"Well?" said somebody.
"Well—I guess you wouldn't care to hear how things looked the next second. We struck the white horse just back of his forelegs, and I had him on my lap for a hundred yards or so. No, it didn't hurt me, but it wasn't pleasant. The two old men? I don't think they felt anything, it was so sudden; they just—passed out. No, I didn't see them; but I can tell you this, I've never ridden on the cow-catcher of a locomotive since that day."
There followed some talk about fast runs, and all agreed that for out-and-out excitement there is nothing in railroading to equal a man's sensations in one of those mad bursts of speed that are ventured upon now and then by locomotives in record-breaking trials. The heart never pounds with apprehension in a real accident as it does through imminent fear of an accident. And so great is the nerve-strain and brain-strain upon the men who drive our ordinary fliers, that three hours at a stretch is as much as the stanchest engineer can endure running at fifty or sixty miles an hour.
"So you see," said one of the officials, "the problem of higher speeds than we have at present involves more than boiler power and strength of machinery and the swiftness of turning wheels—it involves the question of human endurance. We can build engines that will run a hundred and fifty miles an hour, but where shall we find the men to drive them? Already we have nearly reached the limit of what eyes and nerves can endure. I guess we'll have to find a new race of men to handle these 'locomotives of the future' that they talk so much about."
He went on to consider the chance of color-blindness in an engineer, and told how the men's eyes are regularly tested by experts, who put before them skeins of various-colored yarns, and make them pick out green from red, and so on. It is not pleasant to think what might happen if an engineer's eyes should suddenly fail him, and he should mistake the danger light for safety and go ahead at some critical moment instead of stopping. Nor does one like to fancy what might happen if an engineer should go mad at his post.
"I know one case where an engineer did go mad," remarked a superintendent. "He was one of our most experienced men, and had held the throttle for years on the fastest trains. Then, one Sunday, for no reason at all, he went to the round-house, got out the 'pony' locomotive—that's the one fixed up with a little parlor over the boiler, and easy-chairs and polished wood—it makes a pretty observation-car for big officials. Well, he got her out and started lickety-split up the main line, running wild and without orders. He stopped at Mott Haven, and told the men he wanted the 'pony' rebuilt and silver-plated—crazy as a loon, you see. Yes, he's in the asylum now, poor fellow; that was his last run."
After this one of the group gave his memories of the famous speed trial on the Lake Shore road, when five locomotives in relays, driven by picked men, set out to beat all records in a run of 510 miles from Chicago to Buffalo. This was in October, 1895, and I suppose such elaborate preparations for a dash over the rails were never made. All traffic was suspended for the passage of this racing special; every railroad crossing between Chicago and Buffalo was patrolled by a section-man—that alone meant thirteen hundred guards; and every switch was spiked half an hour before the train was due. The chief officials of the Lake Shore road proposed to ride this race in person, and, if possible, smash the New York Central's then recent world's record of 63.61 miles an hour, including all stops, over the 436½ miles between New York and Buffalo. They had before them a longer run than that, and hoped to score a greater average speed per mile; but they wished to come through alive, and were taking no chances.
It was half-past three in the morning, and frosty weather, when the train started from Chicago, with Mark Floyd at the throttle, and various important people—general managers, superintendents, editors, etc.—on the cars behind. There were two parlor-coaches, weighing 92,500 pounds each, and a millionaire's private car, one of the finest and heaviest in the country, weighing 119,500 pounds, which made a total load, counting engine and train, of something over two hundred tons.
The first relay was 87 miles to Elkhart, Indiana, and the schedule they hoped to follow required that they cover this distance in 78 minutes, including nine "slow-downs." Eighty-seven miles in 78 minutes was well enough; but the superintendent of the Western Division had set his heart on doing it in 75 minutes, and had promised Mark Floyd two hundred good cigars for every quarter of a minute he could cut under that time. But alas for human plans! Between up grades and the darkness they pulled into Elkhart at five minutes to five, which was 85 minutes for the 87 miles—not bad going, but it left them seven minutes behind the schedule, and left Mark to console himself with his old clay pipe.