Every once in a while we are appalled by a terrible collision in a terminal, the result perhaps of some poor devil of an employe not appreciating fully the meaning of "all trains." To the innocent bystander the switch engine and cars are just as much a train as the Pullman flyer with its two little green markers on the last car. After such accidents, for a brief period, we hear a great deal about act of Providence, presumptuousness of man, fallibility of the human mind, surprise checking, discipline of employes, company spirit, governmental supervision and a lot of other more or less unrelated subjects. Are we not to blame for not having met the issue squarely? Is it not time that we legislated to recognize the scores of engines chasing through our terminals, from freighthouse to yard, from engine house to station? Are they outcasts? Do the millions of dollars of investment they represent come through a different treasury?
To the human mind an engine or a motor is a train, while a cut of cars without motive power is only a piece of a train, and goes to the brain as an idea of something incomplete. All the artificial definitions of the standard code cannot alter this state of facts. What do you think of the following proposed designations and tentative definitions?
Train.—An engine (or motor) in service, with or without cars. Two or more engines (or motors) may be combined as one train.
Regular Train.—A train represented on the time table. It may consist of sections. A section derives its running existence from a train order requiring a regular train or the proper section thereof, to display prescribed signals.
Extra Train.—A train not represented on the time table, but deriving its running existence from train order.
Yard Train.—A train neither represented on the time table nor created by train order, but deriving its running existence from rules governing movements within prescribed limits.
You will find if you work these definitions through the standard code the changes will be slight, but the results comprehensive and satisfactory. This will do as a starter, but you will live to see trains handled on single track without train orders as we now understand the term.
If this answers your signal, suppose we call in that flag we whistled out when we stopped to talk it over.
Affectionately, your own
D. A. D.