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 book. Of the intricacies and involved details of railroad finance and railroad politics; of the quarrels between the railroads, the organizations of their employees, the governmental commissions, or the shippers, it says little or nothing. These difficult and pertinent questions have been and still are being competently discussed by other writers.

The author wishes to acknowledge the courtesy of the editors and publishers of Harper’s Monthly, Harper’s Weekly, The Saturday Evening Post, and Outing in permitting the introduction into this work of portions or entire articles which he has written for them in the past. He would also feel remiss if he did not publish his sincere acknowledgments to “The American Railway,” a compilation from Scribner’s Magazine, published in 1887, Mr. Logan G. McPherson’s “The Workings of the Railroad,” Mr. C. F. Carter’s “When Railroads Were New,” and Mr. Frank H. Spearman’s “The Strategy of Great Railroads.” Out of a sizable reference library of railroad works, these volumes were the most helpful to him in the preparation of certain chapters of this book.

E. H.

Brooklyn, New York,
August 1, 1911.

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CONTENTS

	PAGE
CHAPTER I
The Railroads and Their Beginnings	1
Two great groups of railroads; East to West, 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 systems.
CHAPTER II
The Gradual Development of the Railroad	15
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 railroad, the Galena & Chicago Union—Illinois Central—Rock Island, 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 roads.
CHAPTER III
The Building of a Railroad	34
Cost of a single-track road—Financing—Securing a charter—Survey-work and its dangers—Grades—Construction—Track-laying.
CHAPTER IV
Tunnels	48
Their use in reducing grades—The Hoosac Tunnel—The use of shafts—Tunnelling under water—The Detroit River tunnel.
CHAPTER V
Bridges	56
Bridges of timber, then stone, 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 Florida.
CHAPTER VI
The Passenger Stations	80
Early trains for suburbanites—Importance of the towerman—Automatic switch systems—The interlocking machine—Capacities of the largest passenger terminals—Room for locomotives, car-storage, etc.—Storing and cleaning cars—The concourse—Waiting-rooms—Baggage accommodations—Heating—Great development of passenger stations—Some notable stations in America.
CHAPTER VII
The Freight Terminals and the Yards	107
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 yardmaster.
CHAPTER VIII
The Locomotives and the Cars	119
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 freight.
CHAPTER IX
Rebuilding a Railroad	138
Reconstruction necessary in many cases—Old grades too heavy—Curves straightened—Tunnels avoided—These improvements required especially by freight lines.
CHAPTER X
The Railroad and its President	152
Supervision of the classified activities—Engineering, operating, maintenance of way, etc.—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 presidents.
CHAPTER XI
The Legal and Financial Departments	170
Functions of general counsel, 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-keeper.
CHAPTER XII
The General Manager	187
His duty to keep employees in harmonious actions—“The superintendent deals with men; the general manager with superintendents”—“The general manager is really king”—Cases in which his power is almost despotic—He must know men.
CHAPTER XIII
The Superintendent	202
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 men.
CHAPTER XIV
Operating the Railroad	220
Authority of the chief clerk and that of the assistant superintendent—Responsibilities of engineers, firemen, master mechanic, train-master, 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 boss.
CHAPTER XV
The Fellows Out Upon the Line	243
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-agents.
CHAPTER XVI
Keeping The Line Open	256
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 plough.
CHAPTER XVII
The G. P. A. and His Office	276
He has to keep the road advertised—Must be an after-dinner orator, and many-sided—His geniality, urbanity, courtesy—Excessive rivalry for passenger traffic—Increasing luxury in Pullman cars—Many printed forms of tickets, etc.
CHAPTER XVIII
The Luxury of Modern Railroad Travel	292
Special trains provided—Private cars—Specials for actors, actresses, 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—Dinners, table d’hÔte and a la carte—CafÉ-cars—Buffet-cars—Care for the comfort of women.
CHAPTER XIX
Getting the City out into the Country	311
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 commuters.
CHAPTER XX
Freight Traffic	325
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 freight.
CHAPTER XXI
The Drama of the Freight	343
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-house.
CHAPTER XXII
Making Traffic	355
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 City.
CHAPTER XXIII
The Express Service and the Railroad Mail	369
Development of express business—Railroad conductors the first mail and express messengers—William F. 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 service.
CHAPTER XXIV
The Mechanical Departments	388
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 wheels.
CHAPTER XXV
The Railroad Marine	404
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 control.
CHAPTER XXVI
Keeping in Touch with the Men	418
The first organized branch of the Railroad Y. M. C. A.—Cornelius Vanderbilt’s gift of a club-house—Growth of the Railroad Y. M. C. A.—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 Spot.
CHAPTER XXVII
The Coming of Electricity	432
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 car, invented by Louis Brennan—A similar invention by August Scherl.
Appendix	449
Efficiency through Organization.
Index	465

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ILLUSTRATIONS

	PAGE
Ready for the day’s run	Frontispiece
An early locomotive built by William Norris for the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad	18
The historic “John Bull” of the Camden & Amboy Railroad—and its train	18
A heavy-grade type of locomotive built for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in 1864. Its flaring stack was typical of those years	19
Construction engineers blaze their way across the face of new country	38
The making of an embankment by dump-train	39
“Small temporary railroads peopled with hordes of restless engines”	39
Cutting a path for the railroad through the crest of the high hills	44
A giant fill—in the making	44
The finishing touches to the track	45
This machine can lay a mile of track a day	45
“Sometimes the construction engineer ... brings his line face to face with a mountain”	52
Finishing the lining of a tunnel	52
The busiest tunnel point in the world—at the west portals of the Bergen tunnels, six Erie tracks below, four Lackawanna above	53
The Hackensack portals of the Pennsylvania’s great tunnels under New York City	53
Concrete affords wonderful opportunities for the bridge-builders	68
The Lackawanna is building the largest concrete bridge in the world across the Delaware River at Slateford, Pa.	68
The bridge-builder lays out an assembling-yard for gathering together the different parts of his new construction	69
The new Brandywine Viaduct of the Baltimore & Ohio, at Wilmington, Del.	69
The Northwestern’s monumental new terminal on the West Side of Chicago	82
The Union Station at Washington	83
A model American railroad station—the Union Station of the New York Central, Boston & Albany, Delaware & Hudson, and West Shore railroads at Albany	102
The classic portal of the Pennsylvania’s new station in New York	102
The beautiful concourse of the new Pennsylvania Station, in New York	103
“The waiting-room is the monumental and artistic expression of the station”—the waiting-room of the Union Depot at Troy, New York	103
Something over a million dollars’ worth of passenger cars are constantly stored in this yard	114
A scene in the great freight-yards that surround Chicago	114
The intricacy of tracks and the “throat” of a modern terminal yard: South Station, Boston, and its approaches	115
One of the “diamond-stack” locomotives used on the Pennsylvania Railroad in the early seventies	126
Prairie type passenger locomotive of the Lake Shore Railroad	126
Pacific type passenger locomotive of the New York Central lines	126
Atlantic type passenger locomotive, built by the Pennsylvania Railroad at its Altoona shops	126
One of the great Mallet pushing engines of the Delaware & Hudson Company	127
A ten-wheeled switching locomotive of the Lake Shore Railroad	127
Suburban passenger locomotive of the New York Central lines	127
Consolidation freight locomotive of the Pennsylvania system	127
Where Harriman stretched the Southern Pacific in a straight line across the Great Salt Lake	140
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	140
Impressive grade revision on the Union Pacific in the Black Hills of Wyoming. The discarded line may be seen at the right	141
The old and the new on the Great Northern—the “William Crooks,” the first engine of the Hill system, and one of the newest Mallets	154
The Southern Pacific finds direct entrance into San Francisco for one of its branch lines by tunnels piercing the heart of the suburbs	155
Portal of the abandoned tunnel of the Alleghany Portage Railroad near Johnstown, Pa., the first railroad tunnel in the United States	155
The freight department of the modern railroad requires a veritable army of clerks	176
The farmer who sued the railroad for permanent injuries—as the detectives with their cameras found him	177
Oil-burning locomotive on the Southern Pacific system	190
The steel passenger coach such as has become standard upon the American railroad	190
Electric car, generating its own power by a gasoline engine	190
Both locomotive and train—gasoline motor car designed for branch line service	190
The biggest locomotive in the world: built by the Santa Fe Railroad at its Topeka shops	191
The conductor is a high type of railroad employee	208
The engineer—oil-can in hand—is forever fussing at his machine	208
Railroad responsibility does not end even with the track walker	209
The fireman has a hard job and a steady one	209
How the real timetable of the division looks—the one used in headquarters	222
The electro-pneumatic signal-box in the control tower of a modern terminal	228
The responsible men who stand at the switch-tower of a modern terminal: a large tower of the “manual” type	228
“When winter comes upon the lines the superintendent will have full use for every one of his wits”	229
Watchful signals guarding the main line of a busy railroad	229
“When the train comes to a water station the fireman gets out and fills the tank”	248
A freight-crew and its “hack”	248
A view through the span of a modern truss bridge gives an idea of its strength and solidity	249
The New York Central is adopting the new form of “Upper quadrant” signal	249
The wrecking train ready to start out from the yard	262
“Two of these great cranes can grab a wounded Mogul locomotive and put her out of the way”	262
“The shop-men form no mean brigade in this industrial army of America”	263
“Winter days when the wind-blown snow forms mountains upon the tracks”	272
“The despatcher may have come from some lonely country station”	273
“The superintendent is not above getting out and bossing the wrecking-gang once in a great while”	273
The New York Central Railroad is building a new Grand Central Station in New York City, for itself and its tenant, the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad	284
The concourse of the new Grand Central Station, New York, will be one of the largest rooms in the world	284
South Station, Boston, is the busiest railroad terminal in the world	285
The train-shed and approach tracks of Broad Street Station, Philadelphia, still one of the finest of American railroad passenger terminals	285
Connecting drawing-room and stateroom	296
“A man may have as fine a bed in a sleeping-car as in the best hotel in all the land”	296
“You may have the manicure upon the modern train”	297
“The dining-car is a sociable sort of place”	297
An interior view of one of the earliest Pullman sleeping-cars	302
Interior of a standard sleeping-car of to-day	303
“Even in winter there is a homely, homey air about the commuter’s station”	314
Entrance to the great four-track open cut which the Erie has built for the commuter’s comfort at Jersey City	314
A model way-station on the lines of the Boston & Albany Railroad	315
The yardmaster’s office—in an abandoned switch-tower	315
“The inside of any freight-house is a busy place”	328
St. John’s Park, the great freight-house of the New York Central Railroad in down-town New York	328
The great ore-docks of the West Shore Railroad at Buffalo	329
The great bridge of the New York Central at Watkins Glen	340
Building the wonderful bridge of the Idaho & Washington Northern over the Pend Oreille River, Washington	341
Inside the West Albany shops of the New York Central: picking up a locomotive with the travelling crane	350
A locomotive upon the testing-table at the Altoona shops of the Pennsylvania	350
“The roundhouse is a sprawling thing”	351
Denizens of the roundhouse	351
“In the Far West the farm-train has long since come into its own”	360
“Even in New York State the interest in these itinerant agricultural schools is keen, indeed”	361
Interior of the dairy demonstration car of an agricultural train	361
The famous Thomas Viaduct, on the Baltimore & Ohio at Relay, Md., built by B. H. Latrobe in 1835, and still in use	366
The historic Starucca Viaduct upon the Erie	366
The cylinders of the Delaware & Hudson Mallet	367
The interior of this gasoline-motor-car on the Union Pacific presents a most unusual effect, yet a maximum of view of the outer world	367
A portion of the great double-track Susquehanna River bridge of the Baltimore & Ohio—a giant among American railroad bridges	372
“In summer the brakemen have pleasant enough times of railroading”	373
A famous cantilever rapidly disappearing—the substitution of a new Kentucky river bridge for the old, on the Queen & Crescent system	373
Triple-phase, alternating current locomotive built by the General Electric Co. for use in the Cascade Tunnel, of the Great Northern Railway	390
Heavy service, alternating and direct current freight locomotive built by the Westinghouse Company for the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad	390
The monoroad in practical use for carrying passengers at City Island, New York	391
The cigar-shaped car of the monoroad	391
A modern railroad freight and passenger terminal: the terminal of the West Shore Railroad at Weehawken, opposite New York City	406
High-speed, direct-current passenger locomotive built by the General Electric Company for terminal service of the New York Central at the Grand Central Station	407
This is what New York Central McCrea did for the men of the Canadian Pacific up at Kenora	420
A clubhouse built by the Southern Pacific for its men at Roseville, California	420
The B. & O. boys enjoying the Railroad Y. M. C. A., Chicago Junction	421
“The Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company has organized a brass band for its employees”	421
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	434
High-speed, direct-current locomotive built by the Westinghouse Company for the terminal service of the Pennsylvania Railroad, in New York	434
Two triple-phase locomotives of the Great Northern Railway helping a double-header steam train up the grade into the Cascade Tunnel	435
The outer shell of the New Haven’s freight locomotive removed, showing the working parts of the machine	435

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The railroad is a monster. His feet are dipped into the navigable seas, and his many arms reach into the uplands. His fingers clutch the treasures of the hills—coal, iron, timber—all the wealth of Mother Earth. His busy hands touch the broad prairies of corn, wheat, fruits—the yearly produce of the land. With ceaseless activity he brings the raw material that it may be made into the finished. He centralizes industry. He fills the ships that sail the seas. He brings the remote town in quick touch with the busy city. He stimulates life. He makes life.

His arms stretch through the towns and over the land. His steel muscles reach across great rivers and deep valleys, his tireless hands have long since burrowed their way through God’s eternal hills. He is here, there, everywhere. His great life is part and parcel of the great life of the nation.

He reaches an arm into an unknown country, and it is known! Great tracts of land that were untraversed become farms; hillsides yield up their mineral treasure; a busy town springs into life where there was no habitation of man a little time before, and the town becomes a city. Commerce is born. The railroad bids death and stagnation begone. It creates. It reaches forth with its life, and life is born.

The railroad is life itself!

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THE MODERN RAILROAD