Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 May 1879 — An Engineer’s Need of Nerve. [ARTICLE]

An Engineer’s Need of Nerve.

Unquestionably the bravest men in America are those who stand upon the foot-boards of the locomotives which draw the fast express trains. But few persons are aware of it, but on the leading railways, where connections must be made, if possible, only engineers known to be brave and daring are given engines on express trains, and, as soon as an engineer shows the least timidity about running fast, he is taken from his engine and given one on a freight train to run. Two such cases have occurred recently on Indianapolis roads. Railroad officers state that the first sign that an engineer is becoming timid is that he will be five or ten minutes late, possibly a half hour, for some days or nights in succession. He is then called to an account, and, unless his reasons are convincing, another engineer is given his engine to run for a few times, and should he bring the train promptly on time, the first-named engineer gets a freight-train engine to run until he braces up. It is stated, however, that after an engineer allows his timidity to get a fair hold he seldom so far overcomes it as to have the bravery, to step on to an express-train engine and run it at the speed necessary to make the time. Quite recently, an engineer on one of the roads running west from here got an impression that some accident was to happen to him, and one night, when running a fast express, he constantly lost time. At the first station where the train stopped the conductor berated him for running so slow’. The engineer actually shed tears, and owned that fear had overcome him, and that he dare not run fast, and at his own request an engineer of a freight train which stood at this meeting-point was given the train to run through that night, the conductor telegraphing the train-master, asking that the request be granted. The timid engineer has since mn a freight on the road.—lndianapolis Journal.