There remains in the operating service a great branch of the army that does not scurry up and down the line. Some of these men are at lonely outposts, forlorn towers hidden at the edge of the forest or set out upon the plain, where a desolate man guards a cluster of switch levers and hardly knows of the outer world, save through the clicking of his telegraph key or the rush of the trains passing below his perch. He knows each of these. If his is a junction tower or a point where two busy lines of track intersect or cross one another, it is his duty to set the proper switches and their governing signals.
It seems a simple enough thing, and it is. But even the simple things in railroading must be executed with extreme care. If the towerman set those switches and signals 319 times in the course of a day, they must be set absolutely correct 319 times. There can be no slurring in this work.
Those men in the towers have their own records of bravery. They are the sentinels of the railroad, and faithful sentinels they are. The lonely tower, like so many other scenes of railroad activity, gives long opportunity for thought and meditation; and so it is not so strange, after all, that one of them has recently given the country a most distinguished essayist upon national railroad conditions.
There are even humbler positions in the operating service, each of them demanding a fine loyalty and a fair measure of ability. Even the young boy who draws a baggage-truck knows that the path of advancement starts at his very feet; and the humble track-walker feels that a good part of the railroad safety and the railroad responsibility rests upon his broad shoulders. His is also a forlorn task, as he trudges back and forth over a section of line, hammer and wrench in hand, looking for the broken rail or other defect, slight in itself, but capable of infinite harm.
By day his task is dreary and arduous enough. By night it is far more so. With his lantern in hand he must patrol the line faithfully, even if the wind howl about him and the snow come to block his progress. The passengers in the fast express trains that whirl past him and who see, if they see anything at all without, only a blotch of a tiny spark of light, do not know that it is a part of their protection. There is a deal of “behind the scenes” in railroad operation.
And so it goes. There are hundreds of hand-switchmen who make the safe path for the train and upon each of them hangs responsibility. It is a trite saying that each of them knows that, and that each lives up to the full measure of his responsibility.
The station-agent, even in the smallest towns, has a less lonely time. He comes in contact with the outside world, and ofttimes his life goes quite to the other extreme. A local train may be due within three minutes, and here comes Aunt Mary Clark, delayed until the train is already whistling the station stop. Aunt Mary is deaf and it takes her some time to buy her ticket and to ask endless questions which must bring an endless string of answers. At that very moment the agent’s telegraph sounder begins to call him. A message, upon which the safety of the operation of that train depends, is being poured into his ear, and he cannot afford to miss a single click of that instrument; the responsibility will be his if anything goes wrong in its delivery. On top of all this some commercial traveller may be clamoring for the checking of his trunk. The representative of the railroad in the small town has to keep his wits about him in such times.
Of course, if the town is of considerable size he may have a staff about him. In such a case, he may have a baggage-room with baggageman and baggage-handlers installed; he may have assistants to mind the telegraph instrument and to sell tickets, other assistants to look after the freight. He may even attain to the dignity of a station master in uniform or else have such a dignitary reporting to him.