The Young Train Dispatcher

by Burton Egbert Stevenson

[CHAPTER VII]

THE CALL TO DUTY

One can easily understand with what enthusiasm Jim Anderson and Allan West continued the study of telegraphy. Here was something worth while, something vital, something with which great things might be accomplished; for surely there are few things in this world greater than the saving of human life.

Then, too, there was the protection of the company’s property. A collision such as that which had been averted would have demolished engines and cars worth a hundred thousand dollars. Damage suits, destroyed freight, the interruption of traffic, the cost of repairing the right of way, the loss of prestige which attends every great wreck—all these might easily have carried the total loss to a quarter of a million.

Yet neither in this accident nor in any other was it the money loss to the company of which the officials thought. They thought only of the danger to the passengers, for the passenger is the road’s most sacred trust. In his behalf, the road exacts eternal vigilance from every man in its employ. His safety comes first of all. For it, no railroad man must hesitate to risk his life; nay, if need be, to throw his life away. He enters the service of the road on that condition—and rarely does he fail when the moment of trial comes, as it is sure to come, sooner or later.

The boys, then, had reason to be pleased with what they had accomplished. The superintendent kept his word, and instruments of the latest pattern were soon installed by Lineman Mickey, while the current for the line was furnished by the company’s batteries, and was stronger and more constant than their own little battery had been able to give them. Nor was that all the help they had, for the trainmaster and the dispatchers took an interest in their work, and drilled them in the various abbreviations and code signals in use on the road, as well as the calls for the various offices.

They were permitted to “cut in” with the main line whenever they wished; the messages which flashed over it were then repeated on their own sounders, and they could try their hands at transcribing them. Needless to say, they progressed rapidly under this tuition, which was the very best they could have had; and the day came at last when Allan, sitting at his desk sorting the mail, could understand perfectly what all the instruments about him were saying.

There is within us, so scientists say, a sort of second-self which takes care of all actions which become habitual, without troubling us to think of them, or to will their performance. Thus we breathe without any effort of consciousness—a wise provision of nature, else we should die of asphyxiation as soon as we went to sleep. The muscles which control the heart keep on working of themselves from birth to death. Thus, too, while the baby must distinctly will every step it takes, the child soon learns to walk or run automatically, without thinking about it at all, the muscles moving of themselves at the proper instant. So the fingers of the piano-player come to perform the duties required of them instinctively; and so, at last, the ear of the telegrapher recognizes a certain combination of sounds as having a certain meaning, and the brain has no need whatever to puzzle them out. The sounds are recorded mechanically, and the brain furnishes the translation.

Nay, more than that. The operator, worn out by long hours, sometimes goes to sleep beside his key. His slumber is so deep that the roar of passing trains does not disturb it, nor the clicking of his sounder, as messages flash over the wire. But let his call be sounded, that short and insistent combination of dots and dashes which means his office—a single letter usually—and he will start awake. The ear has caught the call, has sent it into the brain, and some second-self there rouses the sleeper and tells him he is wanted. Operators are not supposed to go to sleep on duty; to be caught asleep means a “lay-off,” if not dismissal. Yet they do go to sleep, for the long hours of the night pass slowly, and there are times when the weary eyes refuse to remain open. If it were not for the little monitor within which stays awake, on guard, listening for its call, accidents on the rail would be of much more frequent occurrence, and few operators but would, sooner or later, lose their jobs. And there is nothing especially peculiar or remarkable in this. Almost any one, worn out with fatigue, will go to sleep with the buzz of conversation about him; but let some one speak his name insistently over and over and the sound of it will somehow waken him. An operator’s call is as familiar to him as his name, and will attract his attention just as surely.

It was to this sixth sense, this second-self, that Allan was at last able to assign the duty of listening to the instruments in the office. He knew what they were saying, without having to stop all other work to listen; nay, without consciously listening at all. He had reached the place where he was competent to “take a trick”—much more competent, indeed, than young operators usually are.