Bill Nye on Railroads.
Perhaps there is nothing in the line of discovery and improvement that has shown more marked progress in the last century than the railway and its different auxiliaries. When we remember that much less than a century has passed since the first patent for a locomotive to move upon a track was issued, where now we have everything that heart can wish, and, in fact, live better on the road than we do at home, with but thirty-six hours between New York and Minneapolis, and a gorgeous parlor, bedroom, and dining-room between Maine and Oregon, with nothing missing that may go to make life a rich blessing, we are compelled to express our wonder and admiration.
To Peter Cooper is largely due the boom given to railway business, he having constructed the first locomotive ever made in this country, and put it on the Baltimore & Ohio railroad.
The first train ever operated must have been a grand sight. First came the locomotive, a large Babcock fire-extinguisher on trucks, with a smoke-stack like a full-blown speaking-tube with a frill around the top; the engineer at his post in a plug hat, with an umbrella over his head and his hand on the throttle, borrowing a chew of tobacco now and then of the farmers who passed him on their way to town. Near him stood the fireman, now and then bringing in an armful of wood from the fields through which he passed, and turning the damper in the smoke-stack every little while so it would draw. Now and then he would go forward and put a pork-rind on a hot box or pound on the cylinder head to warn people off the track.
Next comes the tender loaded with nice, white birch wood, an economical style of fuel because its bark may be easily burned off while the wood itself will remain uninjured. Besides the firewood we find on the tender a barrel of rainwater and a tall, blonde jar with wicker-work around it, which contains a small sprig of tansy immersed in four gallons of New England rum. This the engineer has brought with him for use in case of accident. He is now engaged in preparing for the accident in advance.
Next comes the front brakeman in a plug hat about two sizes too large for him. He also wears a long-waisted frock coat with a bustle to it and a tall shirt-collar with a table-spread tie, the ends of which flutter gayly in the morning breeze. As the train pauses at the first station he takes a hammer out of the tool-box and nails on the tire of the fore wheel of his coach. The engineer gets down with a long oil-can and puts a little sewing-machine oil on the pitman. He then wipes it off with his sleeve.
It is now discovered that the rear coach, containing a number of directors and the division superintendent, is missing. The conductor goes to the rear of the last coach, and finds that the string by which the directors' car was attached is broken, and that, the grade being pretty steep, the directors and one brakeman have no doubt gone back to the starting place.
But the conductor is cool. He removes his bell-crowned plug hat, and, taking out his orders and time-card, he finds that the track is clear, and, looking at a large, valuable Waterbury watch, presented to him by a widow whose husband was run over and killed by the train, he sees he can still make the next station in time for dinner. He hires a livery team to go back after the directors' coach, and, calling "All aboard," he swings lightly upon the moving train.
It is now 10 o'clock, and nineteen weary miles still stretch out between him and the dinner station. To add to the horrors of the situation, the front brakeman discovers that a very thirsty boy in the emigrant car has been drinking from the water-supply tank on the tender, and there is not enough left to carry the train through. Much time is consumed in filling the barrel again at a spring near the track, but the conductor finds a "spotter" on the train, and gets him to do it. He also induces him to cut some more wood and clean out the ashes.