Further, it is immaterial as to the time that the through trains pass these points, since they gather practically no traffic from them. A through train considers only its terminals—when is the best time for it to leave New York and arrive at Cincinnati. Can such a train be arranged to leave New York after business hours and arrive at Pittsburgh before them? Two great roads are at the present time running trains between New York and Chicago with the boast that one can go from one city to the other without losing an hour of the business day.
So with through trains, the most important object is to shorten the running time as much as possible. The “locals” can take care of the short-haul traffic, and their hours can be accommodated to it; but the through trains must get from terminus to terminus, with regard only to the time of leaving and arriving.
In consequence, time-cards are constantly changing. Perhaps a curve has been straightened, or a tunnel completed that saves a long detour; perhaps a grade has been lowered, an old bridge replaced with a new one—such changes as these every road is constantly making. And time-cards change with them.
Or perhaps faster and heavier engines are purchased, and a complete change of time-card is at once rendered necessary. For every through train runs as fast as it can run with safety. And as a road grows older, and time-card after time-card is made out, the running time of the trains is made more and more perfect, until there are long stretches where the engineer does not have to touch his throttle, so exactly does the running time of the train correspond with the best the engine can do. The passenger who remarks to a companion upon the smoothness of the running, and who glances with approbation at his watch as the train pulls into its destination exactly on time, does not know what patient and long experimenting it took to achieve that result.
“Ya-as,” drawled old Bill Williams, sarcastically, when I read the above paragraph to him. “Ya-as, that’s all very pretty in theory—but how about the practice, my boy?”
I had to confess that I was weak in practice. But I knew that Bill was strong, for he had served over forty years at the throttle before an affection of the eyes had caused him to retire from active service and to open a railroad boarding-house, by means of which he still managed to keep in touch with the life of the road.
“Wa-al,” he went on, taking a deliberate chew of tobacco, and putting his feet up on the railing of the veranda which ran across the front of the Williams House, “theory an’ practice air two mighty different things. Time-cards is usually built on theory, an’ it’s up to the engineer t’ maintain ’em in practice. The trouble is that time-cards is made out fer engines in puffect condition, which not one in ten is. So the engineer has to make up fer the faults of his engine—a good deal like a good rider’ll lift his hoss over a five-barred gate, where a bad one’ll come a cropper every time. So when y’ see a train that’s come a thousand mile, pull in on time to the minute, don’t you go an’ make the mistake o’ thinkin’ it was the engine, or the time-card, or even the dispatchers what did it, ’cause it wasn’t. It was the crews what brought thet there train through in spite o’ wind an’ weather an’ other folkses mistakes.”
Nevertheless, even Bill would admit, I think, the necessity of carefully and intelligently prepared time-cards, and certainly there was no one item in the operation of the road to which the officials gave such close and continued attention. Two or three meetings were held at the general offices at Cincinnati, at which all of the officials of the transportation department, as well as the general officials, were present. Here, with data carefully collected, it was decided how many passenger and freight trains were to be run, what changes of time were desirable, and at what hour and minute each train was to leave and arrive at the termini of the division. It now remained to provide the meeting-points for these trains, and this task was left to the division officials at Wadsworth. It was this ceremony, known as “stringing the chart,” at which Allan had been invited to assist.