The typical railroad man "runs on the road;" he is not the one whose urbane presence adorns the much-heralded offices of the railroad companies on Broadway, where the gold letters on the front window are each considerably larger than the elbow-room allowed the clerks inside; nor, indeed, is he, generally speaking, the one with whom the public or the public's drayman comes in contact when visiting a large city station to ship or receive freight. These and others, whose part in the complex machinery of transportation is in a degree auxiliary, are indeed largely imbued with the esprit de corps which originates in the main body of workers; but their duties are such that their interest is not especially lively. Even the men employed at stations in villages and large towns acquire a share of their railroad spirit at second hand, as life on a train is necessary to get the experience which embodies the true fascination which so charms Young America.

The railroad man's home-life is not specially different from other people's. There have been Chesterfields among conductors, and mechanical geniuses have grown up among the locomotive engineers, but these were products of an era now past. Station-men are a part of the communities where their duties place them. Trainmen and their families occupy a modest though highly respectable place in the society they live in. Trainmen who live in a city generally receive the same pay that is given to their brothers, doing the same work, whose homes are in the country. The families of the latter therefore enjoy purer air, lessened expenses, and other advantages which are denied the former.

On most railroads the freight trainmen—engineers, conductors, brakemen, and firemen—are the most numerous and prominent class, as the number of freight trains is generally larger than that of passenger trains; and among these men there are more brakemen than anything else, because there are two or more on every train, while there is but one of each of the other classes. And as the ranks of the passenger-train service are generally recruited from the freight trainmen, it follows that the freight brakeman impresses his individuality quite strongly upon not only the circles in which he moves but the whole train-service as well. Freight conductors are promoted brakemen, and most (though not by any means all) passenger conductors are promoted freight conductors; so that the brakeman's prominent traits of character continue to appear throughout the several grades of the service. As he is promoted he of course improves. The general character of the personnel of the freight-train service has undergone a considerable change in the last twenty years. Whiskey drinkers have been weeded out, and pilferers with them. Improved discipline has effected a general toning up, raising the moral standard perceptibly. One reforming superintendent, a few years ago, on undertaking an aggressive campaign found himself compelled to discharge three-fifths of all his brakemen before he could regard the force as reasonably cleared of the rowdy element.

The brakeman, like the "drummer," is a characteristic American product. Each has his wits sharpened by peculiar experiences, and, while important lines of intellectual training are almost wholly neglected, there is contact with the world in various directions, which develops qualities that tend to elevate the individual in many ways. Although freight brakemen do not have any intercourse with the public, they somehow learn the ways of the world very quickly, and the brightest ones among them need very little training to fit them for a place on a passenger train where they are expected to deal with gentle ladies and fastidious millionaires, and bear themselves with the grace of a hotel clerk. Perhaps one reason why brakemen impress their characteristics on the whole personnel of the service is because they have abundance of opportunity for meditation. Many of them have a superfluity of hours and half-hours when they have nothing to do but ride on the top of a car and keep a general watch of the train, and they have ample time to think twice before speaking once. Even a circus clown or the vender of shoestrings or ten-cent watches has to study the arts of expression; why should not the intelligent trainman, who wishes to let people know that he is of some account in the world? If he wants a favor from a superior he knows just the best way of approach to secure success. If he deems it worth while to complain of anything, he formulates his appeal in a way that is sure to be telling. Everyone knows the old story of the brakeman who was refused a free pass home on Saturday night with the argument that his employer, if a farmer, could not be reasonably expected to hitch up a horse and buggy for such a purpose. The reply that, admitting this, the farmer who had his team already harnessed up and was going that way with an empty seat would be outrageously mean to refuse his hired man a ride, is none too 'cute to be characteristic. The brakeman who is not able to puncture the sophistries of narrow-souled or disingenuous superiors is the exception and not the rule.

The brakeman gives the prevailing tone to the "society" of despatchers' lobbies and other lounging places which he frequents. If he be profane or fault-finding or sour, he can easily spread the influence of these unpleasant traits. A lazy brakeman becomes more lazy, because his work is in many respects easy. Having little to do he demands still less. A foul-mouthed one gives himself free rein because many usual restraints are absent. The prevalence of profanity, which, aside from the question of sinfulness, hampers a man in any aspirations he may have toward more elevating society, is perhaps the worst blot on the reputation of brakemen as a class. Many worthy men among them, and especially among conductors and engineers, have, however, done much to improve the tone of conversation in trainmen's haunts, and on the better disciplined roads decorum is the rule, and rowdyism the exception. There is abundance of humor and spirit, however. The brakeman originates whatever slang may be deemed necessary to give spice to the talk of the caboose and round-house. He calls a gravel train a "dust express," and refers to the pump for compressing air for the power-brakes as a "wind-jammer." The fireman's prosaic labors are lightened by being poetically mentioned as the "handling of black diamonds," and the mortification of being called into the superintendent's office to explain some dereliction of duty is disguised by referring to the episode as "dancing on the carpet."

The disagreeable features of a freight brakeman's life are chiefly those dependent upon the weather. If he could perform his duties in Southern California or Florida in winter, and in the Northern States in summer, his lot would ordinarily be a happy one, though the annoyance of tramps is almost universal in mild climates, and in many cases takes the shape of positive danger. These vagabonds persist in riding on or in the cars, while the faithful trainman must, according to his instructions, keep them off. In some sections of the country they will board a train in gangs of a dozen, armed with pistols, and dictate where a train shall carry them. Not long ago in Chicago a conductor, while ejecting a tramp from the caboose, was shot and killed by the ruffian.

The hardships of cold and stormy weather are serious, both because of the test of endurance involved and the added difficulties in handling a train. The Westinghouse automatic air-brake, which has served so admirably on passenger trains for the past fifteen years, has only recently been adapted and cheapened so as to make it available for long freight trains, but it is now so perfected that in a few years the brakeman who now has to ride on the outside of cars in a freezing condition for an hour at a time will be privileged to sit comfortably in his caboose while the speed of the train is governed by the engineer through the instantaneous action of the air-brake. On the steep roads of the Rocky Mountains, and a few other lines, this brake is already in use.

But "braking by hand" is still the rule. In running on ascending grades or at slow speeds, the brakemen can ride under cover, but in descending grades, or on levels when the speed is high, they must be on the tops of the cars ready to instantly apply the brakes, for the reason that there are generally only three or four men to a long train weighing from 500 to 1,000 tons, whose momentum cannot be arrested very quickly. In descending steep grades, only the most constant and skilful care prevents the train from rushing at breakneck speed to the foot of the incline, or to a curve, where it would be precipitated over an embankment and crushed into splinters. One of the mountain roads in Colorado which now uses air-brakes is said to be lined its whole length with the ruins of cars lying in the gorges, where they were wrecked in the former days of hand-brakes. Even on grades much less steep than those in Colorado the danger of this sort of disaster is one that has to be constantly guarded against. Take the case of a 40-car train descending a 1½ per cent. grade (79²/₁₀ feet per mile). Before all of the cars have passed over the summit and commenced to descend, the forward part of the train will have increased its velocity very perceptibly and will thus by its weight exert a strong pull on the rear portion, "yanking" it very roughly sometimes, and if one of the couplings between the cars chances to be weak it breaks, separating the train into two parts. Mishaps of this kind are frequent, and two or more breakages often occur at the same time, dividing the train so that one of the parts—between the two end portions—is perhaps left with no brakeman upon it. The engineman then has the choice of slackening his speed and allowing the unmanageable cars to violently collide with his portion, or of increasing his own speed to such a rate that he is soon in danger of suddenly overtaking a train ahead of him. To avoid this breaking-in-two the brakemen must be wide awake on the instant and see that their brakes are tightened before the speed even begins to elude control. As soon as the whole train has got beyond the summit, and the speed is reduced to a proper rate by the application of the brakes on, say, one-third or one-half the cars, it will perhaps be found that one or two brakes too many have been put on and that the train is running too slowly. Some of them must then be loosened. Or perhaps some are set so tightly that the friction heats the wheels unduly or causes them to slide along the track instead of rolling; then those brakes must be released and some on other cars applied instead; and all this must be done (sometimes for an hour) when the temperature is 20 degrees below zero, or the wind is blowing a gale, just as under more favorable circumstances. A train moving at 20 miles an hour against a wind with a velocity of 30 miles increases the latter to 50, so far as the brakeman is concerned; and if rain or sleet is falling, the force of it on his hands and face is very severe. If we add to this the danger attendant upon stepping from one car to another over a gap of 27 to 30 inches, in a dark night, when the cars are constantly moving up and down on their springs and are swaying to one side or the other every few seconds, we get some idea of, though we cannot realize, the sensations that must at such times fill the minds of the men whose pleasant berth seems so enjoyable on a mild summer's day. And this is not an overdrawn picture or the worst that might be given; for rain and snow combined often coat the roofs of cars so completely and solidly that they are worse than the smoothest skating-pond, and moving upon them is attended with danger at every step. Jumping—it cannot be called walking—from one car to another is in such cases positively reckless. The brake-apparatus will in a snow-storm be coated with ice so rapidly that vigorous action is required to keep it in working condition. Even a wind alone, in dry weather, sometimes compels the men to crawl from one car to another, grasping such projections as they may. The brakeman who forgets to take his rubber coat and overalls sometimes suffers severely from sudden changes of temperature. In spring or fall a lively shower will be encountered in a sheltered valley, and the clothing be completely drenched, and then within perhaps half an hour the ascent of a few hundred feet brings the train into an atmosphere a few degrees below the freezing point, so that with the aid of the wind, fanned by the speed of the train, the clothes are very soon frozen stiff.

Another feature which often involves discomfort, and occasionally positive suffering and danger, is "going back to flag." When a train is unexpectedly stopped upon the road, the brakeman at the rear end must immediately take his red flag or lantern and go back a half-mile or more to give the "stop" signal to the engine-men of any train that may be following. This rule is sometimes disregarded in clear weather on straight lines, and is even evaded by lazy or unfaithful brakemen where the neglect is positively dangerous, but still many a faithful man has to go out and stand for a long time in a severe snow-storm or risk his life in walking several miles to a station. The record of individual perils and heroisms in the New York blizzard of March, 1888, are paralleled, or at least repeated, on a slightly milder scale, by brakemen every winter. Even in the blizzard country of the Northwest, where a half hour's exposure is often fatal, the system of train-running is such that the stopping of a train at an unexpected place involves danger of collision if the brakeman does not at once go back and stay back. A "tail-end" brakeman has various anxieties, which cannot be detailed here. Often there is a possibility that the advancing engineer will not see his red lantern. One brakeman in New Brunswick several years ago ignominiously deserted his post, leaving his train to look out for itself, because of a visit from a huge bear whose residence was in the woods near the point on the railroad where the brakeman was keeping his lonely night-vigil.

The danger of sudden accidental death or maiming is constant and great, and the bare record of the numerous cases is acutely suggestive of inexpressible suffering; but, strange to say, it does not worry the average brakeman much. Though probably a thousand trainmen are killed in this country every year, and four or five thousand injured, by collisions and derailments, in coupling cars, falling off trains, striking low overhead bridges, and from other causes, not one brakeman, from what he sees in his own experience, realizes the danger very vividly. As in other dangers which are constant but inevitable, familiarity breeds carelessness which is closely akin to contempt. Falling from trains is really a serious danger, because the most ceaseless caution—next to impossible for the average man to maintain—is necessary to avoid missteps. This will be practically abolished when the long-wished-for air-brake comes into use, as that will obviate the necessity of riding on the tops of the cars.

Coupling accidents are practically unavoidable because, although the necessary manipulations can be made without going between the cars or placing the hands in dangerous situations, the men as a general thing prefer to take the risk of the more dangerous method. With the ordinary freight-car apparatus (which, however, is destined to be superseded by an automatic coupler) the link by which the cars are connected is retained by a pin in the drawbar of either car; as one car approaches another at considerable speed, this link, which hangs loosely down at an angle of thirty degrees, must be lifted and guided into the opening in the opposite drawbar. This operation must, according to the regulations of most roads, be performed by the aid of a short stick; but, disregarding the regulation, partly to save time and partly because of fear of the ridicule that would be called out by the exhibition of a lack of dexterity, the average brakeman uses his fingers. He must lift the link and hold it horizontally until the end enters the opening, and then withdraw his hand before the heavy drawbars come together. A delay of a fraction of a second would crush the hand or finger as under a trip-hammer. And, in point of fact, this delay does, for various reasons, frequently happen, and the number of trainmen with wounded hands to be found in every large freight-yard is sad evidence of the fact. But again, assuming that this part of the operation is accomplished in safety, there is another and worse danger in the possibility of being crushed bodily. Cars are built with projecting timbers on their ends at or near the centre, for the purpose of keeping the main body of each car twelve or fifteen inches from its neighbor; but cars of dissimilar pattern sometimes meet in such a way that the projections on one lap past those on the other, and the space which should afford room for the man to stand in safety is not maintained. If the brakeman, in the darkness of night or the hurry of his work, fails to note the peculiarities of the cars, he is mercilessly crushed, the ponderous vehicles often banging together with a force of many tons. A constant danger in coupling and uncoupling is the liability to catch the feet in angles in the track.[33] Freight conductors are peculiarly liable to this, as the duty of uncoupling (pulling out the coupling-pin) generally devolves upon them, and must be done while the train is in motion. Walking rapidly along, in the dark, with the right hand holding a lantern and grasping the car, while the left is tugging at a pin which sticks, involves perplexities wherein a moment's hesitation may prove fatal.

The dangers here recounted are those which only brakemen (or those acting as brakemen) have to meet. The liability of all trainmen to be killed by the cars tumbling down a bank, colliding with another train, and a hundred other conditions, is also considerable. The horror which the public feels on the occurrence of such a disaster as that at Chatsworth, Ill., in the summer of 1887, or the half-dozen other terrible ones within the past few years, could reasonably be repeated every month if railroad employees instead of passengers were considered. There are no accurate official statistics kept of the train accidents in the country, but the accounts compiled monthly by the Railroad Gazette always show a large number of casualties to railroad men from causes beyond their own control (collisions, running off the track, etc.), no mention being made of the larger number resulting from the victims' own want of caution. In the month of March, 1887, in which occurred the terrible Bussey Bridge disaster, near Boston, 25 passengers were killed in the United States; but the same month recorded 34 employees killed. At Chatsworth 80 passengers were killed; but in that and the following month the number of employees killed in the country reached 97. In both of these comparisons the number of passengers is exceptional, while that of employees is ordinary. But, as already intimated, these dangers and discouragements are distributed over such a large territory and among such a large number of individuals that the general serenity of the brakeman's life is not much disturbed by them. In spite of them all, he enjoys his work and, if he is adapted to the calling, he sticks to it.

The brakeman must be on hand promptly at the hour of his train's preparation for departure, and generally he must do his part in 15, 30, or 60 minutes' lively work in assembling cars from different tracks, changing them from the front to the rear or middle of the train, and setting aside those that are broken or disabled; but, once on the road, by far the greater portion of his time is his own, for his own enjoyment, almost as fully as that of the passenger who travels for the express purpose of entertaining himself. In mild weather and in daylight, life on the top of a freight train is almost wholly devoid of unpleasant features, and it takes on the nature of work only for the same reason that any routine becomes more or less irksome after a time. Much of the time there are a few bushels of cinders from the engine flying in the air, which a novice can get into his eyes with great facility, but the brakeman gets used to them. He sees every day (on many roads) the beauties of nature in great variety. Much of the scenery of the adjoining country is 500 per cent. more enjoyable from the brakeman's perch on the roof than from the car windows, for the reason that the increased height gives such an enlarged horizon. This education from nature is an element in railroad men's lives not to be despised. The trainman whose daily trips take him past the panoramic charms of the Connecticut Valley in summer, through the gorgeous-hued mountain-foliage along the Erie in autumn, or the perennial grandeur of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, certainly enjoys a privilege for which many a city worker would gladly make large sacrifices. But to trainmen the refining influence of these surroundings is often an unconscious influence, and with the majority of them is perhaps generally so, because of the prosaic round of every-day thoughts filling their minds. There are also some other advantages, not wholly unÆsthetic, which a millionaire might almost envy the freight trainman. Every twenty miles or so the engine must stop for water, and it often happens that this is in a cool place where the men can at the same time refresh themselves with spring water whose sparkling purity is unknown in New York or Chicago. Though brakemen who love beer are not by any means scarce, an accessible spring or well of pure water along the line always finds appreciative users during warm weather; and the Kentuckian who sojourned six months in Illinois without thinking to try the water there is not represented in the ranks of level-headed brakemen. A certain railroad president regales himself in summer on spring water brought in jugs from 100 miles up the road by trainmen who find in this service an opportunity to "make themselves solid" at headquarters. Freight trainmen get all the delicious products of the soil at first hands. In their stops at way-stations they get acquainted with the farmers, and can make their selection of the best things at low prices, thus (if they keep house) living on fruits, vegetables, etc., of a quality fit for a king.

Brakemen have had the reputation of doing a good deal of flirting, and many a country-girl has found a worthy husband among them; but there is not so much of this method of diversion as formerly; both passenger and freight men now have to attend more strictly to business, and they cannot conveniently indulge in side play. There are still, however, enough short branch-lines and slow-going roads in backwoods districts to insure that flirting shall not become a lost art in this part of the world.

The freight conductor is simply a high grade of brakeman. His work is almost wholly supervisory and clerical, and so, after several years' service, he becomes more sober and business-like in his bearing, the responsibilities of his position being sufficient to effect this change; but he generally retains his sympathies with his old associates who have become subordinates. His duties are to keep the record of the train, the time, numbers of cars, etc.; to see that the brakemen regulate the speed when necessary, and to keep a general watch. The calculations necessary to make a 75-mile trip and get over the line without wasting time are often considerable, and an inexperienced conductor can easily keep himself in a worry for the whole trip. Often he cannot go more than ten miles after making way for a passenger train before another overtakes him; so that he must spend a good share of his time sitting in his caboose with the time-table in one hand and his watch in the other, calculating where and when to side-track the train. On single-track roads perplexities of this kind are generally more numerous than on double lines, because trains both in front and behind must be guarded against, and because the regulations are frequently modified by telegraphic instructions from headquarters. A mistake in reading these instructions, which are written in pencil, often by a slovenly penman, and on tissue-paper, may, and occasionally does, cause a disastrous collision. These duties of conductors are especially characteristic of trains that must keep out of the way of passenger trains, so that in this particular line it will be seen that the passenger conductor has much the easier berth. The freight and "work-train" conductor must really be a better calculator, in many ways, than the wearer of gilt badges and buttons, though the latter receives the higher pay.

The bÊte noire of the freight conductor is an investigation at headquarters concerning delinquencies in which the blame is divided. A typical case of this kind is that of a freight train which has stopped at some unusual place and been run into by a following train, doing some hundreds of dollars damage, if not killing or injuring persons. "Strict adherence to rules will avert all such accidents," the code says; but they do happen, and the inquiry as to whether the conductor used due diligence in sending a man with a red flag to warn the oncoming train, or the engineer of the latter was heedless, or what was the trouble, is the occasion of much anxiety.

Conductors, concerning whose life I have only noted a few of the duties and perplexities, are not so much subject to the vicissitudes of cold and wet weather, and therefore have in many respects better opportunities than the brakemen to avail themselves of the enjoyments of a trainman's life. The risk to life and limb from coupling cars, etc., is also somewhat less, though many a faithful conductor has lost his life in the performance of a dangerous duty which he had assumed out of generous consideration for an inexperienced or overworked subordinate. The beneficial influences on health, mind, and morals coming from contact with nature are, as before remarked, largely unconscious influences, because of the counteracting effect of the immediate surroundings. The irregular hours are unfavorable to health. The crews run in turn; if there are forty crews and forty trains daily, each crew will start out at about the same hour each day. But if on Monday there are forty trains, on Tuesday thirty, and on Wednesday fifty, it will be seen that the starting time must be very irregular. Ten of the crews which worked on Monday will have nothing to do on Tuesday, but on Wednesday or Thursday will have to do double service. The first trip will be all in the daytime, and the next all in the night, perhaps. This irregularity is constant, and it is impossible to tell on Monday morning where one will be on Wednesday. All the week's sleep may have to be taken in the daytime or all at night. There may be five days' work to do between Monday morning and the following Monday morning, or there may be nine. The trainman has to literally board in his "mammoth" dinner-pail, and his wife or boarding mistress knows less about his whereabouts than if he were on an Arctic whaling vessel.

The locomotive engineer is the popular "hero of the rail," and the popular estimate in this respect is substantially just. Others have to brave dangers and perform duties under trying circumstances; but the engine-runner has to ride in the most dangerous part of the train, take charge of a steam-boiler that may explode and blow him to atoms, and of machinery that may break and kill him, and try to keep up a vigilance which only a being more than human could successfully maintain. He must be a tolerably skilful machinist—he cannot be too good—and have nerves that will remain steady under the most trying circumstances. If running a fast express through midnight darkness over a line where a similar train has been tipped off a precipice (and a brother runner killed) by train-wreckers the night before, he must dash forward with the same confidence that he would feel in broad daylight on an open prairie. But he does not "heroically grasp the throttle" in the face of danger, when the throttle has been already shut, nor does he "whistle down brakes," in order to add a stirring element to the reporter's tale, when by the magic of the air-brake he can, with a turn of his hand, apply every brake in the train with the grip of a vise in less time than it would take him to reach the whistle-pull. When there is danger ahead there is generally just one thing to do, and that is to stop as soon as possible. An instant suffices for shutting off the steam and applying the brake. With modern trains this is all that is necessary or can be done. Reversing the engine is necessary on many engines, and formerly was on all; this would, in fact, be done instinctively by old runners, in any case, but this also is done in a second. After taking these measures there is nothing for the engineman to do but look out for his own safety. In some circumstances, as in the case of a partially burned bridge which may possibly support the train even in a weakened condition, it may be best to put on all steam. The runner is then in a dilemma, and a right decision is a matter of momentary inspiration. Many lives have been saved by quick-witted runners in such cases, but there is no ground for censure of the engineer who, in the excitement of the moment, decides to slacken instead of quicken his speed. The rare cases of this kind are what show the value of experience, and of men of the right temperament and degree of intelligence to acquire experience-lessons readily. The writer recalls an instance several years ago where an alert, steady, and experienced runner found himself on the crossing of another railroad with a heavy train rushing toward him on the transverse track at uncontrollable speed. It was too late to retreat, and in less than ten seconds the oncoming train would crash broadside into his cars, filled with passengers. A frantic effort to increase the speed and clear the crossing would have either broken the weak couplings then in use or would have simply whirled the driving-wheels with such excessive force as to slacken the speed of the train rather than accelerate it. In point of fact, the rear car just escaped being struck by the ponderous engine bearing down upon it at the rate of twenty or thirty feet a second; and the preservation of the lives of the passengers was due to the fact that the engineer was well-balanced, quick to act, and not excitable. What did he do? He instantly put on more steam, but with unerring judgment opened the valve just far enough and no more.

But the terrible cloud constantly hanging over the engineer and fireman of a fast train is the chance of encountering an obstacle which cannot possibly be avoided, and which leaves them no alternative but to jump for their lives, if, indeed, it does not take away even that. To the fact that this cloud is no larger than it is, and that these men have sturdy and courageous natures, must be attributed the lightness with which it rests upon them. On one road or another, from a washout, or inefficient management, or a collision caused by an operator's forgetfulness, or some one of a score of other causes, there are constantly occurring cases of men heroically meeting death under the most heart-rending circumstances. Every month records a number of such, though happily they are not frequent on any one road. The case of Engineer Kennar, a year or more ago, is a typical one. Precipitated with his engine into a river by a washout which the roadmaster's vigilance had failed to discover, his first thought, as zealous hands tried to rescue him, was for the safety of his train; and, forgetting his own anguish, he warned those about him to attend first to the sending of a red lantern to warn a following train against a collision. The significance of facts like this is not so much in the service to humanity done at the time, or even in the example set for those who shall meet such crises in the future, but rather in the evidence they give of the firm and lofty conscientiousness that inspires the every-day conduct of thousands of engineers all over the land. As has already been said, the critical occasions on which engineers are supposed to be heroic often allow them no chance at all to be either heroic or cowardly, and their heroism must be, and is, manifested in the calm fidelity with which they, day after day and year after year, perform their exacting and often monotonous round of duties while all the time knowing of the possibilities before them.

On the best of roads a freight train wrecked by a broken wheel under a borrowed car may be thrown in the path of a passenger train on another track, just as the latter approaches. This has happened more than once lately. No amount of fidelity or forethought (except in the maker of the wheels) can prevent this kind of disaster. There is constant danger, on most roads, of running off the track at misplaced switches, many switches being located at points where the runner can see them only a few seconds before he is upon them; but the chance is so small—perhaps one in ten or a hundred thousand—that the average runner forgets it, and it is only by severe self-discipline that he can hold himself up to compliance with the rule which requires him to be on the watch for every switch-target as long before reaching it as he possibly can. He finds the switches all right and the road perfectly clear so regularly, day after day and month after month, that he may easily fall into the snare of thinking that they will always be so. But, like other trainmen, the engineman finds enough more agreeable thoughts to fill his mind, and reflects upon the hazards of his vocation perhaps too little.

The freight engineman's every-day thoughts are largely about the care of his engine and the perplexities incident to getting out of it the maximum amount of work with the minimum amount of fuel. The constant aim of his superiors is to have the engine draw every pound it possibly can. To haul a train up a long and steep grade when the cars are so heavily loaded that a single additional one would bring the whole to a dead stand-still requires a knack that can be appreciated only by viewing the performance on the spot. Failure not only wastes time and fuel (it may necessitate a return to the foot of the hill or going to the top with only half the load), but it raises a suspicion that some other runner might have succeeded better. The runner whose engine "lays down on the road" (fails to draw its load because of insufficient fire and consequent low steam-pressure) is liable to the jeers of his comrades on his return home, if not to some sharp inquiries from his superior.

The passenger runner's greatest concern is to "make time." Some trains are scheduled so that the engineman must keep his locomotive up to its very highest efficiency over every furlong of its journey in order to arrive at his destination on time. A little carelessness in firing, in letting cold water into the boiler irregularly, or in slackening more than is necessary where the right to the track is in doubt for a few rods; these and a score of similar circumstances may make five minutes' delay in the arrival at the terminus and necessitate an embarrassing interview with the trainmaster. A trip on a crowded line may involve watching for danger-signals every quarter of a mile and the maintenance of such high speed that they must be obeyed the instant they are espied in order to avoid the possibility of collision.[34]

The passenger runner finds himself now and then with a disabled engine on his hands, and two or three hundred passengers standing around apparently ready to eat him up if he does not remedy the difficulty in short order. Often in such cases he is in doubt himself whether the repairs necessary to enable his engine to proceed will occupy fifteen minutes or an hour. This, with the knotty question of where the nearest relief engine is, causes the brow to knit and the sweat to start, and to the young runner proves an experience which he long remembers.

Stories of fast running are common but unreliable; and when truthful, important considerations are often omitted. There are so many elements to be considered, that usually the verdict can be justly rendered only after a careful comparison with previous records. Most regular runs include a number of stops, and are subject to numerous slackenings of the speed, thus dimming the lustre of the record of the trip as a whole. Frequently, quick runs which have been reported as noteworthy have had favoring circumstances not told of. The most remarkable single run on record was that of Jarrett & Palmer's special train chartered to carry their theatrical company from New York to San Francisco (Jersey City to Oakland), June 1–4, 1876, which is well known to all Americans. Perhaps the fastest long run ever made in this country was that of a special train over the West Shore Railroad from East Buffalo to Frankfort, N. Y., two hundred and one miles, on July 9, 1885, which ran this distance in four hours, including several stops. This train ran thirty-six miles in thirty minutes, and ran many single miles in forty-three seconds each. An engine with two cars ran over the Canada Southern Division of the Michigan Central from St. Clair Junction to Windsor, Ont., on November 16, 1886, a distance of one hundred and seven miles, in ninety-seven minutes; and this included two or three stops. The average rate of speed was about sixty-nine miles an hour, and in places it rose to seventy-five and over. The engineers and their firemen, and all connected with the handling of the trains, certainly deserve credit for performances like these, and they receive it; but the supplying of the perfect machine, the smooth and safe roadway comparatively clear of other trains, and other conditions, is so manifestly beyond their control, while at the same time constituting such an important factor in the result, that praise should be given discriminatingly. An engineer who makes a specially quick trip feels proud of his engine, and of the honor of having been chosen for an important run, and he shares with the passengers the exhilaration produced by such a triumph of science and skill in annihilating space; but in the matter of credit to himself for experience and judgment, patience and forethought, he feels and knows that many a trip in his every-day service is worthy of greater recognition. Many a runner has to urge his engine, day after day, with a load twenty-five per cent. heavier than it was designed for, over track that is fit only for low speeds, at a rate which demands the most constant care. He must run fast enough over the better portions of the track to allow of slackening where prudence demands slackening. The tracks of many roads are rendered so uneven by the action of frost in winter that with an unskilful runner the passengers would be half-frightened by the unsteady motion of the cars. This condition is not common on the important trunk-lines, of course; but it does prevail on roads that carry a great many passengers, nevertheless; and engineers who guide trains over such difficult journeys, gently luring the passengers, with the aid of the excellent springs under the cars, into the belief that they are riding over a track of uniform smoothness, should not be forgotten in any estimate of the fraternity as a whole.

The engineer whose humanity is not hardened has his feelings harrowed occasionally by pedestrians who risk their lives on the track. Tramps and other careless persons are so numerous that the casual passenger in a locomotive cab generally cannot ride fifty miles without seeing what seems to him a hair-breadth escape, but which is nevertheless treated by the engineer as a commonplace occurrence. These heedless wayfarers do, however, occasionally carry their indifference to danger too far, and they are tossed in the air like feathers.[35] Doubtless there are those who, like the fireman who talked with the tender-hearted young lady, regret the killing of a man chiefly "because it musses up the engine so;" but, taking the fraternity as a whole, warmth of heart and tenderness of feeling may be called not only well-developed but prominent traits of character. The great strike on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy road in 1888, which proved to have been ill-advised, would have been possible only in a body of men actuated by the most loyal friendship. Undoubtedly a large conservative element in the Brotherhood of Engineers believed the move injudicious, but they joined in it out of an intense spirit of fidelity to their brethren and leaders.

The passenger-train conductor has in many respects the most difficult position in the railroad ranks. He should be a first-class freight conductor and a polished gentleman to boot. But in his long apprenticeship on a freight train he has very likely been learning how not to fulfil the additional requirements of a passenger conductorship. In that service he could be uncouth and even boorish, and still fill his position tolerably well; now he feels the need of a life-time of tuition in dealing with the diverse phases of human nature met with on a passenger train. He must now manage his train in a sort of automatic way, for he has his mind filled with the care of his passengers and the collection of tickets. He must be good at figures, keeping accounts, and handling money, though the freight-train service has given him no experience in this line. Year by year the clerical work connected with the taking up of tickets and collecting of cash fares has been increased until now, on many roads, an expert bank clerk would be none too proficient for the duties imposed. The conductor who grumblingly averred that "it would take a Philadelphia lawyer with three heads" to fill his shoes was not far out of the way. Every day, and perhaps a number of times a day, he must collect fares of fifty or a hundred persons in less time than he ought to have for ten. Of that large number a few will generally have a complaint to make, or an objection to offer, or an impudent assertion concerning a fault of the railroad company which the conductor cannot remedy and is not responsible for. A woman will object to paying half-fare for a ten-year-old girl or to paying full rates for one of fifteen. A person whose income is ten times larger than he deserves will argue twenty minutes to avoid paying ten cents more (in cash) than he would have been charged for a ticket. Passengers with legitimate questions to ask will couch them in vague and backhanded terms, and those with useless ones will take inopportune times to propound them. These are not occasional but every-day experiences. The very best and most intelligent people in the community (excepting those who travel much) are among those who oftenest leave their wits at home when they take a railroad trip. All these people must be met in a conciliatory manner, but without varying the strict regulations in the least degree. The officers of the revenue department are inexorable masters, and passengers offended by alleged uncivil treatment are likely to make absurd complaints at the superintendent's office. A conductor dreads an investigation of this sort, however unreasonable the passengers' complaints may be, because it may tend to show that he lacked tact in handling the case. But after becoming habituated to this sort of dealings, there are still left the occasional disturbances which no amount of philosophy can make pleasant. These are the encounters with drunken and disorderly passengers. The conductor, starting at the forward end of his train, finds, perhaps, in the first car one or two "toughs" who refuse payment of fare and are spoiling for a fight. Care must be taken with this sort of character not to punish him or use the least bit of unnecessary severity, for he will, when sobered off, quite likely be induced by a sharp lawyer to sue the railroad company for damages by assault. The conductor, however, if he be one who has (in his freight-train experience) dealt with tramps, is able to cope with his customer and confine him to the baggage-car or put him off the train. But a tussle of this kind is at best far from soothing to the temper, and the very next car may contain the wife of a nabob, who will expect the most genteel treatment and critically object to any behavior on the part of the conductor which is not fully up to the highest drawing-room standard. Experiences of this kind, it can be readily imagined, are exceedingly trying. The conductor cannot give himself up completely to learning gentility, for he still has need for his old severity.

The difficulty of always finding the ideal person when wanted has led to the employment of men of good address who have had little or no training on freight trains; so that we find some conductors who are able to deal with all sorts of passengers with a good degree of success, but who are far from brilliant as managers of trains, technically speaking; while others, who from their early experience have first-class executive ability, are slow in discarding the somewhat rough habits of the freight train. While there are not wanting those who strive faithfully to reach the ideal, and succeed admirably, it may be said that the average conductor retains more of the severe than of the gentle side of his character, at least so far as outward behavior goes. The rigid requirements of his financial superiors, which compel him to actually fight for his rights with dishonest and stingy passengers, make it almost impossible that he should be otherwise. Ignorant foreigners, poor women and girls who have lost their way, and other unfortunates are, however, encountered often enough to preclude the conductor's forgetting how to be compassionate.

The heroic element is not wholly lacking in the conductor's life. The temporary guardianship of several hundred people is an important trust even in smooth sailing, but the conductor's possibilities are entirely different from the engineer's. He has so much to do to attend to the petty wants of passengers that their remoter but more important interests are not given much thought. The anxieties of a hundred nervous passengers who terribly dread the loss of an hour by a missed connection are much more likely to weigh down a conductor's mind than any thoughts of his duty to them in a possible emergency that will happen only once in five years. And yet the last-mentioned contingency is a real one. Only last year, in the great Eastern blizzard, conductors risked their lives in protecting their passengers. One spent three or four hours in travelling a mile and a half to a telegraph-office; in consequence of the six feet of snow, the blinding storm, and the darkness, he had to constantly hug a barbed-wire fence to avoid losing his way, and was on the point of exhaustion when he reached the station.

The term "station-agent" means, practically, the person in charge of a small or medium-sized station. When one of these men is promoted to the charge of a large city station, either freight or passenger, he becomes really a local superintendent, his duties then consisting very largely in the supervision of an army of clerks and laborers who must, each in his place, be as capable as the agent himself. The agent at a small station has a great multiplicity of duties to perform. He must sell tickets, be a good book-keeper, and a faithful switch-tender. He generally must be a telegraph-operator and must be vigorous physically. He must be ready, like the conductor, to submit to some abuse from ill-bred customers, and should be the peer of the business men of his town. He often encounters almost as great a variety of knotty problems as the superintendent himself, though he has the advantage that he can generally turn them over to a superior if he feels unequal to them. The practical difficulties that most beset him are those incident to doing everything in a hurry. People who buy tickets wait until the train is about to start before presenting themselves at the office. Then the agent has a dozen other things to attend to, and must therefore detect counterfeit ten-dollar bills with the expertness of a Washington treasury-clerk. Just as a train reaches his station the train despatcher's click is heard on the wires, and he must drop everything and receive (for the conductor) a telegram in which an error of a single word would very likely involve the lives of passengers. At a very small station the checking of baggage devolves on the agent, his overburdened back being thus loaded with one more straw. He is in many cases agent for the express company, and so must count, seal, superscribe, and way-bill money packages and handle oyster-kegs and barrels of beer at a moment's notice. Women with wagon-loads of loose household effects to go by freight, and shippers of car-loads of cattle, for which a car must be specially fitted up, will appear just as the distracted station-man is receiving a telegram with one side of his brain and selling a ticket with the other. The household goods must be weighed and tagged, the sewing-machine tied up, and tables repaired; the cattle-shipper must be given a short lecture on the legal bearings of the bargain for transportation which he is about to make, and his demand that his live-stock shall be carried 500 miles more quickly than human animals are taken over the same road is to be gently repressed. It is not every day that a small station is enlivened by this sort of excitement, yet it is common, and is familiar to every station agent. The variety in the duties of this position is, however, a great advantage to the ambitious young man, because it serves to give him a good lift toward a valuable business education. He can learn about the methods and knacks and tricks of many different kinds of business, and can profit by the knowledge thus gained. Thomas J. Potter, the lately deceased vice-president of the Union Pacific Railway, whose memory it is proposed to perpetuate by a bronze statue, began his railroad career as agent at a small station in Iowa. Others of equal ability and perfection of character have risen from similar places and by the same means.

The agent at a small station catches his breath between trains. There is then generally ample time for calming the nerves and preparing for the next onslaught. If he is a telegraph-operator he can chat with the operators at other stations—a common resource if the wires are not occupied with more important affairs. In the class periodicals of operators and railroad men, reference to this phase of their life may be constantly seen, and incidents of even romantic interest are not infrequent. Many of the men at small stations are young and unmarried, while at places where the business has increased enough to warrant the employment of an assistant, a young woman to do the telegraphing is frequently the first helper engaged. With this combination it is unnecessary to tell what follows. If iron bars and stone walls are things which Cupid holds in contempt, an electric telegraph wire is the thing which makes him "snicker right out," if we may use the language of the circus ring. A distance of 100 miles, instead of being a barrier, is, under these circumstances, an advantage. There is, to be sure, a slight disadvantage in the fact that any tender communication confided to the wires will be liable to fall on the ears of unfeeling persons at intermediate offices, but the overcoming of this obstacle provides the agreeable incidental excitement which is always necessary in genuine love-making. Young persons (or old, either) can study each other's characters, in important phases at least, at a distance better than at short range. The telegraphic mode of sending communications discloses one's disposition far better than does handwriting. Working on the same wire with another for a few months enables one to form judgments of that other's generosity or narrowness, serenity or excitability, industry or laziness, refinement or boorishness, kindliness of heart or otherwise, which are quite sure to be correct judgments. Judgments ripen into attachments, and romances of the wire are common.

At the railroad station next larger in size, the work is more divided. One man sells tickets, another attends to the freight office, another to the baggage, and so on. The ticket-seller must make five-cent bargains with the same urbanity that is given to a $100 trade, and must be able to toss off the latter in two minutes if occasion requires, or to spend an hour in helping the passenger choose the best route among a score of possible ones. The fusillade of questions that must be met by the ticket-seller every time he opens his window is familiar to everyone who has ever watched a place of the kind for ten minutes. The inexperienced traveller wants to be fully posted as to the exact hour of departure of a tri-weekly stage with which he is to connect at a railroad station a thousand miles away, and the more intelligent ones demand an oral time-table covering the trains for the ensuing week on all railroads within a radius of 50 miles. Those who cannot read or understand the time-tables are too modest to ask aid, and their misfortune is disclosed only after their train has gone and they are found in tears; while those who can read the table ignore it and ask questions simply to be sociable.

The station baggage-master has an important but rather thankless place. He must handle 200-pound trunks with as much ease as though they contained feathers, and, if he break a moulding off one, must meet the reproaches of the owner, who imagines that the time available for handling the trunk was five minutes instead of two seconds. He must handle much dirty and otherwise unpleasant stuff, and on the whole pursue a very unpoetic life. He has little to do with train-handling, but he "keeps in with" the trainmen and furnishes them with a share of their entertainment. They lounge in his room sometimes and he keeps on tap a supply of jokes such as that about the new brakeman who sent to headquarters for a supply of red oil for his red lantern, and the engineer who lost time with an excursion train on the Fourth of July because the extremely hot weather had elongated the rails and thus materially increased the distance to be travelled over. When "hot boxes" (friction-heated axles) are given as the cause of a delay the real cause of which is concealed (by the conductor who is ashamed of it), the baggage-master gently punctures the deception by suggesting that perhaps a hot fire-box (in the engine) is what is meant. Whether the roguish clerk of an inexperienced general manager, who slyly induced his chief to issue an order to station agents directing that "all freight cars standing for any length of time on side tracks must be occasionally moved a short distance in order to prevent flattening of the wheels," had formerly been a baggage-master, history does not state.

The switch-tender, whose momentary carelessness has many a time caused terrible disaster, but whose constant faithfulness outweighs a million-fold even that painful record, is one of the essential figures around a station. Nothing but eternal vigilance will suffice to keep switches always in safe position, and the conscientious custodian of these always possible death-traps often takes his burden of care to his pillow. The mishaps which do occur strikingly illustrate the practical impossibility of holding the human brain always to the highest pitch. A conductor in New Jersey (trainmen have to set switches at many places where no switchmen are employed) recently caused a slight collision by misplacing a switch, and on seeing the consequences exclaimed, "I deserve to be discharged; my mistake was inexcusable." And yet an honest man of that type is the kind demanded for such a place. The interlocking of switches and signals (the arrangement in a frame of the levers moving the switches and those moving signals in such a way that the signal which tells the engineer to come on cannot be given until the switch is actually in proper position) is one of the notable improvements of the last twenty years, and is a great boon to switchmen, as well as to passengers and the owners of railroads.[36] By the aid of this apparatus and its distant signals, connected by wire ropes, the switchman's anxieties are reduced immeasurably. By concentrating the levers of a number of switches in a single room one man can do the work of several, and to the looker-on the perplexities of the position seem to have been increased instead of diminished. But the switchman's task now is of a different sort. Under the old plan he was constantly on guard lest he make a mistake and throw an engine or car off the track. Under the new, his calculations are chiefly about saving time and facilitating the work of the trainmen. Questions of danger rarely come up, being provided against by the perfection of the machinery. By long familiarity with the ground and the ways of handling the trains, the switch-tender in an "interlocking tower" is enabled to safely conduct a score of trains through a labyrinth of switches in the time that the novice would take to make the first move for a single train. Without this admirable apparatus, and skilful and experienced attendants, the business of great stations like the Grand Central at New York would be impossible in the space allowed.

One of the habituÉs of every station is the section-master, who looks after three, five, or ten miles of track and a gang of from five to twenty-five men who keep it in repair. He is not much seen, because he is out on the road most of the time; and his duties are not of a kind that the reader could study, on paper, to much advantage; but he deserves mention because his place is a really important one. Railroad tracks cannot be made, like a bridge, five times as strong as is necessary, and thus a large margin be allowed for deterioration; they must be constantly watched to see that they do not fall even a little below their highest standard. This care-taking can be intrusted only to one who has had long experience at the work. In violent rain-storms the trackman must be on duty night and day and patrol the whole length of his division to see that gravel is not washed over the track or out from under it. Though roughly dressed and sunburnt, he is an important personage in the eye of the engineer of a fast express train, and if he be the least bit negligent, even to the extent of letting a few rails get a quarter of an inch lower than they ought to, he hears a prompt appeal from the engine-runner. The latter could not feel the confidence necessary to guide his 50-ton giant over the road at lightning speed with its precious human freight if he had not a trusty trackman every few miles; and passengers who feel like expressing gratitude for a safe railroad journey should never forget this unseen guardian.

A number of classes of men in the railroad service must be turned off with a word for lack of space. The train despatcher, with his constant burden of care, deserves a chapter. The locomotive fireman, who has not been directly alluded to, is practically an apprentice to the engineer, and, like apprentices in some other callings, has a good deal of hard work to do. He generally has longer hours than the engineer, as he has to clean a portion of the polished brass- and iron-work of the engine. He has to throw into the fire-box several tons of coal a day, and gets so black that his best friends would not know him when washed up. Those who begin young and are intelligent, and conserve their strength, are at length promoted to be engineers. The fireman's twin brother is the "hostler," who is employed at the larger termini to get the iron horse out of its stable, lead it to the watering place and feed-trough (coal-bin), and harness it to the train.

The clerk in the freight office has almost as much variety of work as the ticket-seller, and is by no means a mere book-keeper. The workmen at the freight station are not common laborers. Their work requires peculiar skill and experience, and they have diversions worth telling of, if there were space. The men in the shops, and those who go out with derricks and chains to pick up wrecks, are an important class by themselves, and bridge-builders, gate-tenders, and various others bring up the rear.

In conclusion, railroad men as a body are industrious, sober when at work, and lively when at play, using well-trained minds, in their sphere, and possessing capacity for a high degree of further training. The public is not without its duty toward the million or so of men in the railroad service. The liability to death or maiming from accident is such a real factor in railroad men's lives that the public, and especially shareholders in railroads, are bound to not only uphold officers in providing every possible appliance and regulation for safety, but to demand the introduction of such devices. Some of the State railroad commissioners have done and are doing noble service in this direction, and should be vigorously supported by their constituencies. The demands of the public, re-enforced by the exigencies of competition, have made Sunday trains in many localities almost as common as on week-days, so that many train and station men work seven days in the week. In addition to this, holidays oftener increase their work than diminish it, so that there is room for a considerable reform in this regard.

The general moral welfare of railroad men has received much attention in late years, and affords a wide field for work by all who will. Many railroads have co-operated with the Young Men's Christian Association branches, started by a few of the employees, in building and equipping reading-rooms, libraries, etc., and the companies give many hundred dollars annually toward the support of these resorts, which serve to keep many a young trainman away from loafing places of a questionable character or worse. Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt, whose millions came largely out of the profits of the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad, has set a good example to other railroad millionaires in the erection of a building for the employees of that road in New York City, whose luxuriousness is an evidence that he loves his neighbor as himself, even if that neighbor be a plain brakeman earning but low wages. That the resorts provided for railroad men are appreciated is evidenced by their records. Of the trainmen who regularly come into the Grand Central Station in New York, 46 per cent. are members of the Association occupying the building given by Mr. Vanderbilt, and 65 per cent. make use of the rooms more or less regularly. Rooms in numerous other cities also make encouraging showings.

Railroad officers, with their great advantages for enlightenment, owe it to themselves and their men to see that the thousands under them have fair opportunities for rising in the world, and that the owners of the immense corporations which stand as masters of such vast armies fully understand their measure of responsibility in the premises. Science and invention, machinery and improved methods, have effected great changes in the railroad art, but the American nation, which travels more than any other, still recognizes the fact that faithful and efficient men are an essential factor in the prosecution of that art. People desire to deal with a personality, and therefore wish to see the personnel of the railroad service fostered and perfected.