Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 148, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 July 1917 — How if feels to Ride Beside fireman on fast Passenger Locomotive [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

How if feels to Ride Beside fireman on fast Passenger Locomotive

The sensation is exciting and offers some special thrills to him that makes the trip at night—Engine men need strong nerves

LEAR and vibrant rose ■ the song of the engine as it waited impatiently for the shrill signal which ’ would send No. 11 on Its way, stalking across two states to Omaha. The piping whistle sounded, the engineer slid out the

reverse lever, opened the throttle, and with a series of staccato throbs the train was off. In the tense hurry 'of starting on time, I had forgotten myself as I sat on the fireman’s side of the cab. The black studded end of the boiler protruded into the cab, a tangle of pipes, gauges and valves across its face. Between the clinks of the fire doors at the bottom, the flames within sent a faint streak of light hack on the dark tender in the rear. The fireman, “Dock,” seated himself on the Seat with me, where he might look out on the track ahead. From the murky, smoke-filled shed of the depot, we entered the yard, weirdly lit by the great arc lights. A curve turned us off past the brightly illuminated building in which the dispatchers at work in shirt sleeves watched our departure. On the signal bridges above, mysterious red, green and white lights blinked at the seething activity in the mputh of the great Union station. To me the lights meant nothing; to Dockery and the engineer, M. J. Demmer, they told a story as clear as though printed in words. But always, like a beckoning star, a green light stood above our way. “All right.” Dockery shouted. "All right,” answered Demmer. “All right,” cried Dockery, as we came to another signal. “All right,” responded the engineer. “Green,” said Dockery. “Green,” checked Demmer. Soon the hum of the yards grew fainter and the green lights came farther apart. No. 11 began to go through the city, first along a lane of many tracks, which gradually merged into four open lines. The engineer opened the throttle wider, set the reverse lever two more notches, and, as the engine responded, the cab began to rock and sway with the increased speed. From the cab window a glimpse of Interrupted city streets was caught. Dwarf street cars waited in several places, the conductor standing out in front to signal his petty way clear to the motorman. The hum of the city hovered around us, rising above the deafening roar of the engine. Strings of box cars stood silent and dark on the sidings along the way. Two of the main lines curved off to the south. A roundhouse went by, where some engines were being groomed after their day’s work, and others had steam up ready for a night’s toil. We have made two stops at accommodation stations in the city, and finally the buildings melted away, leaving us in the country. • * * • • • • Shovels Coal Incessantly.

Dockery was engaged incessantly in shoveling coal into the mouth of the furnace beside us. And when he had a minute to spare he perched on the seat behind me. peering out for the signals which he checked with Demmer. Picking the way through the scattered houses of the country we swung along all along for a space of many minutes. Jhen Demmer shut down his throttle a little and we rounded a long curve. Ahead gleamed a deep green light on the right side of the track. i —— ■ “Green,” said Dockery. “Green it is," checked Demmer. “That gives us the St. Charles bridge,” Dockery yelled into my ear as Demmer opened the throttle again, and I perceived we were mounting the long trestle of the approach. A sweeping curve brought us round gradually and the searchlight centered finally upon the girders and iron works of the long bridge before us. We entered the bridge and an interminable number of cross-pieces passed the cab window like shadows. Before us, the searchlight threw Its rays down the vista of steel. Bitt we had passed the headlight’s reach as soon as we could visualise what it showed us. Framed in by the net of steel, the bridge was more than a mile of darkness, a hundred feet above the muddy river. Beyond, the little city spread itself out on the hillside, illuminated by blue arc lights which were interspersed with the yellow lights of the buildings. As Demmer brought the train to a stop Dockery scampered up over the

tender and caught the giant water pipe, fitted it to the tank, and loosened the flood of waters which poured over the iron sides of the coal car and onto the track below in a pool of mud pnd cinders. The engineer took his torch and oil can and went over the engine. “Here’s Sam, Dock,” Demmer shouted, as a figure came up from the train behind us. It was the conductor bearing the dispatcher's orders for the enginemen. “We’ve got a passenger of our own, Sam,” Demmer boasted, and called me down from the cab to introduce me to the train conductor. The latter handed over the dispatches to Dimmer and spoke to me about my ride in the cab. When the time was up Demmer climbed back, set his levers, and we pulled away from the station. I watched the conductor swing aboard the middle part of the train, and St. Charles became only an incident. The cities and their outlying districts shaken off, Demmer became more daring with his throttle, opening It wider and wider and balancing the reverse lever the while. The rocking of the car became a lurch, as the roadbed flooded by underneath us in everincreasing velocity. The headlight sent a shimmer of light ahead over the track, figuring the steel rails gingerly as we flew past.

Faster and faster grew our pace. Imperturbable, Demmer sat on his perch making the endless adjustments of levers and valves until the steady rate of 60 miles an hour had been attained. Like a giant wave sliding into us, the track from the end of the searchlight’s reach, seemed to bulge up and come veering down under tfs. We could never mount to the crest of the wave, and we could never gain on it. A few lights marked a little bystation. In a minute we were upon it. and the few people there huddled against the wall to shield themselves from the rush of air as we smashed past with a roar of connecting rods and drivers. The fields were flooded with the light of the spring silhouetted the rows of corn sheaves, the hay stacks, and the horses roaming about the farmers’ fields. Overhead the stars raced evenly along with us in the clear, crisp April sky. and underneath the roadbed was going by in an endless roar. His hair, tinged with gray, prompted me to ask Demmer how many years’ work was necessary before a man obtained a fast passenger run. He replied that at least 20 years of a man’s life went into preparation for passenger work, that such long seasoning was necessary for the hard and rigorous work of pulling the through passenger trains over the line. “How long do you work each day?” I asked him. “This run takes about eight hours,” he replied. “But let me tell you that eight hours is enough to work in this business. “Why, I have worked sixteen hours a day and it is too much to expect that a man can do his best work on about five hours of sleep daily. What do you think about it?” Just then, far off in the distance, a red lamp appeared in our path. The engineer pulled the cord over his head and the steam whistle emitted a long blast. Presently, the red changed to green, and Demmer relaxed again, settling back into repose, if it might be called repose, in the jolting, swaying cab. ~ ~ T ~ 1 “That means,” he said, forgetting

the eight-hour controversy in the fascination of his work, “that we have a clear block between the next two stations.” Soon we were upon the green light, and as we thundered by the little station I could see the dispatcher, at work over his keys, look out through the window at us. “He is telling the next station that Number Eleven has just passed,” said Denfmer. In these men along the way, then, we trusted. If one of them forgot to tell the next that we had passed, a shambling string of freight cars might be let into the block from the other end. There were a thousand “ifs" which might mean death for us, but Demmer trusted the silent, isolated men at the keys. And back in the coaches, men and women were slumbering in warmth and safety through the same trust. In the city, the chief dispatcher was watching our flight, mile by mile.. A flash from him and we could be stopped almost anywhere along the route —unless the flash came too late. “Remember that cyclone we had last summer that caught one of our trains?” Demmer asked. I nodded, and he said: “Well, she struck the train—Number Five, I think it was —just down the line a way. I’ll show you the place in a minute.”

Just then we roared across a long trestle over a deep, marshy ravine. “This trestle was picked up by that storm,” Demmer said, “and set down there in the lake a hundred yards from here, just after the train had crossed. And here’s where the train was when the storm struck. Every window in the cars was broken; the engineer and the fireman had to lie flat on the bottom of their cab, while the wind took the windows clear out. I’m glad •we don’t have many cyclones on the road. “The officials are very careful about that,” Demmer added, with a chuckle. “In a storm, or when the snow piles up ahead of you and you’ve got to get through it and make your schedule is when we catch it. Or when it is pouring. rain and we can't see two* feet ahead into the mist, we can’t tell when a freight train or a. stalled pasesngef trahrmay appear ahead —and we have to know just where to pick out the sidings, too.” The miles poured by us. An occasional farmhouse loomed up along the way, and slipped silently into oblivion again as we leaped along. Freight cars, and even strings of passenger cars stood by the main line again, all dark and empty. Green, red and white lights began to appear in confusion, and we slowed down little by little. It was the end of the run. Demmer became absorbed in his brakes and levers, and I crossed over to the fireman’s side again. He sat there, calm and controlled, bringing the train into the last mile. Dockery opened the doors again and the yellow-white light of the fire threw Demmer into relief against the cab window. I looked back at the trailing train, the lights of the window’ making pale shadows along the tracks. Dockery went to a cabinet in the door of the tender and took out a big jug of water to drink. He with his water, and Demmer with his pipe—a very human pi ctu re, I thought, and what a charge they had. We parted, I to be taken by the train, which we met there, back to the city—to be one of the passengers in the soft-cushioned, easy-riding cars, trusted in the green star and the watch ers in the cab.—J. H. Kinsella, in St. Louis Globe-Democrat.