Danger signals

"Well, one morning, I came into Virginia about breakfast time, and with the rest of the crew, went up to the old California Chop-house for breakfast. This same chop-house was a...

in, that it was against his principles to teach locomotive-running to a young man who was likely to turn out a drunkard or gambler and disgrace the profession, and he added that...

As I put down my name and the number of the crack engine of America--as well as the imprint of a greasy thumb--on the register of our roundhouse last Saturday night, the foreman...

It was while I was sitting around a barrack-room fire that I picked up the following story. There were a number of old soldiers in my company--men who had served twenty-five yea...

One of the most unpleasant duties I had to perform was that of "jacking up" operators, and punishing them for their short-comings. Generally, if the case was not a very bad one,...

The time spent as a soldier in the ranks passed by all too swiftly. The service was pleasant, the duty easy, and the regiment one of the best in the entire army. I don't know an...

The despatcher's office of a big railroad line is one of the most interesting places a man can get into, especially if he is interested in the workings of our great railway syst...

I had always supposed that the higher up you ascended in any business, the easier would be your position and the happier your lot. What a fallacy, especially in the railroad ser...

I had become thoroughly proficient and more frequently than ever Borroughs would let me "spell" for him for a while each day. Be it said to his credit, however, he was always wi...

Telegraphers are, as a rule, a very nomadic class, wandering hither and thither like a chip buffeted about on the ocean. Their pathway is not always one of roses, and many times...

My own sleep on that night was limited to about two hours snatched between work, and the following morning was a very busy one. About once every hour I would report to the White...

During the ensuing spring, one of those spasmodic waves of strikes passed over the country. Some northern road that wasn't earning enough money to pay the interest on its bonds,...

The desire to travel was strong within me, and in the following June I left Mankato, went out to Arizona and secured a position on the A. & P., at Blue Field, a small town almos...

The railroad and commercial telegraphers are well known to the general public, because they are thrown daily in contact with them, but there is still another class in the profes...

I must confess that I stood in awe of these newspaper chaps, because I knew my orders would incense them and if they took it into their heads to roast me my life would be made m...

The memory of my exciting experience in Arizona lasted me a good long time, and I finally determined to leave the railroad service and try my hand at commercial work. The two cl...

Seated in sumptuously furnished palace cars, annihilating space at the rate of sixty miles an hour, but few passengers ever give a thought to the telegraph operators of the road...

It was not long after Mary threw me over that I became tired of X---- and gave up my job and started south. I said it was on account of ill health, but the last thing that cusse...

A little while after this "Stub" Hanigan, another operator, invited Dick and me to go down to a chop house with him for lunch, and we accepted. I say chop house when in reality...

The few years succeeding the great strike were ones of calm, peaceful tranquility. Each recurring November 1st, brought the initiation of Post Lyceums at all garrisons, in which...

My first attempt at holding an office had proved such a flat and dismal failure that I thought I should never have the heart to apply for another. I worked faithfully in the sch...

After my disastrous encounter with Miss Love, I went south and brought up in St. Louis, where old "Top," the chief operator, gave me a place working a New York quad. This was ab...

X---- was a pretty good sort of an office to have, barring a beastly climate wherein all four seasons would sometimes be ably and fully represented in one twenty-four hours. But...

I had been on the C. N. & Q. for about eight months, when my second trick man took sick, and being advised to seek a healthier climate, resigned and went south. Generally speaki...

The night man down at Bentonville quit rather suddenly one fall morning, and as I had no immediate relief in prospect, I wired the chief despatcher of the division south of me t...

I didn't stay at San Antonio very long after this but started northwards. You see it was getting to be warm weather. The first place I struck was a night job in a smashing good...

The change from Alfreda to the chief despatcher's office in Nicholson was, indeed, a pleasant one. The despatchers, especially the first trick man, seemed somewhat dubious as to...

I had now been knocking about the country for quite a few years, and working in all kinds of offices and places, and had acquired a great deal of experience and valuable informa...

Some time after this I was in Fort Worth copying night reports at eighty dollars per month. The night force consisted of two other men besides myself. The "split trick" man work...

It is but fifty-five years since Professor S. F. B. Morse electrified the civilized world by the completion of his electro-magnetic telegraph. Since that time great improvements...