Part 31

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.

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The passenger-train brakeman differs from the freight trainman chiefly in the fact that he must deal with the public, and so must have a care for his personal appearance and behavior, and in the fact that he is _not a brakeman_, the universal air-brake relieving him of all work in this line. His chief duties are those of a porter, though the wide-awake American brakeman, with an eye to future promotion to a conductorship, maintains his dignity and is not by any means the servile call-boy that the English railway porter is. The wearing of uniforms has been introduced here from England and is, in the main, a good feature, though some roads, whose discipline is otherwise quite good, allow their men to appear in slovenly and even ragged clothes. Superintendents should give more care to this matter, as it is not an unimportant one. It affects the men's self-respect and influences their usefulness in other ways. The frugal brakeman cannot wear his blue suit on Sunday or a-visiting, and his Sunday suit when old cannot be used up by week-day wear, so he naturally concludes that his employer is guilty of a little undue severity toward him. Brakemen on the modern "limited" trains (a three hours' run without a stop constituting a day's work) have in some respects too easy a task, and their minds are more likely to rust out than to wear out. They have a constant care, to be sure, and sometimes must "go back to flag," the same as a freight trainman, but, in the main, their berth would about fill the ideal of the Irish shoveller who confided to his fellow-workman that "for a nice, clane, aisy job" he would like to be a bishop.

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.

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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.