Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 309, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 January 1918 — Even Steel Gets Tired; Engines Must Have Rest Just Like Human Beings [ARTICLE]

Even Steel Gets Tired; Engines Must Have Rest Just Like Human Beings

A train pulled into a station the other day several hours behind time — which in itself isn’t anything unusual these strenuous days of railroading, says an exchange. When the engineer was asked why he could not make the time he said his engine was tired, that it had had no rest. A new employee smiled at the fellow, for he couldn’t believe that a piece of steel actually required rest But it is absolutely true, and the engineer understands it as does no other class of people. . , An engine’s working hours are as definitely fixed as a man’s working hours. There is just as well defined limit to its endurance. It gets tired pulling a train, just as a man gets tired dragging a burden, and the more tired it becomes the less efficient It is, for all the world like a human being. In the case mentioned nothing about the engine was broken. Its parts were well adjusted. But it had been sent out on the road for a second trip after having made a long, laborious run, and It was tired and didn’t do its work as it would have done had it been allowed to rest for 24 hours.,.