A Little Relaxation.
The general moral welfare of railroad men has received much attention in late years, and affords a wide field for work by all who will. Many railroads have co-operated with the Young Men's Christian Association branches, started by a few of the employees, in building and equipping reading-rooms, libraries, etc., and the companies give many hundred dollars annually toward the support of these resorts, which serve to keep many a young trainman away from loafing places of a questionable character or worse. Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt, whose millions came largely out of the profits of the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad, has set a good example to other railroad millionaires in the erection of a building for the employees of that road in New York City, whose luxuriousness is an evidence that he loves his neighbor as himself, even if that neighbor be a plain brakeman earning but low wages. That the resorts provided for railroad men are appreciated is evidenced by their records. Of the trainmen who regularly come into the Grand Central Station in New York, 46 per cent. are members of the Association occupying the building given by Mr. Vanderbilt, and 65 per cent. make use of the rooms more or less regularly. Rooms in numerous other cities also make encouraging showings.
Railroad officers, with their great advantages for enlightenment, owe it to themselves and their men to see that the thousands under them have fair opportunities for rising in the world, and that the owners of the immense corporations which stand as masters of such vast armies fully understand their measure of responsibility in the premises. Science and invention, machinery and improved methods, have effected great changes in the railroad art, but the American nation, which travels more than any other, still recognizes the fact that faithful and efficient men are an essential factor in the prosecution of that art. People desire to deal with a personality, and therefore wish to see the personnel of the railroad service fostered and perfected.
FOOTNOTES:
[33] See "Safety in Railroad Travel," [page 222.]
[34] The New York elevated roads run 3,500 trains a day, each one passing signals (likely to indicate danger) every hundred rods, almost. Who can expect engineers never to blunder in such innumerable operations?
[35] Mr. Porter King, of Springfield, Mass., who has run an engine on the Boston & Albany road for forty-five years, and who served on the Mohawk & Hudson, the Long Island, and the New Jersey Railroads in 1833–44, when horses were the motive power and the reverse lever consisted of a pair of reins, ran until December, 1887, before his engine ever killed a person.
[36] See "Safety in Railroad Travel," [page 204.]