Chapter 23

Lord Lymington, M.P., relates the following amusing tale of his experience with an inquiring and hospitable gentleman in Arkansas:—“He introduced himself to me very kindly on learning that I was a traveller and an Englishman, and offered me the hospitalities of the town. It was very obliging of him, but unfortunately I could not stay, so we had a chat while I was waiting for the train. During this chat his eye fell on a portmanteau of mine which I had caused to be marked, for convenience sake and easy identification, with the cabalistic figures 120. This he scanned for some time with ill-concealed curiosity, and finally, turning to me, said rather abruptly, ‘If I am not mistaken, you are a nobleman, are you not?’ I admitted that such was my unhappy lot. ‘Then,’ he said, ‘I presume that number there on your valise is what they call in the nobility armorial bearings, is it not—in fact, your crest?’ ‘Hardly that,’ I modestly replied. ‘A number is only borne as a crest, I believe, by much more illustrious persons—for example, the Beast in the Apocalypse.’ ‘Oh!’ he replied, and then, after meditating a moment or two, asked, ‘Have your family been long in England?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘they have been there for some time. But why do you ask?’ ‘Perhaps the number refers,’ he replied, ‘to the number of generations, just as they recite them in the Old Testament, you know?’ ‘Yes,’ I unhesitatingly and with prompt mendacity replied, ‘that is exactly it, and I don’t see how you hit it so cleverly.’ He smiled all over with delight as the train rushed up, and waved kind farewells to me as long as we were in sight.”

ENGINE DRIVING.

But the regulator once in his hand, the engine-driver has only begun his experience. He goes through an apprenticeship with different varieties of engines. He must pick up what knowledge he can himself, and he must always be on the alert to benefit from the experience of others. The locomotive in its varying “moods” must be his constant study, and he must work it so that he shall not infringe more than an average share of a multiplicity of rules and regulations. The best position in the service, apart from that of superintendence, is in the driving of an express engine, and the greatest honour that can be conferred on an engine-driver is to select him to take charge of the locomotive on a Royal train. Only the best men are picked out to drive the Queen, and the best engine on the road is detailed for the Royal service; and although on those occasions railway officials, who are the superiors of the driver, get on the foot-boards, the latter is for the time being master of the situation. Should the locomotive superintendent dictate to him, it would be to confess that the driver was unworthy of his high trust, and so the superintendent is content to look on; but it is the contentment born of the conviction that he has chosen for the task a driver whose experience is great, and whose watchfulness and care and knowledge of enginery have given him a claim to the chief service his company has for him. Not that there is any more risk in running the Queen’s train than in running an ordinary passenger express. In fact, the risk is reduced to a minimum. A pilot engine has gone before to keep the way clear. The pilot engine is fifteen minutes in advance of the Royal carriages at every station, and the space travelled over in that fifteen minutes is kept free and unobstructed. The speed of the train is carefully regulated, and amongst other provisions for security the siding points are for the moment spiked. Every crossing gate is guarded from the time of the passage of the advance engine until the train follows in its wake. Everything is done to make the Royal journey over a railroad a safe one. Such arrangements, however, if they add to the responsibility, heighten also the pride a man feels in being the Queen’s driver.

So far as the companies are concerned, it may be said that there is a fair field and no favour all the way from the fire-box in the cleaning-shed up to the footboard on the locomotive that takes Her Majesty from Windsor to Ballater. Promotion comes practically as a result of competitive examination. The mistake of a weak appointment is soon rectified, and the precautions taken to test a man’s capacity in one grade before raising him to another are an absolute barrier to incompetence. But there are circumstances under which a man’s chances are weakened. His responsibilities make him liable for the faults of others, and mistakes of this kind go to his discredit. Then if he is not companionable, or is over-confident, tricks may be played which will prevent his going forward as rapidly as he otherwise would. Mr. Reynolds tells the story of a driver who had come to a dead stop on a journey because he was short of steam. The cause was a mystery. There appeared to be nothing wrong with the engine or the fire, and apparently the boiler was also in trim. It was eventually found that some one had put soft soap in the tender, and the water there being hot, the soap was gradually dissolved and introduced into the boiler, with the result that the grease covered the tubes, and together with the suds prevented the transmission of heat to the water. An enemy had done this, but under the rules the driver was responsible for his engine, and he was suspended; only, however, to be reinstated when once the mischief was traced to the perpetrator. Even an act which to the ordinary spectator is a marvellous example of presence of mind may, interpreted by the company’s rules, be an offence on the part of the engine-driver. An engine attached to a train broke from the tender in the course of its journey, and became separated. Noticing the mishap, the driver slackened speed, allowed the tender and carriages to come up, and while the train was still in motion he and the fireman adroitly secured the runaway, and no harm was done. The men interested did not think it advisable to report the occurrence. But the clever management of the engine had been noticed by a peasant in a field, and Hodge, in his wonderment, began to talk about the affair all round the country-side. Then the story found its way to a station master, and thence to headquarters, and an inquiry brought the matter to light, and ended in the two men being advised not to do the same thing again. It was held that under the circumstances the train should have been stopped.

ENGINE DRIVERS’ PRESENCE OF MIND.

An able writer upon railway topics remarks:—“I have alluded to a driver’s coolness and resolution in an accident, but no chronicle ever has or ever will be written which will tell one tithe of the accidents which the courage and presence of mind of these men have averted. A railway ran over a river—indeed, it might be called an arm of the sea: as it was the inlet to an important harbour, provision was obliged to be made for the shipping, and so the piece of line which crossed the water, at a height of seventy feet, was, in fact, a bridge which swung round when large vessels had to pass. I need hardly say that such a point was carefully guarded. At each end, at a fitting distance, a man was placed specially to indicate whether the bridge was open or shut. One day, as the express was tearing along on its up journey, the driver received the usual ‘all right’ signal; but to his horror, on coming in full sight of the bridge, he found it was wide open, and a gulf of fatal depth yawning before him. He sounded his brake-whistle, that deep-toned scream which signals the guard, and he and his fireman held on, as before described, to the brake and regulator. The speed of the train was, of course, checked; but so short was the interval, so great had been the impetus, that it seemed almost impossible to prevent the whole train from going over into the chasm. Had the rails been in the least degree slippery, any of the brakes out of order, or the driver less determined, there would then have occurred the most fearful railway accident ever known in England; but by dint of quick decision and cool courage the danger was averted; the train was brought to a standstill when the buffers of the engine absolutely and literally overhung the chasm. Three yards more, and a different result might have had to be chronicled.

“Some of my readers may remember an incident in railway history which dates back to our first great Exhibition. I mention it here for its singularity, and for my having known the driver whose coolness was so marked. In ascending a very long gradient, the hindmost carriages of the train snapped their couplings when at the top; the engine rattled on with the remainder, while these ran down the slope, which was several miles in length, with a velocity which, of course, increased every moment. To make matters worse, the next train on the same line was comparatively close behind, and, in fact, shortly came in sight. The driver of this second train, a watchful and experienced hand, saw the carriages rushing towards him, and divined that they were on the same line. If he continued steaming on, of course, in a couple of minutes he would come into direct collision with them, while, on the other hand, if he ran back, the carriages would probably gather such way that they would leap from the bank. So, with great presence of mind and wonderful judgment of speed, he ran back at a pace not quite as fast as the carriages were approaching, so that eventually they overtook him, and struck his moving engine with a blow that was scarcely more perceptible than the jar usually communicated by coupling on a fresh carriage. When this was done, all the rest was easy; he resumed his down journey, and pushed the frightened passengers safely before him until they reached their destination, where the officials, as may readily be supposed, were in a state of frantic despair at the loss of half the train.”

A SMUGGLING LOCOMOTIVE.

A singular adaptation of the locomotive has just been made in Russia. Information having been given to the authorities at Alexandrovo, on the Polish frontier, that the locomotive of the express leaving that station for Warsaw had been ingeniously converted into a receptacle for smuggled goods, it was carefully examined during its sojourn at the station. Though nothing was found wrong, it was deemed advisable that a custom-house official should accompany the train to its destination, when the engine furnace and boiler were emptied and deliberately taken to pieces. In the interior was discovered a secret compartment containing one hundred and twenty-three pounds of foreign cigars and several parcels of valuable silk. Several arrests were made, including that of the driver; but his astonishment at finding the engine to which he had been so long accustomed converted into a hardened offender against the laws was so genuine that he was released and allowed to return to his duties.

THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY.

An English lady accustomed to travelling abroad, and able to converse fluently in the languages of the countries she visited, recently found herself alone in a railway carriage in Germany, when two foreigners entered with pipes in their mouths, smoking strong tobacco furiously. She quietly told them in their own language that it was not a smoking carriage, but they persisted in continuing to smoke, remarking that it was “the custom of the country,” upon which the lady took from her pocket a pair of gloves and commenced cleaning them with benzoline. Her fellow-passengers expressed their disgust at the nauseous effluvium, when she remarked that it was the custom of her country. She was soon left in the sole possession of the carriage.

—_Truth_.

AN INSULTED WOMAN.

Mark Twain in his interesting work “A Tramp Abroad,” thus refers to a railroad incident:—“We left Turin at 10 the next morning by a railway, which was profusely decorated with tunnels. We forgot to take a lantern along, consequently we missed all the scenery. Our compartment was full. A ponderous, tow-headed, Swiss woman, who put on many fine-lady airs, but was evidently more used to washing linen than wearing it, sat in a corner seat and put her legs across into the opposite one, propping them intermediately with her up-ended valise. In the seat thus pirated sat two Americans, greatly incommoded by that woman’s majestic coffin-clad feet. One of them begged her, politely, to remove them. She opened her wide eyes and gave him a stare, but answered nothing. By-and-by he preferred his request again, with great respectfulness. She said, in good English, and in a deeply offended tone, that she had paid her passage and was not going to be bullied out of her ‘rights’ by ill-bred foreigners, even if she _was_ alone and unprotected.

“‘But I have rights also, madam. My ticket entitles me to a seat, but you are occupying half of it.’

“‘I will not talk with you, sir. What right have you to speak to me? I do not know you. One would know that you come from a land where there are no gentlemen. No _gentleman_ would treat a lady as you have treated me.’

“‘I come from a land where a lady would hardly give me the same provocation.’

“‘You have insulted me, sir! You have intimated that I am not a lady—and I hope I am _not_ one, after the pattern of your country.’

“‘I beg that you will give yourself no alarm on that head, madam but at the same time I must insist—always respectfully—that you let me have my seat.’

“Here the fragile laundress burst into tears and sobs.

“‘I never was so insulted before! Never, never! It is shameful, it is brutal, it is base, to bully and abuse an unprotected lady who has lost the use of her limbs and cannot put her feet to the floor without agony!’

“‘Good heavens, madam, why didn’t you say that at first! I offer a thousand pardons. And I offer them most sincerely. I did not know—I _could_ not know—that anything was the matter. You are most welcome to the seat, and would have been from the first if I had only known. I am truly sorry it all happened, I do assure you.’

“But he couldn’t get a word of forgiveness out of her. She simply sobbed and snuffled in a subdued but wholly unappeasable way for two long hours, meantime crowding the man more than ever with her undertaker-furniture, and paying no sort of attention to his frequent and humble little efforts to do something for her comfort. Then the train halted at the Italian line, and she hopped up and marched out of the car with as firm a leg as any washerwoman of all her tribe! And how sick I was to see how she had fooled me!”

DISSATISFIED PASSENGERS.

Any one wanting a fair and yet amusing account of what really occurs to a person travelling in America should read G. A. Sala’s book called _America Revisited_. He speaks of a gentleman from the Eastern States whom he met in the train across the continent, and who thus held forth upon the difference between reality and guide-books:—

“There ain’t no bottling up of things about me. This overland journey’s a fraud, and you oughter know it. Don’t tell me. It’s a fraud. This Ring must be busted up. Where are your buffalers? Perhaps you’ll tell me that them cows is buffalers. They ain’t. Where are your prairie dogs? They ain’t dogs to begin with, they’re squirrels. Ain’t you ashamed to call the mean little cusses dogs? But where are they? There ain’t none. Where are your grizzlies? You might have imported a few grizzlies to keep up the name of your railroad. Where are your herds of antelopes scudding before the advancing train? Nary an antelope have you got for to scud. Rocky Mountains, sir? They ain’t rocky at all—they’re as flat as my hand. Where are your savage gorges? I can’t see none. Where are your wild injuns? Do you call them loafing tramps in dirty blankets, injuns? My belief is that they are greasers looking out for an engagement as song and dance men. They’re ‘beats,’ sir, ‘dead beats,’ they’re ‘pudcocks,’ and you oughter be told so.”

Another passenger in the train with Mr. Sala was of a poetic mind, and he softly sang to himself during the whole journey over the Rocky Mountains the following effusion:—

Beautiful snow, Beautiful snow, B-e-e-e-eautiful snow, How I’d like to have a revolver and go For the beast that wrote about beautiful snow.

COPY OF A NOTICE.

The following is a verbatim copy of a notice exhibited at Welsh railway station. It is, perhaps, only a little more incomprehensible than Bradshaw. “List of Booking: You passengers must careful. For have them level money for ticket and to apply at once for asking tickets when will booking window open. No tickets to have after the departure of the trains.”

SNOWED UP ON THE PACIFIC RAILWAY.

A writer in the _Leisure Hour_ remarks:—“It is no joke when a town like New York or London is blocked up for a few hours by snow. Both labour and capital have then to submit to a strike from nature; but it is a more serious matter when a man is snowed up in the middle of the Pacific Railway. He is not then kept at home, but kept away from it; he is not in the midst of comforts, but most unpleasantly out of their reach. He may, too, have to endure his privations and annoyances for a week, or even a month. . . Avalanches, in spite of snow-sheds and galleries, spring into ravines which the trains have to cross. . . . It was, however, with some little alarm that the writer found himself caverned for a considerable time under one of these dark snow-sheds. The difficulty of running through the snow impediments had so exhausted the fuel that it was necessary to go to a wood-station in the mountains. As it was the favourite resort of avalanches, the prudent conductor of our train directed the pilot to back the carriages into a snow-shed, and then be off the more quickly with engine and tender for a supply of fuel. It was bitterly cold and in the dead of night. The snow was piled up around the gallery, and had in many places penetrated through the crevices. The silence was profound. The sense of utter loneliness and desolation was complete. The return of the engine after a lengthened absence was a relief, like the spring sun following an arctic winter.

“The first parties snowed up were wholly unprepared. They had had their dollar meal at the last station, and were far enough from the next when fixed in the bank. It was, however, a rare harvest for the nearest store. The necessity of some was the opportunity of others. Food of inferior quality brought fabulous prices. A dispute, involving a heavy wager, arose about one article of fare. Was it antelope or not? The vendor admitted that a very lean old cow had been sacrificed on the pressing occasion.

“For a little while some fun was got out of the trouble of snowed-up trains. Delicate attentions were tendered by gentlemen as cooks’ mates to the ladies. Oyster-cans were converted into culinary utensils, and telegraph wire proved excellent material for gridirons. Many a joke was passed in the train kitchen, and hearty was the appetite for the rude viands thus rudely dressed. But when the food grew more difficult to obtain, and the wood supply became less and less, the mirth was considerably slackened. It is true that despatches were sent off for help, and cargoes of provisions were steamed up as near as the snow would permit; but it was hard work to carry over the snow, and insufficient was the supply. Frightful growlings arose from the men and sad lamentations from the women. Short allowance of food, with intense cold, could not be positively enjoyed any time; but to be cooped up within snow walls in such a desolate region, far from expecting friends or urgent business, was most annoying. One spoke of absolute necessity to be at his office within the week, as heavy bills had to be prepared for. Another was going about an important speculation, which would utterly break down if he were detained three days. Alas! he was there above three weeks.

“The sorrows of the heart were worse. A mother was there hastening to nurse a sick daughter. A father had been summoned to the dying bed of his son. A husband was hoping to clasp again a wife from whom a long voyage had separated him. One poor fellow was an especial object of sympathy. He was hastening to an anxiously waiting bride. He had to cool the ardour of his passion in the snow-bound car, and pass the day appointed for his wedding in shivering reflections. In one of the snow depths was detained an interesting couple who had casually met on the western side and were obeying the mandate of the heart and of friends in proceeding to the east to effect their happy union. The three weeks they were compelled to pass together, under these cold and trying circumstances, must have given them a famous insight into each other’s character, and this before the knot was tied.

“The story is told of one resolute man who, though but newly married, had been compelled to take a business journey. He was most impatient to return home, and was awhile confounded with his unfortunate imprisonment. When he found that little chance existed for an early escape, his heart prompted him to a bold enterprise. He was still two hundred miles from home. He had no guide before him but the telegraph posts. He could expect little provision on the way, as the stations were frozen up; but, sustained by conjugal affection, the good fellow set off on his lonely walk over the snow. Notwithstanding terrible sufferings, and some free fighting with wolves, he did his march in five days only. What a greeting he deserved!

“Those who had not his courage and strength were compelled to endure the cars. Americans are not folks to whine about a trouble; they succeed so often that their faith is strong. Though the most luxurious of people, the men—and the women too—can bear reverses nobly. But they never dream of Oriental submissiveness. They struggle hard to rise, and make the best of things till a change comes. So with those in the cars. They soon found amusements; they chatted and laughed, played games and sang; the best jokes were recollected and repeated, and the liveliest tales were told; charades were acted; a judge and jury scene afforded much amusement; lectures were given to approving assemblies. The Sundays were decently observed, and services were held morning and evening; reading was dispensed with, and the sermons were extempore perforce.

“The worst part of their sufferings came when for forty-eight hours they were under a snow-shed without light, and with the stoves empty. As, for the maintenance of warmth, every crevice in the cars was stopped, the misery of close and unwholesome atmosphere was added to their sorrows. The writer, as an old traveller, has had some experience of odd sleeping dens, and has been obliged at times to inhale a pestiferous air, though he has never endured so much from this discomfort as in his winter passage on the Pacific Railway. For hours in the long nights, as well as in the day, he preferred standing outside on the platform, with the thermometer from fifteen to twenty-five below zero, rather than encounter the foul atmosphere and stifling heat within.

“Meanwhile the brave Chinamen were summoned to the rescue. They are capital fellows to withstand the cold, and work with a will to clear a passage. For a distance of two hundred miles the blockade existed, and several trains were thus caught on the way. Eight hundred freight wagons were detained at Cheyenne. At one period the cold was 30° below zero. The worst part of the road was toward Sherman, 8,252 feet above the sea. Wyoming and West Nebraska were the coldest regions.