of operation1 the ,a1 ,b1 ,c of every railroader4 ,by one of these1 trains of the same class bound north or east are given precedence1 all other things being equal1 over trains bound south or west4 ,this rule is sometimes superseded by one giving right-of-way to trains bound up the line--or the reverse4 ,high-class trains1 like the fastest limited expresses1 have precedence over trains of graduated lower classes--down to the slow-moving heavy freights4 ,when any sort of train loses a certain length of time--usually half an hour or more--it loses all rights that it might ever have had1 and everything else on the line has precedence over it4 ,a train may lose time if it has to1 but there are never any circumstances that will justify it in running ahead of time4 ,all this is the part of railroad operation which governs the relation of one train to another4 ,there are even simpler but not less vital rules that control its own operation4 ,in order that the engineer who is guiding the train1 and the conductor who shares the responsibility1 may keep in touch with one another1 the device was adopted many years ago of having a cord run through the cars of passenger trains to a bell signal in the cab of the engine4 ,this bell signal during recent years has given way to an improved form of locomotive signal1 sounded by means of compressed air in tubes throughout the train1 and operated in connection with the air-brake equipment4 ,the air-whistle1 or bell cord-code of signals1 is standard upon all ,american railroads1 and is as follows3 ,when the train is standing3 ,two signals--start4 ,three signals--back4 ,four signals--apply or release air-brakes4 ,five signals--call in flagman4 ,when the train is in motion3 ,two signals--stop at once4 ,three signals--stop at the next station4 ,four signals--reduce speed4 ,five signals--increase speed4 ,there also arises a necessity for communication between men who stand outside the train and who seek to guide the movement of the locomotive4 ,this necessity has given rise to still another code1 transmitted by the hands--holding a flag1 if possible--by day1 and a lighted lantern at night4 ,this signal code follows3 ,method of ,transmitting ,signal4 ,indication4 ,swung across track4 ,stop4 ,raised and lowered vertically4 ,proceed4 ,swung vertically in a circle across the track3 ,when the train is standing-- ,back4 ,when train is in motion-- ,train has parted4 ,swung horizontally in a circle3 ,when the train is standing-- ,apply air-brakes4 ,held at arm's length above head3 ,when the train is standing-- ,release air-brakes4 ,any object waved violently by any person on or near the track is a stop signal4 ,by use of his locomotive whistle1 the engineer is enabled to acknowledge these signals1 as well as to signal upon his own initiative4 ,his code is also a standard in railroading4 ,it follows3 ---- ,a short blast4 -------- ,a long blast4 ---- ,stop1 apply brakes4 -------- -------- ,release brakes4 ---- ---- -------- -------- -------- ,flagman go back ---- -------- -------- -------- and protect rear end of train4 ------- -------- -------- -------- ,flagman return to train4 -------- -------- -------- ,train in motion1 has parted4 ---- ---- ,acknowledgment of signals1 not otherwise provided for4 ---- ---- ---- ,standing train--back4 ---- ---- ---- ---- ,call for signals4 -------- ---- ---- ,calls attention to following section4 -------- -------- ---- ---- ,highway crossing signal4 ---------------- ,approaching stations1 junctions or railroad crossings at grade4 ,a succession of short blasts is an alarm for persons on the track and calls the attention of trainmen to danger ahead4 ,these signal codes operate fundamentally in connection with the essential rules of schedule that we have already shown4 ,suppose now that we consider the workings of all this system as it comes down to actual practice in a single concrete instance4 ,we are finding our way to a big terminal yard in all the murkiness and cloudiness of very early morning1 and once again we hunt out that urbane soul1 the yardmaster4 ,he holds in his hand the yellow tissue of an order from the despatcher of the division4 ,in the conciseness of telegraphy it tells him to start a third section of train #aah--through freight--at #f3ae o'clock4 ,just back of his little grimy box of an office is the big sprawling roundhouse--a dozen freighters with banked fires standing in the stalls1 awaiting summons to work4 ,the twelve engines are divided into several classifications according to pulling strength and speed1 but the despatcher has designated the particular engine he wishes for third-#aah1 and he gets it--a big lanky puller--#ahdg4 ,she is chosen chiefly because she has had the longest roundhouse rest1 having brought in a through freight from up the line1 and having been received with engineer's report showing her to be in good running order1 at five o'clock yesterday afternoon4 ,before the #ahdg slipped from the turntable into the waiting stall1 the hostlers and the wipers were at her4 ,the hostlers had taken her over the cinder-pit and cleaned out the fire-box4 ,then they went over her1 cleaning her1 inch by inch1 a mechanical inspector in their wake1 testing and sounding and checking every item in the engineer's report which showed #ahdg to be in good order at the end of his run with her4 ,there was not much chance left for any shirking of responsibility1 no matter what might arise upon the #ahdg on any coming day4 ,we turn and watch the yardmaster once again4 ,he has the roundhouse foreman send one of the bright young boys who hang around his office night and day1 and who dream of that coming hour when they will handle an #ahdg for themselves1 to call the engineer and fireman1 whose names are posted first out4 ,or perhaps the telephone has come into play--in these days in the smaller towns there is hardly a house too humble to have receiver and transmitter hanging somewhere upon its walls4 ,in any event the engine-crew are supposed to stay home when off duty1 unless especially excused1 and to live within reasonable distance--say a mile--of the roundhouse4 ,the caller tells the engineer and fireman to report at the roundhouse at #e3de ,a4 ,m4 ,at that hour the hostlers have made the #ahdg fit for service4 ,her tender has been filled with coal1 her tanks with water1 even her sand is packed aboard the box that stands upon the boiler and is ready to help on slippery rail and upgrade4 ,the engineer makes keen inspection of the #ahdg before he moves her a single inch1 makes sure with his keen and practised eye that she is quite fit for service1 pokes here and there and everywhere with his long-spouted oil-can4 ,at a minute or two after shop whistles have shrieked six o'clock he pulls the #ahdg out from the shadows of the roundhouse4 ,he gets an open signal and switch to the main yard and finds waiting on a siding in that great place1 the trail of freight cars and the caboose that are going with him to make ,third-#aah4 ,now come back for a moment in your thought4 ,while we were still scurrying down to the grimy yard1 the despatcher was creating ,third-#aah4 ,on his desk were car reports1 showing what had been received and sent out1 and there was enough accumulation of stuff in the yards last night to justify a ,third-#aah4 ,because good railroading means yard-sidings cleared1 and standing cars and freight1 like passengers1 kept constantly moving1 he did not hesitate at ordering her out4 ,he found that there would be #cb cars between tender and caboose1 weighing approximately some #abjj tons1 and so he ordered from the roundhouse an engine of a class which the mechanical department guaranteed capable of pulling from #a1jjj to #a1ejj tons1 gross weight4 ,illustration3 ,courtesy of the ,railroad ,age ,gazette ,,the ,,electro-,,pneumatic ,,signal-,,box ,,in ,,the ,,control ,,tower ,,of ,a ,,modern ,,terminal ,illustration3 ,,the ,,responsible ,,men ,,who ,,stand ,,at ,,the ,,switch-,,tower ,,of ,a ,,modern ,,terminal3 ,a ,,large ,,tower ,,of ,,the ,,manual ,,type ,illustration3 ,,when ,,winter ,,comes ,,upon ,,the ,,lines ,,the ,,superintendent ,,will ,,have ,,full ,,use ,,for ,,every ,,one ,,of ,,his ,,wits ,illustration3 ,,watchful ,,signals ,,guarding ,,the ,,main ,,line ,,of ,a ,,busy ,,railroad ,the yardmaster had given the numbers of the cars that were to make ,third-#aah1 just as he received them from one of the despatcher's assistants1 to a switching foreman1 who arranged them1 with the quick facility that comes from long practice1 into an order that would permit them to be set off at various points up the line1 with the least possible amount of switching4 ,that practical sequence worked out in pencil and paper1 a stubby switch-engine effected in reality4 ,the cars and the caboose1 in proper order1 were ready1 with the crew1 and inspected when the #ahdg backed to them and ,third-#aah came into her being4 ,a yard caller had summoned the train-crew while the roundhouse caller was rounding up the two men of the engine-crew4 ,collins1 the conductor1 and his brakemen had reported at the yard-office1 and were assigned to ,third-#aah4 ,collins found the cars and caboose waiting just a few minutes before the #ahdg had been coupled to them1 with little ado and no formality whatsoever1 beyond the testing of the air-brakes4 ,into his train-book he had entered the number of each car and the initials of the road owning it1 its destination1 its empty or tare weight2 the weight of its load1 and the sum of these or its gross weight4 ,he sees to it that each box-car is firmly seal-locked4 ,if not1 he refuses to accept it from the yardmaster until it has been resealed1 and makes a note of the occurrence4 ,like the engineer and the hostlers in the roundhouse1 he takes no chances1 no responsibilities that do not fairly belong to him4 ,with both conductor and engineer ready1 ,third-#aah starts upon her day's run4 ,the yard operator has telegraphed the despatcher's office that #c-aah is awaiting instructions4 ,in that despatch he has given the locomotive number1 the number and total weight of the cars it hauls1 the name of both engineer and conductor4 ,the train-despatcher enters these details of train and crew at the head of a column of his train register4 ,on that register there are spaces for the entries of arriving and leaving times of the train as telegraphed him by the operators at each telegraph station on the division4 ,the train once so entered by a despatcher's clerk1 the despatcher sends a clearance card to the telegraph operator at the little yard office who repeats it back for accuracy4 ,then the yard operator presents that clearance order to the engineer and conductor1 who read it aloud to him--also for accuracy1 of course--and then sign that they have read and understood the order4 ,the signatures are then reported to the despatcher's office1 which wires ,complete4 ,complete goes in writing upon the copies of the order made in manifold1 which go to engineer1 to conductor1 and to the operator's own files4 ,the engineer reads his order to the fireman1 who repeats it back to him2 the conductor follows the same routine with his brakemen4 ,that all sounds complicated1 but quickly becomes mechanical and rapid2 the danger is that it may become so mechanical and rapid as to permit of serious errors passing unchecked through the routine4 ,but the railroad has done its part4 ,it has1 for itself1 taken every possible precaution against error and resulting accident4 ,we are privileged1 and we climb into the caboose of ,third-#aah4 ,we hold credentials to ,collins1 her conductor1 and they are unimpeachable4 ,we can see that from his face as he holds his lantern over them3 he would not even let us into his caboose until his own mind was set4 ,after that there was barely time to jump aboard4 ,the #ahdg is beginning to clear the yard before we have had time for a good look at the inside of the little caboose4 ,you won't find our hack any fancy place1 says ,collins4 ,but we've had it nine years now1 and it seems kind of homelike to us after all this time4 ,the we consists of ,collins and his rear brakeman4 ,the forward brakeman1 who is held responsible for the front half of the train1 has his headquarters in the cab of the #ahdg4 ,the caboose is a home-like place1 snugly warmed by a red-hot stove placed in its corner and lined with bunks made into beds1 ,pullman fashion2 only never was there a ,pullman sleeper that gave you less sense of the impressive and a greater sense of a snug cabin4 ,squarely placed in its centre is a sort of wooden pyramid and the steps up this lead to the lookout from where the long snaky train can be watched4 ,kind o' ol'-fashioned1 that1 apologizes ,collins4 ,th' las' time ,i had th' cabin into the shops for over-haulin'1 they offered to take it out an' put in th' ladders2 but ,i says 'no'2 an' this is why4 ,one by one he lifts its hinged steps4 ,this is a pyramid built of lockers1 a regular treasure house of railroad necessities4 ,there are all sorts of ropes and jacks and wrenches1 extra parts against every emergency4 ,there is a food closet1 and another locker filled with neat stacks of stationery4 ,they give us more forms to fill out now than th' super's office got twenty years ago1 he laughs4 ,i spend more than half my time at that desk4 ,the clerical work on ,third-#aah is considerable4 ,collins has to keep all the way-bills of his train--#cb cars1 almost #ajj1jjj worth of merchandise1 and if he makes a serious error it is apt to cost him his job4 ,he writes a neat hand1 and his records1 like his caboose1 are kept in ship-shape fashion4 ,he is a careful student of the ethics and the practices of railroad management and operation4 ,he has his own ideas on each of these1 and when you get to them they are good ideas4 ,of such as he railroad executives are every year made in ,america4 99 99 99 99 99 ,we slip up the line1 slowly threading our passage through the mass of passenger trains1 fast and slow1 that all times have the right-of-way over the third sections of rather ordinary freights4 ,collins sometimes thrusts his orders into our hands in order that we may see something of the great detail of this branch of operating4 ,each is wonderfully specific1 and we know by that complete on the corner that it has been given in detail4 ,no4 #a ,engine #bbcf will wait at ,morris ,level until #aj3jj ,a4 ,m4 for #c-aah1 ,engine #ahdg4 ,the signature is that of the initials of the division superintendent1 the numerals have been spelled out4 ,it would seem as if the railroad had taken every possible precaution for safety4 ,and yet again1 remember that great accidents have happened upon ,american railroads just because men's minds have perversely refused to read what eyes and ears have read4 ,and yet there seems to be nothing to be done1 more thorough than is already being done4 ,are all these freights upon schedule8 you may ask ,collins1 after you meet a few dozen of them within the limits of a single-track division4 ,he is decent enough not to laugh at your ignorance4 ,schedule8 he repeats4 ,it's a joke4 ,they give our first section a time to get out on1 in the time-card and then one o' them bright office-boys gets a figger out o' his head an' puts it down for an arrivin' time4 ,he never hits it an' he never expects to4 ,so more an' more they're gettin' to move this freight on special orders4 ,they can better regulate it then1 'cordin' to volume of business4 ,mos' of the men carry the schedules of the fas' an' th' way-freights in their domes4 ,th' coarse tonnage stuff doesn't even get special orders4 ,when they get enough of it1 down on th' main line1 they get an engine out o' th' roundhouse1 give the train th' engine number1 and start off4 ,railroad traffic along the freight end follows business conditions mighty close4 ,it is still daylight when we halt at a junction1 across a frozen river from a city4 ,the city is set upon a steep hillside1 and its houses rise from the river in even terraces4 ,at the top a great domed structure--the ,state ,house--crowns it4 ,it is a still winter's morning1 and the smoke from all the chimney-pots extends straight heavenward4 ,we wait patiently upon a long siding until everything else has been moved--through fast expresses heavily laden with opulent-looking ,pullmans1 jerky little suburban trains1 long draughts of empty coaches1 being drawn by consequential switch-engines in and out of the train-shed of the passenger station4 ,finally a certain semaphore blade drops1 we cross over to the important main line and begin pulling on a sharp curve1 across the river1 clear of the station with its confusion1 through and past the city to a busy division yard4 ,in a very little time1 for this is their home town1 ,collins and his crew are registering at the yardmaster's office4 ,the engineer of the #ahdg1 and his fireman1 turn in their time-slips and proceed with the locomotive to the roundhouse where they make a report upon its condition4 ,their names are posted on the in list or register1 and they are off duty until they are summoned by the callers at this end of the division4 ,the despatcher has1 of course1 been apprised of the safe ending of the run of ,third-#aah4 ,in the despatcher we have a high type of railroad official who works almost unknown to the great travelling public1 and yet accepts a very great measure of the responsibility for the safe operation of the lines4 ,his orders1 sent by telegraph and bearing that cabalistic initial signature of his superintendent1 are the products of his own mind4 ,there can be no mistake in these1 and he knows it4 ,each message that he sends may produce disaster1 and he knows that4 ,he is an executive of a type that is not to be passed by lightly4 ,he has risen from the ranks of the telegraphers1 most likely from some lonely country station or forlorn signal-tower1 and his knowledge of railroad operation1 both theoretical and practical1 must approach perfection4 ,on sunny1 serene days he proceeds with the theoretical railroading2 when storms or unexpected influxes of traffic come to harass the division1 he will need every bit of his practical knowledge4 ,handling a number of special trains--freight or passenger--is a strain1 and that strain is most felt at the despatcher's desk4 ,now and then your morning paper tells of a railroad wreck1 and laconically adds1 ,the despatcher was at fault4 ,the stories of the wrecks that were forestalled by the sheer genius of the men who sit night and day at the telegraph instruments at headquarters are the stories that are for the most part untold1 and that far surpass in thrill and interest the stories of the failures4 ,the despatcher must also be the full measure of a man4 ,he is1 like the silent figure upon the bridge of a great ship1 of unquestioned authority as he sits at his desk4 ,he may or may not have a map of the line before him as he sits there1 but you may be certain that he knows where every moving train on the division is at the moment you see him1 just as clearly as if it were all visible there to the naked eye in some sort of picture map4 ,no trains proceed without his express orders4 ,he has reliefs and there is no hour of day or night when one of these is not at the despatcher's desk1 having the work of the line under his exact supervision4 ,the order that any train receives from the despatcher by means of the telegraph will1 as we saw in ,collins's case1 direct it to proceed to a certain point on the line1 and will specify every train1 regular or extra1 that it will meet1 and the meeting point4 ,when the train has proceeded to the end of its orders there will be more orders from the train-despatcher to be receipted for1 and so it will proceed to the end of the route4 ,it is quite possible that at any stage of the journey orders will come from headquarters nullifying those already issued1 in part or entirely2 and these must be accounted for in the same thorough and accurate fashion4 ,some of this seems red tape to the men on the line1 and there come times when they are a bit disposed to rebel at what seems to them useless formality4 ,there also come times when trains crash into one another2 and at those times the railroad1 with its infinite system of recording its orders1 is generally apt to be able to place the blame pretty accurately4 ,those are the times when the system of train orders justifies its worth4 ,recently the telephone has come into something more than an experimental use in despatching trains upon ,american railroads4 ,various causes have contributed to this4 ,for one thing1 the use of the telephone enables the average road to make good use of its veterans1 men who would indignantly refuse to become pensioners1 and yet who have come to a time in their lives when they must set their pace in gentler key4 ,a trusted old employee1 a man crippled perhaps in loyalty to the company's service1 a keen-witted responsible woman1 any one of these can competently handle train orders over a telephone1 without having to have the education and the wonderful expertness that comes only from long experience in telegraphy2 and they all become available in the despatching service4 ,still another cause has contributed to the change1 which is being reported each week from some fresh corner of the country--the telegraphers1 themselves4 ,within the past few years they were able to induce ,congress to reduce their day's work to eight hours4 ,translated1 this meant that the average way-station which had been manned by one or two operators would correspondingly need two or three operators4 ,the telegraphers1 by reason of the expert training needed in their business1 kept their wage-scale up1 and the railroads felt that eight-hour bill keenly in their treasuries4 ,so there may have been the least bit of retribution in their seeking the telephone as a relief4 ,the change has certainly been made in the keen hope of effecting economy4 ,no railroad operator would feel ashamed to admit that fine impeachment4 ,modern railroading simply makes the same demand of the telephone that it makes of the telegraph--that it keep the probability of safety high4 ,it makes the same demand of the men who maintain the signals1 the track1 the bridges1 and other portions of the right-of-way4 ,let us consider them in the passing of an instant4 ,you know the signals along the line of the railroad--those gaunt1 uncanny things that spell danger or safety to the men in the engine-cabs4 ,a little while ago1 we stood beside a man in the sun-filled tower of a great railroad terminal and watched him operate the most complicated switch and signal system in the land1 watched him with the crooking of a finger upon the lever of an electric machine raise this blade1 lower that1 as he made new paths for the many trains1 coming and going4 ,a plant of that sort is known as the interlocking4 ,in its simplest form1 it will guard a junction between two single tracks4 ,the mast of the signal will rise1 according to standard custom1 at the right of the track in the direction of travel1 and there will probably be two semaphore blades1 the upper of which guards and signals the straight main-line or superior track1 the lower1 the diverging branch1 known as the inferior track4 ,the blade raised--automatically showing a red light--indicates that the main line is closed to the engineer4 ,stop6 ,danger6 are the words it tells him4 ,the blade lowered1 a green light is automatically displayed1 and the engineer knows that he can go ahead at full speed on the main line4 ,the road is clear for him4 ,the lower blade gives similar indications for the branch diverging line4 ,normally1 both blades stand at stop and danger1 and the one guarding the line for which the train is destined1 is dropped only on the approach of the train1 itself4 ,in fact1 to facilitate the movement of trains1 these guarding signals--known to the signal experts as home signals--are generally interlocked with distant signals several hundred feet down the line1 on which blades indicating the diverging tracks forecast the story that the home signal is to tell the engineer4 ,the blade raised--by night displaying a white or safety signal--on the distant signal indicates that the line it guards is blocked at the home signal1 and that the engineer must be prepared to bring his train to a full stop4 ,dropped--showing the green safety light--that particular line is open and ready1 and the engineer can be prepared to pass the junction without a very great diminution of speed4 ,that is the fundamental rule of the signal4 ,some roads have experimented with other forms of indicators--disks of one sort or another1 semaphore blades that turn upwards rather than drop4 ,the devices are numerous1 but the principle is the same4 ,when the tracks begin to multiply1 and the signals begin to multiply in even greater proportion1 they are generally carried over the tracks on a light bridge construction--our ,english cousins call it a gantry--and a series of small semaphore masts built up from the bridge4 ,one of these masts1 or dolls1 will be assigned to each track2 and if there chances to be an unsignalled siding-track of little importance passing under the bridge1 it will have its own doll rising from the bridge although quite devoid of semaphore blades4 ,so it is all quite as clear as print to the engineer1 even when forty or fifty lights blink at him from a single bridge4 ,the signals tell their story to him quite as simply as to the man in the tower1 who is setting their blades in accordance with his carefully arranged plans4 ,where signals are not of this interlocking type1 guarding some junction1 railroad grade crossing1 draw-bridge or other point of possible danger1 they are likely to resolve themselves into the block system4 ,this system1 in a rather crude form1 with the use of operators at each block-tower or way-station1 has been in development for something less than thirty years upon the ,american railroad4 ,in brief1 it divides a line--usually double-tracked1 but sometimes used by the so-called staff method upon a single-track road--into sections1 or blocks1 of from three to five miles each4 ,on double-track under this system1 no two trains1 even though travelling in the same direction are permitted in the same block4 ,at the entrance to each block stands a tall mast with two of the conventional signal blades4 ,the upper of these raised denotes that a train is still in the block1 and an engineer must stop his train and wait till it drops1 before he can proceed4 ,the lower blade1 when raised1 indicates that a train is in the second block ahead1 and the engineer must proceed only with caution and expecting to find that block closed against him4 ,it is all quite simple2 and if the engineers followed the signals absolutely1 there never could be any rear-end collisions on lines protected by block signals4 ,as a matter of fact1 there rarely ever are1 although the engineers do take chances time and time again4 ,why should ,i stop for that thing1 said a veteran engineer on a fast express train as we went whirring by one of those upper blades raised and commanding us in a blood-red point of light to stop1 when ,i can look down this straight stretch and see they're clear8 ,like as not something's got into the mechanism of it and let her flop that way4 ,do not insult the intelligence of that engineer4 ,a little while before1 he had told us1 with a deal of pride1 that the rolling stock of his road placed end to end would reach from ,new ,york to ,omaha1 a distance of some #acjj miles4 ,keenest of the keen1 he had a sort of contempt for a rule-book in such a case as that4 ,isn't it sort of positive8 we began4 ,good excuse anyway-- ,it is1 he shouted back1 but somehow it don't go if you fall behind on your running time4 ,we're here to use ordinary good sense--and bring our trains in on time4 ,and yet the railroad has a sharp way of insisting upon compliance with that book of rules by making1 once in a great while1 surprise tests4 ,a signal is set at danger1 without any more apparent reason than in the case just cited2 a secret watch is kept1 and judgment and discipline are visited upon the heads of the engineers who permit themselves to run past it4 99 99 99 99 99 ,to operate the signals calls for one body of men1 and to maintain them for faithful service against all manner and stress of wear and weather1 another2 just as there must be a working corps to keep the right-of-way in working order4 ,this last is a mighty brigade of the railroad's army2 for one man in every four who works for it is employed in keeping the track in order4 ,one dollar in every six that the railroad spends goes for that purpose4 ,maintenance of way on each division divides itself into a superintendent of bridges and buildings1 who sees to the upkeep of those facilities2 and a roadmaster1 who specializes upon the track itself4 ,this last officer1 almost invariably one who has begun to shoulder himself up in the ranks of the railroad army from the very beginning1 has his territory divided into sections from two to five miles in length on double-track1 from four to ten on single4 ,in command of each section a faithful hand-car and a group of more or less faithful section-hands1 figured on an allowance of one to each mile of track1 is a section-boss4 ,the section-boss is a wry and a wise soul1 or should be4 ,he may not know as much about the formulas for compensating curves as that bright boy who has just come out of a tech school to stand his turn at a transit1 but he has a marvellous sort of intuitive sense in keeping his little stretch of track in order4 ,he can sight his rail and discover flaws in alignment as a blind man can find surface flaws with the developed tips of his fingers1 and all the while he may be growling at the railroad management for adding to the weight of its rolling-stock and pounding the elevations out of his track4 ,in summer he is expert with the track jacks and constantly putting in bits of ballast here and there2 and in the winter1 when the frost and snow have made it impossible to touch the ballast1 he keeps his elevations by means of shims4 ,a shim is a piece of wood1 from shingle thickness to the width of two ties piled one upon the other1 and is wedged between the tie and the rail till summer comes and the line can be corrected by ballasting4 ,the section-boss must keep pace with a job that is no sinecure4 ,if his gang1 in eagerness to be on dress parade1 almost throws dirt on the rear steps of the boss's private car as it goes whizzing down the line1 he must also see to it that they keep plugging at it where there is not even a locomotive whistle within sound4 ,he must be thrifty1 economical4 ,he must remember that the humble cross-tie which once cost a quarter now costs almost a dollar1 and that for one of these to be found neglected in the ditch is almost a capital crime4 ,he must have an eye for loose spikes and angle-plates1 for the big boss has hinted at the annual loss to the road in these simple factors4 ,at his call and that of the superintendent of bridges and buildings is a work-train1 made up of a few flat-cars and discarded coaches1 doing boarding-house ,pullman service in their declining years1 which looks after work too sizable for the section-boss and his little gang1 and yet not large enough for the attention of the dignified gentlemen who are known as the reconstruction engineers4 ,yet some of the feats of these work-train gangs have the crackle of engineering genius4 ,it takes brains to rip out a little timber span and replace it in the interval between two trains spaced a couple of hours apart1 and in the railroad1 brain work often comes from the shabby workman1 from the man who graduates from the command of his own battered hand-car4 99 99 99 99 99 ,all this elaborate system of railroad operation has been built up through many years of practice4 ,experience has been more than a teacher in the business1 which becomes yearly more and more nearly a developed science2 she has been a whole faculty and a curriculum1 too4 ,methods that promised well at the outset have been found faulty after trial1 and rejected4 ,committees of trained experts have pondered and reported voluminously2 the standard railroad codes of every sort have been born because of them4 ,the operation of the railroad has been brought close to science4 ,it would seem as if the entire field had been completely covered4 ,and yet new situations constantly arise1 the like of which have never before presented themselves1 even to the railroad veterans4 ,traffic moves in unequal volume1 particularly freight traffic4 ,there are single-track stretches through the ,middle ,west that starve through eleven months of the year1 and for the other thirty days handle in grain more tonnage than a double-track trunk-line in the ,east4 ,obviously such lines cannot be double-tracked for thirty days of business2 quite as obviously the overtaxed division1 its equipment1 and its men must rise to every necessity of the floodtide of business4 ,there are fat years and there are lean years4 ,there come years of bumper crops1 years when the factory lights burn from sunset to dawn1 and wheels turn unceasingly1 and then the superintendent wonders how his equipment and men are going to stand the strain4 ,engines are kept from the shops and in service2 nothing that is even a semblance of a car is kept out of service2 the demand for men is keen2 prosperity strains the resources of the railroad4 ,in the lean years1 engines are sometimes kept from the shops because the railroad feels that it must hold down its running expenses to keep pace with reduced revenues1 and such a course it can stoutly defend as nothing else than good business4 ,equipment begins to stand idle4 ,engines are tucked away on empty sidings1 boarded and forlorn2 and if the year be very lean indeed1 the superintendent may find it necessary to send out a wrecking crane and begin lifting empty cars off the rails and leaving them in the ditch at the side of the right-of-way1 until the golden times come again4 ,at such seasons his ingenuity is tested quite as much as in the times of floodtide4 ,orders come to cut expenses1 and his big expense is the pay-roll4 ,when he begins to blue-pencil that pay-roll1 some one is going to be hungry4 ,the superintendent knows that4 ,he must move with great care in such emergencies4 ,,chapter ,,xv ,,the ,,fellows ,,out ,,upon ,,the ,,line ,,men ,,who ,,run ,,the ,,trains ,,must ,,have ,,brain ,,as ,,well ,,as ,,muscle--,,their ,,training--,,from ,,farmer',s ,,boy ,,to ,,engineer--,,the ,,brakeman',s ,,dangerous ,,work--,,baggageman ,,and ,,mail ,,clerks--,,hand-,,switchmen--,,the ,,multifarious ,,duties ,,of ,,country ,,station-,,agents4 ,one man in every twelve in the ,united ,states is on the pay-roll of a railroad4 ,no wonder that that great organism comes so close to human life throughout the nation1 that we seem to touch it at every turn4 ,this one out of twelve is the great army of industrial ,america4 ,composed of nearly #a1ejj1jjj men1 it is an army that inspires loyalty and coperation within its own ranks1 and confidence and admiration from without4 ,to a nation whose creed is work1 it stands as the uniformed host stands to a fighting nation like ,england or ,france or ,germany4 ,the army of industrial ,america inspires not one whit less affection than those great crops of paid fighters in ,europe4 ,ninety-six per cent of this army of railroaders are engaged in the business of maintaining and operating the great avenues of transportation1 an overwhelming proportion in the last phase of the business4 ,the operating department is1 to the average mind1 the railroad4 ,its members are the men with whom the public come oftenest in contact2 they are the men who are oftenest called upon to hazard life and limb in the pursuit of their callings4 ,the romance of the railroad--a romance that is told in unending prose and verse--hovers over the men who operate it4 ,the men who labor in the shops and keep engines and cars safe and fit for the most efficient service have no small responsibilities4 ,moreover1 their work1 forging and finishing great masses of metal1 is not without its own hazards4 ,the men who give their time and talents to the maintenance of the track and the structure of the railroad have equal responsibilities4 ,it is not doubted for an instant that both of these are important functions in the conduct of railroad transportation1 and each in turn will have full attention given to it4 ,in a previous chapter we have considered the men who control the actual operation of the railroad1 the safe conduct of its trains up and down the line4 ,how about the privates in the ranks of this industrial army1 the men1 who by their loyalty and ability form the very foundations of successful operation1 who also form the material from which executives are chosen every day8 ,there are no common laborers in this phase of railroad work4 ,a man with stout muscles and less than the average amount of brains can ofttimes shovel ballast out with the track-gangs2 there are many1 many opportunities for crude labor in the heavy metal work of the railroad's shops2 there are none within the scientific activity that gives itself to the running of the trains4 ,the humblest of these folk must have a particular talent1 a talent so peculiar that it might almost be described as latent ,americanism4 ,the lowest-priced man in the train-service must understand the entire complicated theories of railroad operation to a ,t4 ,he may be the man on whom responsibility--the responsibility for the safety of not one but many human lives--may suddenly be thrust4 ,a gate-tender at a highway crossing has not ordinarily a place of gravest responsibility2 yet in some least expected hour this humblest employee of the operating department may hold the fate of human life in the balancing of his steady hands4 ,americans run the ,american railroads4 ,for this great service men must possess not only the mental capacity for understanding the technique of operation1 but the physical strength to meet the stress of hard labor1 and of every sort of weather1 and of long hours spent upon moving trains4 ,moreover1 there is a requirement of morals--that a man must fully know and quite as fully accept the responsibility for human life that is placed in his hands4 ,these things combined make that latent ,americanism of which we have just spoken2 and the railroad that digs deep into this mine of latent ,americanism finds its material1 not in the great cities with their vast colonies of foreigners1 but on the farms of a broad1 broad land4 ,the boy standing in the pasture sees the express train go skimming past him from an unknown great world into another unknown great world1 and straightway he has the railroad fever4 ,he drives to the depot with the milk cans1 and there he comes in contact with the personnel of that link of steel that stretches across the farm where he was born4 ,it is only a little time after that before he is applying for work as a railroad man4 ,so it is that the railroad finds fine timber for its service4 ,it picks and chooses4 ,for its choice it has the pick of ,american timber1 the ironwood of our national forests of humanity4 ,it gathers its army of men1 inspects them carefully for physical1 mental and moral requirements and then it impresses upon them the necessity of good living1 the absolute necessity of deference to an established and rigid system of discipline as a requirement in the successful handling of the different transportation business4 ,thus we have the railroad men as the best workers of the nation4 ,if you want proof of that1 ask any of the great mail-order concerns which class of business they prefer and they will tell you without hesitation that it is the railroad man4 ,come closer home and ask the merchants of any community the same question4 ,their answer will be the same4 ,rigid conditions1 out-of-door life1 sober habits make desirable citizens out of this class of workers4 ,there are none better anywhere4 ,in the train service1 the ordinary route of promotion is through the freight service to the passenger4 ,thus1 for the farmer's boy who hankers to sit in the cab of the locomotive that hauls the ,limited there is a long hard path4 ,chances are that at the beginning the road foreman of engines will start him at odd chores1 calling crews1 wiping engines1 and the like1 around some one of the big roundhouses4 ,he will work hard1 but here he will begin to absorb the romance of the line1 the romance that1 like fog and engine smoke1 lies around the engine house1 thick enough to cut4 ,perhaps after a while they will give him a little authority and make him a hostler4 ,the hostler and the stalls in the roundhouses are quaint survivals of the most primitive railroad days1 when horses were really motive power4 ,at odd times1 night times perhaps1 the boy will ride in engine cabs and gradually acquire a knowledge of one of these great machines such as no text-book would ever give him4 ,then comes his first big opportunity4 ,there is a vacancy among the engine crews2 the road foreman of engines gives him a good report1 and he begins to have dealing with the train-master4 ,he is made a fireman1 and he travels the division end to end1 day in and day out4 ,now he knows why the railroad requires physical tests as well as tests of eyesight and of hearing4 ,even after he has taken another step in advance and been promoted to the passenger service 7we will assume that ours is a bright1 ambitious boy71 he will only find that his labors in the engine-cab have been increased4 ,it is no slight task1 firing a heavy locomotive over #ajj or more miles of grade-climbing1 curve-rounding railroad4 ,it is a task that fairly calls for human arms of steel2 for some firemen handle some #ag tons of coal in a single run4 ,the appetite of that firebox is seemingly insatiable4 ,there is hardly a moment during the run that it is not clamoring to be fed1 and that the fireman is not hard at it there on the rocking floor of the swaying tender1 reaching from tender coal to firebox door4 ,but the day does come1 if he sticks hard at it1 when he becomes an engineer4 ,he has learned the line well1 during his countless trips over it as fireman4 ,he has come to know every signal1 every bridge1 every station1 every curve1 every grade1 every place for slow1 careful running1 every place for speeding1 as thoroughly as ever river pilot learned his course4 ,there have been many times when he has had to assume temporary charge of the engine4 ,he is a qualified man at least to sit in the right hand of the cab1 to have command over reverse lever and over throttle4 ,his work is of a different sort already4 ,the hard physical labor is a thing of the past1 most of the time he sits at his work4 ,but responsibility replaces physical stress1 and the farmer boy now realizes which of the two is more wearing4 ,upon his judgment--instant judgment time and time and time again--the fate of that heavy train depends4 ,after he has been promoted from freight engineer to passenger engineer he has a train filled with humanity1 and he knows the difference4 ,by day the inclination of a single blade1 by night the friendly welcome or the harsh command of changeable lights must never escape him4 ,one slip1 and after that-- ,the engineer prefers not to think of that4 ,he prefers to think of a safe trip1 terminal to terminal1 to think of the long line covered1 once again in safety1 to think of the station at the far end of the division1 where a relief engine and engineer will be in waiting to take the train another stage in its long journey across the land1 to think of the home and family awaiting him4 ,he is a big passenger man now4 ,when he gets to the end of the run1 there will be a crew to take his locomotive away to the roundhouse4 ,he will have a bit of a wash and in a few minutes he will be bound through the station waiting-room1 well dressed1 smoking a good fifteen-cent cigar1 quite as fine a type of ,american citizen as you might wish to see anywhere4 ,you would hardly recognize in this well-dressed man of affairs1 the keen-eyed1 sound-bodied man in blue jeans who stood beside his engine1 oil-can in hand1 at the far end of the division4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the same type holds true through the man in care of the other parts of the trains4 ,take the brakeman--they call him trainman nowadays in the passenger service4 ,in the old days this was a slouchy1 somewhat slovenly dressed individual of a self-acknowledged independence4 ,time has changed him in thirty years4 ,an increased respect for the service has taken away from him his slouchiness2 a feeling that good work and hard work will take him through the ranks1 through a service as conductor1 perhaps to train-master1 to superintendent1 goodness knows how much further1 has replaced that bumptious independence4 ,he began as brakeman on a freight4 ,there were two1 possibly three1 of these men to the train1 under command of the conductor1 back there in the caboose1 and they were supposed to distribute themselves pretty equally over the top of the train4 ,the forward brakeman would work from the cab backward1 the rear brakeman from the caboose 7he also probably calls it a hack71 forward1 the remaining man when a third was assigned to the train1 having the middle4 ,it was thought and confidently predicted that with the universal use of the air-brake to freight equipment the days of clambering over the tops of the cars to man the brakes were over4 ,brakemen twenty years ago were dreaming of the day when they might sit in a cab or caboose and have the difficult work of slacking or the stopping of a #a1ejj-ton train accomplished1 through the genius of mechanism1 by a hand-turn of the engineer upon an air-brake throttle4 ,but what looked so well in theory has not worked quite so well in practice4 ,the railroads have found the wear and tear on the air-brake equipment1 particularly with the steep grade lines and heavy equipment1 a tremendous expense4 ,for the sake of that and for the sake of still greater safety--following the railroad rule to use each possible safety measure1 one upon the other--the brakemen are still compelled to keep to the top of the cars4 ,illustration3 ,,when ,,the ,,train ,,comes ,,to ,a ,,water ,,station ,,the ,,fireman ,,gets ,,out ,,and ,,fills ,,the ,,tank ,illustration3 ,a ,,freight-,,crew ,,and ,,its ,,hack ,illustration3 ,a ,,view ,,through ,,the ,,span ,,of ,a ,,modern ,,truss ,,bridge ,,gives ,,an ,,idea ,,of ,,its ,,strength ,,and ,,solidity ,illustration3 ,,the ,,new ,,york ,,central ,,is ,,adopting ,,the ,,new ,,form ,,of ,,upper ,,quadrant ,,signal ,on a pleasant day this is a task that can give the average brakeman a sort of supreme contempt for the man whose work houses him within four walls4 ,if the road lies through a lovely country1 if it pierces mountain ranges1 or follows the twisting course of a broad river1 he may feel a contempt1 too1 for the passenger who observes the lovely scenes only through the narrow confines of a car window4 ,to him there is a broad horizon1 and he would be a poor sort of man indeed if he did not rise to the inspiration of this environment4 ,there is quite another side of this in the winter4 ,let wind and rain and then freezing weather come1 and that icy footpath over the top of the snaky train becomes the most dangerous way in all ,christendom4 ,it consists of only three narrow planks laid lengthwise of the train1 and between the cars there is a two-foot interval to be jumped4 ,hand-rails of any sort are an impossibility1 and the brakeman now and then will receive a sharp slap in the face that is not the slap of wind or of sleet1 and he will fall flat upon the car-roof or dodge to the ladders that run up between the cars4 ,that slap was the slap of the tickler1 that gallows-like affair that stands guard before tunnels and low bridges and gives crude warning to the man working upon the train roofs of a worse slap yet to come4 ,there are other dangers1 not the least of these the possibility of open battle at any time of day or night with one or more hobos1 tramps1 or yeggmen1 who seem to regard freight trains as complimentary transportation extended to them as a right1 and train-crews as their natural enemies4 ,the list of railroad men who have lost their lives because of these thugs is not a short one4 ,it is one of the many records of railroad heroism4 ,still the brakeman has a far easier time of it than his prototype of a generation or more back4 ,the air-brake is a big help4 ,when a train breaks in two or three parts on a grade1 the pulling out of the air-couplings automatically sets the brakes on every part1 and if you do not know what that means ask one of the old-timers4 ,in the old days of the hand-brakes the very worst of all freight accidents came when a section of a freight train without any one aboard to set its brakes1 broke loose and came crashing down a hill into some helpless train4 ,ask the old-timer about the hand-couplings and the terrific record of maimed arms and bodies that they left4 ,the modern automatic couplings have been worth far more than their cost to the railroads4 ,in the course of time and advancement the brakeman leaves the freight and enters the passenger service4 ,now he is called a trainman and is attired in a natty uniform4 ,he has to shave1 to keep his hands clean1 wear gloves perhaps1 and be a little more of a ,chesterfield4 ,he must announce the stations in fairly intelligible tones1 and be prepared to answer pleasantly and accurately the thousand and one foolish questions put to him by passengers4 ,as a conductor he will probably begin as ,collins began1 in the freight service4 ,when he comes to the passenger-service there will be still more book-keeping to confront him1 and he will have to be a man of good mental attainments to handle all the many1 many varieties of local and through tickets1 mileage-books1 passes1 and other forms of transportation contracts that come to him1 to detect the good from the bad1 to throw out the counterfeits that are constantly being offered to him4 ,he will have to carry quite a money account for cash affairs1 and he knows that mistakes will have to be paid out of his own pocket4 ,all this is only a phase of his business4 ,he is responsible for the care and safe conduct of his train1 equally responsible in this last respect with the engineer4 ,he also receives and signs for the train orders1 and he is required to keep in mind every detail of the train's progress over the line4 ,he will have his own assortment of questions to answer at every stage of the journey1 and he will be expected to maintain the discipline of the railroad upon its trains4 ,that may mean in one instance the ejectment of a passenger who refuses to pay his fare1 and still he must not involve the road in any big damage suit2 or in another1 the subjugation of some gang of drunken loafers4 ,the real wonder of it is that so many conductors come as near as they do to the ,chesterfieldian standards4 99 99 99 99 99 ,in the forward part of the train are still other members of its crew1 some of them possibly who are not paid by the railroad1 but who are indirectly of its service4 ,among these last may be classed the mail clerks1 who are distinctly employees of the ,federal ,government1 and the messengers of the various express companies4 ,if the road is small and the train unimportant1 these workers may be grouped with the baggagemen in the baggage-car4 ,if the train is still less important the baggageman may assume part of the functions of mail clerk and express messenger4 ,if so1 he is apt to have his own hands full4 ,the mere manual exercise of stacking a #fj-;foot baggage-car from floor to ceiling with heavy trunks 7and the commercial travellers and theatrical folk do carry heavy trunks7 is no slight matter4 ,but that is not all4 ,the trunk put off at the wrong place or the trunk that is not put off at all is apt to make the railroad an enemy for life and the baggageman is another one of the many in the service who are permitted to make no mistakes4 ,when he has ,united ,states mail-sacks and a stack of express packages to handle1 his troubles only multiply4 ,his book-keeping increases prodigiously1 and his temper undergoes a sharper strain4 ,give him all these1 then a couple of fighting ,boston terriers1 which must1 because of one of the many minor regulations of railroad passenger traffic1 ride in the baggage-car--a cold and draughty car--and you will no longer wonder why the baggageman has a streak of ill-temper at times4 ,his office is certainly no sinecure1 neither is he in the direct path of advancement like his co-workers1 the fireman and the brakeman4 ,these train-workers who are so little seen by the travelling public--baggagemen1 mail clerks and express messengers alike1 ride in the most hazardous part of the equipment1 the extreme forward cars of the train4 ,read the list of train accidents1 involving loss of life1 and in nine cases out of ten you will find that these have headed the list of killed or injured4 ,there work is hard1 their hours long1 their pay modest4 ,they form a silent brigade of the industrial army that is always close to the firing line4 99 99 99 99 99 ,there remains in the operating service a great branch of the army that does not scurry up and down the line4 ,some of these men are at lonely outposts1 forlorn towers hidden at the edge of the forest or set out upon the plain1 where a desolate man guards a cluster of switch levers and hardly knows of the outer world1 save through the clicking of his telegraph key or the rush of the trains passing below his perch4 ,he knows each of these4 ,if his is a junction tower or a point where two busy lines of track intersect or cross one another1 it is his duty to set the proper switches and their governing signals4 ,it seems a simple enough thing1 and it is4 ,but even the simple things in railroading must be executed with extreme care4 ,if the towerman set those switches and signals #cai times in the course of a day1 they must be set absolutely correct #cai times4 ,there can be no slurring in this work4 ,those men in the towers have their own records of bravery4 ,they are the sentinels of the railroad1 and faithful sentinels they are4 ,the lonely tower1 like so many other scenes of railroad activity1 gives long opportunity for thought and meditation2 and so it is not so strange1 after all1 that one of them has recently given the country a most distinguished essayist upon national railroad conditions4 ,there are even humbler positions in the operating service1 each of them demanding a fine loyalty and a fair measure of ability4 ,even the young boy who draws a baggage-truck knows that the path of advancement starts at his very feet2 and the humble track-walker feels that a good part of the railroad safety and the railroad responsibility rests upon his broad shoulders4 ,his is also a forlorn task1 as he trudges back and forth over a section of line1 hammer and wrench in hand1 looking for the broken rail or other defect1 slight in itself1 but capable of infinite harm4 ,by day his task is dreary and arduous enough4 ,by night it is far more so4 ,with his lantern in hand he must patrol the line faithfully1 even if the wind howl about him and the snow come to block his progress4 ,the passengers in the fast express trains that whirl past him and who see1 if they see anything at all without1 only a blotch of a tiny spark of light1 do not know that it is a part of their protection4 ,there is a deal of behind the scenes in railroad operation4 ,and so it goes4 ,there are hundreds of hand-switchmen who make the safe path for the train and upon each of them hangs responsibility4 ,it is a trite saying that each of them knows that1 and that each lives up to the full measure of his responsibility4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the station-agent1 even in the smallest towns1 has a less lonely time4 ,he comes in contact with the outside world1 and ofttimes his life goes quite to the other extreme4 ,a local train may be due within three minutes1 and here comes ,aunt ,mary ,clark1 delayed until the train is already whistling the station stop4 ,aunt ,mary is deaf and it takes her some time to buy her ticket and to ask endless questions which must bring an endless string of answers4 ,at that very moment the agent's telegraph sounder begins to call him4 ,a message1 upon which the safety of the operation of that train depends1 is being poured into his ear1 and he cannot afford to miss a single click of that instrument2 the responsibility will be his if anything goes wrong in its delivery4 ,on top of all this some commercial traveller may be clamoring for the checking of his trunk4 ,the representative of the railroad in the small town has to keep his wits about him in such times4 ,of course1 if the town is of considerable size he may have a staff about him4 ,in such a case1 he may have a baggage-room with baggageman and baggage-handlers installed2 he may have assistants to mind the telegraph instrument and to sell tickets1 other assistants to look after the freight4 ,he may even attain to the dignity of a station master in uniform or else have such a dignitary reporting to him4 ,but in the majority of railroad stations throughout the ,united ,states the station-agent is the staff2 he is lucky if he has a man to spell him in his off hours4 ,he probably is the agent of the express company in addition1 and probably the agent of the telegraph company1 too1 which1 by arrangement with the railroad1 transacts a general commercial business over its wires4 ,there are frequent instances when the local post-office is situated within the depot and the agent proves the versatility of his profession by acting as postmaster1 too4 ,he serves many masters1 as you can see1 and not all of these are outside of the railroad4 ,he is not only answerable to the superintendent1 in almost every case he is freight-agent1 too1 making out the bills of lading and figuring the complicated rate sheet4 ,for this part of his work he is under the control of the general freight-agent4 ,the general passenger-agent is also his superior officer4 ,to him he must account accurately for his ticket sales1 and that is not always a very easy matter4 ,the question of passenger rates is a fairly complicated one4 ,still1 the agent must not only be able to figure the rate to ,south ,paris1 ,me41 or to ,oshkosh1 ,wis41 within two minutes1 but he must make out a long and correct ticket within that time1 while the railroad's patron demands information about some branch line connection on another system a thousand miles away4 ,the country station-agent earns every cent of his humble salary4 ,he works long hours2 and then occasionally one of the railroad's travelling representatives will drop in upon him and casually suggest that in his leisure time he might get out and solicit a little business for the company6 ,there is not much loafing at the little yellow depot in the country4 ,sometimes a group of trainmen from some freight awaiting orders will gather there to swap stories and the keen wit of the railroad4 ,these are the exceptions4 ,the most times are the times of long1 hard grind1 work1 work1 work like the men out upon the trains4 ,this railroad army is truly the army of hard work4 ,it was gathered for labor4 ,yet the station-agent leaning over his telegraph instrument in the bay of his office1 and watching the ,limited scurry by the little depot1 and seeing the president's big and gay private car hitched on behind1 knows that that very executive in charge of many miles of railroad and thousands of men1 came from another little country depot like this4 ,the time may yet come when he himself will have a private car and a deal of authority4 ,there is a great goal for every man in the railroad service4 ,,chapter ,,xvi ,,keeping ,,the ,,line ,,open ,,the ,,wrecking ,,train ,,and ,,its ,,supplies--,,floods ,,dammed ,,by ,,an ,,embankment-- ,,right ,,of ,,way ,,always ,,given ,,to ,,the ,,wrecking-,,train--,,expeditious ,,work ,,in ,,repairing ,,the ,,track--,,collapse ,,of ,,the ,,roof ,,of ,a ,,tunnel--,,telegraph ,,crippled ,,by ,,storms--,,winter ,,storms ,,the ,,severest ,,test--,,trains ,,in ,,quick ,,succession ,,help ,,to ,,keep ,,the ,,line ,,open ,,in ,,snowstorms--,,the ,,rotary ,,plough4 ,a cub reporter shouldered his way into a railroad superintendent's office4 ,outside1 a late winter's storm howled around the terminal2 the morning was nipping cold1 the air curtained with myriad snow-flakes1 a great railroad was making a desperate fight against the mighty forces of nature4 ,my city editor wants to know what you folks are doing to get the line open1 demanded the reporter4 ,the big superintendent swung in his swivel chair and faced him4 ,it was a place where angels might well have feared to tread--a place surcharged with the electricity of fight4 ,the superintendent's mind was filled with the almost infinite detail of the fight1 but he liked the cub reporter and greeted him with a smile4 ,you can tell your city editor1 he replied slowly1 that it is as much as a man's job here is worth for him to think that the line is going to be opened4 ,i'd fire him if he as much as thought that it was ever closed4 ,we don't die4 ,we fight4 ,it's a hard storm1 sonny1 but we make muscle in storms like this4 ,we don't get the line open1 we are keeping the line open4 ,d'ye see8 ,in that the big superintendent had sounded one of the biggest principles of railroad operation4 ,the line must be kept open4 ,that slender trail of two rails1 stretching straight across the open land and writhing and twisting through the high hills1 is a living organism4 ,the railroad is no mere inanimate organization1 like a store1 for instance4 ,it is a right-hand of the nation's life2 it is life4 ,the railroad is like a great living thing1 its many arms reaching long distances back into the land4 ,you cannot cut off the living arm and then bring it back to pulsing life4 ,just so the railroad arm cannot be severed--the line must be kept open4 ,strange things may come to pass3 the right-of-way may be littered with the wreckage of trains1 brought together through a defect in the physical machine of the human2 unexpected floods of traffic may seek to overwhelm the outlet2 in spring the power and might of flood may descend upon it2 winter's storms may seek to paralyze it2 still1 always the railroad must be kept open4 ,we can't lie down1 the superintendent explained to the cub reporter4 ,we've got to get the traffic through4 ,do you know what it would mean if we were to follow the path of least resistance to-day--to let this storm get the best of us8 ,let me give you an idea of just one thing4 ,there's food coming in here in trainload lots every night--fresh meat1 fresh vegetables1 fresh milk4 ,folks would go hungry if we were to say ',we can't1 this storm is a gee-whilicker4 ,we give up4' ,to keep the line open1 the railroad affords every sort of protective device2 it trains men for especial duties4 ,take the matter of wrecks1 for instance4 ,the railroader does not like to think of wrecks1 but his methods for removing them must be prompt and thorough3 the line must be kept open4 ,each year sees equipment increasing in size and weight1 and each increase brings additional problems in handling wrecked cars and engines4 ,twenty years ago1 the wrecking-equipment of most of the big roads was comparatively simple4 ,it was generally built in the railroad's own shops4 ,to-day #fj-ton cars and #ajj-ton locomotives require something of a wrecking crane or derrick to lift them from the right-of-way2 and the wrecking-train is a device thought out and built by specialists4 ,these wrecking-trains are the emergency arms of railroad operation4 ,they stand1 like the apparatus of a city fire department1 at every important terminal or division operating plant1 awaiting summons to action4 ,you may see the wrecking-train at every big yard1 waiting on a siding which has quick access to the main-line tracks4 ,it consists of from four to six cars--a tool-car with all sorts of wrecking-devices--replacers1 blocks and tackle1 extra small parts of car-trucks for emergency repairs1 and the like4 ,there are more of these extra parts--axles and wheels and four-wheel trucks on a flat that is fastened to the tool-car2 and if this wrecking-train has a couple of miles of heavy traffic line to serve1 there may be three or four of the flats with tools and spare equipment4 ,you cannot have too many of those in a big wreck4 ,the wrecking-train is sure to have a crane--a big arm of steel1 compressed to come within the slim clearances of bridges and of tunnels1 but capable of reaching down and tugging at a #ajj-ton locomotive with almost no effort whatsoever4 ,and quite as important as the crane is the cook-car--generally some old-time coach or sleeper descended to humble service on the road4 ,the cook-car has a rough berth and a kitchen2 and you may be mighty sure that there is a good griddle artist upon it4 ,you cannot expect a wrecking-gang to get into a twenty-four hour job without being pretty constantly provisioned while it is at work4 ,only a little while ago1 one of the officers of an ,eastern trunk-line railroad and a member of one of the ,state railroad commissions were coming toward ,new ,york4 ,the trip was in the nature of an inspection on the part of the ,state official1 but as a matter of comfort and convenience to the two men1 it was made upon the former's private car4 ,the comfort and convenience suddenly ceased while the two were still nearly #cjj miles away from the seaboard4 ,the road rested there for many miles in heavy country2 its rails found their curving way in the crevices between high hills4 ,it had rained steadily for a fortnight2 the little mountain brooks were raging mill-races4 ,in the low flatlands of one deep valley lakes were being formed4 ,there were long stretches where the four rails of the double-tracked trunk-line railroad lost themselves under the glassy surface of the waters4 ,up and down the valley trains were standing helpless between those lakes1 their passengers fuming at the delay4 ,fast freights stood axle-deep in water2 their title1 for that moment1 was an occasion for joyous humor4 ,the comfortable1 convenient trip of the railroad operating man and the railroad commissioner was at an end4 ,an embankment that the railroad had built for a branch down the valley was blocking the waters1 and orders had come from ,new ,york to dynamite out that embankment4 ,it would cost the railroad nearly #ej1jjj to destroy that half-mile of track but it might save the valley millions4 ,there had been no hesitation on the part of the old man--the road's tried executive4 ,that is a phase of ,american railroading not often brought to light4 ,orders came that the engine hauling the special of the operating man and the railroad commissioner was to be taken for a work-train down at that damming embankment4 ,that's the way with railroading4 ,when the clattering telegraph keys sound the note of trouble1 even that mighty soul1 the chairman of the board1 may find himself laid out at some jerkwater junction1 while his pet engine goes into service with a wrecking-train4 ,but the chairman of the board1 whose time is real money1 offers no protest4 ,he knows that to block the main line costs his road #bej a minute for the first #fj minutes2 that that figure doubles and trebles in the second hour2 in the third1 his auditors may check off #a1jjj a minute1 at the least1 as the cost of a blocked railroad4 ,no wonder that they insist that it is keeping the line open4 ,before the engine of that special was cut off to go scurrying down to the embankment where the skilled workmen were making preparations to dynamite away a half-mile of track1 the operating man lifted his hand4 ,he had1 like any trained railroader1 been listening to the clattering telegraph key4 ,they've come away without their cook--those wreckers1 he told the gentleman who regulated public utilities4 ,i think ,i'll go down with the 'eats4' ,there's an old hotel across from the railroad track down at the next station1 and the landlord1 ,uncle ,dan ,hortley1 will fix me up4 ,i'll go with you1 said the ,state official4 ,i want to get my finger in the pie4 ,so it came to pass that they both went1 the private car stopping at the little hotel long enough to get in an overwhelming supply of bread and ham4 ,as they whizzed through the scene of trouble all hands joined at making sandwiches4 ,butter them on both sides1 said the railroad commissioner4 ,they're better with the butter on one side1 insisted the operating man4 ,the commissioner was not used to back-talk from railroaders1 no matter how high their office1 and he stuck to his point4 ,both sides1 he insisted4 ,one side only1 reported the big operating man4 ,the commission has closed its hearing and issues an order for both sides4 ,the railroad appeals4 ,but the commission won--it almost always does--and the men down at the embankment ate their sandwiches with a double thickness of butter4 ,sometimes a refrigerator train comes under the skilled hands of the wreckers1 and the cook-car may have more than an abundance of good material right at hand4 ,beef1 chickens1 milk--all manner of edibles have been spilled like waste along the right-of-way1 and there have been no regrets among the men of the wrecking-boss's crew4 ,once1 a speeding cook-car hurrying to the relief of the laborers upon a wrecked meat-train that had tried to go tangent to a mountain curve1 brought reinforcements in the form of ham sandwiches4 ,the wreckers were pretty hungry1 but it needed all their hunger to tackle those sandwiches4 ,the meat-train had been filled with ham2 it had caught fire4 ,somehow1 three or four hours of work hauling out smoked hams gave no appetite for sandwiches of the same sort4 99 99 99 99 99 ,on main-line divisions1 where traffic runs exceeding heavy1 a locomotive stands1 steam-up1 with the four cars of the wrecking-train4 ,even on side-line divisions the call for the wreckers will bring the fastest and best engine out of the roundhouse1 no matter what her train assignment may be4 ,things on the railroad stand aside for the wrecker4 ,limiteds may paw their nervous heels upon sidings while she goes skimming up the line--all time-table rights are hers from the moment that she goes into service4 ,a wire from the seat of trouble brings her into service4 ,second ,four-twelve in ditch at ,grey's ,bridge4 ,broken rail4 ,engine and two cars derailed4 ,both tracks blocked4 ,about four killed and injured4 ,that wire has itself had the right-of-way4 ,when ,w-,k1 ,w-,k1 ,w-,k comes persistently calling over a railroad wire1 every key closes4 ,w-,k is the ,c-,q-,d of railroading4 ,it is as much as any operator's job is worth1 to ignore it4 ,when a despatch of the sort just cited comes into headquarters1 things start to move4 ,the despatcher1 if he is after the manner of most despatchers1 turns to his telephone and calls the yardmaster to order out the wrecking-crew4 ,there is no more excitement in his voice than if he were ordering out any ordinary sort of special4 ,he rings off quickly1 calls up in turn the superintendent1 trainmaster1 perhaps the division engineer1 the claim department4 ,if there is a fatality list--the wreck one of those fearful things that sometimes show themselves upon the front pages of the newspapers--he will get the hospitals and the doctors4 ,the list of surgeons who are allied to the railroad in every town on the division hangs above the despatcher's desk4 ,he may run a special hospital train with doctors and nurses and emergency equipment4 ,on one memorable occasion the hospital train was on its way out upon the main line before the wreck had been reported over the wire4 ,the despatcher saw that the hospital special had a clear track2 he gave a multitude of directions as to its running1 with the quick clear word of a self-possessed man--then turned and shot himself dead4 ,he had miscalculated3 the human machine sometimes does4 ,he knew that he had sent the two crack-a-jack trains on that single-track division1 curling its way among the mountains1 into each other at full speed4 ,no need for him to know exactly where they met4 ,but even if the wreck is no holocaust2 if it is one of those minor smashes that are bound to come now and then on the best of lines1 he must keep his head4 ,as he caught up his telephone to get orders to that wrecking-boss out at the roundhouse1 his assistant took instant notice of the wreck1 first notifying the stations on either side of the accident to set danger-signals against all trains4 ,after that1 while the despatcher himself was busied with details1 the assistant arranged to handle all traffic4 ,if both tracks were blocked1 there were plans to be instantly made to forward the fast through trains by detouring them over other lines of railroad4 ,the assistant despatcher1 wishing to know how long he could afford to hold his heavy traffic 7remember that the line must always be kept open71 wired the nearest station for additional details4 ,most of all he wanted to know how long the tracks would be blocked4 ,perhaps before he got his wire through there came a second message from the wreck1 giving more facts about it4 ,by means of code1 great detail can be given in a short wire2 headquarters gets a clear understanding of the trouble4 ,after that the wire chatters constantly2 there are a thousand orders to be given1 a thousand details to be arranged4 ,illustration3 ,,the ,,wrecking ,,train ,,ready ,,to ,,start ,,out ,,from ,,the ,,yard ,illustration3 ,,two ,,of ,,these ,,great ,,cranes ,,can ,,grab ,a ,,wounded ,,mogul ,,locomotive ,,and ,,put ,,her ,,out ,,of ,,the ,,way ,illustration3 ,,the ,,shop-,,men ,,form ,,no ,,mean ,,brigade ,,in ,,this ,,industrial ,,army ,,of ,,america ,while the first of these wires are beginning to swing back and forth the despatcher will hear the wrecking-train1 pulled by the neatest and swiftest bit of motive power from their big roundhouse1 go scurrying by down the line4 ,the road is cleared4 ,everything stands aside1 and for weeks after1 the stove committee in every roundhouse on the division will be telling how she made the run4 ,they don't talk about the run when they get to the accident4 ,they pile off the train and get to work quickly4 ,every man is a trained wreck-worker1 as a fireman is trained to his peculiar business4 ,in such hours as they are not out on the road1 the wreckers are repairers of cars4 ,it keeps them busy during the long seasons when the line is lucky and has no wrecks1 and it gives them the skill with which to tackle the difficult problems that confront them after a smash4 ,by day these men--eight or ten or twelve of them to a crew--work in the yard close to the waiting wrecking-train2 by night the telephone at the head of the bed of each man will bring him quickly to the near-by yard4 ,how do you handle a wreck8 we once asked an old-time wrecking-boss1 a man grown gray in keeping his line open4 ,i don't know1 was his frank response4 ,i've probably handled a thousand wrecks--perhaps more--but ,i have yet to see two that were the same4 ,different cases demand different treatments4 ,any surgeon will tell you that2 and you know1 this with a bit of a laugh1 we are the surgeons of the steel highway4 ,we've only one rule that is absolute1 and that rule is to take care of the folks who are hurt in the first place1 and in the second place to get the line open4 ,if it is multiple-track line--two or three or four tracks in operation--and the muss is sprawled over the entire right-of-way we get a through track working in shortest interval4 ,when we can wire number two open or whatever it is1 the despatcher down at headquarters will catch the stations where there are crossovers and he'll be handling his first-class traffic of all sorts past us while we'll still be stocking the arm of the old bill crane down into the smash4 ,the arm of that crane can lift a freight-car--if there is enough freight-car left to lift--off the rails and into the ditch in almost a twinkling4 ,two of these great cranes can grab a wounded mogul locomotive and put her out of the way4 ,the wrecking-trains on a first-class road are kept along the line in profusion4 ,each is supposed to cover a territory of #ajj miles or so in every direction from headquarters1 and a sizable smash will bring two or more to work in unison4 ,two wrecking-cranes working into the remnants of a head-on collision from each direction can accomplish marvels4 ,they will come together finally at the chief test of their strength--the point where two locomotives have firmly locked horns in dying embrace4 ,that is a point that finds the nerve and ability of every wrecking-boss4 ,but all these wrecking-bosses have nerve and ability4 ,they could not hold their jobs without both4 ,they know when equipment--cars that might be made as good as new in the shops--must be burned like driftwood1 and when the burning of a wreck would be criminal waste4 ,that requires judgment--judgment to determine whether it is cheaper to burn than to lose valuable time2 to delay traffic on a main-line division or to let the traffic on a less important side-line division wait for a little longer time4 ,judgment is part of a wrecking-boss's equipment4 ,his superintendent knows that2 and when the super grows nervous and gets down to the wreck himself1 although he knows that he is ranking officer in charge of the work he shows good judgment1 on his own part1 in letting the wrecking-boss give all orders4 ,that makes for skill1 it makes for speed4 ,if the wrecking-boss is not doing good work the superintendent can fire him to-morrow1 or 7what is far more usual7 find him an easier berth somewhere on the division4 ,there are times when the work-train must be summoned1 when laborers by the dozen must get to work to build new track4 ,a wash-out may require a half-mile of track to be laid in a night1 and the railroad can do it4 ,a young man wrote a very able story for ,the ,saturday ,evening ,post a few months ago1 in which he told how an emergency track was laid across a highway bridge and a test fast-freight put through on schedule4 ,that feat was but one of the many ordinary tasks that come in the lifetime of every operating man4 ,clearing a wreck may be a tedious business4 ,there is a deep sink on the parade-ground of the ,military ,academy at ,west ,point that is a monument to the nastiest railroad wreck from the point of view of time1 that the ,eastern railroaders have ever known4 ,just under that parade-ground the ,west ,shore ,railroad passes through a long tunnel4 ,on an ,october night more than twenty years ago1 the ,chicago ,st4 ,louis ,express of that railroad was slowly poking through that bore1 when a portion of the roof of the tunnel collapsed4 ,it buried itself between the rear part of the baggage-car and the forward part of the express-car and the train came to an abrupt stop4 ,engineer ,william ,morse saw in an instant the damage that had been done4 ,he cut loose from that penned baggage-car and made record speed up the line to ,cornwall1 the nearest station4 ,from there he a sent a wire post-haste to the despatcher up at ,kingston1 then the headquarters of the line4 ,train caught by collapse of ,west ,point tunnel1 that despatch read in part4 ,only engineer and fireman escaped4 ,they began to get their hospital train ready at ,kingston1 notified ,newburg to get all the doctors in sight and hurry them on a special to ,west ,point4 ,the chief despatcher went through the worst quarter of an hour of his life4 ,he began to call ,weehawken1 the southern terminal of the line4 ,weehawken wires were all busy1 and he could not cut in there4 ,weehawken wires were getting reports from ,conductor ,sam ,brown of the ,chicago ,st4 ,louis ,express1 who had come running out of the tunnel to the ,west ,point depot4 ,wire headquarters1 he shouted to the agent1 that we've run into an avalanche4 ,morse and his fireman are crushed under the tunnel roof4 ,and they began to get the wreckers busy down at ,weehawken4 ,when the chief despatcher up at ,kingston finally got ,weehawken1 they told him about ,sam ,morse's fate4 ,the truth of the thing came to him in an instant4 ,he laughed hysterically1 and his assistant jumped up4 ,the despatcher's bad quarter of an hour was over4 ,he jumped to his telephone1 caught the yardmaster with it4 ,we won't need that hospital train1 he said4 ,there isn't a soul hurt4 ,and there was not4 ,but there remained the worst railroad block on record4 ,it was three months before they pulled the baggage-car out of that tunnel1 and then they had to use dynamite4 ,after that it was found necessary to line the entire bore with solid masonry4 ,that was an accident that might not have been so lucky on repetition4 99 99 99 99 99 ,enough of wrecks4 ,they are not the only test when it comes to keeping the line open4 ,sometimes a crippled telegraph service may be quite as effective4 ,out on the ,pennsylvania lines west of ,pittsburgh a couple of years ago a severe wind and sleet storm levelled more than #dj miles of telegraph poles1 in most cases dropping them across main-line tracks in the dark4 ,a few months later--the never-to-be-forgotten inauguration day of ,president ,taft--a similar storm did similar work on the lines leading to ,washington4 ,thousands of militiamen and excursionists never reached the inauguration at all4 ,in both storms the resources of a great railroad were well tested4 ,an old-time ,erie man remembers wire troubles of a different sort4 ,it was in his salad days1 when he was serving as assistant superintendent over the ,meadville1 in the western part of ,pennsylvania4 ,they had but one telegraph wire for railroad purposes on the division then1 and one night it grounded4 ,keys were silent1 the road might as well have had no wire at all4 ,the assistant superintendent started that evening with two linemen on a hand-car to find that ground4 ,they went miles from ,meadville1 and every test showed the wire working4 ,finally they came to a deserted little depot at a cross-roads and the railroader lifting his lantern high against the window verified his suspicions3 the careless agent had gone home and left his key open4 ,the superintendent broke open the window1 climbed in1 removed the telegraph set1 placed it in his overcoat pocket and closed the circuit4 ,he knew that he would hear from the agent on the morrow4 ,he did4 ,word came by tedious train mail1 a formal report on the road's yellow stationery4 ,station at ,a---- burglarized last evening1 that formal report read1 and agent's telegraph set1 best pants1 and ten dollars taken4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the real test of keeping the line open comes when winter descends upon the land1 when the heaviest freight traffic of the year comes1 together with those forces of nature that sweep off the summer joys of railroading4 ,the mighty battles of the western transcontinentals with the snows of the ,rockies have long been known1 their miles of snow-sheds making safe crawling bores for through trains under the snow-banks1 and the avalanches of the mountain-sides are as familiar to the tourist as the ,great ,salt ,lake or the wonders of the ,yellowstone4 ,only a few months ago the newspapers told the story of how a passenger train1 stalled at the entrance of a ,washington tunnel1 had been carried by an avalanche down a great cliff4 ,every railroader1 east and west1 knows full well the hazard of mountain line in the depths of a treacherous winter4 ,there is a snow-belt extending around the south edge of the ,great ,lakes that annually gives the ,eastern railroad men a good opportunity to sympathize with the ,westerners4 ,long years ago a little railroad reaching north in this belt from the main line of the ,new ,york ,central became discouraged in the all but hopeless task of keeping its line open4 ,it had been a hard enough battle to find the rails of its main line from ,rome to ,watertown through one blizzard crowding upon the heels of another4 ,there had been ten days when ,watertown was entirely cut off from the world to the south of it4 ,but that little railroad owed some obligations to its chief town1 and it kept at its brave efforts although every night the fresh wind blowing down from the ,canadas across ,lake ,ontario filled the long miles of railroad cuts1 and nightly erased all trace of rails4 ,but there was a branch from ,watertown to ,cape ,vincent run at a dead loss throughout the entire winter1 and in that hard winter the railroad gave up the branch1 and hired a liveryman to take the mails in his cutter over the country drifts4 ,it was one of the few instances on record of a railroad giving up the fight4 ,after the railroad had been abandoned a fortnight a delegation of citizens from ,cape ,vincent drove to ,watertown and there confronted ,h4 ,m4 ,britton1 the general manager of the line4 ,they made their little speeches1 and those were pretty hot little speeches--hot enough to have melted away one good-sized drift4 ,when are you going to cart that snow off our line8 finally demanded the spokesman of the ,cape ,vincent folk4 ,britton looked at the delegation coolly1 and lighted a fresh cigar4 ,i'm going to let the man that put it there1 he said slowly1 take it away4 ,and he did4 ,it was thirty-two days before a railroad engine entered ,cape ,vincent from the time that the last one left it4 ,in recent years1 that nasty stretch of railroad line has kept the railroaders still busy4 ,within the decade it was blocked for six long days1 while a force of snow-fighters and a battery of ploughs forced their way into the drifts4 ,and while the superintendent up at ,watertown grew nervous1 then desperate1 there came the worst blow of all3 the telegraph wire no longer brought news from the front4 ,afterwards that super knew the reason why4 ,his train-master was at the front with ploughs and the hungry1 tired1 straggling men4 ,the train-master was nervous1 too1 wearied explaining to his boss4 ,he remembered ,dewey at ,manila1 and he cut the cable6 ,he lost sight of the outer world for long hours1 for days1 for nights1 until that ,january evening when he brought his battered snow-fighting force triumphant into ,richland ,junction4 ,when a big road whose rails rest through a snow belt finds the winter clouds blackening1 it puts on its fighting armor4 ,every man at headquarters sticks by his desk4 ,the superintendent will get bulletins from each terminal and important yard every hour1 perhaps oftener4 ,those bulletins will give him exact information--the amount of motive-power ready at each roundhouse1 freight congestion1 if any1 amount and direction of wind1 cloud and snow conditions4 ,in other days the signal for an oncoming storm was followed by quick orders from headquarters to pull off the snow-freights4 ,traffic was quickly cut down to passenger and perishable-freight trains1 and1 if the blizzard grew bad enough1 the perishable-freights were run in upon the sidings4 ,the railroad concentrated its motive-power upon the passenger trains and the ploughs4 ,nowadays they do it better4 ,not that the old fellows of the last generation were anything less than prize railroaders1 for remember they did not have the locomotives in those days that even side-line divisions possess in these4 ,so to-day the superintendent can growl at the first of his men who even hints that a scheduled train of any class be sent upon a siding4 ,we keep the traffic moving1 said one of the biggest the other day4 ,we keep the line open4 ,a train every thirty minutes over our rails will do more toward keeping them usable than a rotary going over them after a night's inaction4 ,so when she begins to blizz1 we just fall back on our roundhouses1 that's all4 ,we cut our local freights down to #aejj tons1 then to #abjj1 #ijj1 #fjj1 rather than send them into shelter4 ,we tackle our through freights in a like proportion and while we are cutting off cars1 we are adding power4 ,everything that goes out of this yard will be double-headed as long as there is danger in the air4 ,there will be two engines to a passenger-train and ahead of each a rotary1 with two or three locomotives to push her4 ,you see the value of reserve motive-power1 don't you8 ,why we have half-a-dozen extra engines trying to gather rust over there in the roundhouse4 ,they're worth their weight in gold in a pinch of this sort1 though when they're done with a week of snow fighting1 they're fit candidates for the shops4 ,a rotary plough has no powers of self-propulsion1 but the mighty engine within her heart1 driving the shaft of her great cutting-wheel has the power of three locomotives4 ,that cutting-wheel approximates the width of a single-track in diameter4 ,it will bore into a solidly packed drift1 twelve or sixteen feet in height1 suck in a great volume of snow1 and then throw it--as a fire engine throws water--through a nozzle #fj to #ajj feet to the right or left of the line4 ,the nozzle is close to three feet in diameter1 and the stream that it throws will bury a small barn4 ,the man who sits in the lookout of the rotary controls the nozzle1 changes it from side to side so as to avoid buildings4 ,these rotaries are giants4 ,where the great flange or wing ploughs--the ordinary snow-fighting artillery of a railroad--fail1 they come into service4 ,theirs is ever a mighty task to perform4 ,we have seen a rotary spend sixty minutes in going sixty feet through a heavy drift1 a drift three miles long and twenty deep4 ,snow can drift1 and wet snow can pack1 pack until you almost begin to think of dynamite as a resource4 ,three days of such snow-fighting would completely weary the ordinary man4 ,up in the snow-belts1 they are likely to get a hard storm every week from ,december to ,march1 and that atop of the heaviest traffic of the year4 ,it is the sort of fighting that marks the fine-grained timber of a man2 that sends him down to headquarters in some metropolitan city along the seaboard1 to fight the weightier battles of traffic and of operation1 which are unending within and between the mighty railroads of ,america4 ,sometimes the battle to keep the line open is fought close to a busy terminal4 ,here1 before you1 once again1 is the division superintendent of one of the great lines entering ,jersey ,city4 ,let him tell you of the nasty storm on ,christmas night last1 a storm that laid low all street transportation in every city along the ,north ,atlantic seaboard4 ,he will tell you how it was the first ,christmas that he had spent with his family in seven years2 the first holiday in three4 ,he lives in a little suburban city within the #bj-mile radius of ,new ,york ,city ,hall1 and in his bedroom a telegraph sounder1 connected with the division's main wire1 clicks in the early morning and late at night4 ,over that wire on ,christmas night last1 the superintendent gave orders4 ,there was snow in the air at dusk when they finished their late afternoon dinner2 by eight o'clock he had ordered the flanges 7ploughs7 on all his regular road engines4 ,along the entire line orders had gone to keep a sharp lookout for trouble4 ,the superintendent turned into bed at ten o'clock1 hoping for a clear winter's sky in the morning4 ,he turned into bed but not into sleep4 ,he had cut out his telegraph wire for the night but a telephone message from the agent down at the depot in the suburban city made him sit up wide awake4 ,the storm was gaining4 ,they were beginning to get trouble reports down at headquarters4 ,the superintendent turned out of bed and began dressing4 ,he cut in on the telegraph wire and began giving orders4 ,he caught his train-master at the neighboring town and told him to meet him at #die1 the last train into ,jersey ,city that evening4 ,he turned from the telegraph to the telephone and ordered the local livery man to get up to his house and take him down to the #aa3db4 ,he called the depot agent to hold that #aa3db until he arrived4 ,illustration3 ,,winter ,,days ,,when ,,the ,,wind-,,blown ,,snow ,,forms ,,mountains ,,upon ,,the ,,tracks ,illustration3 ,,the ,,despatcher ,,may ,,have ,,come ,,from ,,some ,,lonely ,,country ,,station ,illustration3 ,,the ,,superintendent ,,is ,,not ,,above ,,getting ,,out ,,and ,,bossing ,,the ,,wrecking-,,gang ,,once ,,in ,a ,,great ,,while ,when that superintendent came puffing into his office in the ,jersey ,city terminal it was one o'clock of a blizzardy ,sabbath morn4 ,he dropped into a chair beside his chief despatcher and took the entire situation in hand4 ,things looked pretty bad from every point of view4 ,from up in the foothills came reports of discouraging nature1 trains were losing time1 they were having added trouble every hour in handling switches and cross-overs4 ,at the terminal the switches were a most prolific source of annoyance4 ,the intricacy of the interlocking system was being bothered by ice freezing about its exposed working parts4 ,the superintendent was perplexed1 but he did not show it4 ,he kept lighting cigars and throwing them away half-smoked4 ,and all the while he was sending orders over his wire4 ,if a narrow strand of steel1 stretching for miles through darkness and through storm could carry infectious courage1 that wire carried the superintendent's courage out to every far corner of his division through those early hours4 ,keep at it1 was the tenor of his message4 ,keep everlastingly at it4 ,and between times he was planning how to help them to keep everlastingly at it4 ,men were summoned to report ,sunday morning at the shops--they might need to make some quick repairs1 and it is a matter of record on that division that a locomotive has been torn apart1 entirely overhauled and placed in service again in twenty-four hours--others were ordered to stand by important switches against breakdowns in the interlocking4 ,there were special problems in plenty to be considered1 a new one arising every hour4 ,one of them will suffice to show the measure of that superintendent's problem that night4 ,up in a narrow pass between overhanging hills a much-delayed local1 with a light road-engine1 was still struggling to get the ,christmas celebrators home4 ,it was a hard proposition2 and just a block back of the suburban train was chafing the midnight express through to ,chicago--one of the road's best trains4 ,the superintendent saw in an instant that his main line stood in imminent danger of being blocked4 ,he caught ,middleport1 the station ahead of the struggling local1 and ordered it side-tracked there for a moment4 ,i want to get that midnight with her big engine ahead from there1 he explained to his despatcher4 ,but the towerman at ,middleport said that he could not move the siding-switch there2 it was packed in with ice and snow4 ,tell him to get a pick-axe and shovel and get in at it1 said the superintendent4 ,he says that it's #bj below up there2 they've swiped his shovel1 and he hasn't anything but a broom1 the despatcher returned4 ,a broom6 ,tell him a broom's a ,god-send4 ,he can sweep with the one end and pick with the other4 ,eight times that towerman tried there in the midst of the storm to open that switch and eight times he reported failure4 ,eight times the superintendent kept at him with his kind persistence1 and the ninth time they reported that the midnight express with the best type of motor power on the division was ahead of the weak engine on the local4 ,and while the superintendent struggled at the far end of a telegraph wire with that towerman1 there were a dozen other ,middleports1 each with its own different and equally difficult problem4 ,each required quick1 intelligent solution4 ,he solved each4 ,the line stayed open4 ,the superintendent stayed at his desk4 ,all that ,sunday it snowed1 and all that ,sunday the superintendent was at his desk4 ,he did not know the passage of the hours2 the clicking sounder held his attention riveted4 ,he worked all ,sunday night and into ,monday morning4 ,there were #bjj suburban trains to be brought into the terminal on ,monday morning1 and the commuter is a fussy soul about his train being on time4 ,the superintendent knew that1 and he was ready4 ,he had extra men at the switches in the terminal yards1 took particular pains to have snow swept from the platforms of even the lowliest suburban station4 ,the trains came in on time that ,monday morning1 all save one4 ,on that one train the regular fireman had been snowbound at his home upon the mountainside4 ,they had to put on a green man to fire the engine--a raw-boned lad just off a freight4 ,he made slow work of it1 and the train was fourteen minutes late4 ,that was the only exception to a clean record1 a record made possible by long hours of work4 ,they ought to have been proud of that fight1 you say to the big boss4 ,he grins at your ignorance4 ,proud8 he laughs4 ,they raised hell with me because we had #chg laid out fourteen minutes4 ,,chapter ,,xvii ,,the ,g4 ,p4 ,a4 ,,and ,,his ,,office ,,he ,,has ,,to ,,keep ,,the ,,road ,,advertised--,,must ,,be ,,an ,,after-,,dinner ,,orator1 ,,and ,,many-,,sided--,,his ,,geniality1 ,,urbanity1 ,,courtesy--,,excessive ,,rivalry ,,for ,,passenger ,,traffic--,,increasing ,,luxury ,,in ,,pullman ,,cars--,,many ,,printed ,,forms ,,of ,,tickets1 ,,etc4 ,we have already called the division superintendent the ,prince in the realm of railroad operation4 ,but there is another1 whom we see when we leave operation and consider traffic--another who might also be called ,prince--,prince ,charming4 ,this prince of charm of the railroad is the general passenger agent4 ,to a large proportion of folk he is almost the personification of the railroad itself4 ,his signature1 appearing upon each of the railroad's tickets and time-tables1 is multiplied a million times a year4 ,in his own self he appears many1 many times as the road's mouthpiece4 ,his evening clothes must always be kept in press and moth-balls1 for his oratory is at all times close to the tap4 ,his wit is ready1 his tongue a good arguer for his line4 ,at dinners of ,chambers of ,commerce and ,boards of ,trade1 his urbanity is profound1 his remarks to the point2 and the road gets the advertising4 ,for the general passenger agent is per se1 an advertiser4 ,there are two affiliated and yet quite distinctive functions to his office4 ,the older function1 the one for which it was really created when railroads were young1 is that of issuing tickets and selling them4 ,the newer function1 and to-day the all-important function1 is that of keeping the road before the eyes of the travel-mad public--an advertising function4 ,a few years ago1 a big ,eastern road had to change general passenger agents because of this very thing4 ,the man who had held the job was in almost every way absolutely efficient4 ,he had been reared in the routine of his office2 he knew its vast details as well as any man might ever hope to know them4 ,but he was a detail man1 and there he stopped4 ,the road needed more of a figurehead1 a better advertiser4 ,the late ,george ,h4 ,daniels was in many respects the best passenger agent that ,american railroading has ever known4 ,he was the forerunner of the general passenger agent of to-day--a well-known figure in the great ,state that his railroad served1 being interviewed by reporters--and lady reporters1 too--on every conceivable subject in the public eye2 addressing dinners in metropolitan ,new ,york1 or in suburban ,yonkers1 or anywhere else in the ,state1 with rare facility1 yet now and then adroitly bringing in reference to the four-track trail by which he was employed4 ,other roads took heed of ,daniels4 ,the general passenger agent became less and less a man of office routine and of ticket detail1 more and more of a public figure4 ,he called ,mayors of important cities by their first names2 he kept close to the pulsing heart of the public press by friendly intimacy with the reporters2 spoke at two1 three1 four dinners a week4 ,the ,prince ,charming of the railroad is1 indeed1 a development4 ,but behind the smiles of this prince1 behind the phraseology of words spoken or written that glorify the road1 there is a serious aspect of his life4 ,he must capitalize that splendid urbanity1 that jocose wit1 into ticket-sales4 ,in the beginning he was created to sell tickets1 and sell tickets he must4 ,on his ability to sell tickets1 and not as a popular public figure1 will he be measured by the board of directors--that delegation of grim-faced gentlemen1 who place small market value on either urbanity or jocosity4 ,so1 while the general passenger agent presents his smiling face to the outside world1 he is a man of system1 no mean executive there within the inner4 ,he must organize to sell his tickets4 ,there is an inner organization of no small moment in the passenger office of any sizable railroad4 ,in the first place1 the area from which traffic is to be drawn is divided into districts4 ,general agents or assistant general passenger agents 7the title varies widely on the different railroads7 are assigned to each4 ,this traffic area is far larger than the area covered by one railroad system4 ,it is generally nation-wide1 while some of the biggest of our railroads maintain ticket-offices in the large cities all the way around the world4 ,they are to-day fighting almost as sharply for ,american traffic in ,paris or in ,london as they fight in ,clark ,street1 ,chicago1 or in ,broadway1 ,new ,york4 ,for it is a fight and an endless fight1 which the ,prince ,charming--he of the urbane smiles--must wage4 ,despite the constant consolidating processes of our railroads1 there are few large territories that are the exclusive field of any one road4 ,the most of them must fight for their business--particularly for their profitable long-distance business4 ,the fight divides itself between the freight and passenger traffic departments4 ,no wonder1 then1 that the general passenger agent must be a many-sided man4 ,from his district offices1 there scurries forth a corps of smooth-tongued1 quick-witted young men--the travelling passenger agents4 ,these young men are skirmishers4 ,they are up and down the steel highways of the nation1 thirty days out of the month1 skirmishing for business4 ,each carries in an inner pocket a wad of annual passes--such as might make any statesman green with envy4 ,those passes cover every steam line in the territory that is assigned to him and are return courtesy for the neat little cards which his road in turn issues to the traffic solicitors of other roads4 ,in other days these skirmishers carried forth business which sometimes approached cut-throat tendencies4 ,the weaker lines in hotly competitive territory--lines which1 running fewer high-grade trains and running them at slower speed--which were naturally at a disadvantage1 sought to obtain at least their normal share of passenger traffic1 by sharp work4 ,after that their stronger brethren often showed their religious belief in fighting them by fire4 ,tickets were sold at less than advertised rates to certain favored individuals2 sometimes a few passes1 adroitly placed1 did the business4 ,in these days those sharp things are forbidden1 and the young man1 soliciting railroad traffic1 who breaks the rules of the game runs the risk of worse than facing an angry boss1 getting discharged2 perhaps he can see the doors of a ,federal prison opening for him4 ,so the fellow who skirmishes for the weak road has a hard time of it in these piping days4 ,passenger traffic1 like kissing1 seems to go by favor nowadays2 and how hard the travelling passenger agent works to curry that favor6 ,he drops off a local at some way-station1 there is a smile and perhaps a cigar for the country-boy who sells tickets there1 for the ,interstate folk have not sent any one to prison yet for offering either a smile or a cigar4 ,the ,t4 ,p4 ,a4 knows that the local agent cannot1 under the rules that govern him1 recommend routes that connect with and extend beyond the line which gives him employment4 ,still1 sometime the country agent may be approached by a man who demands that a connecting road be suggested for him1 and the ,t4 ,p4 ,a4 can see that man1 without even shutting his eyes4 ,if the country agent will only remember the nice ,t4 ,p4 ,a4 that the ,transcontinental sent in there a month before1 and the good kind of cigars he dispenses1 the ,transcontinental may get a part of the haul on a long green ticket4 ,perhaps the man will be taking his wife1 and there will be two of the long green tickets4 ,perhaps there will be a whole party to be routed over the ,transcontinental--the ,t4 ,p4 ,a4 can imagine almost anything as he swings overland in the dreary locals from way-station to way-station4 ,sometimes a wire from his chief quickly changes his schedule4 ,the ,magnificent ,knights of the ,realm--or some other impressive order of that sort--are to hold their annual convention at ,oshkosh1 and the ,t4 ,p4 ,a4 must hustle down to ,bingtown to see that ,transcontinental gets the haul of the delegation that will go to ,oshkosh from the bustling little community4 ,he scurries into ,bingtown to locate the officers of the local lodge of the ,m4 ,k4 ,o4 ,r4 there4 ,on the train there may be a ,t4 ,p4 ,a4 from some rival system--they are all partners in misery4 ,the ,transcontinental man will probably drop off the opposite side of the train at ,bingtown from the crowded depot platform--it's an old trick of the ,t4 ,p4 ,a4--and be tearing over the pages of the ,bingtown directory before that train is out of town again4 ,once located1 the officers of that lodge of ,m4 ,k4 ,o4 ,r4 must be pleasantly instructed in the advantages of ,transcontinental--the speed of its trains1 the safety of its operation1 the convenience of its terminals1 the scenic splendors along the way1 the excellence of its dining-car service2 all these things are spun with convincing eloquence by the travelling passenger agent4 ,a few years ago1 two travelling passenger agents1 whose lines supplement one another to make a through route across the continent1 went down into an ,eastern manufacturing city to land business bound west to a national convention of one of the biggest of the fraternal orders4 ,there were other passenger men heading toward that same territory1 and the two men from the connecting lines made an offensive and defensive alliance4 ,when they reached this town1 they found that the chief officers of the local lodge were two city detectives and a police justice4 ,all three of the city officers showed little enthusiasm about the coming convention4 ,the passenger men took off their coats--figuratively--and pitched in4 ,for three days1 they ran up an expense account that must have all but paralyzed the auditors of their companies1 but they accomplished results4 ,after the first day of entertainment1 the police justice said that there would be an even dozen of them for the three-thousand-mile run1 which was going some4 ,most passenger men would have rested content on those laurels1 but this combination used that first day only to whet their appetites4 ,they started briskly out on the second1 a little fagged1 but still in fighting trim1 and by that night the two detectives united in promising one or two filled ,pullmans4 ,the third day saw the two traffic solicitors nearly dead1 and the well-seasoned city officials just in fine trim4 ,the trim must have been fine1 for that night they completed arrangements for one of the biggest special train movements of that year3 two hundred and fifty enthusiastic brethren went three-quarters of the way across the continent and back as a result of the work of these passenger men4 ,once a travelling passenger agent went nearly too far in this entertainment business4 ,he got business1 miles and miles and miles of it1 but he also got drinking far too heavily4 ,one day1 when he came into the general offices very much the worse for entertaining1 he bumped into no less a man than the president of the road4 ,that president was a strict old soul4 ,he had church connections1 and he used to lecture his ,sunday ,school class on the evils of the liquor habit4 ,he decided to make an example of this young whelp of a passenger agent from off the road4 ,but just as the sentence was about to be pronounced1 the general passenger agent interfered4 ,he went straight to the president and the wrath of an honest man was in his eye4 ,we don't intend to have drunken men working here1 the president kept saying4 ,it's the example-- ,if he drinks1 said the ,g4 ,p4 ,a41 it's my fault1 and ,i'm the man to let go4 ,the president let his eyeglasses drop in astonishment4 ,you8 he said4 ,i'm guilty1 said the ,g4 ,p4 ,a4 ,this man goes everywhere to get business for us1 and he gets it4 ,he kneels with the preacher1 he talks high art with the ,browning societies1 and he gets drunk with the drinkers--all in the name of this railroad system4 ,now we propose to kick him out1 still in the name of this railroad system4 ,the president saw the point1 and together they took hold of the ,t4 ,p4 ,a4 and made him a decent1 sober man4 ,to-day he is one of the most efficient officers of that very road1 and he owes it all to that broad-minded ,g4 ,p4 ,a4 ,geniality1 urbanity1 courtesy are the major part of a travelling passenger agent's equipment1 as they are part of his chief's in these days1 when the rates have ceased to enter into the fight for traffic4 ,rates8 ,the rates must be the same nowadays by all routes of the same class2 and so the ,t4 ,p4 ,a4 must bring out the excellence of his line1 leaving none behind because of a false sense of modesty4 ,he is silent about other roads1 save as they may lead to and from the system that he represents4 ,you want to go to ,kickapoo4 ,you could go to ,milltown by the ,transcontinental and get from there to ,kickapoo most easily by the main line of the ,st4 ,louis ,southwestern1 but the travelling passenger agent frowns his first frown at the very suggestion4 ,the ,st4 ,louis ,southwestern is the worst competitor that ,transcontinental has for passenger traffic1 and the ,t4 ,p4 ,a4 does not propose to send business over its rails4 ,so he ignores your suggestion4 ,we have our own line into ,kickapoo1 he tells you--the old smile returning4 ,you won't have to leave ,transcontinental4 ,and such a line6 ,it happens to be a branch of the worst jerkwater type4 ,to reach ,kickapoo over ,transcontinental you must go to ,milltown and change from the comfortable ,limited to a less comfortable train1 which takes you to ,quashalong ,junction4 ,there you find a seat on a local which jogs along at twenty miles an hour for the greater part of the afternoon until you get into ,miller's ,forks4 ,when you reach ,miller's ,forks you almost abandon hope4 ,for the thirty-mile stretch from that cross-roads over into ,kickapoo is a grass-grown stretch of half-neglected track over which a combination freight and passenger-train--adequately described on the time-card as mixed--ambles once in twenty-four hours4 ,by the time you have finished that trip you will have arrived in ,kickapoo without leaving the rails of the ,transcontinental1 but you will also probably have registered a vow never to travel on them again1 if they can be avoided4 ,right there is a traffic mistake4 ,if the ,t4 ,p4 ,a4 had been wise he would have swallowed his hatred of ,st4 ,louis ,southwestern and recommended that you use it for that stretch from ,milltown to ,kickapoo4 ,he let his zeal for his road overrun his business judgment4 ,a good many of them do4 ,only the other day a man walked into a railroad station of a small city in the ,southern ,tier of ,new ,york ,state and announced that he wanted to hurry through to ,binghamton4 ,we have a train in five minutes1 our #ab3ab1 said the agent1 all smiles4 ,the man hesitated4 ,he wanted to do two or three errands in that small city before he went on to ,binghamton1 and so he asked the leaving time of the next train4 ,nothing until #f3ah1 the agent told him4 ,that will be too late for me to get into ,binghamton1 the passenger said4 ,the agent did not reply1 but turned his attention to other persons who were waiting at the ticket-window4 ,but the man from ,binghamton was still perplexed4 ,an agent of the news company who ran the stand in that station1 came over and helped him out4 ,the ---- 7mentioning a rival and paralleling road7 gets a train out of here for ,binghamton at #c3cj1 he explained4 ,the passenger thanked the news-agent1 for his problem had been lightened and started out for the other station4 ,when he was gone1 the ticket-seller summoned the newsman and threatened to have him fired4 ,but there is a new order of things coming to pass even in this hot rivalry for getting passenger traffic4 ,long ago1 ,c4 ,f4 ,daly1 who is to-day vice-president in charge of traffic for the ,new ,york ,central lines1 was in charge of the city ticket-office of the ,burlington1 in ,omaha4 ,those were days when no loyal traffic-man was ever supposed even to breathe the name of a competing road4 ,but ,daly held his loyalty firm1 and still went straight against that absurd rule4 ,if a woman came into his office and1 after the way of some women travellers1 finally decided that she wished to travel over the rival ,northwestern1 he would not let her get out of his office4 ,he would give her a comfortable seat1 and perhaps a magazine or paper to read1 and send one of his office-boys over to the ,northwestern office to buy a ticket for her4 ,sometimes before the office-boy could get out of the place the woman would change her mind in favor of the ,burlington4 ,if she did not1 ,daly did not worry4 ,he knew that he was of the new order of railroaders4 99 99 99 99 99 ,come back1 for a final moment1 to the travelling passenger agent4 ,he may be forgiven an over-zeal for the line which employs him1 for that has been his training from the beginning1 and--which is far more to the point--he is being measured by the results that he accomplishes4 ,the road does not pay him a salary and pay his heavy expense account 7which the auditor generally permits to contain various unvouchered items for entertainment7 without expecting results4 ,if he is a new man in the territory1 he is measured against his predecessor4 ,afterwards1 he is measured month by month1 against the corresponding month of the preceding year4 ,all tickets which were sold from his territory1 and in which his road shares1 are credited to his influence4 ,it becomes a matter of cold calculations and of dollars and cents4 ,if this ,april does not show an increase over ,april of last year1 the ,t4 ,p4 ,a4 must make a mighty good explanation to his chief4 ,it will have to be famine or pestilence or something nearly as bad to justify the slump in ticket sales4 ,an insinuation on his part that a reduction of the service of his road was responsible for the slump would never be accepted at headquarters4 ,illustration3 ,,the ,,new ,,york ,,central ,,railroad ,,is ,,building ,a ,,new ,,grand ,,central ,,station ,,in ,,new ,,york ,,city1 ,,for ,,itself ,,and ,,its ,,tenant1 ,,the ,,new ,,york1 ,,new ,,haven ,,hartford ,,railroad ,illustration3 ,,the ,,concourse ,,of ,,the ,,new ,,grand ,,central ,,station1 ,,new ,,york1 ,,will ,,be ,,one ,,of ,,the ,,largest ,,rooms ,,in ,,the ,,world ,illustration3 ,,south ,,station1 ,,boston1 ,,is ,,the ,,busiest ,,railroad ,,terminal ,,in ,,the ,,world ,illustration3 ,,the ,,train-,,shed ,,and ,,approach ,,tracks ,,of ,,broad ,,street ,,station1 ,,philadelphia1 ,,still ,,one ,,of ,,the ,,finest ,,of ,,american ,,railroad ,,passenger ,,terminals ,so1 all in all1 the life of the travelling passenger agent is no sinecure4 ,it is easiest when he is in the home territory of his road1 rather pleasant when that road is non-competitive4 ,but when he is out in foreign territory1 fighting for a road which is hardly more than a name to the folk with whom he comes in contact1 his difficulties increase2 when1 if his road is one of the weaker fry1 its trains slower and less frequent than some of the other trunk-lines1 his difficulties increase4 ,the differential-fares by which the slower competing roads are permitted by their stronger brethren to charge a reduced rate between important distant traffic points were adopted to help to equalize this difficulty4 ,but the differentials do not count1 neither do the differential lines now get their share of the through business4 ,last year fifty per cent of the passengers between ,new ,york and ,chicago went on the eighteen-hour train1 even though the regular full fare of #bj in each direction is increased by an excess fare of #aj1 aside from the ,pullman rates4 ,twenty-five per cent more travelled on the limited trains1 which makes an excess of #e1 in addition to ,pullman rates1 in each direction4 ,it begins to look as if the ,american public were willing to pay for added comfort and convenience4 ,pullman operation has doubled within the past ten years4 ,pullman chair-cars are operated to-day on hundreds of miles of branch line railroads that would not have dreamed of such a luxury a decade ago4 ,in fact1 we are moving toward first-class and second-class passenger service by leaps and bounds4 ,less than twenty years ago the ,new ,york ,central established its ,empire ,state ,express between ,new ,york and ,buffalo1 and1 by means of the almost marvellous resources of its advertising department1 made it the most famous train in the world4 ,save for a single parlor car or two1 it has always been a day-coach train1 no excess fare being charged4 ,yet for many years 7in recent years its running-time has been slightly lengthened7 it was the fastest regular long-distance train in the world4 ,still1 in the judgment of railroaders to-day1 another ,empire ,state would be a mistake1 even though the original is1 day in and day out probably one of the most popular and profitable express trains in the world4 ,but the judgment is different3 the ,lehigh ,valley1 running the competing ,black ,diamond1 between ,new ,york and ,buffalo1 has already found it advisable to make its equipment all ,pullman4 99 99 99 99 99 ,just as the travelling passenger agent forms the stock from which many of the general passenger agents are finally formed1 so does the country agent aspire to the day when he will be given territory and sent out with his gripsack1 to sell transportation upon the road4 ,sometimes1 though1 as in ,daly's case1 the road to traffic titles comes by way of the city ticket-offices4 ,these form an important function of the railroad's passenger department4 ,they are regulated carefully1 through an inter-railroad harmony1 as expressed in the great national passenger associations4 ,we have already seen how they sell mileage-books and scrip on their own account4 ,for instance1 a sort of tacit agreement specifies how many ticket-offices a railroad may maintain in a given city4 ,otherwise1 the biggest and richest road might completely overshadow its weaker neighbor in the number as well as in the magnificence of its agencies4 ,so an unwritten agreement1 which is as strict in its way as the law on cutting rates1 states that this city may have so many offices for any road1 and that so many4 ,it has become an exact rule4 ,the city ticket-offices1 situated at advantageous corners in the various busy centres of metropolitan towns1 and towns having metropolitan ambitions1 save the average man a long trip1 perhaps1 to the station4 ,they will sell tickets1 check baggage1 answer innumerable questions4 ,answering questions remains one of the big functions of the passenger-man4 ,only recently1 a sign was hung in a city ticket-office of one of the large railroads in ,new ,york1 which read3 ,remember that we are ,here to ,sell ,tickets as well as ,give ,information4 ,that sign was a mistake4 ,it was an affront to every person who entered that ticket-office1 and remember that every person who enters a ticket-office is at least a potential passenger for the railroad that operates it4 ,it is only charitable to believe that the agent meant to say3 ,remember that we are here to give information as well as to sell tickets1 for the giving of information is a function of a passenger ticket office4 ,so important has this function become1 that the railroads have established desks in the largest of these city offices at which no tickets are sold1 but where questions are answered and railroad1 steamship1 and hotel folders given out4 ,public ,service stations1 the ,new ,york ,central has begun to call its city ticket-offices and1 furthering this idea of courtesy and affability1 its general passenger agent has opened a school for the training of its agents4 ,they are taught to answer questions quickly and accurately1 and to be1 above all things1 courteous to the persons who come before them and the potential travellers4 99 99 99 99 99 ,just a final look before we leave this passenger department1 at its equipment4 ,its complications are large4 ,take this matter of tickets1 for instance4 ,while the financial department of the road will receive the money that comes in for their sales1 and the auditing department takes good care as to the accuracy of the agent's returns1 the passenger department has charge of printing and issuing the contract slips by which it agrees to convey its passengers4 ,there is a multiplicity of forms of these1 each bearing the signature of the general passenger agent4 ,on smaller roads1 the number of forms of local tickets is greatly reduced by writing or stamping the name of the destination on tickets4 ,on a single branch line1 with #be stations1 just #fjj different styles of printed railroad tickets would be required otherwise2 you can imagine the number of styles required for an average system of #a1jjj stations4 ,fortunately1 for the passenger department1 the use of simplified forms of tickets1 where adroit cutting and tearing makes possible the use of a single ticket form for an entire division1 has reduced the big ticket-printing bills4 ,only recently1 a machine1 on the order of a cash register1 has been invented1 from which a ticket1 accurately stamped and dated1 with the destination indelibly printed1 can be delivered as demanded4 ,still1 with all these simplified forms of tickets1 a big road will hardly carry less than #e1jjj standard forms4 ,then there will be anywhere from a dozen to twenty special forms a week that will have to be printed--for excursions1 conventions1 and special train movements of every sort4 ,the ticket-printing bill of a big road will easily exceed #dj1jjj a year4 ,its folders will cost not less than #ej1jjj1 while the twelvemonths' bill for newspaper advertising will more than exceed the combined figure of these two4 ,all these details come under the jurisdiction of that urbane general passenger agent4 ,he supervises1 in another department1 the making and the readjustment of rates--this last a seemingly endless task4 ,to make up rate-sheets1 either in the freight or in the passenger department1 requires expert work4 ,the fare between the same points on competitive railroads must1 in the present order of things1 remain equal4 ,to cite an interesting instance3 ,the ,a---- railroad long ago established #f4jj as its passenger charge from ,n---- to ,s----4 ,the ,b---- railroad1 although charging a higher rate per mile over its line1 is obliged to meet this rate of #f4jj in order to secure business from ,n---- to ,s----1 even though that makes many perplexing problems in its local rates4 ,the ,b----railroad mileage from ,n---- to ,s----1 up its main line1 is #bhh miles--practically the same as that of its competitor4 ,for the #adf-mile ride to ,g----1 the first large way-station1 it charges #d4ej1 for the #bjh-mile ride to ,m----1 the next1 #e4jj4 ,if a man were to go over its line to ,s---- and stop off at ,g---- and ,m---- his fare from ,n---- to ,s----would be #h4hj4 ,that is a typical case1 and one that is repeated in every corner of the country4 ,where a road comes into competitive territory its rates must adjust themselves to those of its lowest-priced rival1 otherwise it could hardly hope for a fair share of the business4 ,so the rates must shade here and there2 the rate-clerk must take good care to see that wherever it is in any way possible1 no combination of tickets can be formed that will sell at less rate than a through ticket4 ,when the rate-sheet is completed and copies of it forwarded to the railroad commission1 it is1 indeed1 a sensitive organization4 ,but no sooner will the cumbersome rate-sheet be completed1 before some little road off in a distant corner of the country will send a printed announcement of some slight change in its passenger charges4 ,in an instant1 the whole mighty fabric of the rate-sheet must be torn apart and reconstructed4 ,if the ,st4 ,louis ,southwestern1 by reason of a single change in the rates of the little ,blissville1 ,bulgetown and ,beyond 7with which it connects7 is enabled to charge a few cents less than the rival ,transcontinental1 its rate-sheet must be torn asunder and a new one adopted4 99 99 99 99 99 ,beyond the long desks where the rate-clerks keep at their tedious jobs of constant readjustment of local and through rates1 the passenger department has located its ticket redemption bureau4 ,it announces publicly its willingness to redeem unused portions of its tickets1 and the work of figuring out the amount due on a ticket1 sometimes half or three-quarters used1 requires a rate-clerk of ability and patience4 ,the redemption clerk holds a ticket up to the light for your inspection4 ,they tried to put this over on me1 he says as he shows a local ticket which had been sent to him for redemption at full value4 ,the pasteboard is filled with small burned holes4 ,the breezy young man who forwarded this exhibit to me claimed that he had used no portion of this ticket and then apologized to me for its condition4 ,his small boy1 he said1 had burned it with ,fourth-of-,july punk4 ,punk8 ,that was punk4 ,the small boy did not do a thorough job4 ,every hole burned there was burned to hide a conductor's punchmark4 ,you can see the edges of three of them2 and those three punch marks show that the ticket issued from ,b---- to ,t---- was used #cjj miles from ,b---- to ,a---- and not used from ,a---- to ,t----4 ,when that young man threatened us with trouble on that ticket deal1 we threatened him with arrest4 ,after that he shut up4 ,so does the general passenger agent come in constant contact with the great ,american public4 ,his outside mail is probably the largest at headquarters1 and it contains letters of every sort1 asking innumerable questions1 praising and damning his road with equal interest and force4 ,one letter will commend a courteous conductor1 the next will find some fault with the dining-car service4 ,it is not so very long ago that a big ,eastern railroad sent out a general order that the raw oysters on its dining-cars should be served affixed to their shells1 because a woman from ,sioux ,city had written a positive assertion that the shells were being used over and over again for canned oysters4 ,some of the railroads have already begun to systematize this whole matter of complaints4 ,one ,new ,york ,city line which sells a large amount of transportation in small packages every day 7two million passengers is its average in twenty-four hours7 has a ,harvard man at high salary just to receive those letters and give diplomatic answer to each of them4 ,each complaint is first acknowledged and then investigated2 the person who made the complaint is notified of the final action taken4 ,if a matter of fare is involved 7the complicated transfer systems of ,new ,york make such questions frequent71 and the company is wrong1 it cheerfully acknowledges its fault and forwards car tickets as reimbursement4 ,many times when a conductor or a motorman has forgotten his manners1 he is sent to make a personal apology to the aggrieved passenger1 as a price of holding his position4 ,that street railway company has won many friends out of persons who had complained to it1 because of this method4 ,but here is the general passenger agent of a big steam road1 who holds a considerably different view of this very matter4 ,we never get in writing on one of these complaints1 he says4 ,we send a man every time to make the matter right1 and the man must be a diplomat4 ,he must understand human nature1 and so well does he understand it1 that he makes the matter right in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred--turns an enemy into a friend1 a liability into an asset1 makes a firm patron for our road4 ,liabilities into assets6 ,that then is the work of the general passenger agent and his remarkable department4 ,liabilities into assets6 ,in these days of cold judgments upon the managements of the big railroad properties1 such a man is worth his weight in gold to a big system4 ,he measures his worth in the assets that he brings to it4 ,,chapter ,,xviii ,,the ,,luxury ,,of ,,modern ,,railroad ,,travel ,,special ,,trains ,,provided--,,private ,,cars--,,specials ,,for ,,actors1 ,,actresses1 ,,and ,,musicians--,,crude ,,coaches ,,on ,,early ,,railroads--,,luxurious ,,old-,,time ,,sleeping-,,cars--,,pullman',s ,,sleepers ,,made ,,at ,,first ,,from ,,old ,,coaches--,,his ,,pioneer--,,the ,,first ,,dining-,,cars--,,the ,,present-,,day ,,dining-,,cars--,,dinners1 ,,table ,d' ,h,,te ,,and ,a ,,la ,,carte--,,caf-,,cars--,,buffet-,,cars-- ,,care ,,for ,,the ,,comfort ,,of ,,women4 ,if a man stops you in ,nassau ,street1 ,new ,york1 in the late afternoon1 and you miss your favorite eighteen-hour train2 if it is imperative that you be in ,chicago the next morning at ten o'clock1 and 7this a most important if7 if you are willing to spend your money pretty freely1 the railroad will accomplish it for you4 ,if you are well known1 and your credit accomplished with the railroad folks1 it is highly probable that you will find your special1 ready to accomplish an over-night run of nearly #a1jjj miles1 standing waiting in the train-shed when you hurry to the station4 ,even if your credit is not so established1 the sight of several thousand dollars in greenbacks will accomplish the trick for you4 ,the train will be ready in any event almost as soon as you4 ,if you are planning a novel outing1 you may ring for a railroad representative and he will bring to your house or to your office tickets on any train and to any part of the world1 or he will be prepared to arrange a special train for a night's run or for a three months' swing around the country4 ,your train may be of any length you desire and are willing to pay for4 ,you can hire a car and it will be handled either as regular express trains or with special engines4 ,you pay the bills and you have your choice4 ,a run in a private car is the acme of luxury to the average man4 ,these are used for a variety of purposes in these comfort-loving days1 and the sight of one or more of them attached to the rear of a heavy train has ceased to excite comment4 ,the average luxury-loving millionaire has one--possibly two--of these expensive toys attached to an entourage that embraces ocean-going yachts1 complete stables1 and dozens of motor-cars of every description4 ,if he can claim some sort of responsible connection with a large railroad system1 he is likely to have his car hauled free from one ocean to the other2 and the millionaire likes these little perquisites4 ,he is not so far removed1 after all1 from the man who huddles in the corner of the smoking-car and secretly hopes and prays that the conductor will forget to collect his ticket4 ,to appreciate the number and variety of these cars take a look at the passenger sidings at any of the large ,florida beach hotels in midwinter4 ,better still1 run down to ,princeton or up to ,new ,haven at any large football game4 ,you will see parked there at such a time from sixty to one hundred of these palatial cars1 some of them private property1 others chartered for the occasion4 ,even in the middle of the night this branch of luxurious railroad traffic is still at your disposal4 ,an emergency call summons you out of town for a distance1 and the night train schedules do not meet your needs4 ,the night train-master will meet your needs4 ,he will act as the agent of the railroad and arrange1 while you hold the telephone receiver in your fingers1 the entire schedule for you4 ,trains will be held1 connections made2 the telegraph is capable of arranging the details4 ,if you demand speed1 the railroad will give it to you--if you are willing to pay the price and give a release against damage to your precious bones4 ,increased speed means increased risk to your railroader4 ,maude ,adams uses a special many ,saturday nights to carry her down to her ,long ,island farm at ,ronkonkoma4 ,her place is far out of the regular suburban district1 and there are no regular trains that will enable her to reach it after the evening performance4 ,for ordinary service she is quite content with a private car--the mania has its deathly grip on a good many of our prosperous theatrical folk4 ,lillian ,russell used to live down in the ,rockaway section of ,long ,island1 hardly outside of the ,new ,york ,city limits4 ,when she played in the metropolis a special train carried her six nights in the week out to her suburban home4 ,there were plenty of regular trains--theatre trains1 in the colloquialism of the railroaders--but the prima donna would have none of them4 ,she had acquired the private-car mania while she was on the road4 ,so her special stood night after night in the big railroad terminal in ,long ,island ,city--a neat little acquisition for a prosperous lady4 ,the nightly ride cost her fifty dollars to the railroad company2 and the generous tips she lavished1 from the engine-cab back1 doubled that sum4 ,hardly a prosperous star1 these days1 but demands in the contract a fully-equipped car for the long1 hard days on the road4 ,the car has some value for advertising2 its greatest value1 however1 lies in the maximum degree of comfort that it affords1 as compared with the constant changing from one country hotel to another4 ,sometimes the biggest of these folk let the mania seize so tightly upon them that they go to excess4 ,paderewski1 on his first trip to ,america1 made a flying journey up to ,poughkeepsie to bewilder the fair ,vassarites4 ,he shuddered at the thought of what he was pleased to call the provinces4 ,he had the popular ,european notion of ,american small towns and their hostelries4 ,poughkeepsie has very comfortable hotels1 but ,paderewski would not risk them4 ,he would not sleep in them1 neither would he eat in them4 ,a private car solved the first of these problems2 the second was met by bringing two cooks and a waiter up from the ,new ,york hotel in which he was staying4 ,he was paid #a1jjj for the concert1 and his travelling expenses cost him more than half that sum1 which was a pretty good ratio4 ,still1 stage folk are not in the habit of counting either ratios or their pennies1 and the average prima donna would make some sacrifices at the savings-bank in order to indulge herself in this extravagant and purely ,american mania4 ,the grand-opera folk indulge themselves to the limit1 invariably at the expense of the beneficent impresario4 ,but even this long-suffering publicist does not feel the expense so bitterly4 ,special trains for opera companies make splendid advertising1 but they do not cost one cent more than regular transportation4 ,for the railroads1 acting under the guidance of an all-wise and all-powerful commission down at ,washington1 will issue1 without extra cost1 from sixty to one hundred tickets for the man who orders a special train at two dollars a mile4 ,in this way the wise theatrical manager keeps his little flock segregated while en route1 and reaps gratuitously the prestige and the advertising that ensue4 ,even the cheaper companies have their own cars--gaudy affairs most of them1 their battered sides still reflecting the brilliancy of some gifted sign-painter4 ,you must remember seeing them in the long ago1 back there at the home-town1 stuck in the long siding next the coal-shed1 and surrounded by admiring youth1 getting its first faint taint of the mania4 ,the ,all-,star ,imperial ,minstrel ,troupes1 and the ,uncle ,tom shows1 are the graveyards of the private cars4 ,proud equipages that in their days have housed real magnates and have been the theatres of what we like mysteriously to call big deals1 once supplanted1 drop quickly down the scale of elegance4 ,in their last days they come to the hard use of some itinerant band of entertainers1 to squeak their rusty joints and worn frames as if in protest against a fly-by-night existence over jerkwater railroad branches4 ,come back again to those cars you see at the college football games1 the travelling private palaces that migrate up to ,newport1 the ,white ,mountains1 and the ,adirondacks in summer2 that flock south in the winter like the birds4 ,the astonishing thing is that few of these cars are owned by the persons who are using them4 ,of course1 as we have already said1 if a man can lay claim to some railroad connection1 he can get his car hauled free over other lines and1 perhaps1 get it built for him2 but more of that in a moment4 ,there are probably not more than #dj private cars in the land that are owned by persons not connected with the railroads4 ,this is an astonishingly low figure1 considering the number of these craft that are constantly drifting about our #bjj1jjj miles of track4 ,some society folk have cars as a part of their daily life1 but the storage costs are apt to cause a man to think twice before he buys one4 ,mr4 ,rockefeller and ,mr4 ,morgan have managed to worry along very comfortably without contracting the disease4 ,as a rule1 both of these men are willing to accept the comfort of any of the fast limited trains that form part of the luxurious equipment of the ,american railroad4 ,but the fact remains that the average citizen1 when he is felled by an intermittent attack of the private-car mania1 is content to hire one of the very comfortable equipages that the ,pullman ,company keeps ready at big terminals at various points across the country4 ,the arrangements for these are exclusive of the price paid to the railroad companies for their haul4 ,a complete private car1 equipped with staterooms1 baths1 private dining-room1 observation parlor and the like1 costs seventy-five dollars a day4 ,for two or more days this rate drops to fifty dollars a day4 ,an extra charge is made for food2 but the railroad will deliver the car without charge at the point from which you wish to begin your journey4 ,illustration3 ,,connecting ,,drawing ,,room ,,and ,,state ,,room ,illustration3 ,a ,,man ,,may ,,have ,,as ,,fine ,a ,,bed ,,in ,a ,,sleeping ,,car ,,as ,,in ,,the ,,best ,,hotel ,,in ,,all ,,the ,,land ,illustration3 ,,you ,,may ,,have ,,the ,,manicure ,,upon ,,the ,,modern ,,train ,illustration3 ,,the ,,dining-,,car ,,is ,a ,,sociable ,,sort ,,of ,,place ,for the haul of these cars the railroads will charge you according to their regularly filed tariffs1 unless you have that valued connection with some common carrier4 ,this varies from a minimum of from eighteen to twenty-five first-class fares4 ,in other words1 let us assume that the minimum in a particular case is twenty fares4 ,that particular railroad will carry up to twenty persons in the car at its regular fares2 if there are more than twenty aboard it will get a full fare ticket from each over the minimum allowance4 ,that is all a matter established as the special train rates are established1 not by whim1 but by law4 ,strange as it may seem1 the private car mania1 in chronic form1 seems to attack some railroad presidents most violently4 ,for reasons which show that railroading is a business filled with fine tact and diplomacy1 these cars are called business cars4 ,it is also remarkable that for size and elegance they vary in almost inverse ratio to the size and importance of the railroad that owns them4 ,big railroads1 like the ,pennsylvania1 the ,harriman lines1 and the ,new ,york ,central rather pride themselves upon the simplicity of their official cars4 ,some of these are plain almost to the point of shabbiness4 ,contrasted with these are the private cars belonging to the head of a great interurban electric line in ,southern ,california1 a car so wondrously beautiful that it was carried all the way to ,washington1 in the ,spring of #aije1 so that a thousand foreign railroad managers there gathered in convention1 might see the attainments of ,american car-builders4 ,another ,western railroad1 a small steam line this time1 boasts a president's car with a dining service that cost #b1ejj4 ,a little ,mississippi lumbering road spent #dj1jjj in providing a private car for its operating head4 ,the big ,eastern roads know about all of these cars4 ,their heads get frequent invitations to take a run over the ,k41 ,y4 ,z41 or some other enterprising jerkwater road that runs from the back waters to the bad lands4 ,of course1 they never take the trip1 but they invariably see the next step in the developments4 ,it comes in the form of requests for a pass for haul of car and party from ,chicago to ,new ,york and return4 ,time was when the ,new ,york ,central and the ,pennsylvania were laid low under the avalanche of requests of this sort4 ,some of their slower trains were laden down with long strings of these deadhead caravans1 and on one memorable occasion a whole section was made up of the prominent private cars of decidedly unprominent railroad officers4 ,since the introduction of the eighteen-hour trains between these two most important cities of the country this burden has been lessened4 ,these fastest trains will absolutely not haul any private cars at any price2 it is a rule that would not be abrogated for the ,president of the ,united ,states4 ,so the railroaders of the ,west1 from the big men like ,stubbs and ,kruttschnitt of the ,union ,pacific down to the small fry1 leave their cars in the roomy terminal yards at ,chicago and come to ,new ,york most of the time on one or the other of the eighteen-hour trains4 ,about the only time their cars come ,east nowadays is when they are bringing their families to the seashore for the ,summer4 ,so much for the private cars4 ,they are perhaps one of the most typical things of the ,america of to-day1 as we have seen4 ,actresses and millionaires use them for their private comfort and convenience2 tourist parties roam forth in them2 delegations proceed in them to conventions2 civic bodies find them agreeable aids to junketing4 ,sometimes a party of sportsmen will charter a car and hie themselves off to a secluded spot where the railroad roams through the forest1 find an idle siding and use their car for a camp for a week1 a fortnight1 or even a month4 ,cities and ,states use private cars as travelling museums to exploit their charms1 some of them are travelling chapels for religious propagandism4 ,the uses of the private car are nearly as manifold as those of the railroad itself4 99 99 99 99 99 ,in the beginning things were different4 ,our great grand-daddies drew no class lines when they travelled1 but were content to find shelter from the storm1 or upon pleasant days from the showers of sparks scattered by the locomotive4 ,but when the railroad began to stretch itself and to be a thing of reaches1 it was found advisable to run trains at night in order to make quick communication between distant points4 ,travelling at night in the crude coaches of the early railroads was an abominable thing1 and before the forties the old ,cumberland ,valley ,railroad was operating some crude sort of sleeping-cars4 ,within another decade there was much experimenting of this sort4 ,old-timers on the ,erie still remember the sleeping-cars that were built on that road soon after the close of the ,civil ,war4 ,there were six of them1 more like summer cottages than cars1 for the ,erie was then of #f-;foot gauge1 and its cars were #ab feet wide4 ,the berths were made up in crude form by hanging curtains from iron rods and bringing the bedding from a storage closet at the end of the car4 ,there was a little less privacy in them than in the modern ,pullman1 but in the eyes of ,jim ,fisk1 whose love of elegant luxury was first responsible for their construction1 they were nothing less than palaces4 ,one of them was named after ,fisk and carried his portrait in an immense decorative medallion on each of its sides4 ,the other cars were the ,jay ,gould--without decorative medallions--the ,morning ,star1 the ,evening ,star1 the ,queen ,city1 and the ,crescent ,city4 ,all you have to do to-day1 to set an old ,erie man's tongue wagging1 is to speak of one of these cars4 ,they were triumphs1 and away back in that day and generation they cost #fj1jjj each4 ,but while many men were fussing in futile ways to build comfortable cars for long journeys1 a man named ,george ,m4 ,pullman1 over in ,western ,new ,york1 was packing his goods and making ready to go to ,chicago and build his world-famed car-works there4 ,pullman's cars survived the others4 ,he bought in the ,woodruff ,company and some lesser concerns1 and for many years his only important rival was the ,wagner ,palace ,car ,company1 a ,vanderbilt property4 ,in course of time this too was absorbed1 and the ,pullman ,company had virtual control of the luxurious part of ,american traffic1 few railroads caring to run their own parlor and sleeping-car service4 ,there are economic and sensible reasons for this in many cases4 ,some railroads have great through passenger traffic1 demanding ,pullman equipment in summer and little or none in winter4 ,others reverse this need and so whole trains of sleeping and parlor cars go flocking north and south and then north again with the private cars4 ,special occasions1 like great conventions1 call for extra ,pullmans by hundreds2 and because of the enormous capital that must be tied up1 a single supplying company is best able to handle the problem4 ,still1 big roads like the ,new ,haven1 the ,milwaukee1 and the ,great ,northern have been most successful in building and operating their own sleeping and parlor-car service4 ,a great road like the ,pennsylvania might do the same thing1 and because of that possibility the ,pennsylvania was one of the first roads in the country to make the ,pullman ,company pay it for the privilege of hauling its cars4 ,as a rule1 the railroad pays the ,pullman ,company for hauling by the mile--a very few cents a mile--and the ,pullman ,company also takes the entire receipts to itself4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the body of ,abraham ,lincoln was carried to its final resting-place in the first real ,pullman car that was ever built4 ,president ,lincoln rode in one of ,pullman's earliest attempts at railroad luxury1 some sleeping-cars that he had remodelled from day coaches on the ,chicago ,alton ,railroad and that were put in service between ,chicago and ,st4 ,louis in #ahfj4 ,these cars were almost as crude as the barbaric predecessors that had induced ,pullman to tackle the problem of railroad comfort approaching the standards of boat comfort4 ,leonard ,seibert1 a veteran employee of the ,chicago ,alton1 told a few years ago of ,mr4 ,pullman's first attempts to remodel the old coaches of that road into sleeping-cars4 ,said he3 ,in #aheh ,mr4 ,pullman came to ,bloomington and engaged me to do the work of remodelling the ,chicago ,alton coaches into the first ,pullman sleeping-cars4 ,the contract was that ,mr4 ,pullman should make all necessary changes inside of the cars4 ,after looking over the entire passenger car equipment of the road1 which at that time constituted about a dozen cars1 we selected ,coaches ,nos4 #i and #ai4 ,they were #dd feet long1 had flat roofs like box cars1 single sash windows1 of which there were fourteen on a side1 the glass in each sash being only a little over one foot square4 ,the roof was only a trifle over six feet from the floor of the car4 ,into this car we got ten sleeping-car sections1 besides a linen locker and two washrooms--one at each end4 ,the wood used in the interior finish was cherry4 ,mr4 ,pullman was anxious to get hickory1 to stand the hard usage which it was supposed the cars would receive4 ,i worked part of the ,summer of #aheh1 employing an assistant or two1 and the cars went into service in the ,fall of #aheh4 ,there were no blue prints or plans made for the remodelling of these first two sleeping-cars1 and ,mr4 ,pullman and ,i worked out the details and measurements as we came to them4 ,the two cars cost ,mr4 ,pullman not more than #b1jjj1 or #a1jjj each4 ,they were upholstered in plush1 lighted by oil lamps1 heated with box stoves1 and mounted on four-wheel trucks with iron wheels4 ,the berth rate was fifty cents a night4 ,there was no porter in those days2 the brakeman made up the beds4 ,pullman built his first real sleeping-car in #ahfd4 ,it was called the ,pioneer and he further designated it by the letter ,a1 not dreaming that there would ever be enough ,pullman cars to exhaust the letters of the alphabet4 ,the ,pioneer was built in a ,chicago ,alton car shop1 and it cost the almost fabulous1 in those times1 sum of #ah1jjj4 ,that was extravagant car-building in a year when the best of railroad coaches could be built at a cost not exceeding #d1ejj each4 ,but the ,pioneer was blazing a new path in luxury4 ,from without1 it was radiant in paints and varnishes1 in gay stripings and letterings2 it was a giant compared with its fellows1 for it was a foot wider and two and a half feet higher than any car ever built before4 ,it had the hinged berths that are to-day the distinctive feature of the ,american sleeping car1 and the porter and the passengers no longer had to drag the bedding from closets at the far end of the car4 ,the ,pioneer was not only wider and higher than other passenger cars1 it was also wider and higher than the clearances of station platforms and overhead bridges4 ,but when the country was reduced to the deepest distress because of the death of ,president ,lincoln1 the fame of ,pullman's ,pioneer was already widespread1 and it was suggested that the fine new car should be the funeral coach of the martyred president4 ,this involved cutting wider clearances all the way from ,washington by the way of ,philadelphia1 ,new ,york1 and ,albany to ,springfield1 ,ill42 and gangs of men worked night and day making the needed changes4 ,pullman knew that the increased convenience of an attractive car built upon proper proportions would justify these changes in the long run1 and it is significant that the height and width of the ,pullman cars to-day are those of the ,pioneer2 the changes have been made in the length4 ,not long after that car had carried ,president ,lincoln to his grave1 ,general ,grant started on a trip west1 and the ,michigan ,central ,railroad anxious to carry him over its lines from ,detroit to ,chicago1 widened its clearances for the same celebrated car4 ,after that there were several paths open for the big car1 and work was begun upon its fellows4 ,it went into regular service on the ,chicago ,alton ,railroad2 and the ,pullman ,palace ,car ,company was formed in #ahfg4 ,the alphabet soon ran out1 and the company to-day operates between four and five thousand cars in regular service4 ,there is a popular tradition1 several times denied1 to the effect that ,pullman for many years gave his daughters #ajj each for the names of the cars1 and that that formed the source of their pin money4 ,illustration3 ,,an ,,interior ,,view ,,of ,,one ,,of ,,the ,,earliest ,,pullman ,,sleeping-,,cars ,illustration3 ,,interior ,,of ,a ,,standard ,,sleeping-,,car ,,of ,,to-,,day ,while the dimensions of the car were largely set1 improvements in its construction have gone steadily forward1 as has been told in an earlier chapter4 ,the interior of these luxurious modern cars has not been neglected4 ,from the beginning they have been elaborate in rare woods and splendid textile fittings4 ,the advancing era of ,american good taste has done much toward softening the over-elaboration of car interiors--the sort of sleeping car that ,george ,ade used to call the chambermaid's dream of heaven4 ,the newest cars present the quiet elegance and good taste of a modern residence4 ,nothing that may be added in wealth of material or of comfort is omitted1 but the foolish draperies and carvings that once made the ,american car the laughing-stock of ,europeans have already gone their way4 ,to make for luxury all manner of devices have been added to these cars4 ,the superintendent sometimes hears complaints from a traveller that the sharp curves on some mountain division have spilled the water on his bath-tub2 and the switching-crews at the big terminals know that turntables are kept busy turning the big observation platform cars so that they will set right1 and the big piazza-like platform will rest squarely at the rear of the train4 ,for those persons who wish to pay for the luxury there are staterooms1 and the best of these staterooms have the baths and big comfortable brass beds4 ,after many years of unsatisfactory experiment the electric light has come into its own upon the railroad train2 and even upon unpretentious trains the night traveller no longer has to wrestle with the difficulties of dressing or undressing in an absolutely dark berth4 99 99 99 99 99 ,once the problem of housing folk at night had been met and solved1 another rose4 ,if travellers might sleep upon a train1 why might they not eat there1 too8 ,the ,american eating-houses had met with a degree of fame4 ,there are old fellows who will still tell you of the glories of the dining-rooms at ,springfield1 at ,poughkeepsie1 at ,hornellsville1 and at ,altoona4 ,but the eating-house scheme had its great disadvantages4 ,for one thing1 it caused a delay in the progress of through fast trains to halt them three times a day while the passengers piled out of the cars and went across to some lunch-counter or dining-room to ruin their digestions in the twenty minutes allotted for each meal4 ,for another thing1 the process of clambering in and out of the comfortable train in all sorts of weather was unpopular4 ,the well-established and equally well-famed eating-houses along the trunk-line railroads were doomed from the time that the ,pioneer won its first success4 ,no more should a train tie up at meal-time than a steamboat should tie up at her wharf for a similar purpose4 ,the first dining-cars were called hotel-cars2 and the first of these1 the ,president1 was placed in operation by the ,pullman company on the ,great ,western ,railway--now the ,grand ,trunk--of ,canada1 in #ahfg4 ,the hotel-car was nothing more or less than a sleeping-car with a kitchen built in at one end and facilities for serving meals at tables placed at the berths4 ,it was well enough in its way1 but travellers demanded something better1 something more hygienic than eating meals in a sleeping place4 ,pullman went hard at his problem1 and in another year he had evolved the first real dining-car1 the ,delmonico1 which went into regular service on the ,chicago ,alton ,railway4 ,the ,delmonico was a pretty complete sort of a restaurant on wheels1 and not far different from the dining-car of to-day4 ,to-day there are #gej successors to the old ,delmonico in daily service on the railroads of the ,united ,states4 ,a small regiment of men earn their livelihood upon them2 some genius1 handy with a lead pencil1 has estimated that these serve some #fj1jjj meals--breakfast1 lunch1 and dinner--every day4 ,the amount of food and drink consumed is a matter that is left to the statistician4 ,the average full-sized dining-car seats #dj persons1 but that does not represent the business it does4 ,unless the car can be completely filled two or more times at each meal1 it is not considered a profitable run4 ,the ,european method of reserving seats at first table or second table has never obtained in the ,united ,states1 and the wise man on a popular train sacrifices his dignity and hurries toward the dining-car at the first intimation that the meal is ready4 ,to take care of the hungry folk a dining-car crew of nine men is kept busy4 ,the car is in absolute charge of a conductor or steward1 who is held sharply accountable by the dining-car superintendent of the road for the conduct of his men and of his car4 ,he signs a receipt for the car equipment before starting on his run out over the line1 and he must see to it that none of that equipment1 not a single napkin or spoon out of all his stock1 is missing at its end4 ,he is held in as strict account for the appearance and behavior of his men4 ,the waiters must be neatly dressed1 must have clean linen2 the conductor himself must be something of a ,beau ,brummel1 carrying a certain polite smile toward each one of the road's patrons1 no matter how disagreeable or cranky he or she may be4 ,for all of these things and many others--maintaining a sharp guard over the car's miniature wine-cellars1 adding specials to the bill-of-fare for a given day1 acting as a cashier for the service--he receives a princely salary1 varying from #ge to #aaj a month4 ,his crew1 as far as the passengers see it1 consists of five men1 almost always negroes4 ,back in the tiny kitchen is the chef1 with two assistants1 preparing the food4 ,the kitchen is tiny4 ,it is less than five feet wide and fifteen feet long1 and the three men who work within it must have a place for everything in it1 including themselves4 ,obviously there is no room for the waiters1 and these receive their supplies through a small wicket window4 ,if the kitchen is tiny1 it is also marvellously complete4 ,an ice-box fits upon and takes half the space of the wide vestibule platform2 the range has the compact dimensions of a yacht's range2 sinks1 pots1 and kettles fit into inconceivably small spaces4 ,yet in these tiny cubbyholes one hundred1 ofttimes many more dinners1 of seven or eight courses each1 are carefully prepared1 with a skill in the cooking that is a marvel to restaurateurs4 ,the table d'hte dinner--the famous dollar dinner--of the ,american railroad has almost disappeared4 ,the constant increase in foodstuffs is most largely responsible for this4 ,the ,pullman ,company long ago gave up this particular feature of passenger luxury1 save in a few isolated cases4 ,it had ceased to be a particularly profitable business1 this serving of fine meals for a dollar each2 and so the railroads themselves took it up and prepared to make it a cost business for the advertising value to them4 ,each railroad plumed itself upon its dining-car service--some of them still do--and each was willing to lose a little money1 perhaps1 to induce travel to come its way because of the superior meals it served upon its trains4 ,but as the price of food-stuffs continued steadily to rise1 the advertising feature of these meals began to be more and more expensive1 and the dollar dinner quickly disappeared4 ,a high priced -la-carte service took its place1 and the railroads sought to establish their commissary upon a money-making basis4 ,the attempt has not been very successful4 ,for the lifting of the dining-car prices and the attempt to reduce running expenses has1 on some roads in particular1 hurt the reputation of these restaurants on wheels1 and so in due season hurt their patronage2 brought their patrons from folk who went out of their way to eat on dining-cars to folk who eat there only because of dire necessity4 ,and these last still have found prices high and the result is to be eventually a return to former methods in part--slower trains stopping again for meals at important stations1 the faster trains returning to the table d'hte4 ,beginnings have been made along that line recently4 ,the dollar dinner may never return to some roads--although it remains a joy and a delight to travellers upon the ,new ,haven system--but the regular dinner at least1 capable of quick service in a crowded car1 bids fair to have a renaissance4 ,while the problem of dining-car economy1 and profit even1 remains a problem1 the idea is nevertheless being steadily extended all the while to branches and to trains that could not support full-sized dining-cars4 ,to meet these needs smaller cars--generally called caf-cars--in which the dining-compartment is much reduced in size1 have been built and operated4 ,in these two cooks1 two waiters and a steward form the working force and the fixed charges of the outfit are correspondingly reduced4 ,they are further reduced in the operation of the so-called broiler-coach1 which is nothing more or less than a day-car with a kitchen built in1 the entire service being performed by one or two cooks and a like number of waiters4 ,some sleeping-cars and some parlor cars still have kitchens where a single accomplished negro may act as both cook and waiter1 and these cars are designated commonly as buffet sleepers or buffet parlor cars4 ,the dining-car department of the railroad will probably have more to do than supervise the operation of these various sorts of equipment4 ,restaurants and lunch-rooms at terminals and stations along the line may fall under its direct supervision1 and it will probably also conduct the cuisine of the private cars of the railroad's officers4 ,the dining-car department has direct charge of all the men employed on cars and in the lunch-rooms2 it sees to it that the railroad's culinary equipment is fully maintained2 it buys food and drink1 linen1 silver1 china1 kitchen supplies of every sort4 ,the routing of the cars is carefully planned to secure the most economical use of them4 ,few trains running from ,new ,york to ,chicago will carry a single diner throughout the entire trip4 ,these trains will use two1 sometimes three cars during a single-way trip between the cities4 ,a single car will generally make the daylight run with the train1 to be dropped at night to continue its course west again at daylight upon some other train needing meal service4 ,the first train will pick up a fresh diner in the morning to carry into ,chicago4 ,in this way1 a diner may take a week or more to make the round trip from ,new ,york to ,chicago4 ,obviously1 her commissary must meet all needs along the way4 ,staple supplies1 liquors1 dry groceries are all placed aboard the car at the terminals4 ,fresh meats and vegetables are picked up along the route4 ,this town has an especial reputation for its chickens2 this for its grapes2 this other for its celery4 ,the dining-car department knows all these1 and it selects under the rare opportunity of a housewife who has a market nearly a thousand miles long within which to do her marketing4 99 99 99 99 99 ,just as the glorious comfort of the ,american river steamboat of the fifties was responsible for the plans for eating and sleeping aboard the railroad trains1 so it was responsible for the introduction of a finer luxury in railroad travel1 until to-day1 when the resources of the general passenger agent are taxed to discover some new ingenious joy to add to the pleasure of going by this particular line4 ,the full development of the protected vestibule platform and the opportunity it afforded of easy intercourse between the coaches of a train led to many new devices to make the long cross-country trip of the traveller more than ever a thing of joy4 ,first came the buffet-car1 with all the conveniences of a man's club2 and the car-builders have shown remarkable ingenuity in imitating the mission-like grillroom interiors1 despite the many limitations placed upon them4 ,no club was complete without a barber-shop1 and soon every fast-rushing limited of any consequence had a dusky servitor whose sharp-bladed razor was warranted not to cut even when the train struck a sharp curve at fifty miles an hour4 ,stationery1 books1 and magazines became features of the buffet-car4 ,after that there came a stenographer1 whose services were free to the patrons of the train4 ,most of these things were for the comfort of men1 who form the majority of patrons of the railroad4 ,but a considerable portion of femininity travels1 and it sent in a complaint that its comfort was being neglected4 ,the general passenger agents gave quick ear4 ,the men's buffet1 with its comfortable adjuncts of smoke and drink was at the forward end of the train1 the women were considered in the big1 comfortable observation cars at the rear4 ,they were given more stationery1 more magazines1 even a caseful of books1 running from the severe standard works to the gayest and lightest of modern fiction4 ,ladies' maids were installed upon the trains1 and the girl running from ,new ,york up to ,albany could have her nails manicured while upon the train4 ,these are all details1 but each goes to make the comfort of the traveller upon the ,american railroad train4 ,such comfort is not equalled in any other country in the world4 ,from the moment he steps from his cab1 the ,american traveller passing through the magnificence of superb waiting-rooms enters palatial trains1 superior to the private trains of royalty upon the other side of the ocean4 ,a corps of well-trained attachs look to his comfort and his ease1 every moment that he is upon the train1 whether his ride be of an hour's duration or a four-days' run across the continent4 ,other railroaders whom he does not see1 engine crews1 changing each few hours upon his run1 signalmen in the towers along the route1 telegraphers1 despatchers1 train walkers1 car inspectors help in their small but important ways to make his trip one of comfort and of safety4 ,the entire organization of the railroad lends itself to that very purpose4 ,the railroad does not stop at the mere exercise of its great function as a carrier2 it does not even stop with the exercise of its every ingenuity toward safety in its transportation2 it goes a little further and gives to the man or woman who rides upon its rails1 a degree of luxurious comfort equal to if not even greater than that man or woman can receive at any other place4 ,,chapter ,,xix ,,getting ,,the ,,city ,,out ,,into ,,the ,,country ,,commuters' ,,trains ,,in ,,many ,,towns--,,rapid ,,increase ,,in ,,the ,,volume ,,of ,,suburban ,,travel--,,electrification ,,of ,,the ,,lines--,,long ,,island ,,railroad ,,almost ,,exclusively ,,suburban--,,varied ,,distances ,,of ,,suburban ,,homes ,,from ,,the ,,cities--,,club-,,cars ,,for ,,commuters--,,staterooms ,,in ,,the ,,suburban ,,cars--,,special ,,transfer ,,commuters4 ,when the ,commuter slams his desk shut at the close of a busy day1 he is fully aware that he is a superior being4 ,other mortals condemned to hard labor in the city may squeeze within the ill-ventilated confines of trolley-car1 elevated or subway train1 may find their way to stuffy apartments1 which1 if their fronts were to be suddenly removed1 would look for all the world like shoe-boxes stuck tier upon tier in a shop4 ,the ,commuter thrusts out his chest4 ,not for him4 ,his is a different life4 ,he even feels justified in thinking that his is the only life4 ,there is nothing narrow about the ,commuter2 the open breath of the country has tended to widen him4 ,he finds his way to the showy railroad terminal1 down the crowded concourse with a human stream of other ,commuters to the #e3cg4 ,that train is part of his regular calendar of life4 ,it has been such ever since he took flight to the country1 a dozen years ago4 ,if the #e3cg should ever be stricken from the time-card the ,commuter would feel as if the light had been extinguished4 ,once1 when some meddler violently assumed to change it into a #e3ca1 the ,commuter was one of a committee who visited a terrified general passenger agent and had the course of time set right again4 ,there is only one other train which must approach the #e3cg in regularity2 that is the #g3eb1 on which the ,commuter slinks sorrowfully into the dirty town each morning4 ,other trains may be jumped about on the time-card1 the ,commuter is oblivious of their fate4 ,but let his #g3eb be ten minutes late into the big terminal three mornings in succession1 and the ,commuter begins to write letters to the papers and to the officers of the railroad4 ,once aboard the #e3cg the ,commuter trails his way into the smoker4 ,jim1 the brakeman1 who is the source of all trustworthy information about the railroad1 and who can even foreshadow the resignation of the president1 has stored away the table and the cards4 ,they are produced for the daily consideration of a dime and a game that runs week in and week out is ready to begin4 ,smith1 of the ,standard ,oil crowd1 drops into his seat2 ,higgins1 the lawyer1 into his2 the others are quickly filled2 packages--foodstuffs from the cheaper city markets and hurried purchases made at noon from handy shops--go into the racks1 and the ,commuter is oblivious until1 as if by instinct1 a familiar red barn goes flying backwards4 ,the game is off again until to-morrow morning2 he is sorting his own packages out of the rack4 ,the train halts for a single nervous moment1 and he is on the platform4 ,the cars roll past him2 the party are at a three-handed game now4 ,the ,commuter finds his way up a steep road to his home on the hillside1 his very own home4 ,it looks as sweet1 set in there among the bushes and the trees1 as it did the day he bought it2 and that day it looked to him as ,paradise4 ,when night comes1 there comes a peace and quiet1 a peculiar country coolness in the air4 ,the city is steaming from the hot day1 and through the night the pavements and the roofs still emit heat4 ,the ,commuter has forgotten the city4 ,he sleeps as he slept as a boy on a farm1 where a city was but a hazy dream in his mind4 ,when he awakes he is refreshed1 invigorated4 ,the country has repaid him for the trouble that he has taken to reach it4 ,he goes into town again on that blessed #g3eb1 twice as good a workingman as the man who has the next desk to his1 the poor chap who had to sit on the apartment steps until after midnight in order to get even a miserable degree of comfort4 ,that is why the city goes out into the country4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the ,commuter is apt to settle his thoughts upon himself1 to forget that he is but an infinitely small part of a mighty home-going army that nightly calls all the passenger resources of the railroad into play4 ,there are more than #ajj1jjj of him alone in the metropolitan district around ,new ,york4 ,the busy ,long ,island ,railroad takes a host of him nightly off to the garden spots of that wonderful land from which it takes its name2 the ,central ,railroad reaches off into the lowlands1 and the ,erie and the ,lackawanna into the highlands of ,new ,jersey2 the ,new ,york ,central and the ,new ,haven tap the picturesque shores of the ,hudson and the ,sound4 ,boston repeats ,new ,york in this human tide that ebbs and flows daily through her gates4 ,from both her ,north and ,south stations mighty armies of ,commuters come and go until one wonders sometimes if any one really lives in ,boston itself4 ,there are more than #fj1jjj of this army at the ,hub4 ,in ,philadelphia1 the ,pennsylvania and the ,reading handle from their terminals an army of equal size each night2 another finds its way from the smoky1 dirty heart of ,pittsburgh out into the attractive towns that perch the hills in her vicinage4 ,middle ,west cities1 even those of good size1 differ from ,eastern in the fact that they are rarely hampered in their growth by natural conditions4 ,in big towns like ,cleveland and ,detroit1 for instance1 the natural and the artificial electric transit facilities are so good as to bring the commutation business to a minimum4 ,not so with ,chicago4 ,the ,illinois ,central from the south1 the ,northwestern and the ,st4 ,paul from the north1 serve rapidly growing suburban areas that will compare with some of the best in the ,east4 ,then1 after the ,commuters in the ,east are safely home1 another army is finding its way across the bay1 and off to the north and the south of ,san ,francisco4 ,these are the big centres of commuting as the ,american railroads know it4 ,in smaller measure it exists at every large city in the country4 ,the familiar monthly card ticket1 representing its cousin1 that holy-of-holies--the annual pass1 is issued from good-sized villages and pretentious country seats4 ,the ,commuter is already a national institution4 99 99 99 99 99 ,conductor ,john ,m4 ,dorsey1 who used to run an ,erie train out of ,jersey ,city in the long ago1 once showed us what he thought was the first example of a pure commutation business4 ,it was a list issued to ,erie conductors in #ahfj1 and containing the names of #afb persons who travelled daily in and out of ,new ,york by the way of ,jersey ,city4 ,these folk lived in ,passaic 7they called it ,boiling ,springs in those days71 and in ,paterson1 and all the way up the line to ,goshen and ,middletown4 ,when a man wanted to commute then he paid a monthly fee to the railroad and they printed his name on this official list4 ,such a scheme would be obviously out of the question these days4 ,when ,new ,york refused to stop growing1 and more and more people began making the daily trip in and out of ,jersey ,city1 the handy method of the commutation ticket was substituted for the cumbersome printed list1 and the ,erie and all the other railroads began to cater to the ,commuter with special short-distance trains4 ,committees came to railroad officers from various small towns and aided them in fixing a definite basis of fare1 which remains to-day at something between six-tenths and three-quarters of a cent a mile4 ,in later years1 the real estate business became the science that it is to-day1 and the suburban business began to move forward in long leaps4 ,illustration3 ,,even ,,in ,,winter ,,there ,,is ,a ,,homely1 ,,homey ,,air ,,about ,,the ,,commuter',s ,,station ,illustration3 ,,entrance ,,to ,,the ,,great ,,four-,,track ,,open ,,cut ,,which ,,the ,,erie ,,has ,,built ,,for ,,the ,,commuter',s ,,comfort ,,at ,,jersey ,,city ,illustration3 ,a ,,model ,,way-,,station ,,on ,,the ,,lines ,,of ,,the ,,boston ,,albany ,,railroad ,illustration3 ,,the ,,yardmaster',s ,,office--,,in ,,an ,,abandoned ,,switch-,,tower ,it seems incredible1 said a railroad officer just the other day but this suburban problem is all but overwhelming for us4 ,it does not increase our revenues at so wonderful a pace1 but it does increase in volume from #bj to #be per cent a year2 and think how that keeps us hustling1 making facilities for it4 ,there is not a railroad entering ,new ,york to-day that could not dismiss its passenger terminal problems to-morrow1 if it were not for the ,commuter4 ,there is not a railroad coming into ,new ,york that could not handle all its through business in a train-house of from four to five tracks4 ,instead of that1 what do we see8 ,the ,erie with five through trains requiring a terminal of sixteen tracks2 the ,lackawanna1 with the same number of through trains1 a new terminal of even greater size1 the overwhelming passenger terminal problem being repeated at every corner of ,new ,york1 just because of the tremendous annual increase in the suburban passenger business4 ,the great reconstruction of the ,grand ,central terminal facilities in the heart of ,new ,york1 and the erection of a new station there1 as described in detail in an earlier chapter1 is directly due to the ,commuter4 ,when the new station with its double tier of tracks is finished1 there will be thirty-two platform tracks in the double train-house1 an amount far in excess of that needed for even the great volume of through business that goes and comes over the lines of the ,new ,york ,central and the ,new ,york1 ,new ,haven1 ,hartford1 the two systems that use it4 ,and the new station1 involving a tremendous expenditure of money1 of brains1 and of energy1 is not all4 ,the ,new ,haven has electrified its four-track main line all the way out to ,stamford1 ,conn41 in order that it may in some measure cope with this increasing flow of suburban traffic over its already crowded main-line tracks4 ,it has wrestled with the unanticipated problems of electrification because it has been facing a situation that left it no time to experiment elsewhere and approach its main-line problem with deliberation4 ,more and more folk were settling in the suburban towns in its territory each month1 and deliberation was quite out of their calculations4 ,the ,commuter is rarely deliberate4 ,so the ,new ,haven1 with all the resources of a giant carrier1 has found each new measure of relief swallowed up in the new flood and has turned to more radical methods4 ,it has been apparent to its managers for some time past that even the new ,grand ,central1 with its wonderful capacity1 would some day prove inadequate1 for the reason that the ,new ,york ,central--the actual owners of the property--was also trying to cope with its own great increase in suburban traffic1 and would eventually require more and more space for its own ,commuters4 ,with such a possibility in the future--not a distant future with the suburban business doubling in volume every four or five years--the ,new ,haven sought to develop an unimportant freight branch leading from ,new ,rochelle down to the ,harlem ,river4 ,it has almost finished the work of transforming this into a great electric carrier1 six tracks in width4 ,railroad engineers show no hesitancy in saying that eight-track trunks will be needed out of ,new ,york in every direction within a dozen years4 ,the ,harlem ,river branch of the ,new ,haven1 once it is provided with a suitable terminal1 will become a great artery of suburban traffic4 ,it will give trunk capacity to make possible the development of a great new area lying just inland from the ,sound1 and yet within from #dj to #ej miles of ,new ,york ,city4 ,a third project in which ,new ,haven capital is known to be interested is that of a high-speed1 four-track suburban electric railroad also to reach into the ,sound territory as far as ,port ,chester1 with an important branch1 diverging to ,white ,plains1 the shire-town of ,westchester ,county4 ,this line will feed into the main line of the ,new ,york subway1 and so avoid cramping the terminals still further4 ,the terminals are the crux of the whole great problem of handling suburban traffic4 ,the ,new ,york ,central has also electrified its tracks for a zone of some #dj to #ej miles from its terminal4 ,this work was started primarily by a distressing accident in its old smoke-filled tunnel1 that ran the length of ,park ,avenue under ,manhattan ,island1 but ,new ,york ,central officers are to-day free to admit that the electrification was close at hand in any event4 ,the operation of a terminal so closely planned as the new ,grand ,central1 with its train-sheds and yards built in layers1 would have been a physical impossibility with smoky1 dirty1 steam locomotives4 ,the ,new ,york ,central has been1 as we shall see in greater detail in the chapter on the coming of electricity1 the first of the standard steam railroads entering ,new ,york to provide suburban trains of multiple unit motor-cars1 similar to those used in rapid transit subway and elevated trains4 ,the great advantage of these trains over trains handled by either steam or electric locomotives is an operating advantage4 ,the train may be so quickly turned in terminals as to bring the terminal problem down an appreciable percentage1 and so to give a greater hauling capacity to main-line tracks4 ,the ,central1 wedged in tightly by the high hills that lie to the north of the metropolis1 has had to pin its faith to plans that utilize the present tracks to the uttermost capacity4 ,the railroads crossing ,new ,jersey and reaching the west bank of the ,hudson have not been behind the routes that enter from the north in providing for the suburban business4 ,the recently opened ,mc,adoo ,tunnel1 linking the ,jersey terminals of the ,erie1 the ,lackawanna1 and the ,pennsylvania with both the downtown and the uptown theatre1 hotel1 and shopping district of ,manhattan1 has been a great stimulus to the suburban development across the ,hudson4 ,the ,lackawanna has done its part by boring a second tunnel under the ,bergen ,hill1 parallel to its original tube1 giving a four-track entrance to its fine new terminal1 and relieving the congestion of suburban traffic night and morning at its worst point1 the neck of the bottle4 ,the ,erie has already completed1 as a part of its extensive terminal reconstruction-work in ,jersey ,city1 a similar project1 a four-track open cut through the stout backbone of ,bergen ,hill4 ,the open cut replaces completely the so-called ,bergen ,tunnel1 which has already become a matter of history4 ,we have already told of the ,pennsylvania terminal in ,new ,york4 ,the ,pennsylvania built the new station for through travel rather than for the ,commuter1 at the outset4 ,but the ,pennsylvania1 with the exception of a brisk traffic out to ,newark1 is hardly a big suburban road1 in the ,new ,york metropolitan district4 ,the great volume of ,commuters who will flock to its station nightly1 will be bound east1 not west4 ,the ,long ,island ,railroad1 its property stretching less than one hundred miles east from ,new ,york1 through what is one of the most attractive residential localities in the world1 is almost exclusively a suburban system4 ,long ,island is not a manufacturing or agricultural territory of consequence4 ,there is not a town of #aj1jjj souls east of the ,new ,york ,city line4 ,freight traffic and through traffic1 aside from some summer excursion business1 is conspicuous by its absence4 ,yet the ,long ,island operates through its local station at ,jamaica 7an even dozen miles distant from the new ,pennsylvania terminal71 more than #hjj trains a day4 ,that1 of itself1 represents a volume of traffic1 and speaks wonders for the desirability of the broad and sandy island as an escape from the city to the country4 ,we have from #ah1jjj to #bj1jjj ,commuters all the year round1 said a ,long ,island official1 just the other day2 and this branch of our traffic--our chief stronghold--is increasing at the rate of #be per cent annually4 ,we are trying to increase our facilities to keep pace with the demand made upon them2 that is why we became tenants in the new ,pennsylvania ,station4 ,for our share of that work we will pay #fe1jjj1jjj--some money4 ,but we cut twenty minutes off every ,commuter's trip in each direction every day1 and that is worth while in a day when every road is reaching out for new business4 ,we do not consider that #fe1jjj1jjj to save a man forty minutes a day is money ill-spent2 but ,i am frank in saying that we also expect our #be per cent annual increase to remain for several years in order to make good such an expenditure4 ,part of that #fe1jjj1jjj is yet to be spent on the electrification of the ,long ,island suburban lines1 within a zone of from #cj to #dj miles out from the new terminal4 ,the through trains running to the far eastern points of the island will run direct from the ,pennsylvania ,station as far as ,jamaica by electricity1 heavy motors hauling the standard equipment4 ,at ,jamaica1 in a million-dollar transfer station that is part of the big improvement scheme1 the steam locomotives will take up their part of the work4 ,electricity for long stretches of standard railroad where the traffic is comparatively slight is still an economic impossibility4 ,so much for ,new ,york1 where the lead has been taken in providing suburban service on the railroads operated by electricity4 ,the problem is being approached in ,boston--who1 like her larger sister1 refuses to stay put4 ,south ,station and ,north ,station1 on opposite sides of the city1 are of the largest size1 but they are beginning to feel the strain of traffic1 which forges ahead every year4 ,the ,metropolitan ,improvements ,commission of that city has already made a careful study of the problem4 ,it plans to relieve the situation by constructing a four-track tunnel from one station to the other1 and operating both of them--as far as suburban traffic is concerned--as through stations rather than as terminals4 ,in a word1 ,boston ,maine local trains entering ,north ,station would not end their runs there as at present1 but would continue through the proposed tunnel to a second stop at ,south ,station1 where they would become outgoing ,new ,york1 ,new ,haven1 ,hartford suburban locals4 ,the same operation would be continued in a reverse direction4 ,a more complicated adaptation of the scheme from a construction standpoint would still use the connecting tunnel and provide car-yards for the ,boston ,maine trains outside of ,south ,station1 with a similar yard for the ,new ,haven locals just beyond ,north ,station4 ,the main gain made by such a plan is the elimination of switching--the same point at which the ,new ,york ,central and the ,long ,island have aimed in making their suburban trains of multiple units4 ,with the hauling in and out of empty trains to and from a terminal eliminated1 the capacity may be almost doubled4 ,another gain is the convenience to passengers who under such a plan would be enabled to reach either side of the city without changing cars1 and a recourse to street transit facilities4 ,the ,boston plan1 of course1 embodies a change from steam to electricity as a motive power4 ,it is one of the most comprehensive plans yet submitted for the solving of the great problem of getting the city out into the country4 ,in ,philadelphia1 they are feeling the pressure of the ,commuter at both the big downtown terminals1 the ,pennsylvania and the ,reading1 while the first of these roads is already planning to electrify its suburban lines and to give ,broad ,street ,station exclusively to this class of traffic4 ,philadelphia is such a wide-spreading and sprawling town that the trolley lines have afforded little real rapid transit to the outlying sections1 while relief by subways and elevated lines has so far been meagre4 ,as a result1 a great burden of interurban as well as suburban traffic has been laid upon the railroads there1 and they have been compelled repeatedly to enlarge both track and station facilities4 ,the ,illinois ,central1 carrying a heavy traffic south of ,chicago1 has prepared plans for the electrification of #cbe miles of its suburban lines1 and radical enlargement of terminal facilities4 ,the ,illinois ,central has been very progressive in its methods of handling the ,commuter traffic4 ,its side-door cars1 permitting quick loading and unloading1 have long marked a progressive step in equipment4 ,the ,chicago and ,northwestern1 in its splendid new white marble terminal on the ,west ,side of ,chicago1 will give its chief use toward the upbuilding of a suburban traffic1 already strong and well developed4 ,the ,commuter covers a varied zone4 ,his station may be less than a mile from the terminal and his home still within the crowded confines of the town1 or he may be the last passenger of the train as it reaches the far end of its suburban run4 ,the average commutation district runs about #cj miles out1 with by far the heavier part of the traffic in the first #ae miles of this4 ,most of the railroads that cluster in at ,new ,york1 however1 issue commutation tickets out over a #gj or #hj-mile radius4 ,one man for many years held the record as a long-distance ,commuter4 ,he preferred to sleep nights within the quiet confines of ,philadelphia and his #ij-mile trip to ,new ,york1 with a #ij-mile return at the end of every day became a mere incident in his life4 ,his record was beaten this year4 ,a man arrives and departs from the ,grand ,central ,station five days out of the week1 who travels #cbj miles on every one of them4 ,he catches a fast train from his home town at seven o'clock in the morning1 breakfasts on the train1 and is at his ,new ,york office at #aa3cj o'clock4 ,he leaves his desk at #c3cj o'clock1 dines on the returning express1 and is home by eight4 ,his daily trip1 with all incidental expenses1 aggregates more than #ab4jj2 so he deserves to rank as the ,champion ,commuter4 ,if few ,commuters can approach the mileage record of this man there are many who do not hesitate at extra expenditures for their comfort4 ,about all of the best suburban expresses that come into ,new ,york carry some sort of club or private-parlor cars4 ,the club car is one of the most elaborate developments of the entire ,commuter idea4 ,it is a comfortable coach1 which is rented to a group of responsible men coming either from a single point or a chain of contiguous points4 ,the railroad charges from #bej to #cjj a month for the use of this car in addition to the commutation fares1 and the club arranges dues to cover this cost and the cost of such attendants and supplies as it may elect to place on its roving house4 ,it must guarantee a certain number of riders to the railroad every trip1 so the membership of the club is kept high enough to allow for a reasonable percentage failing to use the car daily4 ,some railroads go at the thing in another way4 ,they supply the car and its attendants and make a monthly extra charge1 in addition to commutation4 ,the car is entirely filled with regular riders1 so it is in a sense a club car4 ,such a car has been running for some years on one of the suburban trains of the ,harlem road4 ,it is unique in some ways1 and in these an outgrowth of early customs4 ,the first of these began years ago1 when the ,oldest ,commuter began his habit of riding to and from town in the baggage-car4 ,there is something about a baggage-car that fascinates the ordinary man traveller4 ,perhaps it is the solemn rule of the railroad that attempts to prevent him from riding in this form of conveyance4 ,at any rate in this particular case the ,oldest ,commuter gradually picks up an acquaintance with the baggageman2 and1 presuming upon that acquaintance gradually appropriates the baggageman's old chair for his own use4 ,the baggageman was good-natured1 for the ,oldest ,commuter was a generous fellow and never forgot ,christmas-times and the like4 ,he got another old chair from somewhere1 and all was well until the ,next ,oldest ,commuter absorbed the baggageman's chair1 and the baggageman had to bring a third into his car4 ,the ,next to the ,next ,oldest ,commuter swallowed that up1 and after a time there was a row of comfy old-fashioned chairs all around the edge of the dingy baggage-car1 and an atmosphere of smoke and good stories that warmed the cockles of the baggageman's heart4 ,you could have raised #ajj1jjj1jjj for an enterprise from the crowd of men who rode regularly in that little car1 but the baggageman neither knew nor cared about that4 ,he simply knew that there was a good crowd of ,commuters who rode with him daily4 ,after another little time the railroad took cognizance of that particular baggage-car4 ,the general passenger agent1 who was a fellow both wise and solemn1 talked with the general manager1 and one day that little club of ,commuters had a surprise4 ,instead of their baggage-car1 the down train hauled a bright new car all fitted with fancy things--curtains and carpets and big stuffed chairs1 and the baggageman was rigged out in a fine new uniform as an attendant4 ,the general passenger agent fondly imagined that he had made the one really happy stroke of his existence4 ,he had not4 ,his was a colossal mistake4 ,the club called for its baggage-car back again4 ,its members were men who were surfeited with mahoganies and impressive stuffed chairs and thick carpets4 ,they demanded their old dingy car1 with its four little windows1 its rough board floor and the wooden armchairs4 ,they got it back4 ,the big1 new1 showy car was sent off upon another route2 and the baggage-car--itself a club to which many a soul enviously craves for admission--makes its run six times a week on one of the fastest expresses on the line4 ,groups of men have staterooms regularly reserved for them in the parlor cars of the finest suburban expresses1 and there is never a word said of what goes on behind those closed doors4 ,there come whispers of antes that are as high as a church steeple1 but the railroad does not concern itself with the morals of its passengers to the point of breaking in upon closed doors4 ,the porters may know1 but the porters are traditionally wise and more than traditionally close-mouthed4 ,one big ,new ,york editor hired a stateroom for his daily ride in and out to his suburban home4 ,his secretary and his stenographer are closeted in it with him1 and on the #ej-minute ride twice each day he dictates the daily editorial utterances that delight a great congregation of his readers4 ,special trains for ,commuters are no particular novelty4 ,almost every big system has some daily suburban trains that are on its working time-tables and not upon the schedules that are given out to the public4 ,a group of aristocratic ,commuters living north of ,boston in the district around ,manchester have their private special into the ,north ,station every summer morning4 ,it is an all-parlor-car train1 the most luxurious suburban on the line1 yet not one ,commuter in a thousand knows a thing about it4 ,a similar train arrives and departs daily at the ,south ,station4 ,others are in service out of ,new ,york4 ,you can buy both exclusiveness and elegance from the railroad4 ,the ,commuter is not more concerned about that #e3cg than is the railroad4 ,it makes train and ,commuter both its concern1 because that is the way it seeks to build up its profitable suburban traffic4 ,we are getting more of the city out into the country each year1 says a big suburban passenger agent2 and with the wide increase in the use of electricity as a motive power for the standard railroads this business is bound for increases that we can hardly foresee to-day4 ,i think that ,i am quite safe in predicting that another decade will see the belt of from #cj to #ej miles outside of ,new ,york terminals as thickly settled as the belt from #aj to #cj miles is to-day settled4 ,the railroaders have done their part by expensive increase in terminal and track facilities2 they have helped the real-estate men in their broad advertising of the possibilities of suburban life3 the harvest is all that now remains to be reaped4 ,,chapter ,,xx ,,freight ,,traffic ,,income ,,from ,,freight ,,traffic ,,greater ,,than ,,from ,,passenger--,,competition ,,in ,,freight ,,rates--,,afterwards ,a ,,standard ,,rate-,,sheet--,,rate-,,wars ,,virtually ,,ended ,,by ,,the ,,interstate ,,commerce ,,commission ,,classification ,,of ,,freight ,,into ,,groups--,,differential ,,freight ,,rates--,,demurrage ,,for ,,delay ,,in ,,emptying ,,cars--,,coal ,,traffic--,,modern ,,methods ,,of ,,handling ,,lard ,,and ,,other ,,freight4 ,in ,england they speak of it as goods and regard it as almost a minor factor in the conduct of their railways4 ,in the ,united ,states it is freight-traffic1 and is the thing from which the railroads derive by far the greater part of their revenues4 ,in ,england it is represented by delicious little trails of goods-wagons1 four-wheelers of from five to eight or nine or ten tons' capacity1 the goods often left exposed to the rigors of winter1 save for possibly a tarpaulin covering2 in the ,united ,states1 fast-freights and slow-freights crowd upon one another's heels2 the sixty-ton steel car has long since come into its own4 ,if you do not realize the importance of the freight traffic1 you should talk to those shrewd old souls in ,wall ,street who measure a carrier1 not by its ticket sales1 but by that fascinating thing that they call tonnage2 you should go out upon the line and ask any operating man how his territory is holding up in traffic4 ,he will answer you in tons1 in freight-cars moved within a single twenty-four hours4 ,if you are still unconvinced1 go to the passenger man you know best4 ,he will tell you that while he is pleading vainly with the biggest boss of all for some new ,limited1 eight or ten passenger cars all told1 some shouldering freight-hustler has been welcomed into the inner sanctum and comes out with an ,o4 ,k4 for #hjj or #a1jjj box-cars or gondolas in his fist1 a dozen new freight-pulling locomotives in addition1 for good measure4 ,there is your answer4 ,the passenger terminals may have all the magnificence in which we have seen them1 but the freight terminals are the real core of a railroad's entrance into any town4 ,for when you come to even the roughest figures1 you find that in extreme cases--such as the ,new ,haven's1 where there is a congested territory1 closely filled with thickly populated cities and towns--the passenger receipts will hardly do more than approach a balance with those from freight4 ,in some cases the passenger earnings are hardly #be per cent of the railroad's entire income2 and cases like these are more common than the ,new ,haven1 holding ,new ,england as its own principality4 ,wonder not that ,wall ,street looks askance at any new line until it can prove itself able to develop train-load--freight traffic1 measured in thousands of tons4 ,your general freight agent1 who is a sort of official cousin to the general passenger agent1 is the man who studies tonnage4 ,more likely in these days of the exaltation of titles1 he is the freight traffic-manager1 with a group of subordinates around him and a traffic-skirmishing corps out on his own road and the other connecting roads1 who are making friends with shippers1 just as the young travelling passenger agents round up the theatrical managers and the brethren from the lodges4 ,the travelling freight agents hang around sidings and breathe affection for manufacturers and wholesalers2 they welcome to their very arms the business traffic-managers1 who are really glorified shipping clerks for great big concerns4 ,and while they cultivate the road in detail1 their big boss studies the territory in general4 ,the trade papers and the market bulletins litter his desk2 he can tell you strength or weakness in this thing or that--why cotton is off1 and wheat rushing upwards4 ,moreover1 the freight traffic-manager1 himself1 is not above friendships4 ,he will pack his own evening suit into a bag and go #ejj miles willingly to give shippers his own private explanation of the national rate complication4 ,did we say rate complication8 ,that seems almost too simple a name for the subtle and intricate structure which tells us how much we must pay the railroad for the transportation of our goods4 ,when we were visiting the passenger office1 we saw something of the work of the rate-clerks there4 ,we learned that1 in fact1 the railroad creates various classes of rates in the first place2 local or round-trip tickets1 at1 say1 three cents a mile for occasional travellers2 mileage books for more constant travellers1 which bring a wholesale rate of two cents a mile2 a third and lowest rate of something less than a cent for that urbane soul1 the ,commuter4 ,for excursions1 where many1 many persons were to be moved at one time1 perhaps upon a single train1 other very low passenger rates were created4 ,we also saw how the railroad1 trying to base its passenger charges on the number of miles covered1 is compelled to make delicate adjustments on through charges between competitive points4 ,we speak of these things now1 because in a way the passenger tariff resembles the freight1 and yet compares with it as a child's primer with a ,greek lexicon4 ,in an earlier day the thing was very much worse4 ,in fact1 at the very beginning there was no real scientific way in which the railroad might regulate its charges1 and on some of the very earliest of steel highways the rates were made just half what they had been on the toll-roads1 and without regard to the cost of transportation4 ,thus the competitive feature had its way early in the formulation of a rate-sheet2 and there is evidence to assert that in those early days when the railroad had an opportunity it made its tariff as high as it thought folk would stand without a riot1 and thus the now historic phrase what the traffic will bear came into coinage4 ,as a matter of fact1 in those days when scientific bookkeeping was unknown the railroad had no way of accurately knowing just how much it cost to operate1 and how that cost should be fairly apportioned between the different classes of its traffic4 ,the thing went from bad to worse as the great land carriers developed4 ,each made its rate-sheet according to its own sweet will2 it classified freight precisely as it pleased1 and the man down in ,new ,orleans sending goods to ,new ,hampshire was puzzled as to the charges that would accrue upon his shipment when it finally reached the northeastern corner of the country4 ,the competitive feature grew to be the strongest in the making of the rate-sheet1 unless it was the subtle influence of the railroad's favored friends1 an influence that showed its ugly head oftener in the practice of rebating than anywhere else4 ,the fierce competition that ruled between the railroads in the seventies has never been approached at another time4 ,ruinous rate-war after rate-war followed upon each other's heels1 and little roads kept dropping into bankruptcy1 one after another4 ,there was a time in #ahgg when a man might ship a carload of live-stock free from ,chicago to ,pittsburgh1 from ,chicago away through to ,new ,york for five dollars2 and there is hardly a more expensive commodity for the railroad to handle1 than cattle4 ,to appreciate what these wars meant to the carriers1 bear in mind that the week after this particular one was settled it cost the old rate--#aaj a car--to ship cattle from ,chicago to ,new ,york4 ,out of such guerilla warfare came the one possible thing--coperation4 ,the railroads were not then big enough to consolidate their properties1 ,j4 ,p4 ,morgan had not then developed his fine art of welding them together4 ,so they did the next best thing and made secret contracts--pooling4 ,that is1 they established a standard rate-sheet in their mutual territories and bound themselves to abide by it for a certain length of time4 ,they figured out their relative percentages of business at the beginning of any agreement1 and took from the combined earnings of the pool1 the same percentages of receipts4 ,the bitter outcry that went up across the land against pooling still echoes4 ,that practice with another now also prohibited--rebating--really gave birth to governmental regulation of railroads4 ,illustration3 ,,the ,,inside ,,of ,,any ,,freight-,,house ,,is ,a ,,busy ,,place ,illustration3 ,,st4 ,,john',s ,,park1 ,,the ,,great ,,freight-,,house ,,of ,,the ,,new ,,york ,,central ,,railroad ,,in ,,down-,,town ,,new ,,york ,illustration3 ,,the ,,great ,,ore-,,docks ,,of ,,the ,,west ,,shore ,,railroad ,,at ,,buffalo ,in #ahhg the ,interstate ,commerce ,commission was born1 and ruinous rate-warring practically came to an end4 ,the ,commission required the railroads to file with it copies of all their rate-sheets1 both freight and passenger1 and ordered that in almost every case thirty days' notice should be given of any change in the tariff4 ,this meant that the old practice of tearing a rate-sheet apart in a single night1 so as to jab vitally into the heart of a competitor1 was at an end4 ,and a dignified rate-war1 with the opponents giving thirty days' advance notice of their strategic intentions1 is almost an impossibility4 ,now come to the present4 ,the freight-rate system of to-day is intricate1 fearfully intricate1 but it is a system4 ,it begins by classifying all manner of freight into groups1 for it must be apparent to any one that to the railroad the cost of handling different commodities must vary tremendously4 ,several factors make for such variation3 the value of the shipment and the degree of risk for its safe transportation that the railroad must assume2 its bulk1 its weight1 and the cost of handling at terminals1 as well as the cost of any special equipment that may be necessary to carry it over the rails4 ,no one would expect a railroad to haul a box-car filled with several hundred thousand dollars' worth of silk for the same price that it hauled the same car filled with coke4 ,so the railroad has grouped its freight into six general classes--varying from the most difficult and expensive to handle down to the easiest and the cheapest2 and the rates for these six different classes also run in a rough proportion4 ,some #h1jjj articles1 ranging from arsenic to step-ladders and from ,christmas trees to locomotives1 are grouped into these classes4 ,into them has gone about everything that the railroad will handle1 save coal and a few other specialties which are rated as specific commodities and have special published rates4 ,so a man shipping feather dusters from ,south ,brooklyn to ,ogdensburg1 ,n4 ,y41 would find that they came under ,class #a1 and that he would have to pay #dd cents a hundred pounds for the haul4 ,if he was shipping steel beams between the same points he would find them under ,class #d and he would find the tariff at #bc cents a hundred4 ,these six classes have been made standard throughout the country by all the railroads in coperation4 ,the roads north of the ,ohio ,river and east of the ,mississippi use the so-called ,official ,classification2 south of the ,ohio and still east of the ,mississippi1 the ,southern ,classification2 while all those west of the ,mississippi use the ,western ,classification4 ,so the shipper is no longer in much doubt in these matters1 particularly in view of the fact that the three classifications are very much the same in all save minor details4 ,so much for the classification at this moment4 ,it is quite simple when you come to place it beside the tariff sheets themselves1 the printed form of an intricate structure1 so great as to be almost shadowy in its workings4 ,you ask a freight traffic-manager about rates4 ,he is a skilled man1 a man skilled in the economics of common carriers1 and he tries his best to explain simply to you the basing charges for the transportation of commodities4 ,our rates1 he says1 are formed by many things4 ,in a general way1 by the competitive territory into which we go1 and in specific cases by the volume of business that comes or goes from a single point4 ,the direction of the movement1 including whether cars must return empty or loaded1 is another factor4 ,then1 of course1 there is the great factor to which both passenger and freight rates must comply--the necessity for the railroad earning more than it pays out4 ,acworth1 the ,english economist1 says that a railroad must pay for three things1 the expense of maintaining the organization1 that of maintaining the plant1 and that of doing the work4 ,our revenues1 from one source or another1 must meet that triple expense4 ,ask this big freight-man about charging what the traffic will bear and he looks grieved4 ,he turns about sharply and asks you3 ,the earning-sheets of every railroad are public and they will show you that they are but making expenses1 in a few cases paying about half the dividends that a healthy national bank or trust company or manufacturing enterprise might be expected to return to its investors4 ,that makes it look as if we had begun to get some sort of scientific adjustment between expense and revenue1 does it not8 ,you dodge the point4 ,you have no desire to quarrel or to delve into high railroad finance1 and so you say you simply want to know about rates4 ,it's a little simpler than ,sanscrit1 says the freight-man4 ,we begin to figure on common or basing points-- ,you interrupt and inquire as to what a common point really is4 ,then the traffic expert gets down to primer talk and begins to explain the thing to your real understanding4 ,it seems that some years ago1 when the railroads first pooled they had to find an equitable method of making a rate-sheet4 ,everybody made suggestions1 and a ,pennsylvania freight-clerk1 named ,james ,mc,graham1 made the right one4 ,it was adopted and became the standard of to-day--which goes to show that good can sometimes come out of iniquity4 ,in this arrangement1 the rate for each of the six different classes and all the special commodities1 between ,new ,york and ,chicago was made #ajj per cent4 ,other towns1 both further and less distant from ,new ,york than ,chicago were given proportionate percentages1 ,st4 ,louis being fixed at #aag1 ,pittsburg #fj1 ,cleveland #ga1 ,detroit #gh1 ,indianapolis #ic1 ,peoria #aaj1 and ,grand ,rapids at #ajj--the same as ,chicago4 ,at the eastern end of this particular bit of territory--the ,official ,classification--a reduction of two or three cents a hundred was made from the ,new ,york rates in favor of ,baltimore and ,philadelphia1 a corresponding addition of two or three cents to meet the increased haul to ,boston4 ,no matter how you ship freight1 these rates now hold standard1 as long as the railroads remain faithful to their traffic associations4 ,you may ship from ,indianapolis to ,new ,york by way of ,cleveland and ,albany1 by ,marion and ,salamanca1 by ,columbus and ,pittsburgh1 or by ,cincinnati and ,parkersburg1 and although there is quite a wide variance in mileage between these routes1 the rate is the same on all the different roads that go to form them4 ,this standard1 simple as things go in freight-rates1 was not adopted in a moment4 ,bitter contentions on the part of cities and of shippers had to be settled before it ruled4 ,after it ruled1 it was easy for each road to build its own tariff upon it4 ,together these form a vast structure1 one that is constantly changing1 as one road or another changes its tariff under the pressure of shippers or of civic bodies1 or possibly a desire to establish more equitable schedules2 and the work these changes make can be imagined when it is stated that a single one of them in the ,official ,classification territory causes more than eight thousand changes in the rate-sheets of the railroads4 ,the choosing of ,chicago as the one hundred per cent city in the northeastern territory of the ,united ,states repeated the compliment to her prowess as a traffic city1 that the great yards which hedge her in for miles have paid her for many years4 ,she is one of the very greatest basing points1 where multiple rates or percentages are built from the single4 ,most of the very important commercial cities share this distinction1 which is further shared sometimes by comparatively unimportant points that happen to be the terminals of rather important railroads4 ,thus we find ,cincinnati and ,henderson1 ,louisville and ,evansville1 ,st4 ,louis and ,davenport1 ,chicago and ,peoria1 ,omaha and ,sioux ,city1 ,kansas ,city and ,leavenworth1 all possessing this railroad distinction4 ,so much for the standard rates4 ,just as certain railroad lines running from ,new ,york to ,chicago are permitted to charge two dollars less for tickets than other standard lines1 because of slower running time1 so does the same factor make a differential in freight rates4 ,big roads boast that they can haul the first-class freight--the preference freights--from one city to the other in sixty hours4 ,others take a longer time1 and are permitted by their larger competitors to make their prices a shade lower because of slower running time in freight service4 ,such a differential is the ,grand ,trunk1 handling ,new ,york-,chicago freight by a roundabout route1 from ,new ,york by water to ,new ,london1 ,conn41 and thence over the ,central ,vermont up into ,canada and the ,grand ,trunk's main line4 ,obviously such a longer route adds to the running-time and would be at a keen disadvantage in securing travel1 without a lower rate as bait for the shipper4 ,we have used ,new ,york-,chicago differentials simply as illustrative cases4 ,the differentials are apt to be found in any corner of the country where there are long hauls and a number of railroads fighting to secure them4 ,but the ,grand ,trunk as a factor in ,chicago traffic to and from ,boston brought one of the earliest and most interesting decisions from the ,interstate ,commerce ,commission4 ,st4 ,albans1 ,vt41 complained to that board that its local freight rate by ,boston ,maine and ,central ,vermont from ,boston was higher than the through rate from ,boston to ,chicago4 ,on the face of it1 it seemed as if justice must have rested with ,st4 ,albans1 but the railroad was able to prove its case and win a decision4 ,it showed that it could not live on shipments between ,boston and ,st4 ,albans and other local non-competitive points1 or on the business interchanged between these points4 ,to earn its bread and butter it must fight for the rich ,chicago traffic2 and to be in a position to fight for that traffic1 despite some disadvantage of location1 it must make very low rates4 ,it proved that these low rates were possible for business that went through in solid trains1 like ,boston-,chicago traffic1 and that each of these trains earned its proportion of the railroad's profit4 ,for when you come to handle freight at ,st4 ,albans1 more particularly the case in still smaller towns1 you bring on a new traffic expense1 and because of this expense we get what is known as back haul4 ,on the back haul small towns suffer and must probably continue to suffer until a still more equitable system of railroad rates can be devised4 ,sometimes it may come about in such a case at the ,st4 ,albans one just cited2 in other times because of water competition1 as in the famous ,spokane case1 to which we shall again refer2 and sometimes it is merely an arbitrary charge laid by the railroad4 ,in such cases the railroad reasons that it would cost1 in time and train delay ten dollars for every dollar's worth of freight switched off and delivered at certain small towns2 and so it figures upon hauling to the nearest large division point with large yards1 and sending it back from there on a way-train4 ,when such a small town is nearer the division yard at the far end of the route the back haul charge develops1 and the small town must grin and bear it4 ,if the small towns and the small cities1 with their vigorous organizations1 begin to complain too bitterly of the present system1 the traffic experts will turn to them and say3 ,devise a better system4 ,perhaps you would like the ,australian system1 where the charges diminish per mile1 for each additional mile covered by a consignment8 ,that may look good to the ,secretary of the ,chamber of ,commerce1 who has come down to headquarters with wrath in his eyes2 it looks absolutely equitable to every one2 and he nods yes4 ,the traffic-manager gleams with joy4 ,his quarry has stepped into the trap4 ,he turns upon him4 ,where would your dandy little town of #ce1jjj contented folks be under the ,australian system8 he demands4 ,the ,australian system would concentrate all business at water traffic points1 along the seaboard and the great lakes and rivers2 it would concentrate all manufacturing at the points from which comes the raw material4 ,where would the seven wholesalers of your town that we are all so proud of be located under the ,australian plan8 ,if the railroads were to adopt it1 it would save millions of dollars in bookkeeping alone1 but there would not be an interior distributing point in the entire country4 ,the ,secretary of the ,c4 of ,c4 is flustered4 ,he was a young newspaper reporter before he reached his present high estate4 ,he flounders4 ,the traffic man is a man of ready wit and even readier figures4 ,still the young ,secretary feels that he must show a few grains of wisdom1 and so he gently makes inquiry about the ,spokane case4 ,that ,spokane case1 also a famous decision of the ,interstate ,commerce ,commission1 shows another factor in railroad rate-making1 the serious influence of water competition4 ,indirectly it also includes the principle of the back haul4 ,spokane1 which is much nearer ,chicago than ,seattle1 was1 like ,st4 ,albans1 paying a higher rate for the short haul than ,seattle was paying for a much longer haul4 ,but ,seattle is a prosperous port1 and if the railroad did not make a very low rate to it1 all the slow freight would go to it by water1 where much lower transportation expense invariably makes much lower rates1 and the railroad1 to save its own skin1 as it were1 must make a low through rate there1 charging a back haul or higher rate to ,spokane from the large eastern points4 ,if it charged ,spokane a proportionate rate of the one to ,seattle1 which would then be lower1 all the other inland towns would demand the same privilege1 and the railroad would then be hauling property at a loss--a business which can have but one inevitable result4 ,you see how complicated it all is1 the traffic manager tells the young ,secretary1 and how we must use judgment all the while4 ,we've got to figure individual cost for certain distances and localities and directions of traffic1 figure in the varying cost of handling different sorts of freight1 and then put in a percentage of the general cost of the business1 just as the restaurant-keeper makes each patron pay proportionately for the cost of bread and butter1 heat1 light1 service and rent1 no matter how large or how small his check may be on any one occasion4 ,we must use judgment1 and we must make rates to keep the goods moving all the while4 ,suppose that both nails and crowbars are made in ,pittsburgh and only nails are made at ,williamsport4 ,suppose then that the rate from ,pittsburgh to ,new ,york for both crowbars and nails is fifty cents a hundred1 but that the rate from ,williamsport to ,new ,york was but #ch cents4 ,what chance would the nail manufacturer in ,pittsburgh have against his competitor in ,williamsport1 when both men are making annually nails in tens of thousands of tons8 ,it is to help the ,pittsburgh man that we make a special #ch-;cent rate on nails from his town to ,new ,york2 and when we keep filing these commodity rates at ,washington1 your shippers ask why we can't have a standard rate-sheet1 or the ,australian system4 ,the next time some one of them finds that he cannot sell plough shares in ,texas because a man down in ,fort ,wayne has him beaten on standard rates1 you watch him hurry here and ask for a special one4 ,it is out of this clamor and contention of almost myriad interests1 the ambitions of just such thriving little cities as your own1 out of the skilled arguments of brainy men that the rate-sheet is born and kept living in a state of perpetual healthy change4 ,we are tired of rates and the factors that go to make them1 and inquire what is the ,a1 ,b1 ,c of a freight transaction between the railroad and a shipper4 ,the traffic-man makes it quite clear to us4 ,when one of our agents receives a consignment of freight1 he says1 he immediately issues a bill of lading to the shipper1 or consignor1 as a receipt and as a contract for the shipment4 ,from his duplicate of this bill of lading he makes out a way-bill1 or manifest1 which will accompany the car until the freight reaches its destination4 ,this way-bill describes the shipment and the car into which it has been loaded1 specifies the shipping point and the destination1 the consignor and the consignee1 the rate and whether or not the charges have been paid in advance or are to be collected at destination4 ,a copy of this way-bill is given to the freight-conductor1 who gives the station agent a receipt for the consignment4 ,at that place of destination a freight-bill1 containing a description of the shipment similar to that of the way-bill1 and showing in addition the total charge collected or to be paid1 is rendered to the consignee1 and his receipt is taken for the shipment when it is delivered4 ,it seems quite simple1 you breathe softly4 ,it is not1 is his reply1 for it has its complications4 ,i'll show you one of them4 ,we step through swinging doors of green baize and for a moment from a traffic into an operating department1 but an operating department that for the telling in a work of this sort is best allied with the story of the freight traffic4 ,the traffic-manager points to a man sitting at a square and littered desk1 his thoughts with sturdy intent upon the mass of correspondence which he is quickly sifting4 ,he is the best car-service man in the country1 says our guide2 and you recall when you were in the auditor's office1 that an accounting was being kept between the lines for the use of one another's cars that went on through runs off upon strange or foreign lines4 ,the traffic-man continues3 ,ours is not a big road1 as some roads go4 ,yet we receive about #dj1jjj cars a month and1 of course1 deliver something like the same number in the same thirty days4 ,yet there is not an hour of any day of the month that this man cannot tell where any one of these cars is1 just how long it has been upon our tracks1 just how much free time the consignee has for unloading it1 or just how much he will have to pay the railroad for his delay in emptying it1 so it can get back into service once again4 ,that waiting charge1 the traffic-man explains1 is known in the parlance of his business as demurrage2 and it is another keen example of the constant use to which a railroad puts its equipment1 of the tremendous economy that is beginning to be practised in the modern science of railroading4 ,you are introduced to the car-service man1 bend low over his desk as he explains a bit of his work to you4 ,here1 for example1 is a car filled with automobiles bound from ,detroit to a dealer in ,worcester1 ,mass4 ,this car1 in a train of some #fj others1 leaves ,detroit east-bound over the ,michigan ,central ,railroad4 ,at ,buffalo it is switched to the tracks of the ,new ,york ,central ,hudson ,river ,railroad4 ,on the evening of the second day it arrives at ,rensselaer1 across the ,hudson ,river from ,albany1 and is given over to the ,boston ,albany ,railroad4 ,to make a concrete instance1 let us see how the ,b4 ,a4 handles the thing through its car-service department4 ,that department swings into quick action automatically1 as soon as the car strikes ,b4 ,a4 rails at ,rensselaer4 ,the freight agent there makes a note of the car and its contents from the way-bill which accompanies it2 makes special note1 perhaps1 of the fact that it is a car designed particularly for the transportation of automobiles4 ,now let us presume that this big box-car is owned by the ,michigan ,central4 ,the ,boston ,albany will pay that owner railroad #ce cents a day rental--per diem1 in the phraseology of the railroads--for the time it is upon ,b4 ,a4 rails4 ,there are at that very time perhaps hundreds of ,b4 ,a4 cars on the ,michigan ,central1 and at the end of #cj days these accounts and many1 many others are sent to the auditor's department1 where they are balanced between the roads with the general freight and passenger accounts4 ,this movement of freight cars makes a valuable barometer of the general condition of business4 ,the daily papers have a custom of making national compilations of car-service reports part of their most interesting market news4 ,in dull seasons the cars come home from long service on other roads4 ,but in very busy seasons all roads have little compunction about borrowing foreign cars for use in their local service4 ,with shippers begging cars from every quarter and threatening all manner of dire things1 #ce cents daily is a small rental to pay for the use of a roomy car4 ,besides1 the other fellows are all doing the same thing1 and no one road can hope to get all its cars back even with the use of a vigilant corps of young men who search foreign yards4 ,but in the dull seasons they come trundling home1 like lost cattle finding the big barn once again4 ,in the business depression of #aijg1 a ,western car-service man received cars that had been absent from the home road for seven years4 ,we turn from the car-service men back into a department that is strictly traffic4 ,coal service is one of the principal sources of income for this particular railroad4 ,it stretches some of its branches into bituminous fields1 and others through the anthracite fields that ,nature1 in some freakish mood1 implanted in just a few counties of ,northeastern ,pennsylvania4 ,that entire country is comparable to a cut of beef1 the coal veins resembling streaks of fat that run hither and thither4 ,as in beef1 the lean predominates4 ,the fat streaks are the valuable coal veins1 the lean the earth1 slate and rock in which the coal was planted during some great convulsion of ,nature in the process of the creation of the world4 ,how it got into this particular spot science cannot tell4 ,what it is1 further than the fact that it is mostly carbon1 science only guesses4 ,it guesses that it was originally bituminous coal and that by some process of intense squeezing in an upheaval of ,nature1 the oil and tar and gas of the bituminous coal was squeezed out and the much more valuable anthracite deposits created4 ,mining consists in getting the streaks of fat anthracite out of the bulk of lean earth and rock4 ,the veins run well down into the mountains1 and1 as do the little streaks of fat1 lose themselves in the rock1 or lean1 to continue the simile4 ,some of the veins are but a few feet in thickness1 while some run to as high as twenty and thirty feet1 and1 as a rule1 the farther down into the earth they go the better the coal2 and the farther down you go the more difficult and expensive is the mining4 ,now1 here is a traffic that demands and receives special attention4 ,in other days the mining of anthracite coal was1 itself1 merely a department of operating for the half-dozen systems that stretched their rails into that valuable ,pennsylvania corner4 ,that work has now been removed into the control of separate mining companies2 but the handling of coal is a great function of not only these roads1 but of the systems that reach their tendrils into the valuable bituminous fields here and there about the country4 ,illustration3 ,,the ,,great ,,bridge ,,of ,,the ,,new ,,york ,,central ,,at ,,watkins ,,glen ,illustration3 ,,building ,,the ,,wonderful ,,bridge ,,of ,,the ,,idaho ,,washington ,,northern ,,over ,,the ,,pend ,,oreille ,,river1 ,,washington ,to fill the coal-bins of ,new ,york ,city alone1 requires some #aj1ejj1jjj tons of anthracite yearly4 ,now you cease to wonder why this road has a coal traffic expert1 a man of surpassingly good salary4 ,he keeps keen oversight over the operating department in its handling of this giant traffic1 sees to it that the trains come over the mountains and into the great terminals at ,jersey ,city in good order1 and that the railroad's marine department is ready with tugs and scows and lighters to handle the product as it comes in1 in thousands of tons every twenty-four hours4 ,this would all be quite simple if the trains and the boats were always running on schedule4 ,but the unexpected constantly comes to pass in railroading1 and so the railroads provide against emergencies by establishing great coal storage plants outside of ,new ,york and other large cities--communities that would be in dire distress if their coal supply were cut short even for twenty-four hours4 ,sometimes about #ejj1jjj tons will be kept in a single one of these storage piles--a black mountain running lengthwise between sidings and served with giant cranes4 ,we are back in the traffic-manager's comfortable office for a final word with him4 ,he is fumbling with his own correspondence4 ,it seems that a lawyer down in ,washington has been saying that he could save the railroads of the land a million dollars a day in the economical operation of their property1 and the railroader is exceedingly wroth at that assertion4 ,he speaks of pig iron1 and says that we should teach our laborers the minimum movements necessary to put a single pig in a car--just as masons have been taught to handle brick with minimum effort and a maximum economy in work accomplished has been effected4 ,the traffic-man laughs1 rather harshly4 ,the lawyer is all right1 except for two things2 and his anecdote about the brick is certainly well told4 ,only it just happens that the railroad does not load or unload freight by the carload--that is the duty of the consignor and the consignee--and it also happens that pig iron rarely is handled ,l4,c4,l4 ,in carload lots it is not loaded or unloaded by hand1 but by big magnets on a crane which picks up a ton of the bars at a time and thinks nothing of it4 ,the freight traffic-manager has made his point once again1 and he is satisfied4 ,he tells a little of the modern methods in freight handling1 one of them how an ingenious packing-house expert in ,chicago saved thousands of dollars annually in the handling of lard4 ,in other days lard was rolled aboard box-cars1 a barrel to a hand-truck1 a rather slow and a rather costly process4 ,the ,chicago man devised a method of melting lard and1 while it was fluid1 pouring it1 like petroleum1 into a tank-car4 ,when it reached its destination at some big terminal1 the lard was again melted to fluid and poured out from the tank4 ,that is the science of big freight handling to-day4 ,not alone do cranes1 with magnet-bars handle pig-iron and castings by the ton1 but great hoists at ,cleveland and ,conneaut and the other big lake towns close to the ,pittsburgh district reach deep into the hearts of giant ships1 bring from them the ore of ,lake ,superior's shores1 and fill the whole waiting trains within fifteen or twenty minutes4 ,into the empty holds of the ships they pour bituminous coal from ,western ,pennsylvania and ,west ,virginia1 a carload at a time4 ,the hoist-crane reaches down to the dock siding for a gondola1 snaps the car-body off from the trucks1 lifts it aloft over the open hatch of the waiting vessel1 and turns it upside down4 ,in less time than it takes to tell it1 the coal is in the ship1 and the car-body is being slipped back again upon its trucks4 ,,chapter ,,xxi ,,the ,,drama ,,of ,,the ,,freight ,,fast ,,trains ,,for ,,precious ,,and ,,perishable ,,goods--,,cars ,,invented ,,for ,,fruits ,,and ,,for ,,fish--,,milk ,,trains--,,systematic ,,handling ,,of ,,the ,,cans--,,auctioning ,,garden-,,truck ,,at ,,midnight--,a ,,historic ,,city ,,freight-,,house4 ,perhaps you have seen a gay ,limited in green and gold start forth with much ado from some big city station1 and have concluded that the romance of the railroad rests with it2 that the long lines of murky-red freight cars have little of the dramatic about them4 ,if you have thought that1 you have thought wrong4 ,romance and drama reach high climax sometimes in the transportation of commodities4 ,fast trains1 running upon the express schedules of the finest ,limiteds1 sometimes bring silk1 #b1jjj1jjj or #c1jjj1jjj worth to the train1 across the continent4 ,a special may be hired by some impatient manufacturer to send a shipment through half a dozen ,states4 ,there are notable speed records in the handling of fast freight1 records of notable trains that are as well known among the traffic specialists as the ,limiteds are known to the outside world4 ,there is drama1 too1 when the railroad brings the food up to the city1 for it counts as one of its greatest functions this filling of the city's larder4 ,it sets aside certain high officers in its traffic department for the handling of market produce2 it provides special facilities for gathering it1 special facilities for moving it1 special terminal facilities for delivering it in the hearts of the great cities4 ,sometimes it even goes further and provides and organizes great wholesale markets1 building up its traffic by going as far as possible in facilitating the constant replenishing of the city's larder4 ,that is why these long dark caravans1 the fast preference freights that are the pride of the railroad's traffic head1 go so quickly over the rails to town4 ,one of them halts in block for an instant to let a brightly lighted passenger train go in ahead of it4 ,while it is halted we climb aboard and engage its conductor in conversation4 ,he is a clever fellow1 of the type of the coming railroader4 ,only last summer1 we found a freight conductor thumbing his ,sartor ,resartus1 and discussing ,carlyle as a stylist4 ,yes1 we do bring some food up to town1 he admits4 ,i've got enough grub aboard these eighty cars to feed several regiments4 ,we've two refrigerators of meat from ,omaha1 two from ,kansas ,city1 one from ,chicago4 ,the ,chicago car has been iced twice--at ,elkhart and at ,altoona4 ,the other cars had to have an extra filling at ,hammond1 on the outskirts of ,chicago4 ,soon we'll have crisp cold weather and we can cut out the icing4 ,the boss8 ,the boss will be worrying still4 ,just as soon as he can cut down his refrigerating stations at the division yards1 he'll be fretting about getting those big ice-houses filled for next summer4 ,he's got a lake tucked up in the mountain divisions somewhere1 and we've got a branch running in a couple of miles there1 and we just pull out the ice during the winter months4 ,you take any of these trunk-lines and it has to have a lake for its refrigerating stations4 ,it's just one of the many little kinks in running a road4 ,we express a desire to see the big preference train1 and--the block being still set against her--we go forward in the black shadows of the cars1 the train boss's arm-set lantern showing our way to us4 ,he stops beside a string of white and yellow box-cars4 ,california fruit1 he says2 they don't think anything of sending it all the way across the continent4 ,you might have thought those ranchers over there on the ,pacific coast would have been discouraged when they were told that there were a dozen icing stations between the two oceans1 and that the icing cost was prohibitive4 ,they weren't a bit4 ,they just sat down and did some tall thinking1 and after a while they developed this type of car4 ,we call it pre-cooled4 ,the car is cleaned and brought to a chill before loading4 ,after that the temperature is not allowed to rise while the fruit is being piled away inside4 ,it is closed and sealed1 while still ice-cold1 and icy-cold she comes bumping her way east over three or four thousand miles of track4 ,it may be scorching down there along the ,s4 ,p42 they may be just gasping for air in the ,missouri bottoms2 but that pre-cooled car comes right along1 keeping its cargo fresh and cool and pure4 ,we can deliver her anywhere here on the ,atlantic seaboard1 and no risk of spoiling the stuff4 ,we slip along another half-dozen cars4 ,the conductor halts again and fumbles with his way-bills4 ,there's the boy1 he laughs4 ,he's halibut4 ,there's half a dozen halibuts along here in a string4 ,we do not like to show an utter ignorance of the food question and we venture an assertion4 ,halibut comes from ,newfoundland8 we ask4 ,how do you get it around here8 ,the freighter grins sympathetically at our lack of knowledge4 ,bless you1 he says4 ,that little fishing pond up there on the ,banks isn't big enough for a land which has #bg1jjj1jjj folks gathered in its cities4 ,these cars have come in from big ,yem ,hill's road--all the way from ,tacoma up on ,puget ,sound--,state of ,washington4 ,some of those people who live in ,boston might have a fit if they knew that their beloved halibut was born and raised in the ,pacific ,ocean2 but that's the truth of the matter4 ,this fish 7and some of it's going straight to ,boston to be sold in the very shade of ,faneuil ,hall71 has come #g1jjj miles to be eaten on the very shores of the ,atlantic4 ,when the fishing ship that caught this cargo was fifty miles off the docks1 she began calling ,tacoma with her wireless4 ,the yardmaster of the ,northern ,pacific was ready there for the news from that rat-a-tap4 ,he had a string of refrigerator cars ready2 they were ready and set out along the wharf by the time the ship was made fast4 ,five minutes later the fish were being loaded into the cars4 ,they had a gang of stevedores working there clock-like1 as those fellows work around the big tents of a three-ring circus4 ,first there went in a layer of ice1 then a layer of fish1 then another of ice4 ,in thirty minutes the job was done4 ,in forty-five minutes that string of fish-cars was coming east on an express-train schedule4 ,it was knocked apart at ,st4 ,paul and again at ,chicago4 ,here's our share of the spoils1 and we're not loafing here on the old main line4 ,we're preference freight1 if you please1 and no old bumpety-bump with coal and ore taking the low-grade tracks4 ,they sandwich us in among the all-,pullmans1 even when we're on the four-track divisions1 for food is quick2 food won't keep forever2 and those folks down in the city are getting hungry4 ,he starts to say more1 but the engine call halts him4 ,the block is clear once again4 ,the conductor catches a car step1 the preference starts forward with all the rattling shakes and bumps peculiar to a long freight train4 ,in a minute or two the red tail-lights are grinning at us from half a mile down the track4 ,another big freight goes scurrying by us--more market stuff1 more meat1 more fish for the hungry town1 a town which houses #d1jjj folk within a single congested tenement square4 ,a third train follows2 all refrigerator cars it is too4 ,they come in quick succession1 these market trains1 to the metropolis4 ,the railroad is doing its part4 ,to-night again1 the food is going up to the city4 ,the scene changes4 ,now we are off in the rolling country of up-,state--dairy country1 if you please4 ,the railroad that stretches its thick black trail the length of the valley is no four-track line1 with heavy trains coursing over it every three or four or five or ten minutes4 ,this is but a single-track branch2 in the parlance of the railroaders it is a jerkwater2 and the coming of its two passenger trains and that of the way-freight each day are events in the little towns that line it4 ,still1 even this little branch is doing its part in the filling of the city's larder4 ,this branch has the filling of the city babies' milk bottles as its own particular problem4 ,at early dawn1 the muddy brown roads that lead to the little depot there at the flour mills are alive4 ,the farmer boys are bringing the milk to the railroad4 ,down the track a few hundred yards beyond the depot is the slick1 clean1 new milk-station4 ,over across the brook is the cheese-factory1 deserted and given over to the gentle fingers of decay4 ,those two buildings tell the story of changing times2 in their mute way they tell the growth of the ,american city4 ,in other days this township made cheese4 ,to-day they drive the milk to the depot4 ,each morning finds a big refrigerator car1 built in the fashion of passenger equipment1 so that it may be handled on passenger trains1 at the milk station4 ,the farmer boys are prompt with their milk1 it is checked and weighed and placed in the car1 in cans and in bottles4 ,hardly has the last big ten-gallon can gone clattering into the car before the whistle of the warning local is heard up the line1 just beyond the curve at the water-tank4 ,while the train is at the depot1 in all the bustle of the comings and goings at a country station1 the engine makes quick drill movement and picks up the milk-car4 ,farther down the line that same train picks up more milk-cars4 ,by the time it reaches the junction where it intersects the main line it is a considerable train for a branch line4 ,indeed at the junction there are more milk-cars1 from other branches that ramble off into the real back-country4 ,there are enough of them now to make a train through to the city4 ,the trainmaster has a good engine ready for every afternoon1 and the milk express goes scurrying into town with passenger rights and on passenger schedules4 ,you cannot hurry the babies' milk through to town any too quickly4 ,this is all first-day milk4 ,you can take a compass1 place the pin-leg squarely in the heart of the busy town--a place of brick and asphalt1 of steel and concrete1 without ever a hint of growing things--and with the pencil-leg trace a segment of a circle--the outer line some #bjj miles distant from the centre4 ,afterwards you can draw a second circle segment1 its outer line some #cej miles from the same town centre4 ,from within the inner circle comes the first-day milk1 delivered to the railroad during the early part of a day and on the householder's table in the big city the next morning4 ,from without this inner circle and within the outer1 comes the second-day milk which has another twenty-four hours in its transit to town4 ,the whole thing1 once rather badly handled by itinerant single dealers1 has been reduced to scientific business by skilful coperation between the big milk-dealers of the present day and the railroads4 99 99 99 99 99 ,it is night4 ,the last of the office lights in the towering buildings has been snuffed out4 ,downtown is quiet--quiet for a little time1 for soon after sun-up it will be a vortex once again2 these narrow1 deep-canyoned streets will be astir and human-filled once again4 ,but at nine o'clock in the evening the policeman's footfall on the pavement echoes in lonely streets4 ,a tired bookkeeper scurrying home after a vexatious hunt for his balances gets sharp scrutiny from the policeman4 ,downtown is asleep4 ,then1 from around the turn of a sharp corner comes a night train of wagons1 drawn by a small brigade of horses4 ,these are not filled with market-truck2 market-truck will not reach the town till midnight at the earliest4 ,these are great high-boxed vans1 painted white1 a bit gaudy in lettering4 ,they make you think of those long-ago days when you used to go down to the depot to see the circus come in1 for the big wagons are precisely like those that used to shroud mystery as they rolled from the trains down to the show-lot4 ,we follow this procession of half a dozen great vans1 follow it through the twisting1 narrow streets of downtown1 across a famous old ferry1 straight up to the long sheds of a railroad terminal4 ,on the one side of the terminal1 the passenger trains are coming and going at all hours4 ,by day this shed at which the big vans back1 each into its own carefully marked place1 is a general freight-house2 by night it is given over to the stocking of the city babies' milk bottles4 ,the ferried vans are hardly emptied of their empty cans and cases before the first of the milk trains comes backing in at the other side of the long covered platform4 ,hissing arcs up under that slimsy roof throw high lights and deep shadows here and there and everywhere4 ,they show the platform-men tugging at the car fastenings before the brakes are fairly released4 ,in another minute1 the big side-doors are thrown open1 almost simultaneously1 in still another1 the place is alive with the rattle of trucks4 ,the milk--tons upon tons of it--in ten-gallon cans and in cases of individual bottles1 is being loaded within those circus-like cans4 ,a second milk-train comes bumping in at a far platform4 ,there is another brigade of vans waiting for it there4 ,a third train is due to arrive in another half-hour4 ,the vans that it will fill are already beginning to back into place and unload their cans and cases upon the platforms4 ,here are almost #bjj great four-horse trucks being filled simultaneously1 and all working with the almost rhythmic harmony of organization4 ,you want to know how they do it8 ,ask that man over there1 he in a short rough coat1 who carries a lantern on his arm and with it peers interestedly into every one of the cars4 ,that man's word is law on this platform1 for he is its boss4 ,he has been filling the babies' milk bottles from this particular terminal for almost a quarter of a century now4 ,his railroad was the first to bring milk into a large city4 ,we get it over1 he will tell you1 by the experience of some little time1 and by planning4 ,you saw the numbers on the team side of this milk platform4 ,that's only half the problem4 ,there are a dozen different milk-handling concerns doing business at this shed1 and their stuff comes together on this one train4 ,yet we get the thing out by having each concern--each truck--come up to its own position at the team side4 ,the other half of the problem we solve by having a certain position for each milk-car4 ,here is the ,hygienic ,milk ,company up on the ,heights4 ,you have seen their fancy dairies all over town4 ,well1 the ,hygienic has a station up at ,bottger's1 on our ,lancaster ,essex division1 that fills two cars at that station every blessed day4 ,their two cars stand in beyond this ,no4 #ad pillar every night2 so we know just where to direct their trucks4 ,that's business--just system4 ,we spot the cars every night4 ,spot the cars8 you interrupt4 ,he smiles a bit at your ignorance4 ,this train is made up in just the same fashion every night1 he explains4 ,these two ,hygienic cars are always the fifth and sixth4 ,if they were the eighth and ninth some nifty evening--if some smart ,aleck of a yardmaster up the line would take to shuffling up these cars as you shuffle a deck of cards--we would have a near riot here1 and ,i couldn't get these platforms cleared of the milkmen for that market-truck train that backs in here from the south every night at #aa3ee4 ,illustration3 ,,inside ,,the ,,west ,,albany ,,shops ,,of ,,the ,,new ,,york ,,central3 ,,picking ,,up ,a ,,locomotive ,,with ,,the ,,travelling ,,crane ,illustration3 ,a ,,locomotive ,,upon ,,the ,,testing-,,table ,,at ,,the ,,altoona ,,shops ,,of ,,the ,,pennsylvania ,illustration3 ,,the ,,roundhouse ,,is ,a ,,sprawling ,,thing ,illustration3 ,,denizens ,,of ,,the ,,roundhouse ,so they keep closely to the formation of our trains1 and that of itself is no terminal problem4 ,away up the line #ij miles--#aej1--bej1--;everywhere that we have a big junction yard1 the yard boss has his positive instructions about these milk trains4 ,by the time this fellow has cleared out of ,p---- ,j----1 #ij miles up the road and our nearest road yard outside of the metropolitan district1 it's always in just the shape you see it to-night4 ,after that there's nothing to be done here except cut off the road engine at our terminal yard and pick out a switcher to back her into position at this shed4 ,it's nice work1 and night after night that engineer of the switcher does not vary four inches in the locations of these car-doors4 ,he lifts his lantern1 and we peek into the interior of one of these cool milk-cars4 ,this has the bottled milk in cases4 ,the cases are packed four tiers high--never higher--and your guide explains to you that four cases is the limit of a hand-truck4 ,all these things make for simplicity in handling4 ,you peer into another car4 ,the ten-gallon cans are in long diagonal rows1 covering the entire floor of the car4 ,they form a regular tessellated pattern1 like the marble tiling of old-fashioned hotels and banks4 ,those little farmer boys1 says the platform boss1 sure do that trick well4 ,that speaks pretty neat for ,sullivanville4 ,they all used to put the cans in straight rows1 running lengthwise of the car4 ,one day one of the smartest of those ,sullivanville boys discovered that by putting the cans in diagonal rows1 this-wise1 he would gain a hundred cans in the loading4 ,that added a thousand gallons to the capacity of the car4 ,the ,super gave him a good job1 and some day you'll see he'll be running a railroad of his own4 99 99 99 99 99 ,midnight4 ,downtown is still more deserted1 if that is possible1 than when we first saw it three hours ago4 ,the stillness of the deep night is hard upon the city2 yet here on this broad quay street which runs its stone-paved length up and down past the wharves of the harbor-front1 all is alive4 ,this is the midnight market4 ,under the very noses of the steamships that have brought this garden-truck up from the south1 it is being auctioned off to a hundred or so keen-nosed1 keener-witted wholesalers4 ,they wander about under long awning roofs erected in the centre of the street1 through the gaunt open shadowy spaces of the piers1 poking into the tops of barrels1 pinching1 tasting1 critically examining all the while that they are dickering in prices4 ,when the day is fully born and downtown alive once again1 there will be other wholesale markets1 more sedate-looking affairs in rooms that have been built for the purpose by the traffic departments of the railroads4 ,in these rooms1 with the seats arranged in tiers and each seat having a broad writing arm like a college classroom1 fruit and vegetables will be sold in carload lots4 ,there will be records of prices--quotations4 ,the thing will approach the dignity of those bourses where cotton and coffee and metals and securities are sold4 ,but the midnight market scorns such formalities1 such dignities4 ,it clings to its own hubbub--its own unsystematic way of accomplishing a great business4 ,it prefers to sell as the stuff is unloaded2 that has been its method for three-quarters of a century and any method that has stood #ge years is at least entitled to a measure of consideration4 ,but not all its offerings have come by these big coasting steamships1 whose outlines show vague at their piers in the darkness of the night4 ,for1 grinding against the piles of these same wharves1 as the unseen tide changes1 are groups of car-floats that have been ferried from the great railroad terminals across the river4 ,each car-float has two trackfuls of refrigerator cars--#ab or #ad or #af in all--lined against a long roofed platform running just above keel4 ,when the pert and busy little tugs have pushed and pulled and bunted the floats all into position1 the platforms are quickly connected by gangways1 canvas-covered against the stress of hard weather4 ,a great freight-house1 almost ,venetian in type1 floats upon the surface of the silent river and becomes part and parcel of the pier itself4 ,after that it is quick work to open each of the cars--to wheel out sample barrels of potatoes1 of cabbage1 of celery1 of lettuce1 of cauliflower--all the growing things of country farms that go to feed the hungry city4 ,the trading here is over in an hour1 or two hours at the longest when the shipments are heavy2 and then the wholesalers are wheeling their wagons into place to cart away their purchases to their own stores and warehouses4 ,from these the retailers--the men who carry on their businesses in stalls in the public market-houses and those that have their own little shops on the street corners--make their selections4 ,if you are a city man1 you may now know that your grocer at the corner is up betimes1 when the sun is just showing himself on lazy ,september mornings4 ,he has been poking his way with his own horse and wagon down to the wholesalers1 buying his day's stock and getting it placed just before the earliest of the housewives begins her marketing4 ,you demand a concrete example of a city freight-house2 and here it is--the historic ,st4 ,john's ,park of the ,new ,york ,central ,hudson ,river ,railroad in ,new ,york4 ,up over the lines of the ,central1 back for hundreds of weary miles1 you may hear the railroaders speak of the ,park1 you may see long strings of cars1 bearing merchandise tagged through to it4 ,at ,sixtieth ,street1 where the big freights of the ,new ,york ,central come to a final halt1 you see the cars sent south in long strings1 each hauled by a red dummy locomotive and preceded by a boy astride a horse and holding a red flag1 a familiar sight to all ,new ,yorkers who reside upon the far west side of the town4 ,st4 ,john's ,park handles a very large percentage of all the perishable food that comes into ,new ,york each day4 ,it is the dingy freight-house that fills the double block between ,hudson and ,varick and ,beach and ,laight ,streets2 and when you ask1 ,where is the park8 they will tell you that there was a day when the entire site of this freight-house--possibly the most congested in the world--was a gentle tree-filled square that faced old ,st4 ,john's ,church4 ,there is never a trace of the park nowadays4 ,the old church now faces a narrow street wherein truckmen shove and elbow and disappear in the gates of the freight station4 ,on the ,hudson ,street side of the structure six pairs of railroad tracks curve into it2 and far above on the cornice of the structure one can see the benign figure of the old ,commodore--a heroic bronze surrounded by replicas of the trains and the steamships that he loved so well4 ,the building of the large freight station on the site of ,st4 ,john's ,park away back in #ahfh was a real accomplishment to the first of the house of ,vanderbilt4 ,think of it3 that freight-house could hold #ajj cars4 ,there was nothing else in all the broad land quite like that6 ,into ,st4 ,john's ,park at dawn come trainloads of produce4 ,even before the doors of the freight-house have opened1 at six1 a string of coolers has stopped in ,hudson ,street and the commission men are carting out the poultry4 ,as soon as the station gets down to real business1 butter and eggs and cheese pour in through it in carload lots4 ,it doesn't bother us much1 the foreman tells you4 ,still1 on the ,monday before ,christmas we had a fairly brisk day4 ,we had #aee cars of turkeys alone that morning4 ,,chapter ,,xxii ,,making ,,traffic ,,enticing ,,settlers ,,to ,,the ,,virgin ,,lands ,,of ,,the ,,west--,,emigration ,,bureaus--,,railways ,,extended ,,for ,,the ,,benefit ,,of ,,emigrants--,,the ,,first ,,continuous ,,railroad ,,across ,,the ,,american ,,continent--,,campaigns ,,for ,,developing ,,sparsely ,,settled ,,places ,,in ,,the ,,west--,,unprofitable ,,branch ,,railroads ,,in ,,the ,,east--,,development ,,of ,,scientific ,,farming--,,improved ,,farms ,,are ,,traffic-,,makers--,,new ,,factories ,,being ,,opened--,,how ,,railroad ,,managers ,,have ,,developed ,,atlantic ,,city4 ,your railroad manager of other days was content with the traffic that was offered him--if indeed he deigned to accept it all4 ,for those were the business methods that obtained everywhere in the other days4 ,when competition became the moving force in modern business1 the railroad felt it4 ,the land had become gridironed with tracks2 business did not offer itself so freely as it had at the outset4 ,when there came a division between routes of a traffic that had formerly belonged to a single route1 earnings fell away and stockholders began to ask uncomfortable questions of the men who operated their railroad properties4 ,then the fight for business began--at first1 as we have already seen1 by a lively rivalry which showed itself in a merciless slashing of rates4 ,such fighting methods reacted on the railroads1 and their rate-sheets became code and law1 only a little less holy than the ,federal ,constitution1 long before the ,interstate ,commerce ,commission exerted its beneficent paternalism over the railroads of the land4 ,but with the rates equalized between the railroads1 the competition remained4 ,the one obvious solution of the situation which was left was put into effect4 ,the railroads began to make traffic4 ,the making of traffic is the most recent and the most highly developed branch of the science of railroading4 ,the first of this specialized business-getting began just before the ,civil ,war4 ,some of the railroads had put their lines back a little way from the western portion of the ,great ,lakes along in the late fifties1 and they needed folks to live along those lines4 ,it goes without saying that a railroad going into an unpopulated country would never be any great shakes of a railroad until people came to dwell along its lines4 ,so the railroad from ,galena to ,chicago--afterwards the foundation stone for the mighty ,northwestern--the ,chicago1 ,milwaukee ,st4 ,paul1 and one or two others started emigration bureaus4 ,then men who owned those early railroads knew the possibilities of the virgin lands into which they stretched their rails4 ,the proposition that confronted them was to let the folk who lived in the ,east and even those who were herded in the crowded lands across the ,atlantic1 know these same possibilities4 ,by means of their first emigration bureaus they accomplished their proposition4 ,advertising was a crude science in those days1 but advertising helped4 ,throughout the troublous years of the war the men from the ,east who had read of the glories of the ,middle ,west1 who had listened to the tales of the agents of the railroad and coupled them with those of returning travellers1 began pouring over the new and struggling railroads4 ,they carried their goods and chattels with them2 and so the railroad men knew that they were not going back to the old homes again4 ,at the close of the war these tides rose to flood4 ,the railroads no longer struggled4 ,there was a steady flow of traffic over their rails1 and they were able because of it to engage capital to stretch their rails a little farther west4 ,after they had moved another stretch1 the tides of emigration still flowed4 ,that process might have gone ahead in orderly fashion until the ,pacific had been reached1 if the scheme had not been upset4 ,they built too many railroads1 they overworked their idea4 ,in the broad reaches of the ,middle ,west1 lines of steel crumbled into rust1 and cross-roads dreamed vainly that they would become villages4 ,many a struggling village failed to become the city that her enthusiastic residents had fancied4 ,they had the big boom in ,kansas1 and the bigger collapse that followed4 ,after that1 folk stayed ,east for a while1 and the business of making traffic in that territory became an advanced science4 ,there was another factor in the situation4 ,you will remember that the ,summer of '#fi saw the first continuous railroad across the ,american continent--the combination of ,central ,pacific and ,union ,pacific4 ,the huge success of that railroad was inspiration for others4 ,in the generation of men that followed the rails that reached from ,atlantic to ,pacific were multiplied4 ,after that there was a new problem for the owners of the transcontinental railroads4 ,their statistical charts of originating traffic showed great black masses at either end of the line--where connections were made with the great traffic-bringers from the ,east1 and where the rails ran upon the docks of the ,pacific shore4 ,between those two points was a thin black line1 like spider-thread4 ,to make that line black and firm at all points1 to bring masses of new traffic at intermediate points1 was the demand that the railroad-owner made of his traffic-manager4 ,it is being done to-day4 ,it has taken time1 money and almost incredible patience2 but it is being done4 ,this is a broad land1 and there is still much to be done4 ,in ,montana1 there is a single county with an area exceeding that of ,maryland and a population less than that of the smallest ward of ,baltimore2 and near-by there is another county1 as large as ,delaware and ,connecticut combined1 with mere handful of residents4 ,these are typical4 ,there are great open stretches to the southwest2 and the ,santa ,fe1 working hand in hand with the ,harriman lines1 is busy populating and developing these4 ,in the ,north ,country1 ,james ,j4 ,hill's railroads and the new outstretched arm of the ,chicago1 ,milwaukee ,st4 ,paul are doing much to exploit the unfarmed lands of ,montana1 and the intensive possibilities of ,washington for fruit-raising1 market-gardening and the like4 ,up and down the ,pacific coast1 the railroads are uniting in similar campaigns of development4 ,hill began the campaign in ,montana4 ,he is a dreamer and a far-seer4 ,when he began making presents of blooded bulls to the farmers out along the ,great ,northern1 folk laughed at him1 some of his directors thought that he had gone crazy4 ,they thought differently when they knew the results1 when they got the traffic reports of the cattle business that was growing along the line4 ,that thing was typical4 ,the railroad--,hill's railroad and all the other big transcontinentals--lent itself to the fine development of all the traffic that might possibly be obtained within its territory4 ,heretofore it had roughly combed traffic possibilities1 now it began to screen them with a fine mesh screen4 ,the emigrant bureau did its part of the work2 the railroad went further and set itself to develop every inch of available land along its lines4 ,attractive excursions brought settlers to the new country1 the railroad was of practical assistance in finding locations for them4 ,everything is being brought toward the development of those great new ,states of the ,west3 cross-roads are beginning to become villages2 villages1 cities4 ,a little time before his death1 ,mr4 ,harriman announced that there would be four great cities spread across the ,american continent--,new ,york1 ,chicago1 ,salt ,lake1 and ,san ,francisco4 ,he then took it upon his own rather roomy shoulders to make ,salt ,lake ,city worthy of a place in the file4 ,from this activity in the ,west1 the ,eastern railroads have stolen a lesson4 ,originally built in many cases to serve the needs of the farmers of some particular locality1 they have become merged and welded in a way that has caused them to serve the industrial interests of the country more particularly than the agricultural4 ,one of the valuable old properties of the ,pennsylvania ,railroad in ,new ,jersey rejoices in the name of ,freehold and ,jamesburg ,agricultural ,railroad4 ,when1 after the serious slump in traffic that followed the panic in #aijg1 the railroads of the ,east found themselves1 for the first time in a decade1 with more facilities than freight1 they began to cultivate more carefully the traffic branch of transportation science4 ,they took quite readily to the lesson that the transcontinentals gave them4 ,then they proceeded to put it into effect in practical fashion4 ,for some years past the problem of the unimportant branches has been a serious one with the big ,eastern systems4 ,these branches1 many of them once profitable feeders1 have been allowed to deteriorate and retrograde1 while main-line traffic developed and increased under active conditions of competition4 ,the little towns along the branches seemed to retrograde too2 while the busy cities of the country1 strung along the main lines of the railroad1 absorbed new growth and new energy4 ,sometimes the branch lines were paralleled by interurban electric railroads1 which were able to operate at far less cost than steam railroads1 and consequently to charge lower rates of fare2 and their slight passenger traffic continued to grow lighter4 ,the freight traffic had long since dwindled to slim proportions2 the branch lines were almost entirely agricultural railroads2 and the farmers of the ,east were discouraged and disheartened4 ,the new movement began in ,western ,new ,york1 which is fairly gridironed with a network of these unprofitable branch railroads4 ,it was started even before the panic of #aijg4 ,new ,york ,state1 with its great resources and its fat treasury1 has long been engaged in the development of scientific farming--which means farming for the largest profit that can be brought from the soil4 ,it has a great agricultural school as a part of ,cornell ,university1 and an interesting experimental school along similar lines at ,geneva4 ,these schools have done a great work4 ,they have educated young men to be modern farmers1 in every sense of that phrase2 and they have sent leaflets to every corner of the ,empire ,state4 ,but even these methods were not far-reaching enough4 ,it is not every farmer's boy in these days who can afford to go down to ,ithaca for a college education in the tilling of the soil2 few of the older men care to mingle with the boys at such an institution4 ,even the pamphlets sent out from ,geneva were not sufficient4 ,so when the railroads1 seeking to make traffic in a dull time and to rehabilitate their branches in the farming districts1 made alliance with the agricultural schools1 special trains were sent out into the farming districts1 and these trains carried a competent corps of instructors from the schools4 ,day coaches made good school-rooms for the itinerant institutions2 and a baggage-car1 filled with specimens of fruit and grains grown under scientific methods1 was generally attached4 ,the ,western roads had used similar trains with success in building up their virgin territories4 ,the use of the scientific schools in connection was the ,eastern adaptation of the idea4 ,a train of this sort will make half a dozen towns in the course of a day4 ,the towns are not far apart1 and the schedule generally permits a stop of about an hour in each4 ,the coming of the farmers' special has been thoroughly announced by handbills1 posters1 and the local newspapers4 ,whether the day be wet or fair1 the appreciation of the enterprise that started the special out is sure to be manifest in a crowd that packs the day-coaches and not infrequently causes overflow meetings to be held from the rear platform of the train4 ,illustration3 ,,in ,,the ,,far ,,west ,,the ,,farm-,,train ,,has ,,long ,,since ,,come ,,into ,,its ,,own ,illustration3 ,,even ,,in ,,new ,,york ,,state ,,the ,,interest ,,in ,,these ,,itinerant ,,agricultural ,,schools ,,is ,,keen1 ,,indeed ,illustration3 ,,interior ,,of ,,the ,,dairy ,,demonstration ,,car ,,of ,,an ,,agricultural ,,train ,there is no cause for disheartenment in the soul of the farmer after he has been down to the train4 ,he learns the things that his land is capable of and yet has never reared for him4 ,take the perennial and hardy alfalfa1 for instance4 ,crowd into the car1 where a hundred earnest men from the country-side are gathered and listening to the man from the ,state ,agricultural ,college1 who talks on it4 ,an acre of good alfalfa1 he is saying1 produces twice as much digestible nutriment as an acre of good clover4 ,it is therefore profitable to our farmers to make every effort to establish alfalfa fields4 ,your climate is favorable to alfalfa1 which can be grown on a variety of soils4 ,the most favorable is a gravelly loam with a porous sub-soil4 ,there must be drainage1 fertility1 lime1 and inoculation4 ,alfalfa is a lime-loving plant1 and if you haven't a limy soil1 apply lime at the rate of one to two thousand pounds per acre4 ,these figures will be given you in a pamphlet as you leave the car4 ,and so it goes4 ,if the train is in one of the great fruit-growing districts of western ,new ,york1 fruit is the theme of the lecturers4 ,there is no product that the soil may give1 directly or indirectly1 that is too humble for the attention of the farmers' special4 ,all the roads in ,western ,new ,york have taken part in the campaign--the ,new ,york ,central1 the ,erie1 the ,lehigh ,valley1 and the smaller roads have sent out the train over the lines1 each in due turn4 ,the idea has gone into the ,middle ,west and back to ,pennsylvania4 ,the ,pennsylvania ,railroad1 which creates traffic from every conceivable source1 has operated since ,november1 #aijh1 four agricultural specials and two fruit-tree and shrubbery specials4 ,the agricultural schools of the great territory it traverses have furnished the lecturers and the material4 ,now it is preparing to establish down in the ,eastern ,shore country between the ,chesapeake ,bay and the ,atlantic ,ocean1 a development farm1 in which it will show the farmers of that agricultural district the greatest use that they can make of their land1 the greatest results that it can be brought to yield4 ,it has gone down into the sandy southern part of ,new ,jersey and made the potato crop for ,new ,york and for ,philadelphia into a vast yield1--a profit both for the farmer and for the railroad which has created the traffic4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the first of these development farms in the ,east was that established by ,h4 ,b4 ,fullerton1 under the auspices of the ,long ,island ,railroad1 at ,wading ,river1 ,n4 ,y4 ,the ,long ,island possesses a territory that particularly needs development of that sort4 ,it has a good suburban territory adjacent to ,new ,york ,city1 but after that there is not a town of importance the entire length of its lines4 ,there is no manufacturing of consequence out upon its line and it has been driven to the necessity of making traffic4 ,fullerton's ,farm is another traffic-maker by educational process4 ,he has taken the worst of the sandy soil that makes thousands of acres at the east end of the ,island1 and he has created from it a model farm4 ,the farm has had to pay its way4 ,it has not been nurtured under any extensive appropriations from the railroad1 but it has had to win its success under the same conditions that would confront the farmer who measured his capital in hundreds1 rather than in thousands of dollars4 ,it is teaching the lesson that it has sought to teach4 ,arid soil1 on the very hearthstone of a metropolitan city1 is being given over to profitable truck-farming2 and the ,long ,island ,railroad for its modest farm investment is beginning to harvest appreciable traffic returns4 ,the ,new ,york ,central1 under the guidance of its president1 ,w4 ,c4 ,brown1 who is keenly interested in the revival of farming in the ,east1 and who personally directed the operation of the farm specials over its lines1 has purchased two demonstration farms--one in ,central1 the other in ,western ,new ,york4 ,it has hired a competent farmer to have charge of them--,t4 ,e4 ,martin1 of ,west ,rush1 who made a famous record for himself in growing #cjj bushels of potatoes to the acre on land that had never before grown more than sixty4 ,they will also serve as object lessons1 and when they have been developed to their capacity1 they will be sold at a far higher price than the song for which they were purchased in rundown condition4 ,the proceeds will be turned over to the purchase and development of neglected acres in other sections along the lines of that system4 ,the ,new ,york ,central is also making its own special development of the farm special idea1 by taking two coaches and making them into agricultural cars at its ,west ,albany shops4 ,these cars will not run sporadically on special trains but will be in use the entire year round1 being dropped at one little town after another for a day or two days or three days1 in order that the farmers from the surrounding district may drop in to receive a little practical information4 ,through the schools of a number of corn-growing ,states1 into which this work has spread1 boys and girls are being stimulated by prizes to plant little patches of corn4 ,out of each community where such an exhibit is held1 ten prize-winning ears are sent to the country fair4 ,from this the best ten ears are sent to the ,state fair1 and interstate competition is already being developed4 ,there is another side to this4 ,the railroads are making more than a new traffic for themselves1 they are making a new wealth for the communities through which their rails are stretched4 ,it has been estimated by a ,pennsylvania agronomist that the value of the staple farm crops in the ,keystone ,state in a single year exceeds #agj1jjj1jjj2 and that some #bbd1jjj farmers entered into this production4 ,if by training and education each of these farmers can increase his yield of corn one bushel to the acre1 the additional corn revenue from that one ,state would be #a1jdd1jjj4 ,further than that1 he says that #ghj1jjj would roll into the pockets of these farmers if they would choose their seed corn carefully and thus add ten kernels to each ear of corn grown by them in the course of a twelvemonth4 ,that sort of thing looks like a cooperative benefit from almost any angle from which you may view it4 ,the ,rock ,island ,railroad has begun to preach dry farming down through the ,southwest4 ,wheat six feet in length is exhibited by that railroad in its offices throughout the ,east as sample of what the farmers in its territory do1 under its help and supervision4 ,that sort of thing silently makes traffic every day in the year4 ,it is worth a dozen times what it costs the railroad4 ,but the railroad is not confining its efforts at making traffic to the products of the soil4 ,what is good method with the farmer is similarly good method with the manufacturer4 ,so you now see the railroads1 east and west1 working with the aid of industrial commissioners4 ,the industrial commissioner is like a ,high ,minister of ,commerce4 ,take1 for instance1 a typical railroad running from ,new ,york to ,chicago4 ,it has ample docks upon the sea board1 extensive ramifications within the coal-mining districts2 in the ,west it taps both the ,great ,lakes and the transcontinentals1 which reach across the land to the ,pacific4 ,in all this district it is under hard competition1 gaining its traffic--every ton of it--by the sweat of the general traffic-manager's brow4 ,that railroad has its ,industrial ,commissioner1 and if you are a prospective manufacturer looking for a site for a new plant1 you are sure to come to him4 ,you tell him that you want to build a factory4 ,he tilts back his chair and looks at you easily4 ,what kind of a factory8 he asks4 ,we've room for #aj1jjj more along our rails4 ,if it's a silk mill ,i can suggest ,paterson1 where the help is trained1 and the dyes and raw materials handy4 ,if you are going to turn out a steel product somewhere in the ,pittsburgh district1 ,youngstown1 ,ohio1 is the most economical point in the ,united ,states to-day for the turning out of finished steel4 ,perhaps yours is a canning factory1 he laughs4 ,if you want to can fruit we can fix you out up in ,western ,new ,york among the orchards2 if you want to can tomatoes1 well1 sir1 there is nothing like ,indiana for tomatoes4 ,you specify your new business and its requirements in some detail4 ,the eye of this practical ,minister of ,commerce illumines4 ,i have the very thing you want1 he says1 without hesitation4 ,over at ,w----1 just half a mile above the city limits along the river4 ,it has siding facilities4 7,you may be fairly certain that the siding facilities give chief access to the railroad that employs this particular ,commissioner47 ,and you say you want fresh water4 ,well1 there's five thousand gallons a day of the purest soft water in the ,east for you4 ,his eyes shine with enthusiasm4 ,he reaches for his paper block and the next instant he is sketching the plot for you with remarkable accuracy1 and with a similitude of scale4 ,here is the river and there is where you can build your dam4 ,over there is the main line of the best railroad in ,america 7he leaves no doubt in your mind as to that72 and your siding can go in there with less than a quarter of one per cent grade4 ,the highroad is there1 and close by it the trolley leading into town4 ,they've a surplus of help of the kind you want in ,w----1 he adds4 ,you'll never run short of hands there4 ,it sounds good1 and within a week you are bound to ,w---- with him to meet the ,secretary of the ,chamber of ,commerce4 ,if things are as he has represented them to you1 and your mind is unbiased1 you build your factory1 and the railroad picks up #bjj tons a day off your siding4 ,that single transaction has been worth the ,commissioner's salary for a year to it4 ,there is a variety of method in making traffic4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the general passenger agent has to keep his end up4 ,any ,g4 ,p4 ,a4 of to-day found entertaining the old-fashioned idea that the traffic that flows of its own volition up to the ticket-wickets is going to be sufficient to satisfy his employers is out of present-day development4 ,the general passenger agent who gets patted on the back nowadays is the man who goes to the president in a dull season with a sheet showing gains over a preceding busy season4 ,he may have to bring water from stones to increase that tide of traffic1 but it must be increased4 ,there are no two ways about what is expected of him4 ,so he gets out1 like the traffic people from the freight end of the railroad1 and he keeps in constant touch with his territory1 with the towns along the line and the agents who are working under him4 ,if he is instrumental in locating a big convention at some point where his line will receive the lion's share of the business1 that is a good trick and worth while4 ,a lively convention will do a lot toward bracing up a weak passenger sheet in some dull month4 ,one railroad reaching out of ,new ,york into the mountains at the northeastern corner of that ,state and losing itself at some obscure town1 a railroad without valuable connections and ramifications1 has made its passenger business a little gold-mine by scientific nurturing4 ,it sent its passenger representatives up into the country towns1 and they sought to improve conditions of every sort there4 ,they started agitation for better roads from the railroad into the uplands where city folk were prone to wander2 they helped the boarding-house landlord and the country hotel-keeper to bring their facilities up to attractive standards4 ,in some cases they induced capital to come in and build new hotels4 ,in every case they offered free space in the railroad's summer resort literature4 ,under a single general passenger agent pursuing such a campaign unflaggingly the passenger receipts of that small railroad increased #abe per cent in eight years6 ,illustration3 ,,the ,,famous ,,thomas ,,viaduct1 ,,on ,,the ,,baltimore ,,ohio ,,at ,,relay1 ,,md41 ,,built ,,by ,b4 ,h4 ,,latrobe ,,in #ahce1 ,,and ,,still ,,in ,,use ,illustration3 ,,the ,,historic ,,starucca ,,viaduct ,,upon ,,the ,,erie ,illustration3 ,,the ,,cylinders ,,of ,,the ,,delaware ,,hudson ,,mallet ,illustration3 ,,the ,,interior ,,of ,,this ,,gasoline-,,motor-,,car ,,on ,,the ,,union ,,pacific ,,presents ,a ,,most ,,unusual ,,effect1 ,,yet ,a ,,maximum ,,of ,,view ,,of ,,the ,,outer ,,world ,take the case of ,atlantic ,city4 ,that town used to be a collection of wooden hotels1 set along a sandy1 pleasant beach1 which were content with six or eight weeks of good business in midsummer4 ,the railroads that stretched their rails down to it registered good earnings during that hot season1 and they had to put in extensive plants to handle that six or eight weeks of heavy traffic4 ,the extensive--and expensive--plants were idle a great part of the year1 and there was a lot of capital wasted4 ,the managers of the railroads told the summer hotel proprietors that1 and asked why beach property should be a losing investment ten months out of the year4 ,that was a new sort of proposition for a summer resort hotel proprietor but it seemed sound argument and the hotels extended their seasons at either end4 ,they combined with the railroads in making attractive special rates for these duller parts of the season1 and before long the spring was well nigh as popular and as profitable as midsummer4 ,folk came over from ,philadelphia and ,pittsburgh1 and up from ,baltimore and ,washington1 to spend their summers at ,atlantic ,city1 and the scientific business-making there created a fashionable season for ,northerners from ,easter forward4 ,the building of wooden hotels ceased1 and fireproof structures of brick and stone1 steel and concrete1 began to rise along the beach4 ,capital ceased to lie idle at ,atlantic ,city4 ,the hotels began to keep open the year around1 and the scientific method of the biggest of the railroads had been so effectual that it built a million-dollar bridge across the ,delaware at ,philadelphia to handle through traffic down to ,atlantic ,city4 ,still the railroads worked in harmony with the hotels1 and the fashionable season began at ,christmas instead of ,easter4 ,before long they will make the fall fashionable1 and then the hotels will be crowded all the year round4 ,when there is a lull in the season they bring on half a dozen conventions and fill the trains and the hotels with the delegates4 ,that ,atlantic ,city plant does not lie idle much of the time4 ,there are nearly #hjj hotels there to-day--more than fifty of them huge structures--and on a busy day #cjj1jjj people are along the famous boardwalk above the beach4 ,in dull days the big hotels are comfortably filled4 ,the hotel men have made fortunes1 the railroads have added millions of dollars to their passenger earnings because of ,atlantic ,city4 ,there you have the best example of this new creed of the practical railroader--making traffic4 ,it is not a lost example4 ,across the land every city and town1 every resort1 from the haughty spa with a cluster of brilliant hotels down to the humblest inn that ever cuddled by the shore of a silvery lake1 is taking notice of the creed4 ,the farmer is bending himself to increase the yield of his land1 while the railroad reaps a benefit4 ,the marketman from town is reaching out for better sources for his needs2 the railroad helps him and reaps a benefit4 ,the resort hotel arranges a joint rate and ticket with the railroad1 which covers both transportation and board for a week-end in the dull season1 and the passenger receipts are swelled in some degree4 ,that is what the railroader calls making traffic4 ,,chapter ,,xxiii ,,the ,,express ,,service ,,and ,,the ,,railroad ,,mail ,,development ,,of ,,express ,,business--,,railroad ,,conductors ,,the ,,first ,,mail ,,and ,,express ,,messengers--,,william ,f4 ,,harnden',s ,,express ,,service--,,postage ,,rates--,,establishment ,,and ,,organization ,,of ,,great ,,express ,,companies-- ,,collection ,,and ,,distribution ,,of ,,express ,,matter--,,relation ,,between ,,express ,,companies ,,and ,,railroads--,,beginnings ,,of ,,post-,,office ,,department--,,statistics--,,railroad ,,mail ,,service--,,newspaper ,,delivery-- ,,handling ,,of ,,mail ,,matter--,,growth ,,of ,,the ,,service4 ,while the great transportation functions of the railroad are devoted to the comparatively simple problems of soliciting and carrying both passengers and freight in ordinary channels1 there are1 nevertheless1 special functions of the carrier that demand some slight attention in passing4 ,these functions might quite properly be known as the by-products of transportation4 ,the most important of them are the carrying of small packages of rather greater value than that the railroad ordinarily gives to the goods that it handles in its own cars1 and the carrying of letters and periodicals4 ,these last two are handled as a monopoly by the ,federal ,government1 which also competes with a half-dozen big private corporations in the transportation of merchandise in small individual lots4 ,the ,government calls its service the railroad mail and it is the bone and sinew of the ,post-office ,department4 ,the private corporations1 creeping in upon what is also generally a government monopolistic privilege in other lands1 handle what they are pleased to call the express business4 ,their business has grown up alongside of that of the ,united ,states ,government and the development of the two has run in very similar channels4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the express business1 like a good many other big businesses1 began in rather simple fashion4 ,before the railroad came into being1 the citizens in the different towns of the young and rather sprawling nation along the ,atlantic seaboard found it a difficult problem to communicate with one another4 ,they used to entrust letters and valuable packages to the drivers of stage-coaches or to the captains of coasting-vessels4 ,if the drivers or the captains remembered the letter-packet or the package1 it was safely delivered4 ,if they forgot--6 ,so1 when the railroad came and drove the old stage-lines out of business1 the conductors of the trains were asked to accept this side responsibility as an informal part of their work4 ,as long as this messenger function remained a slight thing1 the railroads paid little attention to the practice1 but after a while1 the conductors got to paying more attention to it than to running the trains and the railroads finally had to stop it4 ,in the golden age when the conductor's job was developing this valuable perquisite1 ,william ,f4 ,harnden had charge of a passenger train on the old ,boston ,worcester ,railroad--a part of the ,boston ,albany1 which1 in turn1 is a part of the ,new ,york ,central lines4 ,harnden had entered railroad service in #ahcd1 when he was but twenty-two years old4 ,he foresaw the day when the railroads would have to put a stop to their conductors acting as messengers for the general public1 and so1 a few years after he had gone to work for the ,boston ,worcester1 he went to the superintendent of that highly prosperous little line1 as well as to the highly prosperous ,boston ,providence1 and asked for an exclusive contract for an express service over it as part of a through route between ,new ,york and ,boston4 ,so it came about that in a ,boston newspaper of ,february #bc1 #ahci1 the following advertisement appeared3 ,boston and ,new ,york ,express ,car4 ,william ,f4 ,harnden has made arrangements with the ,providence railroad and the ,new ,york ,boat company to run a car through from ,boston to ,new ,york and vice-versa four times a week commencing ,monday1 ,march #d4 ,he will accompany the car himself1 take care of all small packages that may be entrusted to his care and see them safely delivered4 ,all packages must be sent to his office1 #i ,court street1 ,boston2 or #a ,wall street1 ,new ,york4 ,that car was a flight of ,harnden's imagination1 because for several months a valise sufficed to carry all the packages that were entrusted to his care4 ,but he progressed1 and after a little time he found it necessary to engage his brother and still another man to act as messengers with him4 ,the following year he extended his express service to ,philadelphia and to ,europe4 ,you may be sure that the success of ,harnden's experiment was being noticed by the thrifty ,new ,englanders4 ,alvin ,adams1 who had been in the grocery commission business up in ,vermont1 established an express service of his own in #ahdj1 which in due course of time was to become the ,adams ,express ,company4 ,it is possible that there might have been to-day a ,harnden ,express ,company as well1 if ,america's pioneer expressman had not died six years after establishing his interesting venture4 ,after ,alvin ,adams1 came a host of express services springing up all over the eastern end of the ,united ,states4 ,henry ,wells1 who had been the associate of ,harnden in the development of his business1 formed a partnership with one ,george ,pomeroy for a service between ,albany and ,buffalo4 ,william ,g4 ,fargo1 the freight-agent for the one-time ,albany and ,syracuse ,railroad1 was the freight-agent for ,pomeroy and ,wells at ,buffalo in #ahdb4 ,wells and ,fargo eventually got together1 and in the throbbing days of the late forties and the fifties1 ,wells1 ,fargo ,co4 became an express service of magnitude1 a concern not to be lightly reckoned with4 ,strangely enough1 the express companies came to their first prosperity through the thing that they are now forbidden to carry--letters4 ,for in the early forties the ,united ,states ,post-office ,department demanded six cents for carrying a letter thirty miles1 eight cents for sixty miles1 ten cents for one hundred miles--the ratio steadily progressing until twenty-five cents was charged for #dej miles4 ,those rates had been in effect since the department was first established1 and the service was fearfully slow1 and untrustworthy into the bargain4 ,the new express companies took advantage of their opportunity and--to cite a single instance--they would carry a letter from ,buffalo to ,new ,york for six cents1 while the ,government charged twenty-five cents for a similar1 but an inferior service4 ,in #ahej the express services were beginning to be merged--,livingston ,company and ,wells ,company had already formed the ,american ,express ,company4 ,four years later1 ,adams ,company1 ,harnden ,company1 and some of the smaller express services united in the formation of the ,adams ,express ,company1--and in that year the minstrel men began to ask the question3 ,for whom was ,eve made8 ,the ,united ,states ,express ,company was also organized in #ahed1 and all this while ,wells1 ,fargo ,company were forming history for themselves in the ,far ,west--carrying mail out to the gold miners and their precious dust east in return4 ,illustration3 ,a ,,portion ,,of ,,the ,,great ,,double-,,track ,,susquehanna ,,river ,,bridge ,,of ,,the ,,baltimore ,,ohio--,a ,,giant ,,among ,,american ,,railroad ,,bridges ,illustration3 ,,in ,,summer ,,the ,,brakemen ,,have ,,pleasant ,,enough ,,times ,,of ,,railroading ,illustration3 ,a ,,famous ,,cantilever ,,rapidly ,,disappearing--,,the ,,substitution ,,of ,a ,,new ,,kentucky ,,river ,,bridge ,,for ,,the ,,old1 ,,on ,,the ,,queen ,,crescent ,,system ,by the beginning of the ,civil ,war1 there was a well established business1 a business established with admirable foresight4 ,such men as ,adams1 ,wells and ,fargo1 and ,benjamin ,f4 ,cheney1 one of the founders of the ,american ,express ,company1 said that the express business should be kept within narrow limits--so within narrow limits it has been kept1 and to-day when ,harnden's suitcase has developed into a business paying luscious dividends on more than a hundred million dollars of capital stock1 there are five great companies3 the ,american ,express ,company1 the ,adams ,express ,company1 the ,wells1 ,fargo ,express ,company1 the ,united ,states ,express ,company1 and the ,national ,express ,company4 ,the interests of these companies are closely interwoven--for instance3 while the ,national ,express ,company is operated as a separate business1 it is absolutely controlled by the ,american ,express ,company4 ,in addition to this ,big ,five1 there is a cluster of smaller companies1 such as the ,great ,northern ,express ,company1 of ,j4 ,j4 ,hill's system1 the ,southern ,express ,company1 the ,long ,island ,express ,co41 and two thriving carriers in the ,dominion of ,canada4 ,these in turn are more or less closely affiliated with the larger companies4 ,the express companies no longer force a man to bring his shipment to their offices4 ,in every considerable town1 there are whole fleets of wagons that reach to the outermost limits1 both for collection and for distribution4 ,in this service the automobile truck has begun readily to displace the older type of horse and wagon4 ,the wagon service brings the express package1 no matter how small or how large1 to a central distributing depot1 where all are gathered together and sent1 in through railroad cars1 to their destinations1 being handled very largely as we have seen the ,l4 ,c4 ,l4 freight handled in the great transfer houses of the railroads4 ,the express company guarantees the safe delivery of the package that is entrusted to its care4 ,this package may be of the smallest sort imaginable1 or it may be a consignment of a million dollars in specie4 ,in either case1 the express company still accepts the entire responsibility4 ,if there are whole brigades of delivery wagons in the cities there are also whole platoons of special cars owned by the railroads and dedicated to the express service4 ,this brings us to the crux of the express question--its relations to the railroad4 ,these are embraced in voluminous contracts and subcontracts--which are generally placed among the secret archives of all the companies that subscribe to them4 ,the ,interstate ,commerce ,commission1 at ,washington1 has had1 however1 access to most of these contracts and of them it has said3 ,the contract between an express company and a railroad company usually provides that the express company shall have the exclusive right to operate upon the lines named for a definite term of years2 that all matter carried on passenger trains1 except personal baggage1 corpses1 milk cans1 dogs1 and certain other commodities1 shall be turned over by the railroad company to the express company2 that the railroad company shall transport to and from all points on its lines all matter in charge of the express company2 that special or exclusive express trains shall be provided by the railroad company when warranted by the volume of express traffic2 that the railroad company shall furnish the necessary cars1 keep them in good repair1 furnish light and heat and carry the messengers of the express company as well as all necessary equipment2 that the railroad company shall furnish such room in all its depots and stations as may be necessary for the loading1 unloading1 and storing of express matter2 that the express company may employ during the pleasure of the railway any of the agents of the latter as express agents and may employ the train baggage-men as its messengers4 ,the express company1 on its part1 agrees to pay a fixed per cent of its gross receipts from handling express matter2 to charge no rate at less than an agreed per cent of the freight rates on the same commodity--usually one hundred and fifty per cent2 to handle1 free of charge1 money1 bonds1 valuables1 and ordinary express matter of the railway4 ,the railroad mail service is1 in many ways1 closely analogous to that of the express service4 ,to it also1 are devoted whole platoons and brigades of especially equipped cars1 and it comes under the direction of the capable traffic officers of a great government department4 ,the ,post-office ,department is practically as old as the nation itself4 ,for it was away back in ,november1 #aggf1 that ,ebenezer ,hazard1 who had been appointed ,postmaster ,general to the ,continental ,congress1 filed a memorandum of gentle complaint because of the long distances he was compelled to travel to keep pace with the wanderings of the ,continental ,army4 ,but it was not until ,george ,washington had become ,president of the ,united ,states1 in ,april1 #aghi1 that the ,post-office ,department came into any real semblance of organization4 ,samuel ,osgood1 of ,massachusetts1 was the man to whom was given the task of making a real business out of what had once been a haphazard courtesy of the past of stage-drivers and ships' captains4 ,some men had made individual businesses out of the management of stage-routes--in fact1 ,benjamin ,franklin was an early postman4 ,but the ,united ,states ,government from the beginning created the mail service as a monopoly for itself--following the rule of other nations4 ,in #aghi the ,post-office ,department was a crude enough affair4 ,the ,postmaster ,general had but one clerk1 there were but #ge post-offices and #a1hge miles of post-roads in the whole country4 ,in the first year of the department's activities the cost of mail transportation is given as being #bb1jha1 with the total revenue #cg1ice4 ,the total expenditures of the department that year were #cb1adj1 leaving a surplus for the twelvemonth of #e1gie1 a somewhat better showing than has been made in some years since that time4 ,the report of the ,post-office ,department for the year ending ,june #cj1 #aiaj1 lies before us as we write this chapter4 ,it tells the graphic growth of a great business in one hundred and twenty years4 ,for in this last twelvemonth the receipts were #bbd1abh1feg--;a really vast sum compared with that modest #cg1ice for #aghi-ij4 ,the expenditures for this year ending ,june #cj1 #aiaj1 were even higher--#bbi1igg1bbd--leaving a deficit of #e1hdh1efg4 ,the ,postmaster ,general has asserted1 however1 that he will have succeeded in turning that loss into a slight profit for the year ending ,june #cj1 #aiaa4 ,these figures do not alone show the growth of the mail service of a great land that has become entirely dependent upon this great function of its business and social life4 ,think of the #ge post-offices of #aghi1 compared with the #ei1ehj offices of #aiaj--;and that because of the marvellous development of the rural free delivery during the past ten or twelve years1 a decrease from the high-water mark of #gf1fhh in #aijj4 ,figures are sometimes impressive and the statistics of the ,post-office ,department show that #gh1eeg postmasters1 clerks1 and carriers give the major portion of their time to its service4 ,in addition to these1 those same statistics enumerate #dj1iig rural delivery carriers1 who bring the entire post-office force up to the astounding total of #aai1eed men and women4 99 99 99 99 99 ,without the railroad the ,post-office ,department could not have come to its present great development as one of the chief arms of government activity4 ,the postal service is an interesting adjunct of the railroad2 the railroad is a vital factor in the successful conduct and development of the postal service4 ,away back in #ahcf1 ,postmaster ,general ,barry1 in his annual report1 spoke of the rapid multiplication of railroads in all parts of the country and asked if it was not worth while to secure the transportation of mail upon them4 ,he added3 ,already have the railroads between ,french ,town1 in ,maryland1 and ,new ,castle1 in ,delaware1 and between ,camden and ,south ,amboy1 in ,new ,jersey1 afforded great and important facilities to the transportation of the great ,eastern ,mail4 ,as ,general ,barry wrote1 the ,baltimore ,ohio was spinning its extension lines from ,baltimore to ,washington1 and he expressed an opinion that with that line a through mail service from ,new ,york to ,washington might be accomplished in sixteen hours4 ,that service is now made between those cities in five hours4 ,general ,barry's appeal must have brought fruit1 for ,congress1 on ,july #g1 #ahch1 passed an act approving every railroad in the ,united ,states as a post-route4 ,the railroads accepted this responsibility with alacrity4 ,the ,baltimore ,ohio equipped compartments in baggage-cars running between ,baltimore and ,washington1 which were kept tightly locked and to which only the postmasters of those two cities had access4 ,still the early methods of handling merchandise of every sort were crude and it was not until the days of the ,civil ,war that the railroad mail service began to attain anything like its present precision and dispatch4 ,most great organisms are apt to trace their development to the brilliancy or the inspiration of one man or a group of men1 and the railroad mail service has been no exception to that rule4 ,w4 ,a4 ,davis1 a clerk in the post-office at ,st4 ,joseph1 ,missouri1 in #ahfb1 conceived the idea that railroad mail could be assorted on the cars before it reached ,st4 ,joseph4 ,in those days1 ,st4 ,joseph was a pretty important sort of a place4 ,the overland mail started west from there1 and ,davis thought that if it could be at least partly assorted before it reached ,st4 ,joseph1 there would be no delay in starting overland4 ,the ,post-office ,department encouraged him and he began what was destined to become the most important and interesting function of the railroad mail service4 ,in the same years that ,davis was studying out postal problems at ,st4 ,joseph1 ,col4 ,g4 ,b4 ,armstrong was assistant postmaster at ,chicago4 ,he was asked by ,postmaster ,general ,montgomery ,blair1 of ,president ,lincoln's ,cabinet1 to undertake the development of the railroad mail service4 ,he accepted the task ,august #ca1 #ahfd1 and a little later was made ,general ,railway ,mail ,superintendent1 a position which he held until #ahga1 when he was compelled to retire because of ill health4 ,col4 ,george ,s4 ,bangs1 of ,illinois1 succeeded him1 and to ,col4 ,bangs was given the opportunity of the third great development in the railroad mail service4 ,in his report for the year #ahgd he discussed the possibilities of establishing a fast and exclusive mail train between the two great postal centres of the land--,new ,york and ,chicago4 ,to quote from ,colonel ,bangs' report3 ,this train is to be under the control of the department so far as it is necessary for the purpose designed1 and to run the distance in about twenty-four hours4 ,it is conceded by railroad officials that this can be done4 ,the importance of a line like this cannot be overestimated4 ,it would reduce the actual time of mail between the ,east and the ,west from twelve to twenty-four hours4 ,as it would necessarily be established on one or more of the trunk lines having an extended system of connections1 its benefit would be in no case confined1 but extended through all parts of the country alike4 ,postmaster ,general ,jewell liked ,col4 ,bangs' idea and told him to arrange with the ,lake ,shore ,railroad and the ,new ,york ,central ,hudson ,river ,railroad for a fast mail train to leave ,new ,york at four o'clock in the morning and make ,chicago in twenty-four hours4 ,but the ,post-office ,department1 while it might grandly order fast mail trains into service1 had no appropriation from which to pay for them4 ,nevertheless1 ,col4 ,bangs appealed to the older ,vanderbilt1 owner of both the ,new ,york ,central and ,lake ,shore ,railroads4 ,commodore ,vanderbilt was not a sentimentalist4 ,he had little use for men who came to him with risky propositions and empty pocketbooks4 ,nevertheless1 the mail train idea appealed to the old railroader1 and he turned to his son1 ,william ,h4 ,vanderbilt1 and asked him what he thought of the idea4 ,the younger ,vanderbilt suggested building the special cars needed for this service and placing the train in operation1 with hopes of remuneration by the following ,congress4 ,he felt that the new trains would instantly become so popular as to compel ,congress to provide for their up-keep4 ,if you want to do this1 go ahead1 said ,commodore ,vanderbilt1 but ,i know the ,post-office ,department1 and you will1 too1 within a year4 ,william ,h4 ,vanderbilt went ahead4 ,he constructed and placed in service such trains--of glittering white and gold--as the railroad had never seen4 ,nightly they made their spectacular run between ,new ,york and ,chicago with clock-work regularity4 ,they never missed connections4 ,the ,pennsylvania ,railroad quickly followed the example of its traditional rival4 ,within a half-year the ,united ,states had such a mail service as it had never dreamed of possessing1 a mail service a quarter of a century ahead of any other nation in the world4 ,and yet ,congress did the very thing that the sagacious old ,commodore ,vanderbilt had predicted4 ,it absolutely refused to pay for the fast mail trains1 and they were taken out of service4 ,there was another factor in the situation1 however1 and that always a lively factor--the public4 ,when the man out in ,sioux ,city found that his mail was again taking eighteen additional hours to reach him from ,new ,york1 he rose up in all the fulness of upstrung wrath and let his ,congressman hear from him4 ,and he was only one of tens of thousands whose business comfort had been heightened1 quite imperceptibly1 by the new trains1 and upset very perceptibly by their withdrawal4 ,they were returned to service in #ahgg1 and have since become so recognized and useful a function of the mail service that it would be a brash ,congress or ,postmaster ,general who would even attempt to tinker with them4 99 99 99 99 99 ,sometimes you brush elbows with the railroad mail service4 ,you notice perhaps1 the big heavy car up forward in the long train1 with its open door and its gallows-like crane for snatching mail-bags1 at cross-road stations1 where the through train does not even deign to slacken speed4 ,if you have had an important and delayed letter to post1 you may have breathed your little prayer of thanks to the railroad mail because you are able to drop it into the slot of a car that stood1 that was halted for an impatient minute or two in its race overland4 ,but these are hardly more than superficialities of the service4 ,if you wish to come closer to its heart1 present yourself sometimes just before dawn at one of the great railroad terminals of a really metropolitan city4 ,you had better present yourself in spirit and not in flesh1 because this busy time--when most honest men are asleep--is not a time when visitors are welcomed4 ,the ,government is singularly diffident about showing the inner workings of its ,post-office ,department4 ,but these inner workings are alive and alert at three o'clock of the morning that you come to the platform sheds of the big terminal--you can see the shadowy outline of the darkened building itself rising up behind you4 ,most of its platforms which by day are constant and brisk little highways1 are also darkened4 ,the long files of empty coaches that line these platforms reflect in their many windows the signal lights of the outer yard4 ,now and again you catch the flicker of a pointed yellow light against the background of blackness--the bobbing of a watchman's lantern as he sees that all is well in the few hours of comparative quiet that come to this great terminal4 ,this one train platform is alert and alive--brilliant under the incandescence of electricity4 ,a brigade of shirt-sleeved men line it1 while to its outer edge one great wagon after another--each showing the red1 white1 and blue of government service under the reflections of the arcs--comes rolling up1 with a fearful clatter over the rough pavement of the station yard4 ,from the cavernous recesses of these great wagons their stores are poured forth--dozens and dozens of mail sacks of leather and canvas1 each tagged and directed with absolute accuracy4 ,the grimy granite bulk of the general post-office is a scarce half-dozen blocks away from this terminal--an easy span for each of the great mail-wagons4 ,into that general post-office the mail--letters1 newspapers1 packages1 all of inconceivable variety--has been pouring at flood-tide ever since the close of business nine hours before4 ,the carriers with their heavy pouches began this tide2 wagons bringing their contribution greatly swelled it4 ,from the nearer stations the mail came1 silent and unseen1 through the giant pneumatic tubes that reach out from the general post-office1 under city streets1 like great arteries4 ,underneath the ghastly green mercury lamps of the distributing floor of the general post-office1 the first steps were taken toward separating the flood4 ,expert mail-clerks1 working under tremendous tension1 made a rough classification of all that come under their trained fingers--sometimes by counties1 again by ,states1 or even a group of ,states4 ,one great subdivision was transcontinental and transpacific4 ,this train with its close connections on the ,western lines will reach ,san ,francisco just in time to catch there a big1 red-funnelled steamship about to depart for ,yokohama and ,hong ,kong4 ,at ,hong ,kong the red-funnelled boat will connect with a ,p4 ,o4 steamer whose screws will hardly cease revolving until she reaches ,calcutta4 ,the railroad mail service is a thing that reaches much farther than the rights-of-way of the railroads themselves4 ,there are seven cars in this train--five cars for the postal service and two chartered by the morning newspapers4 ,there are no coaches4 ,now and then one of these flyers will deign to carry a single sleeper1 but such is the exception4 ,the fast mail does not stop to quibble with such trifles as passengers4 ,it even turns its shoulders upon the express companies--they have their own fast special trains across the continent4 ,the last of the mail-wagons has delivered its valuable load to the cars4 ,the final newspaper wagon comes dashing up to the platform--its horses a-froth and its driver on the edge of profanity4 ,here's the firsts1 he yells4 ,big fire down the water-front and they wanted to make the edition with it4 ,we were three minutes late4 ,three minutes late6 ,seventeen minutes ago the last of the smoking-hot forms came from that newspaper's stereotyping rooms and here are the first ten thousand copies of the morning's run--fresh and damp smelling of the forest4 ,before the driver began his hurried explanation of delay1 the copies were being thrown into the last car4 ,he had hardly finished before a big bell1 high-hung somewhere in the invisible blackness1 speaks its one brief note of authority2 lanterns are raised alongside the full length of the train--the seven big cars are softly getting into motion4 ,and before this train is fully in motion the newspaper's messengers are busy with the papers that have been thrown in at the open door2 before it has bumped its way over the wide-spreading throat at the entrance of the terminal1 they are bringing the first semblance of order out of the miniature mountain of newspapers piled high on the car floor4 ,chaos1 did we say8 ,well1 hardly that4 ,the circulation manager of the metropolitan morning newspaper has been called a field marshal of the empire of print1 and field marshals incline to order rather than to chaos4 ,it is less than seventeen minutes from the first of that torrent of newspapers pouring from the hopper of the grinding press1 yet here they are1 each in an accurate bundle of not more than two hundred and fifty copies1 and accurately tagged4 ,the label of each bundle bears in big clear letters the news company or dealer to whom it is consigned1 the town1 the railroad and its connections4 ,there is not much chance for errors here4 ,as the newspaper messengers begin to arrange their stock--the papers for the nearest towns on top so that they may be most easily reached1 to be thrown off while it is still dusk1 so that ,mr4 ,early ,riser may read his favorite metropolitan journal as he sips his breakfast coffee--so are the mail-clerks in the cars ahead bending to their tasks4 ,roundabout them are rows of pouches held in iron frames1 with their hungry throats held wide open1 and infinite racks of small pigeon-holes--the same kind that you remember in the up-country post-offices4 ,when the pouches first come into the car they are opened and their contents dumped-up1 to use the parlance of the service1 upon the shelf-like tables that run the length of the place4 ,the next process is facing-up--bringing addressed sides of all the matter uppermost for facility in distribution4 ,and after that the distribution itself--no easy matter when all the world is constantly writing to all the world1 and the criss-cross currents are all but innumerable4 ,so come all classes of mail to these swift-flying cars--letters1 newspapers1 packages1 the specially protected registered mail1--and for all of these classes the apparently endless sorting goes steadily forward1 while the train rounds sharp curves and sends the ordinarily sure-footed clerks clutching handrails for balance1 under the dead glow of acetylene1 holding each separate mail-piece for a fraction of a second--sometimes longer if it be a sticker in the chirography or the detail of its address--and then shooting it into the proper pigeon-hole or open-mouthed pouch4 ,some of these cars are destined for cities or ,states or groups of ,states--the wheels under one of them are not going to cease revolving for any length of time until it stands on the long ,mole1 opposite ,san ,francisco1 and the through pouches1 with the ,british coat-of-arms and the meaningful ,g4 ,r4 stamped upon them1 are being shipped aboard the red-funnelled steamship which is to carry them on the last leg of their long journey over two seas and a broad continent1 from ,london to ,hong ,kong4 ,these trains are no longer novel on the modern railroad4 ,they are established features of the train service4 ,from ,new ,york ,city goes forward one-sixth of all the mail matter originating in the ,united ,states4 ,the aggregate circulation of all the ,new ,york morning newspapers is somewhat larger than the aggregate circulation of the morning newspapers of the other cities of the country1 so from ,new ,york there goes forth between midnight and dawn a flotilla of special mail and newspaper trains4 ,two of the fastest of these start from the ,grand ,central ,station4 ,the ,boston ,special of the ,new ,york1 ,new ,haven ,hartford leaves that spacious terminal at just #b3aj ,a4 ,m41 no matter what desperate excuses may be telephoned at the last moment by some circulation manager who is confronted by a disabled press1 or some such disaster4 ,it slips through the suburban territory without halting--the nearby commuters are served with their papers and their mail by the early morning locals4 ,bridgeport1 at #c3ca ,a4 ,m41 is the first halt2 ,new ,haven1 at #c3eb1 the second4 ,at ,new ,haven1 the papers for ,hartford1 ,springfield1 and the whole ,connecticut valley country are thrown off4 ,at ,new ,london1 which is reached at #d3ec ,a4 ,m41 go the papers for ,norwich1 ,worcester1 ,newport1 and ,new ,bedford4 ,one more halt1 at ,providence1 and the train1 running as fast as the fastest of ,new ,haven flyers1 is at the ,south ,station1 ,boston--at just #g3bj o'clock4 ,a ,boston ,maine flyer1 taking mail and newspapers away up the coast through three ,states1 leaves the ,north ,station at #h3ja ,a4 ,m41 and so there follows a quick transfer of mail and newspapers through the twisting streets of the ,hub4 ,the other early morning flyer leaves the ,grand ,central at #c3je o'clock1 and it makes its course over the main stem of the ,new ,york ,central ,lines4 ,it reaches ,albany at #f3cj o'clock and not only distributes there for ,western ,massachusetts and ,vermont1 the upper ,hudson ,valley and the ,lake ,champlain territory north to ,montreal1 but overhauls a passenger train that left ,new ,york a little after midnight4 ,it continues its course through the heart of the ,empire ,state--reaching ,syracuse at #aj3je ,a4 ,m4 and ,rochester at #aa3dg ,a4 ,m4 ,at ,buffalo1 which is reached at #a3bj ,p4 ,m41 there are important connections for the ,west and ,southwest1 and the ,chicago letters in that grimy train are going out on the first delivery from the ,chicago post-office the next morning4 ,the ,pennsylvania hauls two great trains--built up of mail sections from its new terminal on ,manhattan ,island1 which has a great post-office in process of growth1 built over a portion of its platform tracks1 and newspaper sections from the old ,jersey terminal1 which is still most convenient to a majority of the metropolitan papers4 ,the first of these trains is bound for the ,south and the ,southwest4 ,it leaves ,new ,york at #b3bj ,a4 ,m41 passes ,philadelphia at #d3be1 and steams into ,baltimore at #f3dj ,a4 ,m4 ,another hour sees it in ,washington and transferring its load to the mail-trains that are about to start for the long journey to ,atlanta and ,new ,orleans4 ,a ,new ,yorker sojourning for a part of the winter at ,palm ,beach1 ,florida1 can be sure of having his favorite ,sunday paper not later than ,tuesday morning4 ,the second ,pennsylvania train leaves thirty minutes later and follows the main line of that much-travelled highway all the way to ,pittsburgh1 which it reaches just at noon4 ,other railroads out of ,new ,york start fast newspaper and mail trains just before dawn and combine regular passenger facilities with them--the ,lehigh ,valley despatching a flyer at #b3jj o'clock from the old ,pennsylvania terminal in ,jersey ,city for the populous northeastern corner of ,pennsylvania and the so-called ,southern ,tier of ,new ,york ,state4 ,the ,lackawanna reaches a somewhat similar territory by its fast express1 which leaves ,hoboken at #b3cj o'clock4 ,a similar cluster of mail and newspaper flyers starts out of ,chicago early each morning--east over the ,lake ,shore1 the ,michigan ,central1 and the ,pennsylvania1 south over the ,monon and the ,illinois ,central1 and west and northwest over the ,northwestern1 the ,rock ,island1 and the ,santa ,fe4 ,other great cities follow the same programme in lesser scale--there are many important fast-mail trains that make their departures from initial terminals throughout all the daylight hours and late into the evening4 ,a regiment of mail-cars make their way over the face of the land on fast through expresses of every sort4 ,the postal service is a business of magnitude within itself4 ,the ,postmaster ,general's report for the year ending ,june #cj1 #aiaj1 gives a clear conception of its magnitude4 ,he showed then that there were #agf full railroad post-office lines1 manned by #a1gcf crews of #h1ccb clerks4 ,there were also #a1cib compartment railroad post-office lines--lines in which a portion of a baggage or smoking-car is partitioned for the sole use of the postal service--manned by #d1jhe crews of #e1djg clerks1 #ah electric car lines with #bj crews and #bb clerks1 and #ee steamboat lines with #ih crews and #hf clerks4 ,of the cars built for the exclusive use of the railroad mail service1 #a1aad were in use and #bjf held in reserve1 while #c1bjh of the compartment cars were in use1 #eei of these being held in reserve4 ,in addition1 the ,post-office ,department operates #be trolley mail-cars4 ,great progress has been made in the substitution of steel mail-cars for wooden ones--a real step forward when one pauses to consider the dangerous position in which the mail-cars are placed in most trains4 ,the records of the ,post-office ,department are filled with stories of heroism on the part of mail-clerks in saving1 both the extremely valuable merchandise that is given to their care1 and vastly more valuable human lives4 ,the list of the post-office employees who have met death while on duty in the railroad mail service is not a short one4 ,but the railroads are coperating with the ,government in giving the finest type of steel cars to its mail service1--sixty of these are already in use on the ,pennsylvania system1--for1 as we stated at the outset of this chapter1 the transportation of ,uncle ,sam's mail is no slight function of the modern railroad4 ,the big operating men across the land are constantly bending their heads with those of the post-office officials toward the betterment of that transportation4 ,,chapter ,,xxiv ,,the ,,mechanical ,,departments ,,care ,,and ,,repair ,,of ,,cars ,,and ,,engines--,,the ,,locomotive ,,cleaned ,,and ,,inspected ,,after ,,each ,,long ,,journey--,,frequent ,,visits ,,of ,,engines ,,to ,,the ,,shops ,,and ,,foundries ,,at ,,altoona--,,the ,,table ,,for ,,testing ,,the ,,power ,,and ,,speed ,,of ,,locomotives--,,the ,,car ,,shops--,,steel ,,cars ,,beginning ,,to ,,supersede ,,wooden ,,ones--,,painting ,a ,,freight ,,car--,,lack ,,of ,,method ,,in ,,early ,,repair ,,shops--,,search ,,for ,,flaws ,,in ,,wheels4 ,to care for its rolling-stock the railroad creates two distinct functions of its business4 ,all the care of its permanent way1 including tracks1 tunnels1 bridges1 comes under the control of the ,maintenance ,way ,department4 ,similarly1 the ,mechanical ,department assumes control of the cars and engines1 sees to it that each is maintained to its fullest efficiency1 both by care in daily service and by certain visits to the shops at regular intervals1 for repairs1 reconstruction1 and painting4 ,to do all this requires a large plant1 both in buildings and machinery4 ,it is distributed at every important point along the railroad4 ,at terminal and operating points1 roundhouse facilities of greater or less extent are sure to be located1 and at the headquarters of each division these are generally expanded into shops for the making of light repairs and to avoid handling crippled equipment for any great distance4 ,one large shop plant is apt to suffice the average railroad for the heavy repair work4 ,if the road stretch to any extraordinary length1 even this feature is apt to be duplicated in order to concentrate this repair work as far as possible4 ,all this concerns the care and repair of the locomotive--which the railroader quickly groups under the title motive-power4 ,to care for the engines while they are in use out upon the line1 to see to it that engineers and firemen alike handle these mechanisms with economy and skill1 is a responsibility that is placed upon the road foreman of engines of each division4 ,he has supervision over smaller roundhouses but at any of the larger of these structures there is a roundhouse foreman in direct charge4 ,the railroad long ago learned that its best economy rested in having plenty of executive control4 ,that has come to be one of the maxims of the business4 ,there is a master mechanic in charge of the division shops and in many cases he has authority over the road foreman of engines and the roundhouse foremen4 ,then under him he has his various assistants1 forming a working force not at all unlike that of the average iron-working shop4 ,all this organism is gathered together under a superintendent of motive power1 who in turn may report to a general mechanical superintendent4 ,this official answers only to the general manager1 or1 in some cases1 to a vice-president to whom these functions of the care of the railroad are delegated4 ,the proposition of the cars is generally treated quite apart from that of the locomotive1 and separate shops under the direction of a master car-builder and his assistants are located at a few points upon the system1 where they may be of fairly easy access4 ,rough repairs 7the car-builders term these light repairs7 to cars are carried forth at each division yard4 ,this work is almost entirely confined to the freight equipment1 and a good part of it goes upon foreign cars--cars that do not belong at all to the railroad making the repairs4 ,this feature of the repair work is a direct result of an elaborate system of interchange in freight equipment upon ,american railroads1 in order to prevent the breaking of bulk in the shipment of merchandise from one line to another4 ,cars will break down when they are many hundreds of miles away from home1 and the railroad upon which they are operating at the time carts them to the nearest temporary repair yard or to its own shops1 makes the necessary repairs1 and charges for them in accordance with a scale prepared by the national association of ,master ,car-,builders4 ,this necessitates a vast deal of bookkeeping and is only one of the many complications brought about by our extensive plan of railroading in ,america4 ,the railroad will probably build the greater part of its freight equipment1 although in these days of the supplanting of wood by steel in car-construction the companies are apt to stand appalled at the cost of the steel working machinery1 and to buy their cars direct from the manufacturers very much as they purchase their locomotives4 ,passenger equipment is almost invariably secured in this way4 ,it is a big railroad indeed that seeks to construct for itself the huge travelling palaces that the passenger of to-day has come to demand for his comfort4 ,the repairing and the painting of these elaborate vehicles is enough of a proposition in itself4 99 99 99 99 99 ,to begin at the beginning1 one first comes in contact with the mechanical department as it comes into constant contact with the operation of the railroad4 ,this is the more quickly observed at the roundhouses1 those great circular structures that are a feature of the railroad section of every important town4 ,in ,england the engine sheds1 as they are there known1 are simple enough structures1 housing a series of parallel tracks1 which are served by either a transfer table or switches4 ,such a plan is pursued in this country only where space is at a premium--as in the heart of some great city where realty is exceedingly high-priced2 for the heads of our railroads have held tenaciously to the easily operated turntable and roundhouse scheme4 ,the table1 generally driven by electricity or a small dummy engine1 forms the centre1 the roundhouse a segment of the entire rim of the wheel4 ,the great advantage of its simple design lies in the fact that it is instantly possible to get at any one of the fifty or more locomotives that it houses4 ,it is this feature that has endeared it to the railroad man for many years4 ,illustration3 ,,triple-,,phase ,,alternating-,,current ,,locomotive ,,built ,,by ,,the ,,general ,,electric ,,co4 ,,for ,,use ,,in ,,the ,,cascade ,,tunnel1 ,,of ,,the ,,great ,,northern ,,railway ,illustration3 ,,heavy ,,service1 ,,alternating ,,and ,,direct ,,current ,,freight ,,locomotive ,,built ,,by ,,the ,,westinghouse ,,company ,,for ,,the ,,new ,,york1 ,,new ,,haven ,,hartford ,,railroad ,illustration3 ,,the ,,monoroad ,,in ,,practical ,,use ,,for ,,carrying ,,passengers ,,at ,,city ,,island1 ,,new ,,york ,illustration3 ,,the ,,cigar-,,shaped ,,car ,,of ,,the ,,monoroad ,the locomotive that hauls the train goes to its stall in the roundhouse directly after its work is done4 ,its crews1 having finished their run1 desert it for the time being1 and it comes within the charge of the roundhouse foreman and his hostlers4 ,these old terms are reminiscent of the days when the roundhouse was a real stable and its denizens flesh and blood horses4 ,now the denizens of the roundhouse are iron horses1 and in their great size as they rest within their house they are indicative of the progress that has been made in the design and construction of railroad equipment4 ,on the way to the roundhouse1 possibly on the way from it 7the practice varies on different railroads7 the engine will stop at the ash-pit4 ,it will have its fires cleaned in a long pit that runs underneath a section of track1 and then pass on to the coaling-shed4 ,the long pit at some points is filled with iron buckets that run on wheels into which the ashes are dumped and these are emptied by overhead crane apparatus into a nearby line of empty gondolas1 ready to be taken away to be disposed of4 ,at the coaling shed the tender is filled1 some twelve or fifteen tons being required if the engine is large2 the water-spout fills the capacious tanks1 while the hostlers take good care to see that the sand-box is filled1 as a precaution against slipping on the next steep grade4 ,then on to the turntable and the waiting stall1 until ready to go out again upon the regular service or extra duty4 ,during that time it will be both cleaned and inspected4 ,the fireman may be held responsible for the cleanly appearance of his engine above the running-board4 ,below that1 the work will be delegated to the roundhouse force4 ,the fireman will probably feel that it should clean all the engine4 ,when he feels particularly aggrieved over the matter it is time for him to meet one of the veterans of the service1 who will tell him of the days when the engines were gayly ornamented with brass and light-colored paints1 and the fireman's career had added to it an endless campaign with his wiping rag against the tendency of the bright-work to tarnish4 ,there are some things that decidedly favor the fireman of the present time4 ,there are not always sufficient roundhouse facilities at every point2 the traffic of our railroads has a way of constantly running away from the facilities2 and so there are many times when the engines must be housed in the open4 ,but the vigilance and the care upon them are never relaxed4 ,the railroad that is foolish enough to try to save upon the maintenance of its motive power sooner or later pays a terrible price for its penurious folly4 ,so it comes to pass that every engine makes a regular visit to the shops1 generally at periods of from ten to fourteen months1 depending upon the service in which it is engaged4 ,on some of these visits1 it will be pretty completely dismantled1 and a travelling crane running the full length of the erecting shop will soon lift the heavy boiler from frame and wheels and carry it down to the boiler-makers1 with no more difficulty than an automatic package carrier in a dry-goods store would have4 ,there is a deal of pride and rivalry between the men as to the facility and speed that can be shown in taking an engine in hand1 dismantling it completely1 making necessary repairs1 setting it up again and placing it in service once more4 ,the men of the ,erie shops at ,hornellsville succeeded in doing the trick a year or so ago in the remarkably short time of twenty-four hours4 ,in that brief time a locomotive came in from the road1 bedraggled and begrimed and marked ,,tbmf for the benefit of the shop-men4 ,,tbmf translated means ,tires1 ,boxes1 ,machine1 ,flues1 so specifying the engine parts to be repaired4 ,in the slang of the repair shop the men say ,to ,be ,made ,fast4 ,these four requisites are the ones most necessary to make the locomotive fit for from #ej1jjj to #ge1jjj miles of service before she shall again turn into the shop4 ,to make them in twenty-four hours required some planning on the part of the ,erie shop foremen at ,hornellsville1 and yet it was only a few weeks after #agcd had come out of the ,hornellsville plant fit for revenue service in a single day and night1 before the men of the rival ,susquehanna shop wished a chance at a contest of that sort4 ,,tbmf generally keeps a locomotive in the shop for from a fortnight to three or four weeks2 the ,canadian ,pacific considered that it had done a remarkable thing in effecting these repairs on a locomotive1 with a super-heater1 at its ,winnipeg shops in #eg-a_/b hours4 ,the ,hornellsville record was one most remarkable4 ,but the ,susquehanna shop men took #bjah in off the road after #gj1jjj miles without repairs2 took in the big puller at #g o'clock in the morning1 made the heavy ,,tbmf repairs1 and turned her out for revenue service at #g3cd o'clock in the evening--thirteen hours and thirty-four minutes4 ,at midnight she was pulling a heavy through freight west once again1 and a most astounding record in ,american shop work had been consummated4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the ,united ,states have few such towns as ,england possesses in ,swindon and in ,crede1 railroad towns in the distinctive sense that they were the absolute creation of the railroad in the first instance4 ,there is many a town from one ocean to the other that has owed its stimulus and development to the location of large railroad shops and terminals within its boundaries1 but the railroads have1 as a rule1 dodged the creation of distinctive towns4 ,pullman1 within the outskirts of ,chicago1 was a monumental failure in this very sort of enterprise4 ,it was designed and built to accommodate the great car-building shops of that man who did the most of all men to make luxury in railroad traffic--,george ,m4 ,pullman2 and no greater care was shown in the construction and design of the works than was given toward the stores1 the churches1 the schools1 and the homes of the workmen4 ,pullman was decidedly a model town2 yet ,pullman was a failure4 ,other model towns of the same sort in ,europe have been marked successes1 and that very thing may well serve to illustrate the difference in temperament between the ,american and the ,european workingman4 ,the ,american resents too much being done for him2 he is instinctively jealous of his individuality4 ,away back in the long-ago the ,erie created a railroad town at ,susquehanna in the extreme north part of ,pennsylvania4 ,it built shops there and soon after repeated the experiment at ,hornellsville in the southwestern part of ,new ,york ,state4 ,the ,baltimore ,ohio ,railroad similarly developed ,cumberland1 ,maryland2 and the ,lake ,shore1 ,elkhart1 ,ind4 ,these are few of many instances where a great railroad shop has served to develop a sizable town4 ,in some others they have developed important suburbs of large cities1 as the ,lake ,shore's plant at ,collinwood1 at the eastern edge of the city of ,cleveland2 and the great shops of the ,new ,york ,central at ,depew1 in the outskirts of ,buffalo1 which were built when the plant at ,west ,albany could no longer accommodate the rolling-stock of a rapidly growing system4 ,in ,altoona1 ,pa41 the ,united ,states possesses probably the only distinctive railroad town of extent within its boundaries4 ,altoona was the creation of the ,pennsylvania ,railroad more than half a century ago1 and its progress1 carefully stimulated1 has proceeded step by step in company with the progress of one of the largest of ,american railroad systems4 ,the mistakes of ,pullman have not been repeated at ,altoona4 ,if the ,pennsylvania ,railroad has ruled the city in the hills1 it has ruled it tacitly and tactfully at all times4 ,it has avoided even the appearance of paternalism1 and the growth of ,altoona has been measured by the growth of the country1 which in its turn is measured with marvellous accuracy by the growth of the railroad traffic4 ,so a trip to ,altoona and through its great shops will be illustrative of the very best practice in the construction and maintenance of a railroad's car and engine4 ,the ,altoona shops are unusual in the fact that both locomotives and cars of the highest capacity and finest type are built within them1 in addition to a great repair and refurnishing work being carried forward there at all times4 ,to do this work1 the plant1 employing during the seasons of heaviest traffic something like #ae1jjj men--is divided into several divisions that stretch themselves along the railroad tracks for about six miles4 ,the first of these divisions consists of the foundries1 devoted largely to the manufacture of cast-iron car-wheels of every size and grade4 ,extensive cupolas1 core-rooms and moulding-floors are provided for making #a1jjj car-wheels every #bd hours4 ,there is the blacksmith shop as part of this particular plant4 ,the blacksmith is one of the handiest of men about a railroad shop and one of the few to survive the almost universal introduction of machine processes4 ,there are also the machine and pattern shops1 together with a large foundry for the manufacture of castings for cars and locomotives1 having a capacity of #bjj tons a day4 ,the second division of industrial activity at ,altoona is the locomotive repair shop4 ,this is the largest of all the individual plants at that point1 employing about #e1jjj men1 and with its three- and four-story structures built closely within a busy yard it is a veritable city within a city4 ,it has a capacity of about #a1hjj reconstructed and repaired locomotives a year and is a shop well calculated to fill any one with respect4 ,the third division is the ,junction shops1 where the new locomotives are built2 #a1hjj men are employed within it1 and there men take the new castings and forgings 7most of the castings coming up from the giant foundries that we have just noticed71 and from them they create that almost human thing1 the railroad locomotive4 ,when the locomotive emerges from that shop it takes its turn upon the testing-table1 the mechanical experts place their final stamp of approval upon it1 and at last it goes out from the shop1 under its own steam1 to perform the great work for which it was created4 ,the testing-table is one of the most interesting of ,altoona's activities4 ,the engine is run upon a series of wheels that fit exactly underneath its own2 it is fastened snugly into place2 connections are made with a score of pipes and rods that fit upon its mechanism1 and it starts off for a run up over the division4 ,it runs miles and miles1 snorting furiously over the hard grades and under the heavy loads it has to haul1 and yet it does not move even the finest fraction of an inch from that testing table4 ,its mechanism throbs with energy1 its wheels revolve at a fearful rate2 yet it is a helpless caged creature in a seemingly impotent energy1 as the men in charge of the test watch a dozen dials1 notebooks in hand4 ,the big driving wheels turn only upon the friction wheels beneath them but the engineers who are conducting the test can tell the speed at which the locomotive is travelling--in theory--by the almost human needles upon the dial-faces4 ,there is more delicate scientific apparatus behind the engine4 ,it is stripped from its tender for this test1 and by this apparatus the pull of the engine upon the dead load of the train can be exactly estimated in pounds and ounces4 ,nor is this all4 ,the friction wheels underneath the drivers are controlled by powerful water brakes1 and by the regulation of these brakes1 strains or handicaps can be placed upon the engine exactly similar to those of the grades it may have to reach over a heavy mountainous stretch of railroad4 ,there is no guess-work about modern railroading4 ,many hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent each year in expert scientific tests of every sort1 in the salaries of men who devote their entire time to this work2 and the railroads reap the benefits in many more hundreds of thousands of dollars in operating economies4 ,railroading is a pretty exact science2 the big engine on the testing-table at ,altoona is only one of a host of evidences of the skill and genius that are being brought to bear upon the operation of the great railroad properties of the country at the present time4 ,this engine goes upon diet4 ,dr4 ,wiley down at ,washington with his young men sustaining themselves scientifically upon measured and selected foods has something of the same method that is shown with the test engine up at ,altoona in the hills4 ,its supply of coal is carefully weighed and analyzed by sample4 ,an accounting of the amount consumed down to ounces is carefully kept1 the water supply is also examined and measured with great care4 ,when the test is finished and the big chaotive engine has covered miles of theoretical grades with a long theoretical train hitched on behind1 the experts get busy with their pencils and begin to prepare the reports upon which their chief may rely when he goes ahead to construct another gross of #ajj-ton locomotives4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the car shops rank next in importance to the locomotive shops4 ,the foreman of this plant tells you casually that it has an annual capacity of #cjj new passenger cars and #c1fjj new freight cars4 ,it is a great plant of itself1 some seventy acres of ground covered with great construction buildings4 ,some of these are in roundhouse form1 for convenience in handling equipment under construction2 others are set side by side and easily reached by use of a long transfer table4 ,the work of erecting the freight equipment is carried on quite separate from that of the passenger car work4 ,the almost universal use of steel in the manufacture of every sort of freight car1 save the box-cars1 which still have wooden walls and roof built upon a steel foundation1 has made a large steel-working shop a necessary adjunct of every car-building plant4 ,one of the most interesting features of the ,altoona car-building plant is a giant hydraulic press situate in the open1 just outside of the steel-working plant4 ,this press brings a dead weight of #a1ejj tons down upon the sheet of steel that it receives4 ,it is used in making the sills of the freight-cars--fish-bellies1 the master car-builders call them--and under that giant press a sheet of steel1 one-half inch in thickness and from thirty to forty feet in length1 is bent into shape as easily as you might bend a sheet of soft cardboard within your fingers4 ,the press makes many hundred fish-belly sills every working day1 and it pays its way4 ,the steel-working in this shop has been carried forth into passenger car construction and a great shed given over for that work4 ,within it one sees the gaunt frames of the cars that are to be1 gaining shape1 until at the far end of the shop is a line of the cars1 completed as far as the steel workers can carry them1 and ready to be swung by one of the ever-busy switch-engines to the finishing shop1 and then finally to the paint shop4 ,even with the steel car coming into its own1 there are still hundreds of thousands of wooden cars in operation2 and the construction of wooden cars will not cease for many years4 ,while steel as a raw material is not far in advance of the cost of wood these days1 the cost of fashioning it into cars is still so excessive as to make it impracticable save in cases of extremely profitable operation4 ,one of the strongest points in favor of steel in car-construction is that of the economy of its maintenance1 always a strong point with railroad men4 ,the wooden car feels the wear and tear of life upon the rail keenly2 in the case of a wreck it is not to be even compared with the steel car4 ,it should not be forgotten1 though1 that the railroads have many thousands of wooden passenger-coaches still in service1 and the substitution of steel equipment for these has only just begun4 ,the average life of a car approximates twenty years1 and the simplest of railroad economics demands that these cars be retained for their active life4 ,as they wear out steel cars can be1 and they already are being1 substituted by the great systems4 ,this new equipment is being used at first upon the main lines and through trains1 where both speed and density of traffic demand the railroad's best equipment4 ,gradually it will be spread to the trains and branch lines of less importance4 ,with the wooden car still a factor in railroad equipment1 the carpenter has not yet lost his vocation in the shops4 ,there is much of the coarser work on the freight cars for him2 in the elaborate passenger coaches1 dining-cars and other equipment of that class1 the great mass of cabinet work still demands the cunning of his hands4 ,here in the miscellaneous carpenter-shop he is at work upon a seat frame for a day-coach1 a shade fixture1 a broken chair from a dining car1 a baggage truck from some station2 there is plenty of work for the carpenter around a car-shop4 ,it is a matter of pride with the railroad to keep its passenger equipment bright and shiny and new of appearance4 ,it is part sentiment and part good business4 ,for a railroad cannot hope to attract passengers with dirty1 unkempt1 weather-beaten cars4 ,so it is that the paint-shop is a large function of the car-shop4 ,american railroads may not go quite as much into gaudy car decoration as do the railroads of ,england and continental ,europe4 ,each year the canons of simple good taste are driving the car-designers to plainer models1 but no expense is spared to make car-surfaces1 within and without1 as bright and shiny as those of a private carriage or an automobile4 ,so it is that a passenger coach spends from eighteen to twenty days in the paint-shop alone1 in its period of refurbishing4 ,it is primed at first and then it receives from three to five coats of surfacer4 ,this is all hand-work1 requiring both strong muscles and infinite patience on the part of the painters4 ,two or three coats of the standard color of the railroad1 by which its equipment is known distinctively1 are given to the exterior4 ,lettering and striping follow1 then finally two coats of fine varnish are flowed and rubbed to a high and brilliant polish4 ,the car is now ready for the dust and the dirt of the line4 ,about every year it will come back again for re-varnishing and at the end of about eight years it will again undergo practically the same treatment within the paint-shop as was given it at the beginning4 ,it will come in rusty and begrimed after many thousands of miles up and down the toilsome line4 ,within three weeks it will emerge from the paint-shop fresh and radiant1 having obtained a new lease of life4 ,if the same process were to be applied to the freight equipment1 the paint-shop would be of almost unlimited size4 ,but freight-cars are not varnished4 ,they are merely painted with the best of time-resisting pigments1 usually a dull and sombre red4 ,the freight-cars literally go through a bath in the paint-shop4 ,expert painters stand1 like fire-fighters1 with a hose-nozzle in their hands4 ,through the hose the paint is forced1 gallons upon gallons of it2 and when it is all over the freight-car is a fine1 even red1 just like the painters themselves4 ,the lettering is a quick matter1 with the use of stencils4 99 99 99 99 99 ,there remain two other great divisions of a central plant of this sort--locomotive repair shops and car repair shops1 for the needs of the immediate divisions with their heavy traffic4 ,these shops1 extensive in themselves1 present no radical differences from the usual division shops which a great railroad maintains at every division operating point in order to keep its rolling stock in the best of order4 ,they are used to make light repairs4 ,the master mechanic is a discerning man4 ,he must know and judge accurately when a disabled car or locomotive should go to the company's main shops1 when the repairs can best be made at the local plant4 ,it is one of the points upon which the economy of the shop system depends4 ,on this matter of shop economy whole volumes might be written1 and have been written4 ,in the beginning of shop practices there was little system in these matters1 just as the shop work was reckoned far below its real importance4 ,one of the earliest of real railroads was the ,columbia ,philadelphia--nowadays one of the main stems of the ,pennsylvania's trunk line--and it was from the beginning a railroad of quite heavy traffic1 double-tracked and reaching into a fat country4 ,yet a shop at ,parkersburg1 halfway up the line1 employing forty men in all1 was considered quite enough for the maintenance of equipment4 ,if one of those early engines broke down at either terminal1 the engineer1 the fireman and perhaps the local blacksmith had to make their own repairs4 ,nothing was standard1 not even the sizes of such simple affairs as nuts and bolts4 ,years of railroading have changed all this4 ,the master-mechanics and the master car-builders meet in annual sessions2 and by means of reports from their expert committees have been evolved standards in every detail of rolling stock--standard materials1 standard compositions1 standard sizes1 even standards in nomenclature of railroad apparatus down to the smallest parts4 ,even with this assistance there still remains a mass of detail in every railroad shop2 and a large clerical force is one of its greatest efficiencies4 ,a sharp and accurate accounting is kept of the cost of repairs upon each locomotive and car1 even such general shop costs as gas and heat are pro-rated against it4 ,there is no time that the railroad cannot tell to a nicety the precise cost of each unit of its equipment4 ,these units are not1 in many roads1 increased1 without precise orders from the board of directors or the executive committee of the board4 ,in order to get around this rule some niceties in reconstruction have been known4 ,a single timber of a worn-out freight car has kept the unit and the number of the old car1 and going into the new has prevented the creation of a forbidden unit4 ,the system upon which cars and locomotives are numbered varies greatly upon different systems4 ,in some cases the first figures of the numbers indicate the class and style of the car or locomotive1 in others they mean nothing4 ,when a car or a locomotive is nigh worn out its number passes from it and is given to some newcomer4 ,the old servant has a neatly painted ,x placed before its number4 ,that ,x is its death warrant4 ,in a little time it leads the way to the scrap heap4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the men who labor in the railroad shops see little of the romance of the line4 ,their work is much like that of the men who work in every sort of large shop4 ,their responsibility is not less than that of the other railroaders1 the men to whom #aej or #cjj miles of line and out-spread towns are as familiar as the very rooms of their own homes4 ,a flaw in the steel1 a careless bit of shopwork1 may serve to derail the express at the least foreseen moment1 to cause disaster in the ringing way that every railroad man sees at one time or another4 ,it may not always be possible to trace the responsibility for such an accident4 ,but there is a responsibility1 and the men who work at forge or lathe1 at press or planer feel that it is there4 ,they form no mean brigade of this great industrial army of ,america4 ,such responsibility continues outside of the main shops to the smaller shops1 down to the roundhouse forces1 by whose care and vigilance the big locomotives are kept fitted for their important work2 down still farther to the car-inspectors1 who1 blue signal-lights in hand1 creep through the long freight-yards of a winter's night to strike the flaw in the metal1 to sound the note of alarm before the worst may come to pass4 ,some of these last you hear in the night as you scurry across the country4 ,as you rest in your berth1 and the express is changing engines at some division point1 you may hear the car inspectors coming along the train1 striking with their hammers against the wheels1 listening intently for the false ring by which they may detect trouble4 ,if you trouble yourself to lift the curtain of your berth1 you may see them1 a grimy crew1 working busily with their hammers1 thrusting their torches in among the trucks to see that all is well4 ,responsibility for the safety in railroad operation does not cease at the doors of the mechanical department4 ,,chapter ,,xxv ,,the ,,railroad ,,marine ,,steamship ,,lines ,,under ,,railroad ,,control--,,fleet ,,of ,,new ,,york ,,central-- ,,tugs--,,railroad ,,connections ,,at ,,new ,,york ,,harbor--,,handling ,,of ,,freight-- ,,ferry-,,boats--,,tunnel ,,under ,,detroit ,,river--,,car-,,ferries ,,and ,,lake ,,routes-- ,,great ,,lakes ,,steamship ,,lines ,,under ,,railroad ,,ownership4 ,in the beginning land transportation must have looked up in something resembling fear and awe to water4 ,we can picture the railroad of the thirties as a slender but resourceful ,david facing the veritable ,goliath of water carriage4 ,in earlier chapters of this book we have shown how the canals1 representing a distinct phase of water transportation1 sought to throttle the railroads at the beginning4 ,but the modern railroad has no fear of water rivalries1 either upon the coast or inland4 ,just as the first railroads were ofttimes timidly built as feeders or complements to water routes1 so to-day almost every inland water route is part of a railroad--in operating fact if not in actual ownership4 ,the tables have been turned--the railroad finally dominates4 ,nine-tenths of all the great water routes in and aroundabout the ,united ,states are more or less directly owned and controlled by the railroads4 ,they have become1 in every sense1 corollaries to land transportation4 ,this is more distinctly shown in some sections of the land than in others4 ,for instance1 up in ,new ,england1 where the interests owning the ,new ,york1 ,new ,haven ,hartford ,railroad have accomplished direct or indirect control of all but a comparatively few miles of the steam and electric railroads in five great ,states1 they have also acquired the steamship interests of that district4 ,the ,new ,haven's original excursion into the steamboat business was when it absorbed the ,old ,colony ,railroad--almost a score of years ago--in order to ensure its entrance into ,boston4 ,the ,old ,colony owned a well-famed and highly prosperous steamboat line from ,fall ,river1 ,massachusetts1 to ,new ,york ,city1 part of its through ,new ,york-,boston route4 ,eventually the ,new ,haven acquired all the brisk and busy steamboat lines which ran up the ,sound from ,new ,york to several ,connecticut ports--,bridgeport1 ,new ,haven1 ,hartford1 ,new ,london1 and ,stonington4 ,any one of these lines was not1 perhaps1 so much of an acquisition in itself1 but all of them were potentials in a future rate situation that might arise4 ,it was good executive management to have these potentials under firm control1 and so the ,new ,haven established water routes as a recognized factor of its business--under the separate corporation title of the ,new ,england ,navigation ,company4 ,once when a new company1 under the mellifluous title of the ,joy ,line1 sought to injure its coastwise business by establishing cut-rates from ,providence to ,new ,york1 the ,new ,haven placed two of its older boats in a rival and lower-priced service1 and1 by means of its great resources1 was able to bring the ,joy ,line into its fold4 ,later1 when the ,enterprise ,line tried a like programme1 the ,new ,haven followed the same aggressive tactics and brought the ,enterprise ,line to bankruptcy4 ,these things are mentioned here in no spirit of criticism4 ,but they are the facts that make it impossible for really independent lines of steamboats to run between ,new ,york and ,providence for any great length of time1 despite ample docking facilities and a great free port at each of these cities4 ,the ,metropolitan ,line tried to maintain an independent line between ,new ,york and ,boston with the two finest steamers ever placed in coastwise service--the ,yale and the ,harvard4 ,one of these boats left each city at five o'clock in the afternoon and performed the ocean voyage of #ccj miles over the outside route in just fifteen hours--and with amazing regularity4 ,but the ,new ,haven ,railroad found it to its interest to control the coasting lines around about ,new ,england1 and so the ,yale and ,harvard were last winter banished to the ,pacific coast4 ,this is all part of the business of managing great railroad systems4 ,for similar reasons the ,pennsylvania ,railroad found it advisable to bring a group of steamboat lines plying on ,chesapeake ,bay and its tributaries under its control1 the ,harriman lines to reach out and establish ownership of the lines plying up and down several thousand miles along the ,pacific coast--these are but a few instances out of many4 ,as yet no large ,american railroad has essayed to control a transatlantic line1 although both the ,hill and the ,harriman properties are interested in the transpacific carrying business4 ,the ,canadian ,pacific1 however1 has already well-established lines across both of the great oceans--making a continuous route under one management from ,liverpool1 ,england1 to ,hong ,kong1 ,china4 ,moreover1 it is now building four great steamships which are to be finished simultaneously with the ,panama ,canal and which will ply through it from ,new ,york direct to ,hong ,kong4 ,the ,canadian ,northern has also recently embarked in the transatlantic carrying business4 ,the ,canadian ,pacific and several of the large railroads of the northern part of the ,united ,states maintain lines of sizable gross tonnage on the ,great ,lakes--but of these1 more in a little while4 ,illustration3 ,a ,,modern ,,railroad ,,freight ,,and ,,passenger ,,terminal3 ,,the ,,terminal ,,of ,,the ,,west ,,shore ,,railroad ,,at ,,weehawken1 ,,opposite ,,new ,,york ,,city ,illustration3 ,,high-,,speed1 ,,direct-,,current ,,passenger ,,locomotive ,,built ,,by ,,the ,,general ,,electric ,,company ,,for ,,terminal ,,service ,,of ,,the ,,new ,,york ,,central ,,at ,,the ,,grand ,,central ,,station ,even if a railroad is not engaged in the steamship business1 as such1 even to the extent of one or two small steamboats on inland waters1 it may still possess a considerable harbor fleet1--wharves1 and slips--that1 taken together1 make a sizable aggregate4 ,every railroad that has any sort of ambition to be considered a trunk-line will count upon having one or two or even more terminals upon navigable streams1 and at these it will protect itself by having its own wharves and landing-stages--even grain elevators1 if it is putting out its hungry fingers for the great traffic in food-stuffs that sweeps out over the land and water transportation routes of ,america4 ,such a terminal means a railroad fleet--ferries1 scows1 lighters1 a little company of stout and busy tugs4 ,it means that the railroad must pay attention to marine laws and marine customs4 99 99 99 99 99 ,when a railroad boasts of a terminal in such a city as ,boston1 ,new ,york1 ,baltimore1 ,new ,orleans1 or ,san ,francisco1 its fleet of harbor craft is apt to be quite a sizable navy4 ,take1 for instance1 the ,new ,york ,central's fleet in and around ,new ,york harbor4 ,it consists of #bfi vessels1 divided into the following classes3 #i ferry-boats1 #bb tugs1 #g steam-lighters1 #ej car-floats1 #aj steam-hoist barges1 #be open barges1 #f scow barges1 #aje covered barges1 and #ce grain-boats4 ,and out of all these barges1 #aj are further equipped for refrigerator use4 ,in such a fleet1 eliminating of course the ferry-boats which have their own peculiar uses1 the tugs are almost the sole motive power4 ,there is a bit of poetry about them1 too1 even if they are short and stubby1 ofttimes poking their cushioned noses impertinently up against larger and far more stately craft4 ,but no captain1 even though he walk the bridge of an eight-hundred foot steamship1 sneers at a tug4 ,it takes eighteen of them to place the new giant ,olympic in her wharf on the ,north ,river1 and no crack company of horsemen ever moved in more precise drill or better coperation than these noisy1 punting1 helping-hands of the harbor of ,new ,york4 ,for ocean ports are different from those along the lakes4 ,a captain sailing a five-thousand ton ship on fresh water would be ashamed to use a tug at ,detroit1 or any other of the ,great ,lake ports1 even where the current runs almost like a mill-race1 unless he was turning in a channel whose width was but a wee bit more than the length of his ship4 ,but ,detroit and ,cleveland and ,buffalo and ,chicago do not have the tides--and it is the tide that makes harbor navigation a finely specialized science at the big ocean ports4 ,all of the big ,atlantic ports save ,new ,york have abundant track facilities alongside the piers1 where berth the ships from half the world over4 ,in ,new ,york1 the same geographical conditions that have gone to make her so superb a port and given her so generous a harbor-frontage have blocked the railroads in their efforts to reach all her piers with unbroken rails4 ,so the railroads entering that harbor have found it necessary to provide themselves with such fleets as we have noticed as belonging to the ,new ,york ,central4 ,for inland shippers seem to have a preference for sending their east-bound export merchandise through ,new ,york1 because of the frequency of sailings from her wharves to half the recognized ports of the world4 ,if you are a manufacturer--at ,utica1 ,n4 ,y41 let us say--and you wished to send a carload of your product to ,london1 ,eng41 you would find that the railroad definitely agrees to do certain things for you4 ,on your minimum basis of a carload lot it will place that carload at any pier in the harbor of ,new ,york4 ,indeed1 it would do a little more4 ,if some of that carload lot that starts down out of ,utica is going to ,london1 some more on a different ship to ,calcutta1 and still some more on a tropic-bound liner to ,south ,america1 the railroad would make free delivery of your consignment to the piers of these three ships4 ,it limits1 however1 the delivery of a carload lot to three different piers4 ,this sounds simple1 perhaps1 and1 in reality1 is not4 ,for in a single day of twenty-four hours there may arrive at ,weehawken and ,sixtieth ,street1 ,manhattan--the two great freight terminals of the rails of the ,new ,york ,central system at ,new ,york--from four to six hundred1 eight hundred cars1 perhaps1 filled with merchandise bound for half a hundred different piers1 along from forty to sixty miles of water-front4 ,now you see the use of all this army of lighters and barges--stubby-nosed craft1 awkward craft1 boats that have not even a single stanza of the poetry of the sea written upon their contents4 ,by night1 by day1 when an imperial city throbs with the bustle of brisk endeavor1 and still when it tries to snatch a few brief feeble hours of rest1 in summer1 in winter1 when the two rivers and the great upper bay of ,new ,york harbor are alive with gay pleasure craft1 and in the trying hours when a pilot's path is fraught with the dangers of drifting ice and laid through gray blankets of mist1 this great interchange of freight of every sort goes forth4 ,the eight or ten great railroads that terminate in ,new ,york are pouring export merchandise to all of her piers1 while from those long sprawling structures they are drawing up imported goods to go forward to every corner of the land4 ,and in addition to this there is the vast local commerce of the ,city of ,new ,york1 which1 as we saw when we were considering the freight terminals1 back in ,chapter ,,vii1 is no slight matter of itself4 ,but this traffic1 as well as much of that of the great interchange between the railroads terminating at ,new ,york1 is handled most effectively by the car-floats on each of which twelve to sixteen standard box-cars may be loaded with great expedition4 ,but the clumsy barges and the lighters and the still clumsier car-floats are of little use without the tugs1 and these last are the quick couriers of the harbor4 ,twenty of that ,new ,york ,central fleet are kept in constant use in the ,north and ,east ,rivers1 and along the harbor shores to ,jersey ,city1 ,bayonne1 and the southern parts of ,brooklyn4 ,they do not lie idle1 save when they are finally forced to lay up for a little time for repairs4 ,and then a reserve tug is in service without delay4 ,here is the modern economy of railroad equipment--even though this be the part of the railroad that is afloat4 ,a tug pulls up to a dock1 its crews are off almost before their relief is standing at its station1 and making sure that the craft is in as good order as they left it4 ,while the relief is finding its tired way toward home the tug is off again4 ,its work is constant4 ,its work is not easy4 ,it does not seem to be systematic and yet it is--wonderfully systematic4 ,for here and there about the harbor the captains of these ,n4 ,y4 ,c4 tugs get their orders--just as conductors of the trains upon the steel highways get their clearance cards and yellow tissues4 ,a half-dozen stations give orders1 and these are but the speaking stations of a single man who sits before a telephone switchboard close by a narrow street of down-town ,manhattan and directs tug movements through the crowded harbor1 just as easily as a despatcher moves extra freights over a crowded stretch of single-track line4 ,the traffic runs flood-high and the station men gossip of the whispered complaints of the tug-crews1 but the man at the switchboard only smiles4 ,a traffic solicitor who plies his heartbreaking work on the floor of the near-by ,produce ,exchange comes over to him and says3 ,i've promised ,smith ,russell delivery of ten cars of flour at ,pier #cb1 ,east ,river1 at seven o'clock to-morrow morning4 ,we can't go back on them4 ,the man at the switchboard does not lose that smooth-set smile1 even though the loudly ticking clock1 just above the plugs and cords1 shows him that it is already six o'clock of the evening of a day when the harbor freight has run flood-high4 ,all right1 he laughs1 ,smith ,russell can count upon us4 ,and the next moment he is ordering ,tug ,twenty-seven to go from the ,sixtieth ,street pier over to ,weehawken to get that small mountain-range of flour-bags that the huskies have already begun to build on a pier-floor1 alongside of a string of dusty1 grimy cars that have bumped their way east from ,minneapolis4 ,perhaps you are interested in the personality of ,tug ,twenty-seven4 ,take yourself away from the cool-witted despatcher and look down upon this craft--the queen of a railroad pet marine4 ,she is as resplendent in her green and gold as any gentleman's yacht1 and her crew even more proud of her4 ,she stands in the water1 a mere #aaj feet long and #bd-a_/b feet beam1 but those wonderful shining engines in her heart can develop #a1bjj horse-power--as much as many steamboats of three times her size4 ,her watertube boilers can withstand a locomotive pressure of #ahe pounds to the square inch1 she has all the accoutrements of coast liners--steam steering gears and electric lights among them4 ,no wonder that her captain waxes eloquent about her4 ,now ask him about what she can do4 ,that he takes as personal achievement1 and these harbor men are a bashful lot4 ,still1 you can worm it out of him1 and after a while you find that ,tug ,twenty-seven has just brought a punt-nosed car-float1 with sixteen loaded cars upon her rails1 around from ,corlears ,hook1 through the press of shipping1 and around the ,battery where cross-tides battle against one another and against craft of all sorts1 up to ,weehawken bridge in forty minutes--which is not so very bad for a ten-mile run through a congested harbor4 ,time counts1 adds the captain4 ,if they had given me another twelve or fifteen minutes ,i could have brought around two of the floats--put together ',v' fashion and the ,twenty-seven with her nose stuck up into the ',v'4 99 99 99 99 99 ,in the harbor of ,new ,york is a great cluster of ferry-boats operated to overcome her barrier rivers by the several trunk-line railroads whose systems terminate at a long water-jump from the congested ,island of ,manhattan4 ,to compete with railroads boasting terminals on ,manhattan ,island itself1 these lines have been compelled to equip and operate extensive ferry fleets across both the ,east and the ,north ,rivers4 ,across the first of these streams operates the navy of the ,long ,island ,railroad1 while across the ,hudson ply in an intricate interlacing more than a dozen ferry routes of the ,central ,railroad of ,new ,jersey1 the ,pennsylvania1 ,erie1 ,lackawanna1 and the ,west ,shore ,railroads4 ,the recent completion of the ,new ,york-,jersey ,city-,newark routes of the ,hudson tunnels1 as well as the inauguration of passenger traffic through both ,north and ,east ,river tunnels to the new ,pennsylvania terminal in ,manhattan1 has caused the abandonment of two ferry routes and curtailment of service upon several others4 ,tunnel-diggers and bridge-builders make havoc with ferry routes1 which must always remain liable to many delays because of fog1 floating ice1 and such other adverse weather conditions4 ,still the railroad ferries round about ,new ,york derive no small income from the trucking service of a metropolitan city which has had to struggle for many years against great intersecting rivers1 and so they will probably continue to be for many years interesting and picturesque features of ,new ,york harbor4 ,but perhaps the most interesting of all the ferry routes of ,new ,york harbor is the attenuated line from the ,new ,york1 ,new ,haven ,hartford ,railroad's waterside terminal at ,port ,morris in the ,bronx1 for ten miles through the ,east ,river1 ,hell ,gate1 around the sharp turn and tides of ,corlears ,hook and again of the ,battery1 and across the ,hudson ,river to the old terminal of the ,pennsylvania ,railroad in ,jersey ,city4 ,over this route goes through traffic--freight and passenger--from ,new ,england to the ,south and the ,southwest4 ,the freight-traffic is handled largely by car-floats in charge of the busy puffing tugs1 while the passenger traffic goes in ferry-boats different from the others that ply in ,new ,york harbor4 ,for these ferry-boats are really nothing more than a bettered type of car-float--a type equipped with powerful engines for self-propulsion4 ,through passenger trains run each day and each night between ,boston and ,baltimore and ,washington1 and these trains are handled between ,port ,morris and ,jersey ,city upon them4 ,the familiar ,maryland1 which is operated jointly by the ,new ,haven and the ,pennsylvania systems upon this route1 will receive an entire passenger train of ordinary length1 excepting1 of course1 the locomotive1 upon her great deck1 which is1 in reality1 a miniature railroad yard1 equipped with two long parallel tracks that can be quickly attached to the ferry-bridges at ,port ,morris and ,jersey ,city4 ,the trip1 with the loading and unloading of the train1 is accomplished1 under favorable weather conditions1 in about an hour4 ,it makes a pleasant break in the day trip from the capital of ,new ,england to the capital of the ,united ,states1 to spend an hour tramping up and down a broad ship's deck1 or dining in a roomy1 sun-filled cabin1 while ,new ,york itself is as completely ignored as any small way-station along the run4 ,new ,yorkers themselves have long since become too accustomed to seeing the long train ferried upon the water-way that separates the two greatest boroughs of the city1 to give it more than passing thought4 ,this ferry is also finally threatened by the bridge-builders4 ,as this is written1 workmen are already preparing the pier foundations for a great railroad bridge that is to span the ,east ,river not far from ,hell ,gate1 and which is to give an unbroken line of rails from the ,new ,haven's terminal at ,port ,morris1 through ,long ,island ,city1 to the ,pennsylvania's tunnels and terminal in ,manhattan ,island4 ,so1 also1 have the tunnel-builders contrived to rob the through traveller on the ,michigan ,central of the more or less thrilling water transfer from ,canada to the ,united ,states at ,detroit4 ,the ,detroit ,river tunnel has superseded one of the most important car-ferries in the country1 but it has given to the operating heads of the ,michigan ,central one of the very shortest through routes from ,new ,york to ,chicago and robbed them of one of the fearful handicaps of their main line--the possibilities for constant and exasperating delays to their through trains while being ferried across the ,detroit ,river4 ,do not underestimate the possibilities of those delays4 ,within the past ten years1 the transport ,michigan1 plying from ,detroit to ,windsor1 the ,canadian town directly opposite1 and carrying a ,chicago-,montreal flyer1 was stuck for ten hours in the ice1 so near the slip that a long plank would have almost reached from her deck to the wharf4 ,that1 in the lesser form1 has been the history of winter after winter at the ,detroit ferry4 ,shipbuilders have done their best to meet the obstacle by building car-ferries of tremendous power1 sometimes even equipping them with both side-wheels and screws4 ,but the real problem of possible delay can only be solved there by tunnels1 and it is expected that the ,grand ,trunk1 the ,canadian ,pacific1 and the ,wabash--which still use the car-ferries across the ,detroit ,river--will sooner or later either tunnel beneath it or acquire trackage rights through the ,michigan ,central tubes4 ,the ,detroit ,river is a narrow but important part of the tremendously important water highway up the ,great ,lakes1 and at every part of the whole length of that highway the railroads have tried to break their way across4 ,it has not been found impossible to bridge the ,st4 ,lawrence or the ,niagara ,rivers or the wide straits at ,sault ,ste4 ,marie1 but there are other points1 even besides ,detroit1 that have as yet baffled the genius of the bridge-builder4 ,one of the most important of these is where ,lake ,michigan forces its outlet into ,lake ,huron through the two peninsulas of the great ,state that bears its name4 ,to make the two parts of ,michigan physically one with unbroken rail will probably not be accomplished in many years4 ,in the meantime the stout and tremendously powerful ferry ,algomah--built so as to literally crush the ice down under her tremendous bows--plies between ,mackinac ,city1 the ,island of ,mackinac1 situated midstream1 and ,st4 ,ignace1 on the north shore of the broad strait4 ,despite the fearful severity of the winters in northern ,michigan the ,algomah keeps that important path open the year round--not only for herself but for the great car-floats that follow in her wake4 ,what is possible at the ,straits of ,mackinac is also possible across the widest part of any one of the ,great ,lakes--excepting always the emotionless ,superior4 ,at least that is the way the railroad traffic men have argued for many years1 and so for these many years car-ferries have plied successfully across the very hearts of three of the lakes4 ,of all the chain1 ,lake ,michigan offers the greatest natural obstruction to the natural traffic movements of the land--its great length1 stretching north and south1 forming an obstacle to through rail movements1 and contributing not a little to the railroad importance and the wealth of ,chicago4 ,so it was that car-ferries were established many years ago across ,lake ,michigan and are operated throughout the lake to-day--from ,manitowoc1 ,kewaunee1 ,milwaukee1 ,menominee1 and ,manistique on the west shore of the lake1 to ,frankfort1 ,ludington1 ,northport1 ,grand ,haven1 ,st4 ,joseph1 and ,benton ,harbor upon the east shore4 ,these vessels are of different construction from the ferries that cross the narrow ,detroit ,river4 ,they lack the low freeboard and the other typical ferry construction1 and are1 instead1 deep-gulled vessels1 generally built of steel and always of great structural strength4 ,like the river ferries1 says ,james ,c4 ,mills1 they are ice-crushers1 but of greater size and power4 ,during two or three of the winter months the lakes are frozen in a solid sheet of ice for twenty and thirty miles from the shores1 and in extremely severe winters the ice-fields meet in mid-lake4 ,to keep a channel open in the depth of winter even for daily passages back and forth1 is a hazardous undertaking for the hardy mariners4 ,the frequent gales which sweep the lakes break up the fields into ice-floes which1 driven one way or another with great force1 pile up in huge banks1 often in the direct course of the transports and as high as their upper decks4 ,at such times they free themselves only after repeated buckings of the shifting mass of ice1 sometimes miles in extent1 by running their stout prows up on the edge of the mass1 breaking it down by their sheer weight1 and ploughing through the ragged1 grinding blocks of ice thus formed4#a #a ,our ,inland ,seas1 by ,james ,c4 ,mills1 #aiaj4 ,four tracks1 running the full length of the ship1 generally fill the main deck of these trans-lake ships4 ,the loading of the cars on to these tracks is accomplished at the stern1 the bow being built high and1 as we have just seen1 somewhat after the fashion of an overhanging prow4 ,the main deck is completely roofed over with cabins and deck-houses1 so that1 viewed from the rear1 the ship seems to be an itinerant pair of railroad tunnels1 dark and gloomy4 ,the upper decks are gay with the resources of the marine architect--for the greater part of these boats offer accommodations for passengers as well as for from eighteen to thirty freight cars4 ,these great ferries form valuable feeders to the ,grand ,trunk1 the ,pere ,marquette1 the ,ann ,arbor1 and ,grand ,rapids ,indiana1 and some minor routes crossing ,michigan4 ,similarly1 car-ferries crossing ,lake ,erie from ,cleveland to ,port ,stanley are considerable factors both in general merchandise and in the coal trade4 ,another ,lake ,erie route of heavy tonnage extends from ,ashtabula1 ,ohio1 to ,port ,burwell1 ,ontario4 ,within the last few years a car-ferry has been established across ,lake ,ontario1 from ,charlotte--which is the port of ,rochester1 ,n4 ,y4--to ,coburg on the ,canadian side1 which has already developed for itself a considerable traffic4 ,but the car-ferries1 extensive as they are1 form but a small portion of the railroad interests upon the waters of the ,great ,lakes4 ,almost all of the great lines through those much-travelled waters are the property of some railroad system whose rails touch one or more of their terminals4 ,thus the ,northern ,steamship ,company1 running from ,buffalo to ,chicago and ,duluth1 touches the rails of its parent company1 the ,great ,northern ,railroad1 at this last port4 ,the ,erie ,western ,transportation ,company--popularly known as the ,anchor ,line--also running from ,buffalo to ,duluth1 is a ,pennsylvania property4 ,both of these lines are operated for passenger service1 as well as freight4 ,the ,new ,york ,central and the ,erie cover the same territory with exclusively freight routes4 ,the ,rutland ,railroad has a line all the way from its western terminal at ,ogdensburg1 on the ,st4 ,lawrence ,river1 to ,chicago4 ,the ,canadian ,pacific and the ,grand ,trunk operate important lines through ,georgian ,bay and ,lake ,superior4 ,even a small road1 like the ,algomah ,central1 has its own freight and passenger steamboats running south from the ,soo as far as ,cleveland1 ,ohio4 ,it is a pretty poor line with ,great ,lakes terminals that cannot boast some sort of steamship service of its own4 ,in the development of the coastwise and the inland waterways of the ,united ,states1 the railroad may be doing the nation a far greater service than it imagines4 ,for the general trend of railroad expansion in the country to-day seems to be toward a development of the auxiliary water-routes rather than toward their curtailment4 ,the railroad has finally realized that some coarse commodities can be carried far more economically by water than by rail4 ,it is to-day seeking to avail itself of that acquired knowledge4 ,if competing and feeding trolley lines are good things for railroads to own--and the present-day judgment seems to be that they are--the same rule holds doubly good in regard to both competing and feeding water-routes4 ,,chapter ,,xxvi ,,keeping ,,in ,,touch ,,with ,,the ,,men ,,the ,,first ,,organized ,,branch ,,of ,,the ,,railroad ,y4 ,m4 ,c4 ,a4--,,cornelius ,,vanderbilt',s ,,gift ,,of ,a ,,club-,,house--,,growth ,,of ,,the ,,railroad ,y4 ,m4 ,c4 ,a4--,,plans ,,by ,,the ,,railways ,,to ,,care ,,for ,,the ,,sick ,,and ,,the ,,crippled--,,the ,,pension ,,system--,,entertainments--,,model ,,restaurants--,,free ,,legal ,,advice--,,employees' ,,magazines--,,the ,,order ,,of ,,the ,,red ,,spot4 ,the historic gray ,union ,station1 which still stands at ,cleveland1 housed what was destined to be the very first systematic effort of the railroad to get in touch and keep in touch with its men4 ,in that building1 once new and splendid1 but now old and grimy1 ,george ,meyers1 the depot master1 gathered a group of railroaders on a ,sunday away back in #ahgj4 ,the man came again on a second ,sunday1 still again on a third2 after a little while those ,sunday afternoon gatherings became habitual1 and a new kink in all the intricacy of railroading was established4 ,the meetings were partly religious and partly social1 and eventually they led to a distinct innovation in that depot4 ,this little conference of ,meyers was1 in #ahgb1 developed into the first organized branch of the railroad ,young ,men's ,christian ,association4 ,general ,john ,h4 ,devereux1 the general manager of the ,lake ,shore ,michigan ,southern ,railway2 ,reuben ,f4 ,smith1 of the ,cleveland ,pittsburgh ,railroad1 and ,oscar ,townsend of the ,big ,four ,railroad were chosen directors of the branch4 ,henry ,w4 ,stage1 a train-despatcher on the ,lake ,shore1 was earnestly and intensely enthusiastic in this work2 and because of his zeal and enthusiasm1 together with that of ,george ,meyers1 this branch was successful from the outset4 ,the ,lake ,shore ,railroad1 whose headquarters were in that same ,union ,depot at ,cleveland then was and still is a pet property of the ,vanderbilt family1 also owners of the great ,new ,york ,central system4 ,the heads of that family began watching the ,cleveland experiment with unusual interest4 ,the reports that came from them were unusual4 ,that scheme of the depot master's seemed to be making a better grade of railroader in and around ,cleveland1 and any institution that bettered the type of railroaders interested the ,vanderbilts4 ,so the thing that ,meyers had founded soon had wealthy patrons and strong friends4 ,the ,vanderbilts kept their shoulders to the wheels of the railroad ,y4 ,m4 ,c4 ,a41 kept it out of the ruts and from falling4 ,they saw it introduced here and introduced there on their group of railroads2 saw it spread to other lines2 and finally1 ,cornelius ,vanderbilt himself built a splendid club-house for railroad men at the great terminal of his road in ,new ,york ,city and turned it over to the management of the railroad ,y4 ,m4 ,c4 ,a4 ,that house1 standing almost in the shade of the ,grand ,central ,station1 after a quarter of a century1 still ranks as one of the distinctly fine club-homes of a city that is opulent in club-houses4 ,it is still dedicated to simplicity1 to democracy1 to decency1 and to good fellowship4 ,there is not a railroader coming into the big passenger terminal--from either the ,new ,york ,central or the ,new ,haven system--who is not welcome to it1 day or night4 ,engineers1 firemen1 conductors1 trainmen all come into its hospitable door after a long hard run to find the clean comfort of good meals1 bath1 comfortable beds1 good fellowship awaiting them4 ,there is the peculiar and the successful field of the railroad ,y4 ,m4 ,c4 ,a42 perhaps as much as any1 the real reason for its pronounced success4 ,few railroaders in train service can leave their homes in the morning1 double their runs1 and be home at night4 ,the hard part of the business is that in most cases a man will have to spend one night1 occasionally two nights1 out on the run4 ,the difficulties of this are not readily understood without a slight examination4 ,in a large city the railroader finds that it is a shabby sort of a hotel or lodging-house that can come regularly within his scheme of economy4 ,when he strikes the little town1 or frequently the big terminal or division freight-yard around which is no town at all1 the problem only multiplies4 ,j4 ,m4 ,burwick1 a veteran conductor of the ,duluth ,iron ,range ,railroad1 told that problem in his own sincere way last year at a big dinner of railroad men in ,st4 ,louis4 ,i left home a beautiful morning in '#gb1 said ,mr4 ,burwick4 ,i went down to ,lafayette and to my first boarding-house2 and up to that time ,i don't think any railroad man ever found a boarding-house except it was tied up to a saloon4 ,i was in a place like that4 ,another place ,i was running into was where they made a division point in a corn-field4 ,the company built a large building for the benefit of the men1 and then they rented it to be run as a hotel4 ,but the man in charge ran it to make money1 and the steak he cut with his razor4 ,i know he did1 because it was so thin4 ,at other places we had to sleep in a hot yard1 in a hot caboose not fit for a man to try and sleep in2 and then we had to stay awake on the road that night4 ,that was ,burwick's testimony as to the conditions just before the coming of the railroad ,y4 ,m4 ,c4 ,a4 ,an engineer from the ,new ,york ,central1 a man who had slept many nights in that comfortable club-house at the ,grand ,central1 went up into ,canada a few years ago and took an engine on a division running out of ,kenora4 ,the only place that a railroad man could find board and lodging in that town at that time was a boarding-house with the saloon attachment1 and he was welcome there for but a limited time1 unless he was a reasonably liberal patron of the saloon4 ,the engineer--his name is ,mc,crea--changed that order of things and established a branch of the railroad ,y4 ,m4 ,c4 ,a41 which in four years gained #cjj members and threatened to close the saloons of the place4 ,illustration3 ,,this ,,is ,,what ,,new ,,york ,,central ,,mccrea ,,did ,,for ,,the ,,men ,,of ,,the ,,canadian ,,pacific ,,up ,,at ,,kenora ,illustration3 ,a ,,clubhouse ,,built ,,by ,,the ,,southern ,,pacific ,,for ,,its ,,men ,,at ,,roseville1 ,,california ,illustration3 ,,the ,b4 ,o4 ,,boys ,,enjoying ,,the ,,railroad ,y4 ,m4 ,c4 ,a41 ,,chicago ,,junction ,illustration3 ,,the ,,brooklyn ,,rapid ,,transit ,,company ,,has ,,organized ,a ,,brass ,,band ,,for ,,its ,,employees ,now you get the reason for the welcome that the railroad-owners gave this work of the ,y4 ,m4 ,c4 ,a4 ,it was not the religious idea alone--men differ in their views of that sort of thing--but one of the most stringent of all railroad rules is that prohibiting the use of liquor by the men1 or their frequenting bar-rooms4 ,the necessity of that rule appears upon the face of it4 ,but the ,canadian railroad could do little toward enforcing it in a place like ,kenora1 before ,mc,crea1 of the ,new ,york ,central1 arrived there4 ,the railroad ,y4 ,m4 ,c4 ,a41 with its comfortable housing facilities1 its vigorous stand for better morals and better men1 has made that rule one of the easiest in the book to be strictly observed4 ,that is why the railroad-owners and the railroad heads1 whose religious views have sometimes been at variance with those of the ,y4 ,m4 ,c4 ,a41 have given hearty endorsement to its work along their lines4 ,they like the sort of man it finishes4 ,so the railroad ,y4 ,m4 ,c4 ,a4 has grown4 ,it now has some #bdj branches reaching from ,hawaii1 in the ,west1 to some important division points in ,eastern ,maine4 ,none of these have houses that can be compared1 of course1 with the comfortable home at the ,grand ,central ,station in ,new ,york4 ,in fact1 some of them are still housed in crude fashion1 in an abandoned shed or depot that some railroad has fitted up as a start in the work1 over some store or freight-house perhaps2 but each year sees these replaced by neat homes1 such as those at ,harrisburgh1 on the ,pennsylvania2 at ,collinwood1 ,o41 on the ,lake ,shore2 at ,baltimore1 on the ,b4 ,o42 at the ,st4 ,louis ,union ,station1 and the ,williamson1 ,w4 ,va41 on the ,norfolk and ,western ,railway4 ,on a single system--the ,new ,york ,central--there are #ch associations1 with #bg buildings built for the purpose and valued at #gjj1jjj1 and a very active membership of #ab1gii railroaders4 ,in the national organization membership there are more than #he1jjj men1 representing every department of the railroad service4 ,an average of #ae1ejj meals--and mighty good reasonably priced meals they are1 too--is served daily1 while more than #ej1jjj railroaders come to the club-houses each twenty-four hours4 99 99 99 99 99 ,beyond the necessity for maintaining the moral fibre of the railroader 7and it is astonishing how little maintenance such a corps needs7 is the decent necessity of taking care of him in case of illness4 ,railroading1 with all the safety devices that have multiplied in its service within the past quarter of a century1 is still a hazardous occupation to the men who are out upon the line4 ,the list of cripples1 and the death-list of a twelvemonth1 are still appalling things--appalling in the aggregate1 fearful in any single concrete case1 a case where there may be a helpless wife and little children to be brought into the reckoning4 ,the railroads have begun to shoulder their responsibility in this matter4 ,legislation has helped in the matter but to-day big carriers are preparing to do even more--to pay premiums and carry some form of casualty insurance on each of their employees1 who may be engaged in a hazardous part of the work4 ,that thing is going to do more than any other one thing possibly could do4 ,when a big railroad realizes that its bill for premiums is going to be reduced by the addition of many simple protective devices1 those devices are going to be instantly adopted4 ,that is the way of railroads1 and of business1 although it is not to be charged for a single moment that the ,american railroads have not done much within the past #be years toward raising the margin of safety for their employees4 ,of course1 the railroaders have long since had their insurance1 although the regular life companies look upon them with distrust as risks4 ,they have been forced either to pay high premiums in the regular companies or else to organize insurance of their own4 ,their brotherhoods have carried forth this work with interest and with skill4 ,these brotherhoods1 or unions1 of the locomotive engineers1 the firemen1 the conductors1 the trainmen1 and several other branches of the service1 have been mighty agents1 too1 in the development of the moral fibre of the ,american railroader4 ,lack of space prevents a consideration of each in detail4 ,to do them but simple justice1 to sing the epic of the mighty ,brotherhood of ,locomotive ,engineers1 for instance 7which has only recently finished a great building of its own in ,cleveland71 would require a volume for itself4 99 99 99 99 99 ,but the railroads have not been negligent in this matter4 ,for instance1 a man on the ,baltimore ,ohio can pay #a4jj a month out of his pay envelope and have #a1jjj4jj life insurance4 ,he can likewise pay #c4jj a month1 and #c1jjj4jj will be paid his heirs upon his death4 ,the railroad company stands back of this fund and guarantees the insurance4 ,it makes good from its own treasury any deficit or shortage that might be incurred in its operation4 ,for twenty years the ,pennsylvania has conducted a similar work1 under the title of the ,voluntary ,relief ,department4 ,membership in this is1 as the name indicates1 purely voluntary1 the road's employees being admitted1 after favorable physical examination1 up to the age of #de years and #f months4 ,the ,pennsylvania ,railroad ,company in this instance also stands as guarantor of the insurance fund4 ,a close examination of it in some detail may interest4 ,the following table shows the detail--the five classes into which employees may enter3 #ast #bnd #crd #dth #eth ,class ,class ,class ,class ,class ,monthly pay ,any #ce or #ee or #ge or #ie or rate more more more more ,contributions per month3 ,class #j4ge #a4ej #b4be #c4jj #c4ge ,additional ,death ,benefit1 equal death benefits of class3 ,taken at not over #de years of age 4#cj 4#fj 4#ij #a4bj #a4ej ,taken at over #de years and not over #fj years of age 4#de 4#ij #a4ce #a4hj #b4be ,taken at over #fj years of age 4#fj #a4bj #a4hj #b4dj #c4jj ,disablement benefits per day1 including ,sundays and holidays3 ,accident3 ,first #eb weeks 4#ej #a4jj #a4ej #b4jj #b4ej ,after #eb weeks 4#be 4#ej 4#ge #a4jj #a4be ,sickness3 ,after first three days and not longer than #eb weeks 4#dj 4#hj #a4bj #a4fj #b4jj ,after #eb weeks 4#bj 4#dj 4#fj 4#hj #a4jj ,death ,benefits3 ,for ,class #bej4jj #ejj4jj #gej4jj #ajjj4jj #abej4jj ,additional that may be taken #bej4jj #ejj4jj #gej4jj #ajjj4jj #abej4jj ,an employee1 however1 who is under forty-five years of age1 who has been five years in the service and a member of the relief fund for one year1 may enter any higher class than that determined by his pay1 upon passing satisfactory physical examination4 ,payments from the fund vary from forty cents per day for sickness and fifty cents for accident in the service1 for members in the first class1 to #b4jj per day for sickness and #b4ej for accident with a death benefit of from #bej4jj to #b1ejj4jj1 according to class of membership and death benefit held4 ,since the fund has been in operation1 the following payments have been made1 to ,december #ca1 #aiji1 inclusive3-- ,for ,accident death benefits #b1ahe1cdc4dj ,sickness death benefits #e1iad1haa4ah ,accident disablement benefits #d1jgf1fcf4hi ,sickness disablement benefits #g1hee1jfi4gc ,superannuation allowances #dae1cfg4ee ,operating expenses #c1bjg1aca4jf --------------- ,total #bc1fed1cei4ha ,during the same period1 the ,pennsylvania has contributed to the fund in operating expenses1 gratuities1 etc41 exclusive of interest1 the following3 ,for ,operating expenses #c1bjg1aca4jf ,special payment1 etc4 #dbd1ega4ia ,for deficiencies #gcc1iac4hi -------------- ,total #d1cfe1faf4hf ,in addition to what the ,pennsylvania is doing in the payment of the pensions and contributions for the maintenance of the relief fund1 the relief and pension departments have the use of the telegraph and the train service free of charge2 and in case of accident in the service to employees1 free surgical and hospital attendance is furnished1 and1 where necessary1 artificial limbs or other appliances1 without cost to the employee4 ,no figures are available as to the cost of surgical attendance1 or the furnishing of artificial limbs1 but it is conservatively estimated by the ,pennsylvania officers as equalling the amount paid for the operation of the relief department4 ,the modern railroad does not wait1 however1 for a man to become injured or to die before assuming any responsibility for his care4 ,there may come a day when the burden of years makes him a little less fit for the strenuous service of railroading4 ,it is ,nature's way of telling man that he has labored well and that he is entitled to a rest4 ,in other days1 the railroad recognized this in a rather informal way4 ,it took its veteran employees1 retired them into a comfortable ease1 and had the paymaster send them checks each month for a part of their old wages4 ,out of that custom the railroad pension system was born1 only with this sharp distinction3 ,in the old way the man was taught to believe his monthly check a favor or gratuity on the part of the railroad2 under the pension system he comes to know it1 not as an act of charity but as his right1 a right earned by long hard years of faithful service4 ,this idea has begun to be recognized as fundamental by railroad managers4 ,directors and officers now realize that the pension fund and some of these other features that we have just considered1 are causes directly contributing to the efficiency of the railroad4 ,the policy is merely one of good management4 ,again1 let us see the way the ,pennsylvania handles this matter1 not because the ,pennsylvania is alone in this thing1 but rather because it is one of the largest and most distinctive of ,american railroads1 and almost a pioneer in this work4 ,before it began paying pensions to retired employees1 the ,pennsylvania had already long conducted a relief fund and a savings fund1 and had contributed to libraries and railroad branches of the ,y4 ,m4 ,c4 ,a4 ,the pensions are paid entirely by the company4 ,in the year #aiji1 for instance1 #eid1jjj was paid out to the men who had retired between the ages of #fe and #gj4 ,from the time the fund was established until the end of #aiji1 appropriations for it amounted to more than #d1jjj1jjj1 now paid to some #b1cjj men annually4 ,employees may retire for age at #gj1 or for physical incapacitation between #fe and #fi4 ,if they have been in the service as long as #cj years1 they are granted an allowance based on one per cent of the monthly wages for each year of service4 ,the percentage is based on the wages received for the ten years preceding retirement4 ,thus1 if an engineer1 or a brakeman1 or a fireman1 has served the ,pennsylvania #cj years1 he may retire between #fe and #gj and receive not less than #cj per cent of his monthly wages during the last #aj years of work4 ,the other railroads using the pension scheme have followed these general outlines for their work4 ,it has become an established feature of railroad operation1 and recently a second vice-president was created on the ,baltimore ,ohio for the express purpose of handling the company's relief work4 ,sometimes the railroad organizes savings-funds for employees1 paying from three and one-half to as high as five per cent on their deposits1 limiting these to something like a hundred dollars a month1 and making every agent on the system a depositary of the fund4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the street railroad systems in the large cities1 together with a few of the larger interurban systems1 have recently begun to adopt systematic methods of keeping in touch with their employees4 ,the ,brooklyn ,rapid ,transit ,company1 operating a great system in a part of metropolitan ,new ,york1 and employing more than #ae1jjj men1 was a pioneer in this work4 ,it found that while the railroad ,y4 ,m4 ,c4 ,a4 was efficient for the club-house work on steam railroads1 there were local conditions in ,brooklyn that made it best for the company to build and operate its own club-houses4 ,the first of these was remodelled from an old car-barn4 ,it became a very interesting club1 with reading-rooms1 baths1 a barber-shop1 a gymnasium1 class-rooms for evening study1 and a theatre1 seating some #a1bjj folk4 ,for the theatre the railroad hires vaudeville actors1 and gives its great semi-official family free entertainments--followed by dancing and refreshments4 ,on very especial nights the talent is furnished entirely by the trolley-men and very effective talent it is1 too4 ,on all nights the music is furnished by the ,brooklyn ,rapid ,transit band1 made up entirely of street-car men and men from the elevated roads of the system4 ,the railroad company has furnished the music1 the uniforms1 the instruments1 and the directors--all that the men have had to furnish is their time and interest1 and these they have furnished in such good measure that there is a waiting-list now large enough to equip a second full brass band4 ,the ,brooklyn system has also begun to establish model restaurants in its outlying barns1 where clean and good food is furnished to the men at cost4 ,the street railroad is1 in some such cases as these1 confronted with a steam railroad problem4 ,many of the big car-barns are in sparsely settled suburbs of the city where the only eating-places have been saloons or their adjuncts4 ,the street railroad can no more afford to have its men in saloons1 than its bigger brother4 ,to take from them the one decent excuse for being in such places it is establishing its restaurants1 where the men can have cleaner and better food than in the saloons1 and without the risk to the railroad4 ,the ,brooklyn road and the other large systems have adopted the relief and pension funds2 the idea seems to spread as rapidly among the electric as it did among the steam railroads4 ,some of them have added odd and efficient kinks of their own4 ,for instance1 the ,boston ,elevated ,railway makes presents of gold at ,new ,year's ,day1 ranging from #bj to #ce each1 to each of its men who has a clean record for courtesy to patrons1 and ,boston gains a reputation through that for the uniform courtesy of her trolley-men4 ,the ,boston ,elevated has also inaugurated a policy of giving free legal advice to each of its employees who may need it4 ,it has always been a perquisite of high railroad officers to avail themselves of the road's legal department for their personal needs4 ,under the ,boston plan this perquisite is extended to every man on the road--the young motorman who had foolishly gone to a loan shark1 and who is now being harried by him2 the old conductor who wishes to convey a house or draw a will4 ,the road's legal department will advise him sincerely1 in his own best interest4 ,it will draw up his legal papers1 do anything for him except take his case into court1 and even then it will advise an honest and capable attorney for him4 ,as for that motorman who went to the loan shark when he found an immediate need of fifty dollars1 the road stands ready to advance him the money upon good cause1 and will charge him only a nominal rate of interest until it has gradually repaid itself from his wages4 ,his division superintendent is empowered to hear his story with sympathetic ear1 and to arrange for the loan4 ,employees' magazines have been decided factors in both bringing and keeping the railroad in touch with its army of men4 ,the ,erie was a pioneer in this work five years ago2 the plan has since been adopted with signal success by the ,northwestern1 the ,illinois ,central1 the ,santa ,fe1 the ,pere ,marquette1 and some other lines4 ,these little magazines1 made interesting enough in a general way to catch and hold the attention of their readers1 are sent out each month to every man on the system with his pay-check4 ,they spread railroad interest and railroad enthusiasm among their readers4 ,on one page they tell of styles for the engineer's wife1 and on the next they show an economical use of coal for the engineer2 and so they may help to pay their way4 ,they tell of errors and mistakes among the railroad's employees1 without mentioning names1 so that men may profit by them and act differently4 ,but they print the names of the railroaders who do the good things1 the novel things1 the practical things1 the economical things1 the heroic things1 out along the line4 ,and this roll of honor is a long one4 ,but it is not always in the big things that a railroad keeps in touch with its men1 sometimes it is in very small things4 ,some time ago1 a division superintendent on the ,erie ,railroad decided that for each of his engineers who kept his engine in particularly good order for a given length of time1 he would have the number plate on the front of the boiler painted in red4 ,we will have the ,order of the ,red ,spot1 laughed ,superintendent ,parsons1 of the ,susquehanna ,division1 as he signed a bulletin announcing the thing4 ,now that was a little thing4 ,the cost of painting that red spot on the breast of some proud locomotive was but nominal2 but listen to the result6 ,a big ,erie officer was up the line a few months later1 and was loafing in a junction-town on the ,susquehanna ,division1 waiting for a through train4 ,he walked down to the end of the station platform and there stood a passenger locomotive waiting to take a train in the other direction4 ,it belonged to the proud ,order of the ,red ,spot1 an order of which this particular officer had not heard2 and the engineer was already about it with his long-handled oil-can4 ,the officer did not reveal his identity1 but said3 ,waiting to take out a special8 ,the engineer did not look up1 but said3 ,we carry forty-six over the division4 ,i didn't think that forty-six was due for two hours yet1 said the railroad officer4 ,she is not1 answered the engineer1 but ,i've been down here an hour and a half already fussing with this baby to have her in shape4 ,you may notice that she belongs to the ,order of the ,red ,spot4 ,then that particular man came to know about the ,red ,spots4 ,all the way back to ,jersey ,city he kept looking for ,red ,spots1 and every time he saw one1 he saw an engine slick and clean1 as if she had just come from the shops4 ,that set him to thinking2 and after he was done thinking1 ,parsons was promoted in service1 and the ,order of the ,red ,spot was established for the system4 ,there has been an exalted division made of that order recently4 ,when a man can be assigned to one engine and he brings her into the ,red-,spot class and keeps her there1 the railroad dedicates that engine to him for the rest of his lifetime upon the system4 ,his name1 in gilt letters1 goes upon the cab-panel of the engine1 whereas in other days you used to see those of statesmen and of railroad-owners2 and there it stays until the engine goes to the scrap-heap4 ,the other day the first of these engines1 drawing a ,waldwick local1 pulled into the ,jersey ,city passenger terminal2 on its cab was ,harvey ,springstead so large and clear that you could read it across the yard2 in the cab-window was ,harvey ,springstead1 prouder for that moment than any earthly prince or potentate4 ,sometimes the competitive idea is the best to foster to accomplish results from the men1 and to bind them and the road a bit closer together4 ,we have seen how a fortnight of ,t4 ,b4 ,m4 ,f4 repairs to a locomotive has been quickened down under contest to #ac hours and #cd minutes4 ,many of the more successful railroads began some years ago to institute annual contests between their section-bosses4 ,the section-boss who kept his stretch of the right-of-way in cleanest1 trimmest shape for a twelvemonth got a black and gold sign at his hand-car house1 so big that folk who rode in the fast expresses could read the honor that it conferred upon him4 ,sometimes he gets more--a trip pass for his wife and himself to some distant point1 or even a cash prize4 ,annually the superintendent of maintenance may run a special train1 with a specially devised observation grandstand at its rear or pushed ahead of the engine4 ,on that grandstand sit all the section bosses and other track maintenance experts4 ,they see the other fellow's sections--and their own2 and some time on that trip there is a little dinner and the awarding of the prizes4 ,do not even dare to think that these things count for little upon the railroad4 ,they are mighty factors in the maintenance of one of its very greatest factors1 the human one4 ,,chapter ,,xxvii ,,the ,,coming ,,of ,,electricity ,,electric ,,street ,,cars--,,suburban ,,cars--,,electric ,,third-,,rail ,,from ,,utica ,,to ,,syracuse--,,some ,,railroads ,,partially ,,adopt ,,electric ,,power--,,the ,,benefit ,,of ,,electric ,,power ,,in ,,tunnels--,,also ,,at ,,terminal ,,stations--,,conditions ,,which ,,make ,,electric ,,traction ,,practical ,,and ,,economical--,,hopeful ,,outlook ,,for ,,electric ,,traction--,,the ,,monorail ,,and ,,the ,,gyroscope ,,car1 ,,invented ,,by ,,louis ,,brennan--,a ,,similar ,,invention ,,by ,,august ,,scherl4 ,it is barely more than a quarter of a century since electricity first became practical for use as a motive power upon railroads4 ,the early experiments of ,thomas ,a4 ,edison at ,menlo ,park1 ,n4 ,j41 and upon the now abandoned railroad up ,mount ,mc,gregor1 ,n4 ,y41 soon gave way to real electric street railroads in ,montgomery1 ,ala41 in ,richmond1 ,va41 and from ,brooklyn to ,jamaica1 ,n4 ,y4 ,these1 in turn1 gave way to still better forms of electric traction1 until the trolley has not only all but entirely driven the horse-car and the cable-car from city streets1 but has performed a notable new transportation function in giving quick communication from one town to another in the well-settled portions of the country4 ,these enterprises are quite outside of the province of this book2 the cases where the electric locomotive and electric motor-car have usurped the steam locomotive upon its own rails are pertinent4 ,as soon as the electric railroad had begun to reach out into the country from the sharp confines of the towns1 the steam railroad men began to take interest4 ,it would have been even better for them if some of them had taken sharper interest at the beginning4 ,but the few men who were long-sighted enough a dozen years ago to see the development possibilities of a form of traction that was comparatively inexpensive to install and to operate have been repaid for their sagacity4 ,these men began a dozen years ago to wonder if electricity could not be brought to the service of the long-established steam railroad4 ,in most cases the short suburban steam roads outside of large cities1 which were as apt to be operated by dummy engines as by standard locomotives1 were the first to be electrified1 and in these cases they usually became extensions of the then novel trolley lines4 ,folk no longer had to come in upon a poky little dummy train of uncertain schedule and decidedly uncertain habits1 and then transfer at the edge of the crowded portion of the city to horse-cars4 ,they could go flying from outer country to the heart of the town in half an hour1 and upon frequent schedule1 and the business of building and booming suburbs was born4 ,after these roads had been developed1 other steam lines began to study the situation4 ,a little steam road that had wandered off into the hills of ,columbia ,county from ,hudson1 ,n4 ,y41 and had led a precarious existence1 extended its rails a few more miles and became the third-rail electric line from ,albany to ,hudson1 and a powerful competitor for passenger traffic of a large trunk-line railroad4 ,the ,new ,york1 ,new ,haven1 ,hartford found the electric third-rail of good service between two adjacent ,connecticut cities1 ,hartford and ,new ,britain2 the overhead trolley a good substitute for the locomotive on a small branch that ran a few miles north from ,stamford1 ,conn4 ,but the problems of electric traction for regular railroads were somewhat complicated1 and the big steam roads rather avoided them until they were forced upon their attention4 ,the interurban roads had spread too rapidly in many1 many cases1 where they were made the opportunities for such precarious financing as once distinguished the history of steam roads--and they had in most of these cases made havoc with thickly settled stretches of branch lines and main lines4 ,in a great many cases the steam roads have had to dig deep into their pockets and buy at good stiff prices the very roads the building of which they might have anticipated with just a little forethought4 ,the ,new ,york ,central ,hudson ,river took such forethought after some of its profitable branches in western ,new ,york had been paralleled by high-speed trolleys1 and a very few years ago installed the electric third-rail on its ,west ,shore property from ,utica to ,syracuse1 #dd miles4 ,the ,west ,shore is one of the great tragedies in ,american railroading4 ,built in the early eighties from ,weehawken 7opposite ,new ,york ,city7 to ,buffalo1 it had apparently no greater object than to parallel closely the ,new ,york ,central and to attempt to take away from the older road some of the fine business it had held for many years4 ,after bitter rate-war1 the ,new ,york ,central1 with all the resources and the ability of the ,vanderbilts behind it1 won decisively1 and bought its new rival for a song4 ,but a property so closely paralleling its own tracks has been practically useless to it all the way from ,albany to ,buffalo1 save as a relief line for the overflow of through freight4 ,so the ,west ,shore tracks for high-class high-speed through electric service from ,utica to ,syracuse was a happy thought4 ,under steam conditions only two passenger trains were run over that somewhat moribund property in each direction daily1 while the two trains of sleeping-cars passing over the tracks at night were of practically no use to the residents of those two cities4 ,under electric conditions1 there is a fast limited service of third-rail cars or trains1 leaving each terminal hourly2 making but two stops and the run of over #dd miles in an hour and twenty minutes4 ,there is also high-speed local service1 and the line has become immensely popular4 ,by laying stretches of third and fourth tracks at various points1 the movement of the ,new ,york ,central's overflow through freight has not been seriously incommoded4 ,the electric passenger service is not operated by the ,new ,york ,central1 but by the ,oneida ,railways ,company1 in which the controlling interests of the steam road have large blocks of stock4 ,illustration3 ,a ,,high-,,speed ,,electric ,,locomotive ,,on ,,the ,,pennsylvania ,,bringing ,a ,,through ,,train ,,out ,,of ,,the ,,tunnel ,,underneath ,,the ,,hudson ,,river ,,and ,,into ,,the ,,new ,,york ,,city ,,terminal ,illustration3 ,,high-,,speed ,,direct-,,current ,,locomotive ,,built ,,by ,,the ,,westinghouse ,,company ,,for ,,the ,,terminal ,,service ,,of ,,the ,,pennsylvania ,,railroad1 ,,in ,,new ,,york ,illustration3 ,,two ,,triple-,,phase ,,locomotives ,,of ,,the ,,great ,,northern ,,railway ,,helping ,a ,,double-,,header ,,steam ,,train ,,up ,,the ,,grade ,,into ,,the ,,cascade ,,tunnel ,illustration3 ,,the ,,outer ,,shell ,,of ,,the ,,new ,,haven',s ,,freight ,,locomotive ,,removed1 ,,showing ,,the ,,working ,,parts ,,of ,,the ,,machine ,similarly1 the ,erie ,railroad disposed of a decaying branch of its system1 running from ,north ,tonawanda to ,lockport1 to the ,buffalo street railroad system1 although reserving for itself the freight traffic in and out of ,lockport4 ,the ,buffalo road installed the overhead trolley system1 and now operates an efficient and profitable trolley service upon that branch4 ,perhaps it was because the ,erie saw the application of these ideas1 and decided that it was better to take its own profits from electric passenger service than to rent its branches again to an outside company2 and perhaps because it also foresaw the coming electrification of its network of suburban lines around ,new ,york1 and wished to test electric traction to its own satisfaction2 but five years ago it changed the suburban service of its lines from the south up into ,rochester from steam to electric4 ,it is now preparing to continue this work further4 ,the ,pennsylvania1 while its great new station in ,new ,york was still a matter of engineer's blue prints1 began practical experiments with electric traction in the flat southern portion of ,new ,jersey4 ,it owned a section of line ideally situated in every respect for such experiments1 its original and rather indirect route from ,canada to ,atlantic ,city1 which had since been more or less superseded by a shorter air line route4 ,the third-rail was installed1 and the new line became at once popular for suburban traffic in and out of ,philadelphia and for the great press of local traffic between ,philadelphia and ,atlantic ,city4 ,of the success of that move on the part of the ,pennsylvania there has never been the slightest question4 ,regular trains have been operated for several years over this route at #fj miles an hour1 and not the slightest difficulty has been found in maintaining the schedules4 ,but nowhere has the substitution of electric locomotive for the steam worked greater comfort for the railroad passenger--to say nothing1 of the raising of that somewhat intangible factor of safety--than in long tunnels4 ,the ,baltimore ,ohio1 which was a pioneer among the steam railroads in the use of electric locomotives1 began to use them in #ahif in its great tunnel that pierces the very foundations of the city of ,baltimore4 ,that system1 once adopted1 became permanent4 ,what was at one time a fearful summer experience between ,camden ,station and ,mount ,royal ,station in that city has become merely a pleasant novelty upon the trip4 ,what could be done at ,baltimore has been done under the ,detroit ,river1 twice4 ,the ,grand ,trunk pierced underneath that stream in #ahij1 by a single-track tunnel #f1jjj feet in length1 in which for seventeen years both freight and passenger trains were hauled by special locomotives1 fitted for the burning of anthracite coal4 ,although these engines rendered rather satisfactory service1 it was found desirable to substitute electric locomotives for them in order to remove the limitations of haulage capacity in the tunnel2 for it is a known fact that electric trains can be operated much more rapidly and also more closely together than steam4 ,the change obviated the danger and inconvenience due to locomotive gases in the tunnel4 ,the electric locomotives first went into service in ,february1 #aijh4 ,the tunnel is now clean1 well-lighted1 and safe to work in2 and trains of much greater length than before can be hauled1 thus relieving the congestion in the freight-yards on both sides of the river4 ,similarly1 electric locomotives have become the tractive power in the great new tunnel which the ,michigan ,central has just completed across the ,detroit ,river at ,detroit1 and upon the ,cascade ,tunnel where the ,great ,northern ,railroad pierces one of the great ranges of the ,western ,divide4 ,the ,cascade ,tunnel is interesting from the fact that it is entirely built upon a heavy grade of #a4g per cent for its length of more than three miles4 ,the steam locomotives are cut out from the service1 while on the heavy up-grade of the tunnels an electric locomotive1 of tremendous pulling power1 will carry even the heaviest freights through the bore at an average speed of fifteen miles an hour4 ,these ,cascade ,tunnel locomotives are the only ones in the country taking alternating current at triple phase and at the tremendous voltage of #f1fjj directly from an overhead trolley wire4 ,and that will bring us in a moment to another consideration of this question of the development and the delivery of power4 ,the most recent of tunnel installations has just been completed in the greatest of all ,american mountain bores--the ,hoosac ,tunnel4 ,this famous tube1 four and three-quarters miles in length1 gave itself very readily to the skill of the electric engineer1 with the result that the ,boston ,maine system1 its present owner1 finds the greatest impediment to the operation of its main line from ,boston to the west entirely removed4 ,the earlier installations were all what is known as direct current2 that is1 the power is brought directly from the dynamos in the power-houses and by means of third-rail or overhead trolley it is delivered to the motors of the locomotives of the cars4 ,but some years ago the larger of the distinctively electric railroads found that for great current demands over a large distributing district1 this system was expensive and impracticable2 that1 for the chief thing1 it required copper cables for carrying long-distance current so large as to be of very great cost4 ,so some of these1 with the aid of the electrical manufacturers1 experimented and developed the alternating current of high voltage and low amperage1 which is capable of being carried to distant transforming or sub-stations and there reduced to low voltage and high amperage4 ,this alternating current system1 because of its great operating economies1 is rapidly becoming the standard for the city railroad systems of metropolitan communities1 as well as for the great trunk-line interurban electric roads that are beginning to gridiron the country4 ,the ,new ,haven ,railroad1 when it first began to electrify its extensive suburban service into ,new ,york ,city1 was the first to bring it to the service of a standard steam road1 and by a clever adaptation of its locomotives was able to bring a single-phase alternating-current directly to them at the enormously high voltage of #aa1jjj1 without the use of transforming stations or direct-current transmission4 ,after some fearfully disappointing experiments at the outset1 the ,new ,haven system has finally proved the worth of its alternating-current1 and the road is now engaged in erecting its overhead transmission construction all the way from ,stamford 7the present terminal of the electrical service7 to ,new ,haven1 #gb miles distant from ,new ,york4 ,within ten years its heavy ,new ,york and ,boston traffic will probably be entirely handled by electricity1 and the run of #bcb miles will be made without difficulty in four hours or even less4 ,at present the steam locomotives of these trains and the other trains that serve almost all of ,new ,england are detached from the inbound movement at ,stamford1 and the remaining #cc miles of the run into the ,grand ,central ,station is made behind a powerful electric locomotive4 ,the process is1 of course1 reversed on outbound trains4 ,for the #ab miles from ,woodlawn into the ,grand ,central the run is made over the tracks of the ,harlem division of the ,new ,york ,central ,railroad which uses direct current at a voltage of #fej1 and third-rail instead of overhead transmission4 ,the wonderful adaptability of the alternating current is shown1 not in the fact that a change must be made from overhead trolley to third-rail alone1 for that is merely a slight mechanical problem1 but in the fact that a locomotive hauling a heavy train can1 without a great slacking of speed1 change from receiving an alternating current of #aa1jjj volts to a direct current of #fej volts4 ,outbound1 it reverses the process4 ,the necessity of clearing out the smoke-filled ,park ,avenue ,tunnel approach to the ,grand ,central ,station brought both the ,new ,york ,central1 its owner1 and the ,new ,haven1 its tenant1 to electric traction for terminal and suburban service at ,new ,york4 ,the ,new ,york ,central's system1 as has already been stated1 is direct-current and it is supplied from two great power-houses in the suburban district4 ,through trains are hauled in and out of the station by electric locomotives1 while suburban trains1 which make their round-trip runs entirely within the #be or #cj miles of electric zone1 are run without locomotives1 the steel suburban coaches having motors set within their trucks1 after the ordinary fashion of electric cars across the land4 ,the change from steam to electricity at the ,grand ,central ,station did more1 however1 than merely clear the long-approach tunnel of smoke and foul gases1 so that nowadays a man can ride on the observation-platform over its entire length4 ,the traffic in that wonderfully busy station has for many years had sharp limitations because of the four tracks in that tunnel1 two tracks being used for the train movement in each direction4 ,the limited station-yard capacity at the terminal has necessitated many trains being stored at ,mott ,haven yards2 and the drilling of these empty trains in and out of the station1 combined with the normally heavy movement of regular and special trains1 has only added to the great congestion4 ,the minimum three-minute headway between trains operated by steam through the tunnel1 and its four-tracked viaduct approach1 fixed the maximum traffic at #dj trains an hour in each direction4 ,the capacity of the terminal with this limitation of service was taxed to its utmost1 and some relief for the constantly increasing traffic was imperative4 ,now1 owing to the improved conditions of electric operation1 trains may be run on a two-minute headway1 or less--this one measure thus increasing the station capacity by #ej per cent at the least4 ,the ,new ,haven road has also adopted the practice of running some of its suburban trains without locomotives1 but by means of motors underneath each coach--the multiple-unit system1 as electrical engineers have come to know it4 ,this is the system1 with some slight variations1 upon which the elevated and subway lines of ,new ,york1 ,brooklyn1 ,boston1 ,philadelphia1 and ,chicago are operated2 and it is quickly applicable1 as we have just seen1 to some phases of terminal operation for the standard steam railroads4 ,but the steam locomotive is to hold its own for many years1 in many1 many phases of railroad operation2 electric traction is practical and economical only when there are fairly congested traffic conditions4 ,the coaches that are standard for it1 and which it must haul for many miles across the land1 must be handled in the electrically equipped terminals by electric locomotives of one type or another4 ,these locomotives are generally equipped with coal-heaters for maintaining the steam in the heating-pipes of the through equipment2 and in these days1 when the electric lighting of through trains is all but universal1 they may supply current for this purpose also4 ,electric locomotives have been completely successful where they have been used1 both alone and in connection with multiple-unit suburban trains1 in the ,grand ,central ,station and the ,pennsylvania ,station in ,new ,york ,city as the first complete installations4 ,but what has been so successfully done in ,new ,york will soon be repeated in other big cities in the land2 ,boston is already insisting that the network of suburban lines that spreads over her environs be electrified2 ,philadelphia is preparing for the electrification of the ,pennsylvania's fan-work of lines into ,broad ,street ,station2 ,baltimore is demanding that what has been done in one great tunnel underneath her foundation hills be repeated in two others4 ,chicago will see great installations of this service within the next few years4 ,nor is the use of electricity upon the standard steam railroad to stop bluntly with these terminal changes and improvements2 many and many a decaying branch is yet to be fanned into new life1 new strength1 new activity1 through a skilful transformation of its tractive powers4 ,what has been done at the ,detroit ,river and the ,cascade tunnels is to be done elsewhere across the land--through the dozens of points where railroads pierce the mountains and go under the rivers by tunnels4 ,electric tunnels are yet to bring the ,pennsylvania at lower grade at ,gallitzin and the ,southern ,pacific through the high crest of the ,sierras4 ,electric traction for the big steam roads is still in its infancy4 ,only #a1jjj miles out of a total of #bbj1jjj miles of steam railroad in the land are as yet operated by electricity4 ,the other day a big traffic-man sat in his ,chicago office and said3 ,the first railroad that electrifies for the thousand or less miles between this town and ,new ,york is going to get all the rich passenger business4 ,not a big portion of it1 mind you1 but every single blessed bit of it6 99 99 99 99 99 ,consider for a final moment1 in passing1 the mono-rail1 the gyroscope4 ,if you are a practical railroader you may laugh and say3 ,a toy4 ,perhaps it is a toy to-day4 ,but just remember history and you will recall that the toy of to-day becomes the tool of to-morrow1 and then give the mono-rail a moment of sober thought4 ,less than #b1jjj feet of this construction formed a most interesting exhibit at the ,jamestown ,exposition of #aijg4 ,a railroad man who rode on that experimental track said3 ,if you had built more than #cjj feet of track you could have given a better demonstration of your system4 ,to this the inventor smilingly replied3 ,you have gone over #a1hjj feet4 ,the investigator had ridden faster than #de miles an hour and had not realized the speed4 ,you never do in the mono-rail car4 ,it rides more gently over the roughest bit of track than the finest ,limited moves over heavy rail and stone ballast1 the best track that men can maintain4 ,an actual railroad of the mono-rail type has been built and is being developed in the suburbs of ,new ,york ,city4 ,it supersedes a railroad of the oldest type--horse-cars--from ,bartow to ,city ,island1 in the ,bronx4 ,balance is kept for its cars by means of a light overhead metal construction1 hardly more conspicuous than that of the overhead trolley-work used in city streets4 ,this overhead work1 like the trolley-wire1 supplies electric power to the cars2 only in emergencies will it come into play to hold the one-legged car erect4 ,on this stretch of line speed and balance tests will be made when passenger traffic is at low-tide4 ,upon the result of these tests will be drawn the construction plans for a four-track rapid transit railroad from ,new ,york to ,newark1 ten miles4 ,this last plan has already been financed by ,new ,york men who have made transportation their chief problem for many years4 ,it may be developed upon the rails of a double-track railroad1 more than doubling its capacity1 without increasing the width of the right-of-way4 ,all of these mono-rail roads will become applicable to the gyroscope when that wondrous man-toy becomes a man-tool4 ,and the gyroscope demands no overhead construction of any sort4 ,it simply asks a single rail upon which to find a path and offers no objections either to the steepest of grades or to the sharpest of curves4 ,the first model of gyroscope car showed its ability to navigate easily the full length of a piece of crooked gas-pipe1 laid in rough semblance of a track4 ,for there is a gyroscope car already--in fact1 several of them4 ,on ,may #h1 #aijg1 ,louis ,brennan1 a brilliant ,irish inventor1 living in ,england1 exhibited the first model of the gyroscope car1 and the news was flashed in detail all the way around the world4 ,the little car he then showed was enough to interest the keenest of scientists4 ,it traversed every sort of mono-rail track that could be devised1 at varying rates of speed1 it stood still at the inventor's command and retained its balance perfectly4 ,when a man's hand was pushed against it as if to throw the car off its seemingly slight balance1 it pushed back1 stanchly held that balance1 and ,brennan laughingly said that there was something that compared with the velocity of the wind4 ,when he spoiled the even trim of his ship 7it did look like a boat as it sped around the lawn upon its narrow1 guiding thread7 and placed the weights upon one side of the car1 that side rose up to receive them4 ,the car still held its balance perfectly1 and ,brennan said that his act represented forty or fifty persons moving suddenly across a full-sized passenger coach4 ,finally1 he placed his little daughter in the car and sent it out over a deep gully where a single stout steel cable served as a suspension bridge4 ,the inventor's assistant swung that bridge like a hammock but the car laughed at the old-fashioned domineering laws of gravity1 and the little girl waved her hand at her daddy4 ,well might she wave her hand at him4 ,his achievement was a real triumph4 ,from a top revolving in a frame at any angle he had evolved the gyroscope car1 the one thing required for the successful development of the mono-rail4 ,from that car he has been steadily developing better ones4 ,on the tenth of ,november1 #aiji1 he built a full-sized car upon which twenty men and boys rode in glee4 ,on that self-same day1 by strange coincidence1 a ,german inventor1 ,august ,scherl1 exhibited in a large hall in ,dresden1 a mono-rail car1 held at perfect equilibrium by a gyroscope which he had quietly built and perfected4 ,the car was #ah feet long and #d feet wide1 and mounted on two trucks4 ,the net weight was #b-a_/b tons1 while the gyroscope itself1 turning in a vacuum at the fearful rate of #h1jjj revolutions a minute1 weighed but #e-a_/b per cent of the total weight of the car4 ,it carried eight persons1 and when first shown in ,berlin it caused a tremendous sensation1 #fj1jjj persons witnessing the trial during a period of five days4 ,even royalty took its turn at riding in the novel conveyance4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the first question that the average man asks when he sees a gyroscope is3 ,well1 this thing may be all right when it is in motion1 but how the deuce is it going to support itself when it is standing still8 ,but it does support itself4 ,the gyroscope wheels continue to revolve at something close to #h1jjj revolutions a minute1 and they hold the car1 so that the fluctuation in the weight it carries1 due to loading or unloading1 does not affect it1 even in slight degree4 ,the average man remains unconvinced4 ,suppose the electric power that spins the gyroscope goes back on you8 he demands4 ,the inventor tells him that that is easy enough4 ,the gyroscope1 revolving in a vacuum1 will keep on turning at sufficient speed to balance the car for nearly an hour4 ,long before that the side-stays1 that make the car a three-pronged structure while out of service1 can be dropped4 ,when ,to-morrow finally comes and the gyroscope car is in its own1 provision will be made on all through mono-rail routes against just such an emergency4 ,at various points sidings will be constructed with low walls1 just high enough to receive the cars when their gyroscope equilibrium ceases4 ,these will be just as much a part of the equipment of the mono-rail trunk line as wharves are a part of steamship service4 ,it will be a part that will receive less and less attention as folk begin to realize how little dependent the gyroscope car is upon the old laws of gravity4 ,we will have billiard cars in our fastest trains1 says ,brennan4 ,a man will be able to play that delicate game on a railroad train all the way from ,new ,york to ,san ,francisco1 if he chooses4 ,contemplate that1 you railroaders and travelled folk of to-day4 ,those cars will make the cars of to-day seem like pygmies4 ,each will be #bjj feet in length and #cj feet in width4 ,no wonder that people can talk of billiard tables4 ,a train of six of these cars will be longer than the longest of our transcontinental expresses of to-day4 ,they will be fastened together with vestibule connections1 and the forward end of the first car will have a sharp beak4 ,the blunt front of an ordinary train begins to be a speed obstacle at more than #ej miles an hour4 ,speed8 ,do you think that #ej miles an hour is speed8 ,our locomotives do far better than that every day in the ,united ,states4 ,a train on a standard railroad and hauled by steam as a motive power has gone faster than the rate of #ace miles an hour4 ,with the mono-rail and the gyroscope1 with the countless mountain brooks and rivers harnessed and grinding out electricity1 the inventors say calmly that they will begin at #bjj miles an hour4 ,do you realize what #bjj miles an hour means8 ,it means that your grandson or your grandson's son can leave ,new ,york in the morning1 do half a dozen errands in ,cincinnati1 and be back in his home in ,west ,four ,hundred and ,thirty-eighth ,street in time for a late supper4 ,it means that he can lunch in ,chicago1 span half a dozen mighty ,states1 threading the mountains1 through the towns and over the cities1 skimming the broad expanses of fat farms1 and dine in ,new ,york the same night4 ,it means that he can go from one ocean across the continent to the other in twenty-four hours4 ,but ,to-morrow is not yet here4 ,yesterday was just here4 ,in ,yesterday men were boasting of their ability to go from ,new ,york to ,philadelphia by coach in two nights and two days and were asking3 ,what next8 ,,appendix ,,appendix ,,efficiency ,,through ,,organization ,in a local freight-house in an inland manufacturing city of thirty thousand inhabitants between forty and fifty freight-handlers had been employed for a term running from twelve to fifteen years4 ,the freight-house boss was of the old school4 ,when he thought that he needed more help1 he made a fearful noise1 scared headquarters1 and more help was given him4 ,the strong-armed gang reported at seven o'clock in the morning and then held a two-hour conversazione1 while the book-keeping force in the dingy office at the end of the freight-shed arranged the way-bills and the bills-of-lading for the day's work4 ,before ten o'clock1 if all went well1 the freight-house gang was generally at work pushing its way through a seeming chaos of less-than-carload freight4 ,after a time the old freight-agent died and a new one came in his place4 ,the new man was on his job less then three months before he arranged a new schedule in that freight-house--and dropped twenty-five men from its pay-roll4 ,first he summoned the bookkeeping force together1 and announced that it would report at five o'clock in the morning1 instead of seven2 of course1 leaving two hours earlier each afternoon4 ,the bookkeeping force demurred4 ,it was not pleasant getting up before daybreak in the winter darkness of a chill northern town1 and such a scheme interfered with the social plans of one or two of the bookkeepers4 ,but the new boss only smiled and said1 ,try it4 ,and after they had tried it1 the way-bills and the bills-of-lading were ready at seven o'clock when the handlers reported for work1 and the freight-house got to work upon the shriek of the roundhouse whistle4 ,after that1 the pay-list was cut--you may be sure that a house-boss who could scheme out such a plan could weed out the shirkers and the idlers among his staff--and1 better still1 the consignees began to get their freight sooner than ever before in the history of that town4 ,eventually--and a wonderfully short eventually it really was--the freight-agent climbed the ladder to the superintendent of that division and under his bailiwick came a railroad which had recently become attached to the parent system through the process of benevolent assimilation4 ,the ordinary less-than-carload business was moved out of the freight-house of the smaller road and it was given over entirely to carriage and automobile shipments--the inland city makes a specialty of manufacturing vehicles of every sort4 ,the division superintendent went over to the carriage freight-house and saw that it took a dozen men to man it1 although it was not more than a six-car stand4 ,carriage bodies and automobile bodies crated are both heavy and awkward1 and the boss of that house was asking for more help4 ,the superintendent went straight from that freight-house to a local foundry1 sat there for fifteen minutes with its draughtsman and then and there evolved an overhead trolley-arrangement1 very much the same as the big packing-houses use for handling heavy carcasses4 ,a requisition for the thing went through a-flying1 and now the carriage-house in that city is handled with two trained men4 ,the scheme is fast becoming standard in the newer freight-houses and in ,st4 ,louis1 the ,m4 ,k4 ,t4 has just adopted it for its splendid new terminal1 whole fleets of platforms hung close to the floor and suspended from an overhead trolley arrangement entirely supersede the brigades of hand trucks formerly in use4 ,that is the point of it4 ,there must be dozens of other cities of thirty thousand population1 of sixty thousand1 of ninety1 of one or two or three1 of five hundred thousand1 where a little such method would produce similar results4 ,in that first house1 a saving of about #cej a week was made1 when the young freight-agent brought some system into the dusty place4 ,a dozen such savings or even greater1 would be quite a help on the railroad's balance sheet4 ,at least that is the gospel which ,louis ,brandeis1 of ,boston1 preached1 and which attracted world-wide attention when he made the exact statement that he could save the railroads of the country a million dollars a day in the operation of their lines4 ,the railroads made a perfectly good legal case before the ,interstate ,commerce ,commission--or let us assume that1 at any rate1 in the present instance4 ,but one such clarifying statement as that of ,brandeis' produced more effect both upon the land and the ,commissioners than all the legal briefs that together were filed in advocacy of the raises in the freight tariffs4 ,at no time did the railroads successfully controvert ,brandeis' sweeping statement1 and so they lost their fight4 ,and yet the railroads are accomplishing some remarkable improvements in their internal affairs--for which they are being given not an iota of credit4 ,and one of the most interesting of these is the promotion of efficiency through organization1 or better yet1 through reorganization4 99 99 99 99 99 ,along in the fifties1 ,herman ,haupt1 who was afterwards a brigadier-general of the ,united ,states army and brevetted major-general1 devised the wonderful organization scheme of the ,pennsylvania system1 which is still in use to-day on that well-managed property4 ,the scheme has been adopted since then by practically all the large railroads in the country4 ,before ,general ,haupt evolved it1 there was no real organization among the great railroads4 ,like ,topsy1 they just growed from the little individual horse and steam lines from which they were formed and they were even more like ,topsy in some other details4 ,but ,haupt's plan brought dignity to a great business that needed dignity--and system4 ,for fifty years it has been accomplishing something more than merely serving its purpose4 ,but railroad terminals and railroad equipment of fifty years ago are long since obsolete1 and so within recent years the larger railroads have found their organization schemes not up with the times4 ,the growing complexity of their work1 the intricacy of their relations with the various city1 state1 and national governing boards1 the constant tendency to enlarge and to consolidate these1 have all proved fearful taxes upon the ,haupt plan4 ,great masses of correspondence have accumulated1 the whole business of conducting the railroad has been enmeshed in whole miles of red-tape--and men like ,brandeis1 of ,boston1 have been permitted to make their challenges and stand uncorrected4 ,go back into the sixties for this last time1 and pause for a moment at the fighting of the ,american ,rebellion4 ,men in the ,north were beginning to hear that the ,confederate army had something different1 something better1 in its organization than the ,union army4 ,it was an intangible something1 but it seemed to make for efficiency1 and1 after all1 that was the main thing4 ,so after the war was history1 there were far-sighted ,northerners who said that it would be well to bring that intangible something into the ,united ,states army4 ,at such a time that thing was1 however1 tacitly impossible1 and it was dropped for more than thirty years4 ,but ,von ,moltke picked up the idea1 and incorporated it in the intensely modern army of modern ,germany4 ,it helped to win the great ,franco-,prussian ,war1 and when the other nations of ,europe began to examine it it had a name2 it was beginning to be a tangible something4 ,military men called it the staff idea1 and when you asked them to explain it they told you that officers who handled men were known as line officers1 and those who handled things as staff officers4 ,in other words1 men could be lifted--as it were1 in an aroplane of scientific organization--away from their commands and their narrow environments1 up to a point where they could have perspective1 where they could handle men1 regiments1 small arms1 heavy ordnance on a large scale4 ,the staff officers work in things in the abstract1 just as the line officers mould men in the concrete4 ,there then is the rough theory of staff organization which was picked up and adapted to its use by the ,united ,states army at about the time of the ,spanish-,american ,war4 ,of its value there can be no doubt2 of its efficiency no question4 99 99 99 99 99 ,a young man--,major ,charles ,hine--who had seen the operation of modern staff in the regular army1 decided that it was a good thing for the great railroad systems of the country4 ,hine knew railroads4 ,in order that he might know them thoroughly1 he one day packed his uniforms and his saddle away in his trunk and went quietly out and got a job as brakeman on a freight train4 ,he did not stay on the car roofs very long2 he has served in about every conceivable post in railroad divisional organization1 and he has had a good chance to study the weaknesses of those very organizations4 ,we have got to eliminate government by chief clerks1 said ,major ,hine at the very beginning4 ,we are growing too rapidly for the men higher up4 ,we are forced to delegate official authority to clerks and foremen1 and then we build up an autocracy around some person of official rank4 ,it is pernicious feudalism1 this permitting the chief clerk1 and a good many times some other clerks1 to sign the name of the officer whom they attempt to represent4 ,a railroad is really so spread out that its officers live a double official life2 a part of the time they are at their desks1 and another part out upon the line4 ,yet the average railroad officer1 be he of high or low degree1 flatters himself that by some subtle method of personal superiority1 he is enabled to act intelligently in two places at the same time4 ,major ,hine saw how that worked at the very beginning of a special service with the ,southern ,pacific ,railroad4 ,he was down in the ,yaqui ,river country in ,mexico1 where heavy construction work was under way4 ,in company with the division engineer1 he was riding the line mule-back4 ,the division engineer had several parties under him1 each in charge of a resident engineer1 and all engaged in laying out and checking the contractor's work4 ,the headquarters of the division engineer were presided over by a ninety-dollar-a-month chief clerk1 who was dealing in the absence of his superior with one hundred and twenty-five dollar resident engineers4 ,the division engineer assured his guest that the telephone permitted close personal contact with headquarters1 that every hour questions were referred to him4 ,the vice-president of the company1 desiring to change the assembling point for luncheon1 sought for two hours from engineering headquarters to locate the division engineer1 who was on the grade all the time4 ,the condition mentioned necessitates the chief clerk's signing the name of his superior to heads of departments lower down1 which heads are receiving lower salaries1 and are presumably of wider experience than the chief clerk who essays to be their monitor4 ,this is done in the name of routine business4 ,unfortunately no two men often agree upon what constitutes routine business4 ,almost every railroad officer will tell you that my chief clerk handles only routine business and never assumes too much authority4 ,when closely questioned1 the same officer will reveal in the utmost confidence the fact that the same condition does not obtain with the chief clerk of the officer who is over the informant4 ,strangely enough1 if the complaining witness is promoted to his boss's job1 the same condition still exists1 showing that the system is at fault1 rather than its individual members4 ,worst of all1 the chief clerk has to break in all the new bosses and thus has only limited promotion himself4 ,major ,hine has said that the bigness of things on the ,harriman lines1 the breadth of the policies of ,napoleon ,harriman and ,von ,moltke ,julius ,kruttschnitt1 the vice-president in the change of the operation of that far-reaching group of railroads1 strengthened his nerve to advocate radical departure from preconceived notions of railway organization4 ,hine1 at his home in ,virginia1 had once acted as receiver of a suburban trolley system1 where he had introduced a simplified organization4 ,he found1 at that time1 that the underlying principle of that organization would apply to a thousand times as many men on the great ,harriman lines4 ,incidentally1 after the receivership was lifted1 the new owners of the property discontinued the organization which ,major ,hine had created1 for they took the ground that no other electric road had such a system1 and that therefore there could be nothing in it4 ,kruttschnitt decided to let ,major ,hine begin on the ,harriman lines with the reorganization of the divisions4 ,he declined to order any changes1 but placed the burden of missionary work and conversions among his subordinates on the shoulders of his special representative4 ,there are not a dozen letters bearing on this subject in ,kruttschnitt's office4 ,the work was done by personal contact1 which in two years involved over one hundred thousand miles of travel by ,hine4 ,major ,hine states that1 notwithstanding the splendid spirit of the officers of the ,harriman lines1 little would have been accomplished without the tactful support of ,kruttschnitt1 the man whose supremacy and whose brilliant abilities are unquestioned in the railway world4 ,on the other hand1 ,kruttschnitt has been heard to say that the credit lies with the enthusiastic younger man whom he attached to his staff4 ,most of the divisions of the ,harriman lines had an assistant superintendent1 engaged mainly in outside duties1 with an office near the superintendent's1 presided over by a chief clerk4 ,both the superintendent and the assistant superintendent had his own chief clerk1 who consumed reams of paper annually in intercommunications over their respective superior's signatures4 ,the new system provides1 as a first step1 that if the division has no assistant superintendent1 one shall be appointed4 ,the next step is to order the assistant superintendent to remain at headquarters in charge of the office1 in effect1 but not in name1 the chief-of-staff idea1 so successfully applied by the ,germans through ,von ,moltke4 ,when necessary1 an additional trainmaster is appointed for the previous outside duties of the assistant superintendent4 ,the old chief clerk is placed in line of promotion by appointing him1 when possible1 to a position with outside duties on the road4 ,next1 the division shop is raided1 the division master mechanic and the travelling engineer 7road foreman of engines7 are moved bodily to the same building with the division superintendent1 where are usually already located1 the division engineer1 the trainmaster1 and the chief despatcher4 ,the old theory has been that the master mechanic should be at his shop to supervise the shop force4 ,the new conception is that the master mechanic has passed the stage of a shop foreman2 that1 located at one shop1 he unconsciously comes to underestimate the importance of roundhouses and car repair plants at outlying points on the division4 ,he is brought to division headquarters to get the atmosphere of transportation1 to be in touch with the train sheet1 and to realize that motive power is one of the component elements of transportation2 that the shop is incident to the railroad1 not the railroad to the shop4 ,the official family1 now being gathered under the parental roof of the superintendent1 are politely requested to deposit the official shooting-iron1 the typewriter1 in one official arsenal1 from which all shooting will be done in the future4 ,the office files are consolidated in one office of record4 ,this idea is borrowed from the courts of justice1 where one clerk of the court1 with as many deputies as necessary1 records all transactions regardless of the number of judges and other officers4 ,you must have worked in a railroad office to appreciate the fearful condition of official files in this year of grace1 nineteen hundred eleven4 ,you ask for the file on that culvert at ,jones' farm on the ,martinsburgh branch1 and an anmic office-boy staggers toward you with enough manuscript to be the making of a novel4 ,there are the contract arrangements and the correspondence with the ,j4 ,b4 ,g4 concerning the union station privileges that are enjoyed with it at ,blissville2 why1 there was a whole chapter given over to that episode of ,july1 three summers ago1 when the leaders had to be renewed on that magnificent structure1 and its roof re-shingled4 ,here is the contract for handling milk on a single side-line division--and the accompanying symposium of thought from chief clerks and minor officers in the form of miscellaneous--and entirely useless--correspondence4 ,this is the agreement with the bridge-builders' union--four inches thick4 ,no wonder the shelves of the record room sag1 and that the clerks are hollow-eyed4 ,tons of unprotected paper have been scrawled upon1 perfect rivers of helpless black ink have done the work--and all for that6 ,the heaviest file in the office of the ,harriman system to-day is half an inch in thickness1 and there is no one to deny that the property is being run at a high stage of efficiency--particularly in comparison with some other railroad systems of the land4 ,as the result of a single record system at any division headquarters1 the astounding saving has been to that group of railroads1 of five hundred thousand letters a year1 and it now goes without saying that they were unnecessary letters4 ,in a year or two1 that figure will cross the million mark--and you must take second breath to imagine the time and thought that goes into the making of a million letters in a twelvemonth4 ,the material saving in stationery is considerable--although trifling in the operation of a system that spends about #bbe1jjj1jjj a year1 but the logical claim is made that the five hundred thousand letters eliminated retarded rather than helped administration1 that they produced more harm than good4 ,deeper than all this is the dwarfing effect upon the individual initiative of the man below1 for whom the letter attempts to think4 ,elimination of red tape is not the sole object of the new system4 ,mr4 ,kruttschnitt regards this as incidental4 ,what has appealed to him is the final step in the organization which is to confer the uniform title of assistant superintendent upon the former division engineer1 master mechanic1 trainmaster1 travelling engineer1 roadmaster1 and chief despatcher4 ,these officers retain their former duties and responsibilities1 but they broaden authority to meet emergencies on the spot4 ,this means increased supervision of employees1 more scientific management of men4 ,the officials of the ,harriman lines faced here a ticklish problem4 ,the attitude of organized labor was in doubt4 ,would the men object to too many bosses8 ,would confusion result from several men issuing orders that might possibly conflict8 ,the results have been a splendid vindication of the intelligence of the men who are close to things4 ,the men were often quicker to catch the idea than were the officers4 ,what appealed to them most of all was the dictum that no man could sign another man's name or initials4 ,we old men do our work1 no matter how many bosses there are2 we realize that younger men need more instruction than supervision1 said a veteran conductor on the ,union ,pacific1 when the matter was brought to his attention4 ,we used to make one report to the master mechanic and another to the superintendent4 ,now one report addressed simply 'assistant superintendent' is enough4 ,it means less red tape4 ,but what we like best of all is that some smart ,aleck of a clerk can no longer jack us up4 ,that veteran ticket-puncher recalled that in older days conductors had been dismissed for allowing operators to sign their names to telegraphic train orders2 perhaps the letter of dismissal was signed by the superintendent's chief clerk4 ,there was railroad system for you6 ,after a year and a half of what the local officers called trial--for ,mr4 ,kruttschnitt and ,major ,hine have always regarded that period as demonstration rather than as experiment--the system was broadened4 ,it was applied to some of the higher units4 ,for nearly a year1 the ,u4 ,p4 general officers at ,omaha have had five assistant general managers4 ,in other days there were a general superintendent1 a superintendent of motive power1 a chief engineer1 a superintendent of transportation1 and an assistant to the general manager4 ,the new million dollar general office building of the ,u4 ,p4 at ,omaha will have its office space arranged according to the new conception4 ,until it is completed1 the consolidation of office records will not be practicable1 because the various general offices are now scattered over town4 ,but a start has been made1 and plans laid for full development4 ,what is good at the east end of a railroad is generally as good at the west end1 and so the plan1 working handily in general offices at ,omaha1 has been transplanted to the general offices of another ,harriman road--the newly combined ,oregon-,washington ,railroad ,navigation ,company at ,portland1 ,ore41 and at ,seattle1 ,wash4 ,other general headquarters of the ,harriman roads are only awaiting the construction of new and modern office buildings1 before they will be asked to fall in line with the plan4 ,kruttschnitt does not order these things4 ,he is far too wise a railroader for that4 ,he directs by suggestion and the family circle talks of ,major ,hine4 ,and yet twenty-three out of the thirty-three divisions of the ,harriman railroad group have fallen into the new groove within two short years4 ,consider for an instant the overwhelming importance of a title to some railroaders1 says a high officer of one of that group as he sits at his desk4 ,he is one of the men to whom a title is as hollow as a brass cylinder4 ,i have known a man to almost froth at the mouth because some stupid underling wrote a letter and addressed him as 'assistant to the general manager' instead of 'assistant general manager4' ,we have gone title crazy on some of our railroads4 ,take that overworked word 'superintendent4' ,we have more superintendents on this system to-day than there used to be track hands on a good sized road1 and we have what is even worse1 a superintendent of motive power1 and a superintendent of transportation ranking the division superintendent who is the head of an important subordinate unit1 and entitled to respect among the rank and file of our men as such4 ,under the new plan1 the superintendent of transportation together with the superintendent of motive power1 as you have already seen1 become assistant general managers4 ,right there is an impersonality that is delightful--and efficient2 it has proved most efficient in division organization4 ,out on our ---- division we had several washouts simultaneously last year4 ,we sent at once an assistant superintendent to each point of interruption and so we had at each vital place1 a man with sufficient brains and authority to use the forces on the ground to the best advantage4 ,isn't that good railroading8 99 99 99 99 99 ,it is good railroading all along the line4 ,it is good railroading to handle as big a question as the reorganization of a system employing a quarter of a million men and women1 without writing a whole library of rules and regulations for its enforcement4 ,ask ,major ,hine1 himself1 how he handles that problem4 ,easily enough1 will be his reply to you4 ,we have a constitution--also unwritten like that splendid old bulwark of ,english liberties--and any superintendent1 any general manager1 can make his own rules for his division or his stretch of railroad as long as they will stand the tests of that constitution4 ,and the railroad's bulwark consists of but three very simple principles3 ,the first of these is that no man may sign the name or the initial of another4 ,that is rank feudalism1 and out of place in the twentieth century sort of railroading4 ,our second clause is that there must be at all times an assistant superintendent in charge of the office4 ,normally1 this assistant1 in effect chief-of-staff1 is the senior or ,no4 #a on the list4 ,here again1 elasticity is introduced4 ,the unwritten law provides that whatever assistant may be assigned to the office is the senior of the others for the time being4 ,the chief-of-staff reviews the incoming and outgoing correspondence and reduces it to its lowest terms4 ,each assistant superintendent signs his own communications1 but they pass through the focus of the administrative hour-glass on the desk of the watchful chief-of-staff4 ,in the third place1 correspondence must be addressed impersonally2 from below1 'assistant superintendent1' from above1 'superintendent4' ,this requirement is based upon the idea that authority1 as in the courts1 is abstract and impersonal1 that the exercise of authority is highly concrete and personal4 ,the court exists if the judge is dead2 the court is silent until the judge speaks4 ,already there is noted a greater willingness to take responsibility4 ,more and more is heard about this division and the company and less and less about my department4 ,the mathematical axiom that the whole is greater than any of its parts is sometimes violated in corporate administration1 because there is no chief-of-staff to balance the specialization of some department head4 ,this system of playing trumps in the new science of railroads incidentally1 but not essentially1 provides for rotation in the position of senior assistant or chief-of-staff4 ,some conservative divisions have not availed themselves of this feature4 ,on one division the superintendent in the first year of the new organization had four of his five assistant superintendents1 each occupy the senior chair at headquarters for three months each4 ,finally1 it came the turn of the old master mechanic4 ,i am sweating blood1 he said1 but ,i never knew before how much there is about a railroad4 ,when that master mechanic returned to his shop interests1 his vision had been broadened1 and he was more alert to protect the company's interests when riding over the road4 ,the sponsors for the new system deny that this may lead to the neglect of an official's own special responsibility4 ,they point to the superintendent as a balance wheel to maintain proper equilibrium4 ,over two years' experience has led the high officials of the ,harriman lines to lay some stress upon urging the assistant superintendents forward rather than holding them back4 ,the tendency has been to settle back in former grooves4 ,as long as no harm is done1 those who avail themselves of their new opportunities are becoming more valuable assets both for themselves and for the company4 ,when a division is reorganized1 the persons concerned are assembled to listen to a lecture by ,major ,hine4 ,to their great astonishment1 he usually leaves town the same evening4 ,he takes the position that the system which depends for its success upon the presence of any individual is a system which the company has no business to adopt4 ,he says1 ,we have pushed you off the bank4 ,now swim ashore4 ,they all do4 ,on the next visit of his grand rounds1 the instructor often finds his pupils beating him at his own game4 ,dropping in one day at the headquarters of a large division on the coast1 he found the senior assistant superintendent and the old master mechanic in frequent conference4 ,the senior assistant tossed a letter over the desk1 and asked1 ,did ,jim here need to write this letter8 ,it looks good to me1 said the instructor2 what is the matter with it8 ,you told us1 said the interlocutor1 that one record in this office is enough4 ,i handled a letter this morning from the mechanical assistant telling the foreman to repair this outfit car4 ,now ,i get another letter this afternoon about the same thing4 ,you are dead right1 said the major2 you fellows will soon have me worked out of a job4 ,the old master mechanic caught the spirit of the occasion and said3 ,yes1 ,jack1 you caught that one1 but there were two just like it this morning that you didn't catch4 ,next time ,i won't have to dictate them4 99 99 99 99 99 ,there then is efficiency through organization--the playing of trumps in the developing science of railroading4 ,other railroads have been watching the reorganization plan upon the ,harriman system with critical eyes1 and can find nothing but success in its workings4 ,it is paving its own way1 and shouldering itself abreast of a railroad generation that figures not in lines of from five hundred to a thousand miles each1 but giant systems of grouped lines that may easily stretch their steel cobwebs for fifteen thousand miles--over whole sovereign ,states1 from ocean to ocean--properties whose management calls for a degree of skill not yet demanded in the very greatest of our industrial or manufacturing corporations4 ,the old order changeth and giveth way to the new4 ,,index ,acworth1 the ,english economist1 #ccj1 #cca4 ,adams1 ,alvin1 #cga1 #cgb4 ,adams1 ,maude1 #bic1 #bid4 ,adams ,express ,company1 #cga-cgc4 ,adams ,company1 #cgb4 ,ade1 ,george1 #cjc4 ,advertising1 railroad1 #bgf2 bill for newspaper1 #bhh2 open territory1 #cef4 ,agricultural schools maintained by the railroads1 #cfj1 #cfa1 #cfc4 ,air-brake1 #db1 #abe1 #acd1 #bdi1 #bej4 ,albany1 bridge at1 #ad4 ,albany ,syracuse ,railroad1 #cga4 ,algomah ,central1 #dag4 ,algomah1 ferry1 #dae4 ,alleghany ,portage ,railroad1 #aa1 #ab1 #dh1 #adi4 ,allen1 ,horatio1 #e1 #f1 #g1 #h1 #aai4 ,altoona shops of 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