All this is the part of railroad operation which governs the relation of one train to another. There are even simpler but not less vital rules that control its own operation. In order that the engineer who is guiding the train, and the conductor who shares the responsibility, may keep in touch with one another, the device was adopted many years ago of having a cord run through the cars of passenger trains to a bell signal in the cab of the engine. This bell signal during recent years has given way to an improved form of locomotive signal, sounded by means of compressed air in tubes throughout the train, and operated in connection with the air-brake equipment.
The air-whistle, or bell cord-code of signals, is standard upon all American railroads, and is as follows:
When the train is standing:
Two signals--start.
Three signals--back.
Four signals--apply or release air-brakes.
Five signals--call in flagman.
When the train is in motion:
Two signals--stop at once.
Three signals--stop at the next station.
Four signals--reduce speed.
Five signals--increase speed.
There also arises a necessity for communication between men who stand outside the train and who seek to guide the movement of the locomotive.
This necessity has given rise to still another code, transmitted by the hands--holding a flag, if possible--by day, and a lighted lantern at night. This signal code follows:
Method of Transmitting Signal. Indication.
Swung across track. Stop.
Raised and lowered vertically. Proceed.
Swung vertically in a circle across the track: When the train is standing-- Back.
When train is in motion-- Train has parted.
Swung horizontally in a circle: When the train is standing-- Apply air-brakes.
Held at arm's length above head: When the train is standing-- Release air-brakes.
Any object waved violently by any person on or near the track is a stop signal.
By use of his locomotive whistle, the engineer is enabled to acknowledge these signals, as well as to signal upon his own initiative. His code is also a standard in railroading. It follows:
---- A short blast. -------- A long blast.
---- Stop, apply brakes.
-------- -------- Release brakes.
---- ---- -------- -------- -------- Flagman go back ---- -------- -------- -------- and protect rear end of train.
------- -------- -------- -------- Flagman return to train.
-------- -------- -------- Train in motion, has parted.
---- ---- Acknowledgment of signals, not otherwise provided for.
---- ---- ---- Standing train--back.
---- ---- ---- ---- Call for signals.
-------- ---- ---- Calls attention to following section.
-------- -------- ---- ---- Highway crossing signal.
---------------- Approaching stations, junctions or railroad crossings at grade.
A succession of short blasts is an alarm for persons on the track and calls the attention of trainmen to danger ahead.
These signal codes operate fundamentally in connection with the essential rules of schedule that we have already shown.
Suppose now that we consider the workings of all this system as it comes down to actual practice in a single concrete instance. We are finding our way to a big terminal yard in all the murkiness and cloudiness of very early morning, and once again we hunt out that urbane soul, the yardmaster. He holds in his hand the yellow tissue of an order from the despatcher of the division. In the conciseness of telegraphy it tells him to start a third section of train 118--through freight--at 6:15 o'clock.
Just back of his little grimy box of an office is the big sprawling roundhouse--a dozen freighters with banked fires standing in the stalls, awaiting summons to work. The twelve engines are divided into several classifications according to pulling strength and speed, but the despatcher has designated the particular engine he wishes for third-118, and he gets it--a big lanky puller--1847. She is chosen chiefly because she has had the longest roundhouse rest, having brought in a through freight from up the line, and having been received with engineer's report showing her to be in good running order, at five o'clock yesterday afternoon. Before the 1847 slipped from the turntable into the waiting stall, the hostlers and the wipers were at her. The hostlers had taken her over the cinder-pit and cleaned out the fire-box. Then they went over her, cleaning her, inch by inch, a mechanical inspector in their wake, testing and sounding and checking every item in the engineer's report which showed 1847 to be in good order at the end of his run with her. There was not much chance left for any shirking of responsibility, no matter what might arise upon the 1847 on any coming day.
We turn and watch the yardmaster once again. He has the roundhouse foreman send one of the bright young boys who hang around his office night and day, and who dream of that coming hour when they will handle an 1847 for themselves, to call the engineer and fireman, whose names are posted "first out." Or perhaps the telephone has come into play--in these days in the smaller towns there is hardly a house too humble to have receiver and transmitter hanging somewhere upon its walls. In any event the engine-crew are supposed to stay home when off duty, unless especially excused, and to live within reasonable distance--say a mile--of the roundhouse.
The caller tells the engineer and fireman to report at the roundhouse at 5:45 A. M. At that hour the hostlers have made the 1847 fit for service.
Her tender has been filled with coal, her tanks with water, even her sand is packed aboard the box that stands upon the boiler and is ready to help on slippery rail and upgrade. The engineer makes keen inspection of the 1847 before he moves her a single inch, makes sure with his keen and practised eye that she is quite fit for service, pokes here and there and everywhere with his long-spouted oil-can. At a minute or two after shop whistles have shrieked "six o'clock" he pulls the 1847 out from the shadows of the roundhouse. He gets an open signal and switch to the main yard and finds waiting on a siding in that great place, the trail of freight cars and the caboose that are going with him to make Third-118.
Now come back for a moment in your thought. While we were still scurrying down to the grimy yard, the despatcher was creating Third-118. On his desk were car reports, showing what had been received and sent out, and there was enough accumulation of stuff in the yards last night to justify a Third-118. Because good railroading means yard-sidings cleared, and standing cars and freight, like passengers, kept constantly moving, he did not hesitate at ordering her out. He found that there would be 32 cars between tender and caboose, weighing approximately some 1200 tons, and so he ordered from the roundhouse an engine of a class which the mechanical department guaranteed capable of pulling from 1,000 to 1,500 tons, gross weight.
[Illustration: _Courtesy of the "Railroad Age Gazette"_
THE ELECTRO-PNEUMATIC SIGNAL-BOX IN THE CONTROL TOWER OF A MODERN TERMINAL]
[Illustration: THE RESPONSIBLE MEN WHO STAND AT THE SWITCH-TOWER OF A MODERN TERMINAL: A LARGE TOWER OF THE "MANUAL" TYPE]
[Illustration: "WHEN WINTER COMES UPON THE LINES THE SUPERINTENDENT WILL HAVE FULL USE FOR EVERY ONE OF HIS WITS"]
[Illustration: WATCHFUL SIGNALS GUARDING THE MAIN LINE OF A BUSY RAILROAD]
The yardmaster had given the numbers of the cars that were to make Third-118, just as he received them from one of the despatcher's assistants, to a switching foreman, who arranged them, with the quick facility that comes from long practice, into an order that would permit them to be set off at various points up the line, with the least possible amount of switching. That practical sequence worked out in pencil and paper, a stubby switch-engine effected in reality. The cars and the caboose, in proper order, were ready, with the crew, and inspected when the 1847 backed to them and Third-118 came into her being.
A yard caller had summoned the train-crew while the roundhouse caller was rounding up the two men of the engine-crew. Collins, the conductor, and his brakemen had reported at the yard-office, and were assigned to Third-118. Collins found the cars and caboose waiting just a few minutes before the 1847 had been coupled to them, with little ado and no formality whatsoever, beyond the testing of the air-brakes. Into his train-book he had entered the number of each car and the initials of the road owning it, its destination, its empty or tare weight; the weight of its load, and the sum of these or its gross weight. He sees to it that each box-car is firmly seal-locked. If not, he refuses to accept it from the yardmaster until it has been resealed, and makes a note of the occurrence. Like the engineer and the hostlers in the roundhouse, he takes no chances, no responsibilities that do not fairly belong to him.
With both conductor and engineer ready, Third-118 starts upon her day's run. The yard operator has telegraphed the despatcher's office that 3-118 is awaiting instructions. In that despatch he has given the locomotive number, the number and total weight of the cars it hauls, the name of both engineer and conductor. The train-despatcher enters these details of train and crew at the head of a column of his train register. On that register there are spaces for the entries of arriving and leaving times of the train as telegraphed him by the operators at each telegraph station on the division.
The train once so entered by a despatcher's clerk, the despatcher sends a clearance card to the telegraph operator at the little yard office who repeats it back for accuracy. Then the yard operator presents that clearance order to the engineer and conductor, who read it aloud to him--also for accuracy, of course--and then sign that they have read and understood the order. The signatures are then reported to the despatcher's office, which wires "Complete." "Complete" goes in writing upon the copies of the order made in manifold, which go to engineer, to conductor, and to the operator's own files. The engineer reads his order to the fireman, who repeats it back to him; the conductor follows the same routine with his brakemen. That all sounds complicated, but quickly becomes mechanical and rapid; the danger is that it may become so mechanical and rapid as to permit of serious errors passing unchecked through the routine. But the railroad has done its part. It has, for itself, taken every possible precaution against error and resulting accident.
We are privileged, and we climb into the caboose of Third-118. We hold credentials to Collins, her conductor, and they are unimpeachable. We can see that from his face as he holds his lantern over them: he would not even let us into his caboose until his own mind was set. After that there was barely time to jump aboard. The 1847 is beginning to clear the yard before we have had time for a good look at the inside of the little caboose.
"You won't find our hack any fancy place," says Collins. "But we've had it nine years now, and it seems kind of homelike to us after all this time."
The "we" consists of Collins and his rear brakeman. The forward brakeman, who is held responsible for the front half of the train, has his headquarters in the cab of the 1847. The caboose is a home-like place, snugly warmed by a red-hot stove placed in its corner and lined with bunks made into beds, Pullman fashion; only never was there a Pullman sleeper that gave you less sense of the impressive and a greater sense of a snug cabin. Squarely placed in its centre is a sort of wooden pyramid and the steps up this lead to the lookout from where the long snaky train can be watched.
"Kind o' ol'-fashioned, that," apologizes Collins. "Th' las' time I had th' cabin into the shops for over-haulin', they offered to take it out an'
put in th' ladders; but I says 'no'; an' this is why."
One by one he lifts its hinged steps. This is a pyramid built of lockers, a regular treasure house of railroad necessities. There are all sorts of ropes and jacks and wrenches, extra parts against every emergency. There is a food closet, and another locker filled with neat stacks of stationery.
"They give us more forms to fill out now than th' super's office got twenty years ago," he laughs. "I spend more than half my time at that desk."
The clerical work on Third-118 is considerable. Collins has to keep all the way-bills of his train--32 cars, almost $100,000 worth of merchandise, and if he makes a serious error it is apt to cost him his job. He writes a neat hand, and his records, like his caboose, are kept in ship-shape fashion. He is a careful student of the ethics and the practices of railroad management and operation. He has his own ideas on each of these, and when you get to them they are good ideas. Of such as he railroad executives are every year made in America.
We slip up the line, slowly threading our passage through the mass of passenger trains, fast and slow, that all times have the right-of-way over the third sections of rather ordinary freights. Collins sometimes thrusts his orders into our hands in order that we may see something of the great detail of this branch of operating. Each is wonderfully specific, and we know by that "complete" on the corner that it has been given in detail.
"No. 1 Engine 2236 will wait at Morris Level until 10:00 A. M. for 3-118, Engine 1847."
The signature is that of the initials of the division superintendent, the numerals have been spelled out. It would seem as if the railroad had taken every possible precaution for safety. And yet again, remember that great accidents have happened upon American railroads just because men's minds have perversely refused to read what eyes and ears have read. And yet there seems to be nothing to be done, more thorough than is already being done.