Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 231, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 September 1914 — IN ENGINEERS’ HAVE! [ARTICLE]

IN ENGINEERS’ HAVE!

With the men who run the BIG LOCOMOTIVES. Have Abode of Their Own In Rail* road Yards, Which Is Singularly Interesting to the Man "on the Outside." Go to the Grand Central Terminal, the entrance to the city of tracks that begins at Forty-second street and branches out into the 48 states of the Union, sneak your way on Platform 25 of the upper level, walk between two Stamford, locals, jump over baggage trucks chugging along under. their own power, steer out of the way of little ice wagons. All of a sudden you come to .an incline, which seems the end. But beyond £re tracks and tracks and tracks, as closely interwoven as the meshes of some new hole-proof sock. But away over to one side you spy a soft green light, and nfext to it a door. You head for that light. Out there somewhere in the Stygian darkness lies the engineers’ recreation room, your goal, says the New York Telegraph. You take a chance at walking over 19 live rails with enough voltage to kill 19 large prehistoric dinosauruses in as many seconds. You strain your imagination, your feet are covered with rubber insulators. But you see only ties and ties and ties. You snap yourself into cement caving to allow the Empire State express to whizz by, and then you give a long sigh of twofold joy, .for it didn’t kill you, as you thought it would, and you stand at the entrance to the goal of that day’s ambition. - A square cement house stands there, surrounded on all sides by rails, an oasis in a desert of rustling, rumbling electric locomotives, parlor cars and dining cars, pay coaches and day coaches, sleeping cars ..nd baggage cars, like ameba forever restlessly moving backward and forward. Here and there is a steam locomotive whistling shrilly, blowing out steam, shoving back and forth noisily, strangely out of place. You pass the door. . Long tables are arranged parallel to. each other. Benches with comfortable backs are drawn up on both sides. In the background a series of lockers -nd washrooms. On the walls, instruction orders, dismissal notices, promotions, assignment of runs, general orders, and a poster announcing the annual ball of Local 234 of the brotherhood of Engineers. On the tables checkerboards and chessboards, some newspapers and literary magazines, and everywhere silence. There are men in this room. Big, strapping, clear-cut men with American casts of countenance. Men with overalls and tin palls in one hand pass in and out continually. Jim Delaney, seven years with the company, comes in from Run 53 to Stamford, nods his head to those about him, goes to the locker and leaves his overalls there, washes up, fills out his detention report, wherein all delays are reported, fills in his time and mileage slip, calmly sits down on the bench, unfolds the Morning Bugler and reads the editorials. And his neighbor continues his silent game of checkers with his cub fireman.