“This train’ll start when I’m good and ready to have it start,” he said huskily.
The trainmaster stood his ground.
“I’ll have to send it on in three minutes,” he said politely, “and you gentlemen will have to take your chance in getting on another section.”
The army man (volunteer) swore a great big oath, and added:
“You make a move to start this train before I give the word and I will make you a military prisoner.”
The railroader capitulated, although today he is sorry that he did not stick it out and go to prison. And the operating schedule of his division went to pot. Stalled trains piled up for miles along its main line and its sidings. Incredible delays were the immediate result of one man’s tinkering with the delicate operating structure of the railroad.
But given even a fairly free hand, a measure of authority, and some opportunity for preparation, the railroader will be able to give a good account of himself in the military handling of troops. He has shown that during the past year when he has been called upon to hurriedly move our army toward the south border of the nation. I have told already of the records made on that occasion—how long trains, filled with troops and provisions and munitions of war, were sent down to the border in double-quick time. One thing I have not yet told—the provisions for housing and feeding these troops while they are on the road.
It now is definitely understood that troop movements of the regular army, volunteers and militia as well, are to be made with sleeping equipment, particularly on long-distance runs. The practice is to use the so-called standard Pullmans for the officers, the tourist-sleepers for the men—three to the section. Obviously it is out of the question to feed a regiment, or even a portion of it, in dining cars. Sometimes it is difficult to make last-minute arrangements at eating-houses along the line, even if the regiment wished to spare the time to detrain for a meal. The Pullman Company has solved the problem for at least the ordinary movements of the army by the construction of kitchen-cars. These are long, fourteen-section tourist-sleepers, with an unusually capacious kitchen at one end. This kitchen can easily feed not only the car in which it is located, but the occupants of an entire train of average length. It is not difficult for it to give three square meals a day to 300 hungry men. Here is a bit of practical efficiency that is worthy of passing notice.
Of course no one expects that in a time of great military urgency the troops would ride in Pullmans. They would be lucky to get day coaches, and in the final stress of things, it would probably be found necessary to quickly cut windows in the sides of freight cars and hurriedly equip them with seats. A Yankee box car so equipped would be a good deal better than a good many of the small cars in which the German army has been so quickly and so efficiently transferred from one side of that kingdom to the other.