Part 33

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.

FOOTNOTES:

[33] See "Safety in Railroad Travel," page 222.

[34] The New York elevated roads run 3,500 trains a day, each one passing signals (likely to indicate danger) every hundred rods, almost. Who can expect engineers never to blunder in such innumerable operations?

[35] Mr. Porter King, of Springfield, Mass., who has run an engine on the Boston & Albany road for forty-five years, and who served on the Mohawk & Hudson, the Long Island, and the New Jersey Railroads in 1833-44, when horses were the motive power and the reverse lever consisted of a pair of reins, ran until December, 1887, before his engine ever killed a person.

[36] See "Safety in Railroad Travel," page 204.

STATISTICAL RAILWAY STUDIES.[37]

BY FLETCHER W. HEWES.

Railway Mileage of the World--Railway Mileage of the United States--Annual Mileage and Increase--Mileage Compared with Area--Geographical Location of Railways--Centres of Mileage and of Population--Railway Systems--Trunk Lines Compared: By Mileage; Largest Receipts; Largest Net Results--Freight Traffic--Reduction of Freight Rates--Wheat Rates--The Freight Haul--Empty Freight Trains--Freight Profits--Passenger Traffic--Passenger Rates--Passenger Travel--Passenger Profits--General Considerations--Dividends--Net Earnings per Mile and Railway Building--Ratios of Increase--Construction and Maintenance--Employees and their Wages--Rolling Stock--Capital Invested.

Although the United States was the second nation to open a line of railway, it operates to-day nearly half the mileage of the world, and it has so many miles of double, triple, and quadruple track that, were the data of trackage available, such a comparison would undoubtedly show it to more than equal all the rest of the world combined.

Below is given a chart comparing the mileage of the principal railway countries. The list contains all countries having a mileage of over ten thousand kilometers.

Principal Railway Countries, 1887. +-------------+-------+ | Countries. |Kilo- | | |meters.| +-------------+-------+ 25,000 Kilometers |Italy | 11,759|»» | 50,000 |Australia | 15,297|»»» | | 75,000 |Canada | 19,883|»»»»| | | 100,000 |British India| 22,665|»»»»| | | | 125,000 |Austria- | | | | | | | 150,000 | Hungary | 24,432|»»»»| | | | | | 175,000 |Russia | 28,517|»»»»|» | | | | | | 200,000 |France | 31,208|»»»»|»» | | | | | | | 225,000 |Great Britain| 31,521|»»»»|»» | | | | | | | |250,000 |Germany | 39,785|»»»»|»»» | | | | | | | | | |United States|241,210|»»»»|»»»»|»»»»|»»»»|»»»»|»»»»|»»»»|»»»»|»»»»|»»» | +-------------+-------+

The most prominent fact is impressed by the very long line representing the mileage of the United States. A second impressive fact is that the United States has more than six times the mileage of any other country. A third, that there are but five other countries that have even a tenth as much railway.

RAILWAY MILEAGE OF THE UNITED STATES.

_Total Annual Mileage and Increase._--On page 429 is given a chart which, beginning with the 23 miles of 1830 and ending with the 156,082 miles of 1888, delineates our ever-increasing total mileage. It also portrays the fluctuations in the number of miles built annually. This latter study is the more interesting, especially during the last twenty-five years, which cover the periods of extreme activity.

_Mileage Compared with Area._--The shaded map on the same page pictures the railway mileage of each State as compared with its total area. The eleven States bearing the deepest shade (5) are those having the larger proportions of mileage to area. Of these, New Jersey stands first, having almost exactly one-fourth of a mile of railroad for each square mile of land. The proportion of total area occupied by this mileage is measured to the eye by the accompanying diagram.

The entire square stands for one square mile of land, and the space at the upper left-hand corner stands for that part of the square mile which the railroad occupies, counting from fence to fence on each side of the road. This comparison is made on the basis of one hundred feet for the "right of way" (the width allowed in government grants), and is useful in connection with the study of the historical maps, especially those of 1880 and 1889, on which the area of some of the States seems to be nearly all taken up with roads, owing to the small scale of the maps. Iowa has the smallest proportion of any in Group 5. The figures show her proportion to be a little over one-seventh of a mile of road to one square mile of area. (Nevada has the smallest proportion of all the States and Territories, viz., a trifle over 1/117 of a mile of line to one square mile.)

That part of the map bearing the deepest shade shows at a glance that an unbroken belt, averaging some two hundred miles wide, stretching from Cape Cod to beyond the Mississippi River, is that part of the country best supplied with railways.

The lighter shades grouped on either side of this belt show how the mileage grades away north and south.

GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION OF RAILWAYS.

On pages 430 to 433 is a series of historical maps showing the location of railway lines at each census-year from 1830 to 1880, and in 1889. Charts comparing and ranking the mileage by States accompany the maps of 1870, 1880, and 1889. These maps and charts give a better idea of the location and extent of progress than could be given by a dozen pages of description and a hundred columns of figures.

_Centre of Mileage and of Population._--The space for notes on the maps permits the bare mention of the meaning of the series of stars in the 1889 map (page 433), which mark the centres of mileage and of population. It is well to state the manner of determining the centres of mileage, that it may have its proper bearing in any study of the subject into which the showing may enter.

The locations are necessarily approximate. Each centre was determined by selecting, on the proper map, a line running east and west which seemed, to the eye, to nearly divide the mileage into equal parts. The sum of the mileage of the States north, was then compared with that of the States south of the line. By this means the position of the line chosen by the eye was corrected and the right parallel determined. The meridian dividing the total mileage into equal parts was ascertained in like manner. The point of intersection of the parallel and meridian is marked in the map by a star, having the proper date printed to the right of it.

The upper series of stars locates the centres of railway mileage, and the lower series the centres of population, as given by the returns of the census of 1880.

The following table describes the several locations thus ascertained:

_Centres of Railway Mileage._

+----------+----------+-------------------------------------------- Date.| Latitude.|Longitude.| Approximate location by towns. -----+----------+----------+-------------------------------------------- 1840 |40° 50′ N.|76° 10′ W.|Twenty miles west of Mauch Chunk, Pa. 1850 |41° 30′ N.|77° 27′ W.|Twenty-five miles northwest of Williamsport, | | | Lycoming County, Pa. 1860 |40° 40′ N.|82° 30′ W.|Ten miles south of Mansfield, O. 1870 |41° 10′ N.|84° 35′ W.|Paulding, Paulding County, O. 1880 |41° 05′ N.|86° 50′ W.|Thirty miles northwest of Logansport, Ind. 1888 |39° 50′ N.|88° 40′ W.|Pontiac, Ill., about ninety miles S. S. W. | | | of Chicago. -----+----------+----------+--------------------------------------------

The remarkable movement of the centre of mileage from 1850 to 1860 is easily understood when one turns to the maps of those dates (page 430) and locates the fields of activity. The wonderful increase in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa gave the Western impulse, while the growth in Tennessee and the States south of it furnishes the principal explanation of the southerly motion.

Although the study of this period is the most interesting of the series, in the space passed over, yet each period has its points of special interest, which the reader will easily solve by referring to the proper maps on pages 430 to 433.

_Railway Systems._--The consolidation of separate lines under central controlling interests has resulted in several "systems" of great extent. Five such are mapped on pages 434 and 435. The roads controlled by them are printed in broad lines, while all others are printed in narrow lines. It needs but a glance to see whether any of them has so far absorbed the roads of a given region as to be able to control rates. The systems selected are believed to be representative ones, and the mapping of a dozen others would not tell the story any more plainly.

TRUNK LINES COMPARED.

_Compared by Mileage._--At present there are twenty-four corporations reporting over one thousand miles of line each. A comparison of these roads by mileage is profitless, as it furnishes no just clew to their importance in point of business transacted. Several of the shorter of these twenty-four lines largely exceed some of the longer ones in the volume of business transacted. As an example of the little value of comparison by mileage, the New York Central & Hudson River Road, with but 1,421 miles of line, reports $63,132,920 receipts, while the Union Pacific, with 6,288 miles, reports but $19,898,817. Two of the twenty-four roads, viz., the Southern Pacific Railroad (5,931 miles) and the Richmond, West Point & Terminal Railroad (6,869 miles) report neither gross or net earnings. The remaining twenty-two report both, and these reports furnish a satisfactory basis for study.

Total and Increase.

+------+------------------+ | | Miles. | | Years+--------+---------+ | | Built | Operated| +------+--------+---------+ | 1830 | -- | 23 | | 1831 | 72 | 95 | | 1832 | 134 | 229 | | 1833 | 151 | 380 | | 1834 | 253 | 633 | | 1835 | 465 | 1,098 | | 1836 | 175 | 1,273 | | 1837 | 224 | 1,497 | | 1838 | 416 | 1,913 | | 1839 | 389 | 2,302 | | 1840 | 516 | 2,818 | | 1841 | 717 | 3,535 | | 1842 | 491 | 4,026 | | 1843 | 159 | 4,185 | | 1844 | 192 | 4,377 | | 1845 | 256 | 4,633 | | 1846 | 297 | 4,930 | | 1847 | 668 | 5,598 | | 1848 | 398 | 5,996 | | 1849 | 1,369 | 7,365 | | 1850 | 1,656 | 9,021 | | 1851 | 1,961 | 10,982 | | 1852 | 1,926 | 12,908 | | 1853 | 2,452 | 15,360 | | 1854 | 1,360 | 16,720 | | 1855 | 1,654 | 18,374 | | 1856 | 3,642 | 22,016 | | 1857 | 2,487 | 24,503 | | 1858 | 2,465 | 26,963 | | 1859 | 1,821 | 28,789 | | 1860 | 1,846 | 30,635 | | 1861 | 651 | 31,286 | | 1862 | 834 | 32,120 | | 1863 | 1,050 | 33,170 | | 1864 | 738 | 33,908 | | 1865 | 1,177 | 35,085 | | 1866 | 1,716 | 36,801 | | 1867 | 2,249 | 39,250 | | 1868 | 2,979 | 42,229 | | 1869 | 4,615 | 46,844 | | 1870 | 6,070 | 52,914 | | 1871 | 7,379 | 60,293 | | 1872 | 5,878 | 66,171 | | 1873 | 4,097 | 70,268 | | 1874 | 2,117 | 72,385 | | 1875 | 1,711 | 74,096 | | 1876 | 2,712 | 76,808 | | 1877 | 2,280 | 79,088 | | 1878 | 2,679 | 81,767 | | 1879 | 4,817 | 86,584 | | 1880 | 6,712 | 93,296 | | 1881 | 9,847 | 103,143 | | 1882 | 11,569 | 114,712 | | 1883 | 6,743 | 121,455 | | 1884 | 3,924 | 125,379 | | 1885 | 2,930 | 128,309 | | 1886 | 8,100 | 136,409 | | 1887 | 12,872 | 149,281 | | 1888 | 6,801 | 156,082 | +------+--------+---------+