But the towerman at Middleport said that he could not move the siding-switch there; it was packed in with ice and snow.
“Tell him to get a pick-axe and shovel and get in at it,” said the superintendent.
“He says that it’s 20° below up there; they’ve swiped his shovel, and he hasn’t anything but a broom,” the despatcher returned.
“A broom! Tell him a broom’s a God-send. He can sweep with the one end and pick with the other.”
Eight times that towerman tried there in the midst of the storm to open that switch and eight times he reported failure. Eight times the superintendent kept at him with his kind persistence, and the ninth time they reported that the midnight express with the best type of motor power on the division was ahead of the weak engine on the local.
And while the superintendent struggled at the far end of a telegraph wire with that towerman, there were a dozen other Middleports, each with its own different and equally difficult problem. Each required quick, intelligent solution. He solved each. The line stayed open. The superintendent stayed at his desk.
All that Sunday it snowed, and all that Sunday the superintendent was at his desk. He did not know the passage of the hours; the clicking sounder held his attention riveted. He worked all Sunday night and into Monday morning. There were 200 suburban trains to be brought into the terminal on Monday morning, and the commuter is a fussy soul about his train being on time. The superintendent knew that, and he was ready. He had extra men at the switches in the terminal yards, took particular pains to have snow swept from the platforms of even the lowliest suburban station.
The trains came in on time that Monday morning, all save one. On that one train the regular fireman had been snowbound at his home upon the mountainside. They had to put on a green man to fire the engine—a raw-boned lad just off a freight. He made slow work of it, and the train was fourteen minutes late. That was the only exception to a clean record, a record made possible by long hours of work.
“They ought to have been proud of that fight,” you say to the big boss. He grins at your ignorance.
“Proud?” he laughs. “They raised hell with me because we had 387 laid out fourteen minutes.”