CONTENTS

PAGE
[CHAPTER I]
The Railroads and Their Beginnings[1]
Two great groups of railroads; East to West, and North to South—Some of the giant roads—Canals—Development ofthe country’s natural resources—Railroad projects—Locomotives imported—First locomotive of American manufacture—Oppositionof canal-owners to railroads—Development of Pennsylvania’s anthracite mines—The merging of small lines into systems.
[CHAPTER II]
The Gradual Development of the Railroad[15]
Alarm of canal-owners at the success of railroads—The making of the Baltimore & Ohio—The “Tom Thumb” engine—Difficultiesin crossing the Appalachians—Extension to Pittsburgh—Troubles of the Erie Railroad—This road the first touse the telegraph—The prairies begin to be crossed by railways—Chicago’s first railroad, the Galena & Chicago Union—IllinoisCentral—Rock Island, the first to span the Mississippi—Proposals to run railroads to the Pacific—The CentralPacific organized—It and the Union Pacific meet—Other Pacific roads.
[CHAPTER III]
The Building of a Railroad[34]
Cost of a single-track road—Financing—Securing a charter—Survey-work and its dangers—Grades—Construction—Track-laying.
[CHAPTER IV]
Tunnels[48]
Their use in reducing grades—The Hoosac Tunnel—The use of shafts—Tunnelling under water—The Detroit River tunnel.
[CHAPTER V]
Bridges[56]
Bridges of timber, then stone, then steel—The Starucca Viaduct—The firstiron bridge in the United States—Steel bridges—Engineering triumphs—Different types ofrailroad bridge—The deck span and the truss span—Suspension bridges—Cantilever bridges—Reaching the solid rockwith caissons—The work of “sand-hogs”—The cantilever over the Pend Oreille River—Variety of problems in bridge-building—Pointsin favor of the stone bridge—Bridges over the Keys of Florida.
[CHAPTER VI]
The Passenger Stations[80]
Early trains for suburbanites—Importance of the towerman—Automatic switch systems—The interlocking machine—Capacitiesof the largest passenger terminals—Room for locomotives, car-storage, etc.—Storing and cleaning cars—Theconcourse—Waiting-rooms—Baggage accommodations—Heating—Great development of passenger stations—Some notable stations in America.
[CHAPTER VII]
The Freight Terminals and the Yards[107]
Convenience of having freight stations at several points in a city—The Pennsylvania Railroad’s scheme at New York as anexample—Coal handled apart from other freight—Assorting the cars—The transfer house—Charges for the use of carsnot promptly returned to their home roads—The hard work of the yardmaster.
[CHAPTER VIII]
The Locomotives and the Cars[119]
Honor required in the building of a locomotive—Some of the early locomotives—Some notable locomotive-builders—Increaseof the size of engines—Stephenson’s air-brake—The workshops—The various parts of the engine—Cars of theold-time—Improvements by Winans and others—Steel cars for freight.
[CHAPTER IX]
Rebuilding a Railroad[138]
Reconstruction necessary in many cases—Old grades too heavy—Curves straightened—Tunnels avoided—These improvementsrequired especially by freight lines.
[CHAPTER X]
The Railroad and its President[152]
Supervision of the classified activities—Engineering, operating, maintenance of way, etc.—The divisional system as followedin the Pennsylvania Road—The departmental plan as followed in the New York Central—Need for vice-presidents—Theboard of directors—Harriman a model president—How thePennsylvania forced itself into New York City—Action of a president to save the life of a laborer’s child—“Keep right onobeying orders”—Some railroad presidents compared—High salaries of presidents.
[CHAPTER XI]
The Legal and Financial Departments[170]
Functions of general counsel, and those of general attorney—A shrewd legal mind’s worth to a railroad—The function ofthe claim-agent—Men and women who feign injury—The secret service as an aid to the claim-agent—Wages of employeesthe greatest of a railroad’s expenditures—The pay-car—The comptroller or auditor—Division of the incomefrom through tickets—Claims for lost or damaged freight—Purchasing-agent and store-keeper.
[CHAPTER XII]
The General Manager[187]
His duty to keep employees in harmonious actions—“The superintendent deals with men; the general manager with superintendents”—“Thegeneral manager is really king”—Cases in which his power is almost despotic—He must know men.
[CHAPTER XIII]
The Superintendent[202]
His headship of the transportation organism—His manner of dealing with an offended shipper—His manner with commuters—Hismanner with a spiteful “kicker”—A dishonest conductor who had a “pull”—A system of demerits for employees—Dealingwith drunkards—With selfish and covetous men.
[CHAPTER XIV]
Operating the Railroad[220]
Authority of the chief clerk and that of the assistant superintendent—Responsibilities of engineers, firemen, master mechanic,train-master, train-despatcher—Arranging the time-table—Fundamental rules of operation—Signals—Selectingengine and cars for a train—Clerical work of conductors—A trip with the conductor—The despatcher’s authority—Signalsalong the line—Maintenance of way—Superintendent of bridges and buildings—Road-master—Section boss.
[CHAPTER XV]
The Fellows Out Upon the Line[243]
Men who run the trains must have brain as well as muscle—Theirtraining—From farmer’s boy to engineer—The brakeman’sdangerous work—Baggagemen and mail clerks—Hand-switchmen—The multifarious duties of country station-agents.
[CHAPTER XVI]
Keeping The Line Open[256]
The wrecking train and its supplies—Floods dammed by an embankment—Right of way always given to the wrecking-train—Expeditiouswork in repairing the track—Collapse of the roof of a tunnel—Telegraph crippled by storms—Winterstorms the severest test—Trains in quick succession help to keep the line open in snowstorms—The rotary plough.
[CHAPTER XVII]
The G. P. A. and His Office[276]
He has to keep the road advertised—Must be an after-dinner orator, and many-sided—His geniality, urbanity, courtesy—Excessiverivalry for passenger traffic—Increasing luxury in Pullman cars—Many printed forms of tickets, etc.
[CHAPTER XVIII]
The Luxury of Modern Railroad Travel[292]
Special trains provided—Private cars—Specials for actors, actresses, and musicians—Crude coaches on early railroads—Luxuriousold-time sleeping-cars—Pullman’s sleepers made at first from old coaches—His pioneer—The first dining-cars—Thepresent-day dining-cars—Dinners, table d’hôte and a la carte—Café-cars—Buffet-cars—Care for the comfort of women.
[CHAPTER XIX]
Getting the City out into the Country[311]
Commuters’ trains in many towns—Rapid increase in the volume of suburban travel—Electrification of the lines—LongIsland Railroad almost exclusively suburban—Varied distances of suburban homes from the cities—Club-cars for commuters—Stateroomsin the suburban cars—Special transfer commuters.
[CHAPTER XX]
Freight Traffic[325]
Income from freight traffic greater than from passenger—Competition in freight rates—Afterwards a standard rate-sheet—Rate-warsvirtually ended by the Interstate Commerce Commission classification of freight into groups—Differentialfreight rates—Demurrage for delay in emptying cars—Coal traffic—Modern methods of handling lard and other freight.
[CHAPTER XXI]
The Drama of the Freight[343]
Fast trains for precious and perishable goods—Cars invented for fruits and for fish—Milk trains—Systematic handling ofthe cans—Auctioning garden-truck at midnight—A historic city freight-house.
[CHAPTER XXII]
Making Traffic[355]
Enticing settlers to the virgin lands of the West—Emigration bureaus—Railways extended for the benefit of emigrants—Thefirst continuous railroad across the American continent—Campaigns for developing sparsely settled places in the West—Unprofitablebranch railroads in the East—Development of scientific farming—Improved farms are traffic-makers—Newfactories being opened—How railroad managers have developed Atlantic City.
[CHAPTER XXIII]
The Express Service and the Railroad Mail[369]
Development of express business—Railroad conductors the first mail and express messengers—William F. Harnden’s expressservice—Postage rates—Establishment and organization of great express companies—Collection and distribution ofexpress matter—Relation between express companies and railroads—Beginnings of post-office department—Statistics—Railroadmail service—Newspaper delivery—Handling of mail matter—Growth of the service.
[CHAPTER XXIV]
The Mechanical Departments[388]
Care and repair of cars and engines—The locomotive cleaned and inspected after each long journey—Frequent visits ofengines to the shops and foundries at Altoona—The table for testing the power and speed of locomotives—The car shops—Steelcars beginning to supersede wooden ones—Painting a freight car—Lack of method in early repair shops—Search for flaws in wheels.
[CHAPTER XXV]
The Railroad Marine[404]
Steamship lines under railroad control—Fleet of New York Central—Tugs—Railroad connections at New York harbor—Handlingof freight—Ferry-boats—Tunnel under Detroit River—Car-ferries and lake routes—Great Lakes steamship lines under railroad control.
[CHAPTER XXVI]
Keeping in Touch with the Men[418]
The first organized branch of the Railroad Y. M. C. A.—Cornelius Vanderbilt’s gift of a club-house—Growth of the RailroadY. M. C. A.—Plans by the railways to care for the sick and the crippled—The pension system—Entertainments—Model restaurants—Free legal advice—Employees’ magazines—The Order of the Red Spot.
[CHAPTER XXVII]
The Coming of Electricity[432]
Electric street cars—Suburban cars—Electric third-rail from Utica to Syracuse—Some railroads partially adopt electricpower—The benefit of electric power in tunnels—Also at terminal stations—Conditions which make electric traction practical andeconomical—Hopeful outlook for electric traction—The monorail and the gyroscope car, invented by Louis Brennan—A similar invention by August Scherl.
[Appendix][449]
Efficiency through Organization.
[Index][465]

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE
Ready for the day’s run[Frontispiece]
An early locomotive built by William Norris for the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad[18]
The historic “John Bull” of the Camden & Amboy Railroad—and its train[18]
A heavy-grade type of locomotive built for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in 1864. Its flaring stack was typical of those years[19]
Construction engineers blaze their way across the face of new country[38]
The making of an embankment by dump-train[39]
“Small temporary railroads peopled with hordes of restless engines”[39]
Cutting a path for the railroad through the crest of the high hills[44]
A giant fill—in the making[44]
The finishing touches to the track[45]
This machine can lay a mile of track a day[45]
“Sometimes the construction engineer ... brings his line face to face with a mountain”[52]
Finishing the lining of a tunnel[52]
The busiest tunnel point in the world—at the west portals of the Bergen tunnels, six Erie tracks below, four Lackawanna above[53]
The Hackensack portals of the Pennsylvania’s great tunnels under New York City[53]
Concrete affords wonderful opportunities for the bridge-builders[68]
The Lackawanna is building the largest concrete bridge in the world across the Delaware River at Slateford, Pa.[68]
The bridge-builder lays out an assembling-yard for gathering together the different parts of his new construction[69]
The new Brandywine Viaduct of the Baltimore & Ohio, at Wilmington, Del.[69]
The Northwestern’s monumental new terminal on the West Side of Chicago[82]
The Union Station at Washington[83]
A model American railroad station—the Union Station of the New York Central, Boston & Albany, Delaware & Hudson, and West Shore railroads at Albany[102]
The classic portal of the Pennsylvania’s new station in New York[102]
The beautiful concourse of the new Pennsylvania Station, in New York[103]
“The waiting-room is the monumental and artistic expression of the station”—the waiting-room of the Union Depot at Troy, New York[103]
Something over a million dollars’ worth of passenger cars are constantly stored in this yard[114]
A scene in the great freight-yards that surround Chicago[114]
The intricacy of tracks and the “throat” of a modern terminal yard: South Station, Boston, and its approaches[115]
One of the “diamond-stack” locomotives used on the Pennsylvania Railroad in the early seventies[126]
Prairie type passenger locomotive of the Lake Shore Railroad[126]
Pacific type passenger locomotive of the New York Central lines[126]
Atlantic type passenger locomotive, built by the Pennsylvania Railroad at its Altoona shops[126]
One of the great Mallet pushing engines of the Delaware & Hudson Company[127]
A ten-wheeled switching locomotive of the Lake Shore Railroad[127]
Suburban passenger locomotive of the New York Central lines[127]
Consolidation freight locomotive of the Pennsylvania system[127]
Where Harriman stretched the Southern Pacific in a straight line across the Great Salt Lake[140]
Line revision on the New York Central—tunnelling through the bases of these jutting peaks along the Hudson River does away with sharp and dangerous curves[140]
Impressive grade revision on the Union Pacific in the Black Hills of Wyoming. The discarded line may be seen at the right[141]
The old and the new on the Great Northern—the “William Crooks,” the first engine of the Hill system, and one of the newest Mallets[154]
The Southern Pacific finds direct entrance into San Francisco for one of its branch lines by tunnels piercing the heart of the suburbs[155]
Portal of the abandoned tunnel of the Alleghany Portage Railroad near Johnstown, Pa., the first railroad tunnel in the United States[155]
The freight department of the modern railroad requires a veritable army of clerks[176]
The farmer who sued the railroad for permanent injuries—as the detectives with their cameras found him[177]
Oil-burning locomotive on the Southern Pacific system[190]
The steel passenger coach such as has become standard upon the American railroad[190]
Electric car, generating its own power by a gasoline engine[190]
Both locomotive and train—gasoline motor car designed for branch line service[190]
The biggest locomotive in the world: built by the Santa Fe Railroad at its Topeka shops[191]
The conductor is a high type of railroad employee[208]
The engineer—oil-can in hand—is forever fussing at his machine[208]
Railroad responsibility does not end even with the track walker[209]
The fireman has a hard job and a steady one[209]
How the real timetable of the division looks—the one used in headquarters[222]
The electro-pneumatic signal-box in the control tower of a modern terminal[228]
The responsible men who stand at the switch-tower of a modern terminal: a large tower of the “manual” type[228]
“When winter comes upon the lines the superintendent will have full use for every one of his wits”[229]
Watchful signals guarding the main line of a busy railroad[229]
“When the train comes to a water station the fireman gets out and fills the tank”[248]
A freight-crew and its “hack”[248]
A view through the span of a modern truss bridge gives an idea of its strength and solidity[249]
The New York Central is adopting the new form of “Upper quadrant” signal[249]
The wrecking train ready to start out from the yard[262]
“Two of these great cranes can grab a wounded Mogul locomotive and put her out of the way”[262]
“The shop-men form no mean brigade in this industrial army of America”[263]
“Winter days when the wind-blown snow forms mountains upon the tracks”[272]
“The despatcher may have come from some lonely country station”[273]
“The superintendent is not above getting out and bossing the wrecking-gang once in a great while”[273]
The New York Central Railroad is building a new Grand Central Station in New York City, for itself and its tenant, the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad[284]
The concourse of the new Grand Central Station, New York, will be one of the largest rooms in the world[284]
South Station, Boston, is the busiest railroad terminal in the world[285]
The train-shed and approach tracks of Broad Street Station, Philadelphia, still one of the finest of American railroad passenger terminals[285]
Connecting drawing-room and stateroom[296]
“A man may have as fine a bed in a sleeping-car as in the best hotel in all the land”[296]
“You may have the manicure upon the modern train”[297]
“The dining-car is a sociable sort of place”[297]
An interior view of one of the earliest Pullman sleeping-cars[302]
Interior of a standard sleeping-car of to-day[303]
“Even in winter there is a homely, homey air about the commuter’s station”[314]
Entrance to the great four-track open cut which the Erie has built for the commuter’s comfort at Jersey City[314]
A model way-station on the lines of the Boston & Albany Railroad[315]
The yardmaster’s office—in an abandoned switch-tower[315]
“The inside of any freight-house is a busy place”[328]
St. John’s Park, the great freight-house of the New York Central Railroad in down-town New York[328]
The great ore-docks of the West Shore Railroad at Buffalo[329]
The great bridge of the New York Central at Watkins Glen[340]
Building the wonderful bridge of the Idaho & Washington Northern over the Pend Oreille River, Washington[341]
Inside the West Albany shops of the New York Central: picking up a locomotive with the travelling crane[350]
A locomotive upon the testing-table at the Altoona shops of the Pennsylvania[350]
“The roundhouse is a sprawling thing”[351]
Denizens of the roundhouse[351]
“In the Far West the farm-train has long since come into its own”[360]
“Even in New York State the interest in these itinerant agricultural schools is keen, indeed”[361]
Interior of the dairy demonstration car of an agricultural train[361]
The famous Thomas Viaduct, on the Baltimore & Ohio at Relay, Md., built by B. H. Latrobe in 1835, and still in use[366]
The historic Starucca Viaduct upon the Erie[366]
The cylinders of the Delaware & Hudson Mallet[367]
The interior of this gasoline-motor-car on the Union Pacific presents a most unusual effect, yet a maximum of view of the outer world[367]
A portion of the great double-track Susquehanna River bridge of the Baltimore & Ohio—a giant among American railroad bridges[372]
“In summer the brakemen have pleasant enough times of railroading”[373]
A famous cantilever rapidly disappearing—the substitution of a new Kentucky river bridge for the old, on the Queen & Crescent system[373]
Triple-phase, alternating current locomotive built by the General Electric Co. for use in the Cascade Tunnel, of the Great Northern Railway[390]
Heavy service, alternating and direct current freight locomotive built by the Westinghouse Company for the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad[390]
The monoroad in practical use for carrying passengers at City Island, New York[391]
The cigar-shaped car of the monoroad[391]
A modern railroad freight and passenger terminal: the terminal of the West Shore Railroad at Weehawken, opposite New York City[406]
High-speed, direct-current passenger locomotive built by the General Electric Company for terminal service of the New York Central at the Grand Central Station[407]
This is what New York Central McCrea did for the men of the Canadian Pacific up at Kenora[420]
A clubhouse built by the Southern Pacific for its men at Roseville, California[420]
The B. & O. boys enjoying the Railroad Y. M. C. A., Chicago Junction[421]
“The Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company has organized a brass band for its employees”[421]
A high-speed electric locomotive on the Pennsylvania bringing a through train out of the tunnel underneath the Hudson River and into the New York City terminal[434]
High-speed, direct-current locomotive built by the Westinghouse Company for the terminal service of the Pennsylvania Railroad, in New York[434]
Two triple-phase locomotives of the Great Northern Railway helping a double-header steam train up the grade into the Cascade Tunnel[435]
The outer shell of the New Haven’s freight locomotive removed, showing the working parts of the machine[435]