The switch-tender, whose momentary carelessness has many a time caused terrible disaster, but whose constant faithfulness outweighs a million-fold even that painful record, is one of the essential figures around a station. Nothing but eternal vigilance will suffice to keep switches always in safe position, and the conscientious custodian of these always possible death-traps often takes his burden of care to his pillow. The mishaps which do occur strikingly illustrate the practical impossibility of holding the human brain always to the highest pitch. A conductor in New Jersey (trainmen have to set switches at many places where no switchmen are employed) recently caused a slight collision by misplacing a switch, and on seeing the consequences exclaimed, "I deserve to be discharged; my mistake was inexcusable." And yet an honest man of that type is the kind demanded for such a place. The interlocking of switches and signals (the arrangement in a frame of the levers moving the switches and those moving signals in such a way that the signal which tells the engineer to come on cannot be given until the switch is actually in proper position) is one of the notable improvements of the last twenty years, and is a great boon to switchmen, as well as to passengers and the owners of railroads.[36] By the aid of this apparatus and its distant signals, connected by wire ropes, the switchman's anxieties are reduced immeasurably. By concentrating the levers of a number of switches in a single room one man can do the work of several, and to the looker-on the perplexities of the position seem to have been increased instead of diminished. But the switchman's task now is of a different sort. Under the old plan he was constantly on guard lest he make a mistake and throw an engine or car off the track. Under the new, his calculations are chiefly about saving time and facilitating the work of the trainmen. Questions of danger rarely come up, being provided against by the perfection of the machinery. By long familiarity with the ground and the ways of handling the trains, the switch-tender in an "interlocking tower" is enabled to safely conduct a score of trains through a labyrinth of switches in the time that the novice would take to make the first move for a single train. Without this admirable apparatus, and skilful and experienced attendants, the business of great stations like the Grand Central at New York would be impossible in the space allowed.
A Track-walker on a Stormy Night.
One of the habitués of every station is the section-master, who looks after three, five, or ten miles of track and a gang of from five to twenty-five men who keep it in repair. He is not much seen, because he is out on the road most of the time; and his duties are not of a kind that the reader could study, on paper, to much advantage; but he deserves mention because his place is a really important one. Railroad tracks cannot be made, like a bridge, five times as strong as is necessary, and thus a large margin be allowed for deterioration; they must be constantly watched to see that they do not fall even a little below their highest standard. This care-taking can be intrusted only to one who has had long experience at the work. In violent rain-storms the trackman must be on duty night and day and patrol the whole length of his division to see that gravel is not washed over the track or out from under it. Though roughly dressed and sunburnt, he is an important personage in the eye of the engineer of a fast express train, and if he be the least bit negligent, even to the extent of letting a few rails get a quarter of an inch lower than they ought to, he hears a prompt appeal from the engine-runner. The latter could not feel the confidence necessary to guide his 50-ton giant over the road at lightning speed with its precious human freight if he had not a trusty trackman every few miles; and passengers who feel like expressing gratitude for a safe railroad journey should never forget this unseen guardian.
A number of classes of men in the railroad service must be turned off with a word for lack of space. The train despatcher, with his constant burden of care, deserves a chapter. The locomotive fireman, who has not been directly alluded to, is practically an apprentice to the engineer, and, like apprentices in some other callings, has a good deal of hard work to do. He generally has longer hours than the engineer, as he has to clean a portion of the polished brass- and iron-work of the engine. He has to throw into the fire-box several tons of coal a day, and gets so black that his best friends would not know him when washed up. Those who begin young and are intelligent, and conserve their strength, are at length promoted to be engineers. The fireman's twin brother is the "hostler," who is employed at the larger termini to get the iron horse out of its stable, lead it to the watering place and feed-trough (coal-bin), and harness it to the train.
The clerk in the freight office has almost as much variety of work as the ticket-seller, and is by no means a mere book-keeper. The workmen at the freight station are not common laborers. Their work requires peculiar skill and experience, and they have diversions worth telling of, if there were space. The men in the shops, and those who go out with derricks and chains to pick up wrecks, are an important class by themselves, and bridge-builders, gate-tenders, and various others bring up the rear.
A Crossing Flagman.
In conclusion, railroad men as a body are industrious, sober when at work, and lively when at play, using well-trained minds, in their sphere, and possessing capacity for a high degree of further training. The public is not without its duty toward the million or so of men in the railroad service. The liability to death or maiming from accident is such a real factor in railroad men's lives that the public, and especially shareholders in railroads, are bound to not only uphold officers in providing every possible appliance and regulation for safety, but to demand the introduction of such devices. Some of the State railroad commissioners have done and are doing noble service in this direction, and should be vigorously supported by their constituencies. The demands of the public, re-enforced by the exigencies of competition, have made Sunday trains in many localities almost as common as on week-days, so that many train and station men work seven days in the week. In addition to this, holidays oftener increase their work than diminish it, so that there is room for a considerable reform in this regard.