LEARNING THE BUSINESS—MY FIRST OFFICE
Seated in sumptuously furnished palace cars, annihilating space at the rate of sixty miles an hour, but few passengers ever give a thought to the telegraph operators of the road stuck away in towers or in dingy little depots, in swamps, on the tops of mountains, or on the bald prairies and sandy deserts of the west; and yet, these selfsame telegraph operators are a very important adjunct to the successful operation of the road, and a single error on the part of one of them might result in the loss of many lives and thousands of dollars.
The whole length of the railroad from starting point to terminus is literally under the eyes of the train despatcher. By means of reports sent in by hundreds of different operators, he knows the exact location of all trains at all times, the number of "loads" and "empties" in each train, the number of cars on each siding, the number of passing tracks and their capacity, the capabilities of the different engines, the gradients of the road, the condition of the roadbed, and, above all, he knows the personal characteristics of every conductor and engineer on the road. In fact if there is one man of more importance than another on a railroad it is the train despatcher. During his trick of eight hours he is the autocrat of the road, and his will in the running of trains is absolute. Therefore despatchers are chosen with very special regard for their fitness for the position. They must be expert telegraphers, quick at figures, and above all they must be as cool as ice, have nerves of steel, and must be capable of grasping a trying situation the minute an emergency arises. An old despatcher once said to me: "Sooner or later a despatcher, if he sticks to the business, will have his smash-up, and then down goes a reputation which possibly he has been years in building up, and his name is inscribed on the roll of 'has-beens.'"
Before the despatcher comes the operator, and the old Biblical saying, "Many are called but few are chosen," is well illustrated by the small number of good despatchers that are found; it is easy enough to find excellent operators, but a first-class despatcher is a rarity among them.
I learned telegraphy some fifteen or sixteen years ago at a school away out in western Kansas. After I had been there three or four months, I was the star of the class, and imagined that the spirit of Professor Morse had been reincarnated in me. No wire was too swift for me to work, no office too great for me to manage; in fact visions of a superintendency of telegraph flitted before my eyes. Such institutions as this school are very correctly named "ham factories."
During my stay at the school I formed the acquaintance of the night operator at the depot and it was my wont to spend most of my nights there picking up odds and ends of information. For my own benefit I used to copy everything that came along; but the young man in charge never left me entirely alone. Night operators at all small stations have to take care of their own lamps and fires, sweep out, handle baggage, and, in short, be porter as well as operator, and for the privilege of being allowed to stay about I used to do this work for the night man at the office in question. His name was Harry Burgess and he was as good a man as ever sat in front of a key. Some few weeks after this he was transferred to a day office up the road and by his help I was made night operator in his stead. Need I say how proud I felt when I received a message from the Chief Despatcher telling me to report for duty that night? I think I was the proudest man, or boy rather, on this earth. Just think! Night operator, porter and baggageman, working from seven o'clock in the evening until seven o'clock in the morning, and receiving the magnificent sum of forty dollars per month! It was enough to make my bosom swell with pride and it's a wonder I didn't burst.
Heretofore, I had had Burgess to fall back upon when I was copying messages or orders, but now I was alone and the responsibility was all mine. I managed to get through the first night very well, because all I had to do was to take a few "red" commercial messages, "O. S." the trains and load ten big sample trunks on No. 2. The trains were all on time and consequently there were no orders. I was proud of my success and went off duty at seven o'clock in the morning with a feeling that my services were well nigh indispensable to the road, and if anything were to happen to me, receivers would surely have to be appointed.
The second night everything went smoothly until towards eleven o'clock, when the despatcher began to call "MN," and gave the signal "9." Now the signal "9" means "Train Orders," and takes precedence over everything else on the wire. The situation was anything but pleasant for me, because I had never yet, on my own responsibility, taken a train order, and I stood in a wholesome fear of the results that might accrue from any error of mine. So I didn't answer the despatcher at once as I should have done because I hoped he would get tired of calling me and would tackle "OG," and give him the order. But he didn't. He just kept on calling me, increasing his speed all the time. In sheer desperation, I went out on the platform for five minutes and stamped around to keep warm, hoping all the time he would stop when he found I did not answer. But when I returned instead of calling me on one wire, he had his operator calling me on the commercial line while he was pounding away on the railroad wire. At the rate those two sounders were going they sounded to me like the crack of doom and I was becoming powerfully warm. I finally mustered up courage and answered him.
The first thing the despatcher said was:
"Where in h—l have you been?"