In that the big superintendent had sounded one of the biggest principles of railroad operation.
The line must be kept open. That slender trail of two rails, stretching straight across the open land and writhing and twisting through the high hills, is a living organism. The railroad is no mere inanimate organization, like a store, for instance. It is a right-hand of the nation's life; it is life. The railroad is like a great living thing, its many arms reaching long distances back into the land. You cannot cut off the living arm and then bring it back to pulsing life.
Just so the railroad arm cannot be severed--the line must be kept open.
Strange things may come to pass: the right-of-way may be littered with the wreckage of trains, brought together through a defect in the physical machine of the human; unexpected floods of traffic may seek to overwhelm the outlet; in spring the power and might of flood may descend upon it; winter's storms may seek to paralyze it; still, always the railroad must be kept open.
"We can't lie down," the superintendent explained to the cub reporter.
"We've got to get the traffic through. Do you know what it would mean if we were to follow the path of least resistance to-day--to let this storm get the best of us? Let me give you an idea of just one thing. There's food coming in here in trainload lots every night--fresh meat, fresh vegetables, fresh milk. Folks would go hungry if we were to say 'We can't, this storm is a gee-whilicker. We give up.'"
To keep the line open, the railroad affords every sort of protective device; it trains men for especial duties.
Take the matter of wrecks, for instance. The railroader does not like to think of wrecks, but his methods for removing them must be prompt and thorough: the line must be kept open. Each year sees equipment increasing in size and weight, and each increase brings additional problems in handling wrecked cars and engines.
Twenty years ago, the wrecking-equipment of most of the big roads was comparatively simple. It was generally built in the railroad's own shops.
To-day 60-ton cars and 100-ton locomotives require something of a wrecking crane or derrick to lift them from the right-of-way; and the wrecking-train is a device thought out and built by specialists.
These wrecking-trains are the emergency arms of railroad operation. They stand, like the apparatus of a city fire department, at every important terminal or division operating plant, awaiting summons to action. You may see the wrecking-train at every big yard, waiting on a siding which has quick access to the main-line tracks. It consists of from four to six cars--a tool-car with all sorts of wrecking-devices--replacers, blocks and tackle, extra small parts of car-trucks for emergency repairs, and the like. There are more of these extra parts--axles and wheels and four-wheel trucks on a "flat" that is fastened to the tool-car; and if this wrecking-train has a couple of miles of heavy traffic line to serve, there may be three or four of the "flats" with tools and spare equipment. You cannot have too many of those in a big wreck. The wrecking-train is sure to have a crane--a big arm of steel, compressed to come within the slim clearances of bridges and of tunnels, but capable of reaching down and tugging at a 100-ton locomotive with almost no effort whatsoever. And quite as important as the crane is the cook-car--generally some old-time coach or sleeper descended to humble service on the road. The cook-car has a rough berth and a kitchen; and you may be mighty sure that there is a good griddle artist upon it. You cannot expect a wrecking-gang to get into a twenty-four hour job without being pretty constantly provisioned while it is at work.
Only a little while ago, one of the officers of an Eastern trunk-line railroad and a member of one of the State railroad commissions were coming toward New York. The trip was in the nature of an inspection on the part of the State official, but as a matter of comfort and convenience to the two men, it was made upon the former's private car. The comfort and convenience suddenly ceased while the two were still nearly 300 miles away from the seaboard. The road rested there for many miles in heavy country; its rails found their curving way in the crevices between high hills. It had rained steadily for a fortnight; the little mountain brooks were raging mill-races. In the low flatlands of one deep valley lakes were being formed. There were long stretches where the four rails of the double-tracked trunk-line railroad lost themselves under the glassy surface of the waters. Up and down the valley trains were standing helpless between those lakes, their passengers fuming at the delay. Fast freights stood axle-deep in water; their title, for that moment, was an occasion for joyous humor. The comfortable, convenient trip of the railroad operating man and the railroad commissioner was at an end.
An embankment that the railroad had built for a branch down the valley was blocking the waters, and orders had come from New York to dynamite out that embankment. It would cost the railroad nearly $50,000 to destroy that half-mile of track but it might save the valley millions. There had been no hesitation on the part of the "old man"--the road's tried executive.
That is a phase of American railroading not often brought to light.
Orders came that the engine hauling the "special" of the operating man and the railroad commissioner was to be taken for a work-train down at that damming embankment. That's the way with railroading. When the clattering telegraph keys sound the note of trouble, even that mighty soul, the chairman of the board, may find himself "laid out" at some jerkwater junction, while his pet engine goes into service with a wrecking-train.
But the chairman of the board, whose time is real money, offers no protest. He knows that to block the main line costs his road $250 a minute for the first 60 minutes; that that figure doubles and trebles in the second hour; in the third, his auditors may check off $1,000 a minute, at the least, as the cost of a blocked railroad. No wonder that they insist that it is "keeping the line open."
Before the engine of that special was cut off to go scurrying down to the embankment where the skilled workmen were making preparations to dynamite away a half-mile of track, the operating man lifted his hand. He had, like any trained railroader, been listening to the clattering telegraph key.
"They've come away without their cook--those wreckers," he told the gentleman who regulated public utilities. "I think I'll go down with the 'eats.' There's an old hotel across from the railroad track down at the next station, and the landlord, Uncle Dan Hortley, will fix me up."
"I'll go with you," said the State official. "I want to get my finger in the pie."
So it came to pass that they both went, the private car stopping at the little hotel long enough to get in an overwhelming supply of bread and ham. As they whizzed through the scene of trouble all hands joined at making sandwiches.
"Butter them on both sides," said the railroad commissioner.
"They're better with the butter on one side," insisted the operating man.
The commissioner was not used to back-talk from railroaders, no matter how high their office, and he stuck to his point.
"Both sides," he insisted.
"One side only," reported the big operating man.
"The commission has closed its hearing and issues an order for both sides."
"The railroad appeals."
But the commission won--it almost always does--and the men down at the embankment ate their sandwiches with a double thickness of butter.
Sometimes a refrigerator train comes under the skilled hands of the wreckers, and the cook-car may have more than an abundance of good material right at hand. Beef, chickens, milk--all manner of edibles have been spilled like waste along the right-of-way, and there have been no regrets among the men of the wrecking-boss's crew. Once, a speeding cook-car hurrying to the relief of the laborers upon a wrecked meat-train that had tried to go tangent to a mountain curve, brought reinforcements in the form of ham sandwiches. The wreckers were pretty hungry, but it needed all their hunger to tackle those sandwiches. The meat-train had been filled with ham; it had caught fire. Somehow, three or four hours of work hauling out smoked hams gave no appetite for sandwiches of the same sort.
On main-line divisions, where traffic runs exceeding heavy, a locomotive stands, steam-up, with the four cars of the wrecking-train. Even on side-line divisions the call for the wreckers will bring the fastest and best engine out of the roundhouse, no matter what her train assignment may be. Things on the railroad stand aside for the wrecker. Limiteds may paw their nervous heels upon sidings while she goes skimming up the line--all time-table rights are hers from the moment that she goes into service.
A wire from the seat of trouble brings her into service.
"Second Four-twelve in ditch at Grey's Bridge. Broken rail. Engine and two cars derailed. Both tracks blocked. About four killed and injured."
That wire has itself had the right-of-way. When "W-K, W-K, W-K" comes persistently calling over a railroad wire, every key closes. "W-K" is the "C-Q-D" of railroading. It is as much as any operator's job is worth, to ignore it.
When a despatch of the sort just cited comes into headquarters, things start to move. The despatcher, if he is after the manner of most despatchers, turns to his telephone and calls the yardmaster to order out the wrecking-crew. There is no more excitement in his voice than if he were ordering out any ordinary sort of special. He rings off quickly, calls up in turn the superintendent, trainmaster, perhaps the division engineer, the claim department. If there is a fatality list--the wreck one of those fearful things that sometimes show themselves upon the front pages of the newspapers--he will get the hospitals and the doctors. The list of surgeons who are allied to the railroad in every town on the division hangs above the despatcher's desk.
He may run a special hospital train with doctors and nurses and emergency equipment. On one memorable occasion the hospital train was on its way out upon the main line before the wreck had been reported over the wire. The despatcher saw that the hospital special had a clear track; he gave a multitude of directions as to its running, with the quick clear word of a self-possessed man--then turned and shot himself dead. He had miscalculated: the human machine sometimes does. He knew that he had sent the two crack-a-jack trains on that single-track division, curling its way among the mountains, into each other at full speed. No need for him to know exactly where they met.
But even if the wreck is no holocaust; if it is one of those minor smashes that are bound to come now and then on the best of lines, he must keep his head. As he caught up his telephone to get orders to that wrecking-boss out at the roundhouse, his assistant took instant notice of the wreck, first notifying the stations on either side of the accident to set danger-signals against all trains. After that, while the despatcher himself was busied with details, the assistant arranged to handle all traffic. If both tracks were blocked, there were plans to be instantly made to forward the fast through trains by detouring them over other lines of railroad. The assistant despatcher, wishing to know how long he could afford to hold his heavy traffic (remember that the line must always be kept open), wired the nearest station for additional details. Most of all he wanted to know how long the tracks would be blocked. Perhaps before he got his wire through there came a second message from the wreck, giving more facts about it. By means of code, great detail can be given in a short wire; headquarters gets a clear understanding of the trouble. After that the wire chatters constantly; there are a thousand orders to be given, a thousand details to be arranged.
[Illustration: THE WRECKING TRAIN READY TO START OUT FROM THE YARD]
[Illustration: "TWO OF THESE GREAT CRANES CAN GRAB A WOUNDED MOGUL LOCOMOTIVE AND PUT HER OUT OF THE WAY"]
[Illustration: "THE SHOP-MEN FORM NO MEAN BRIGADE IN THIS INDUSTRIAL ARMY OF AMERICA"]
While the first of these wires are beginning to swing back and forth the despatcher will hear the wrecking-train, pulled by the neatest and swiftest bit of motive power from their big roundhouse, go scurrying by down the line. The road is cleared. Everything stands aside, and for weeks after, the stove committee in every roundhouse on the division will be telling how she made the run.
They don't talk about the run when they get to the accident. They pile off the train and get to work quickly. Every man is a trained wreck-worker, as a fireman is trained to his peculiar business. In such hours as they are not out on the road, the wreckers are repairers of cars. It keeps them busy during the long seasons when the line is lucky and has no wrecks, and it gives them the skill with which to tackle the difficult problems that confront them after a smash. By day these men--eight or ten or twelve of them to a crew--work in the yard close to the waiting wrecking-train; by night the telephone at the head of the bed of each man will bring him quickly to the near-by yard.
"How do you handle a wreck?" we once asked an old-time wrecking-boss, a man grown gray in keeping his line open.
"I don't know," was his frank response. "I've probably handled a thousand wrecks--perhaps more--but I have yet to see two that were the same.
Different cases demand different treatments. Any surgeon will tell you that; and you know," this with a bit of a laugh, "we are the surgeons of the steel highway.
"We've only one rule that is absolute, and that rule is to take care of the folks who are hurt in the first place, and in the second place to get the line open. If it is multiple-track line--two or three or four tracks in operation--and the muss is sprawled over the entire right-of-way we get a through track working in shortest interval. When we can wire "number two open" or whatever it is, the despatcher down at headquarters will catch the stations where there are crossovers and he'll be handling his first-class traffic of all sorts past us while we'll still be stocking the arm of the old bill crane down into the smash."
The arm of that crane can lift a freight-car--if there is enough freight-car left to lift--off the rails and into the ditch in almost a twinkling. Two of these great cranes can grab a wounded mogul locomotive and put her out of the way. The wrecking-trains on a first-class road are kept along the line in profusion. Each is supposed to cover a territory of 100 miles or so in every direction from headquarters, and a sizable smash will bring two or more to work in unison. Two wrecking-cranes working into the remnants of a head-on collision from each direction can accomplish marvels. They will come together finally at the chief test of their strength--the point where two locomotives have firmly locked horns in dying embrace. That is a point that finds the nerve and ability of every wrecking-boss.
But all these wrecking-bosses have nerve and ability. They could not hold their jobs without both. They know when equipment--cars that might be made as good as new in the shops--must be burned like driftwood, and when the burning of a wreck would be criminal waste. That requires judgment--judgment to determine whether it is cheaper to burn than to lose valuable time; to delay traffic on a main-line division or to let the traffic on a less important side-line division wait for a little longer time. Judgment is part of a wrecking-boss's equipment. His superintendent knows that; and when the super grows nervous and gets down to the wreck himself, although he knows that he is ranking officer in charge of the work he shows good judgment, on his own part, in letting the wrecking-boss give all orders. That makes for skill, it makes for speed. If the wrecking-boss is not doing good work the superintendent can fire him to-morrow, or (what is far more usual) find him an easier berth somewhere on the division.
There are times when the work-train must be summoned, when laborers by the dozen must get to work to build new track. A wash-out may require a half-mile of track to be laid in a night, and the railroad can do it. A young man wrote a very able story for _The Saturday Evening Post_ a few months ago, in which he told how an emergency track was laid across a highway bridge and a test fast-freight put through on schedule. That feat was but one of the many ordinary tasks that come in the lifetime of every operating man.
Clearing a wreck may be a tedious business.
There is a deep sink on the parade-ground of the Military Academy at West Point that is a monument to the nastiest railroad wreck from the point of view of time, that the Eastern railroaders have ever known. Just under that parade-ground the West Shore Railroad passes through a long tunnel.
On an October night more than twenty years ago, the Chicago & St. Louis Express of that railroad was slowly poking through that bore, when a portion of the roof of the tunnel collapsed. It buried itself between the rear part of the baggage-car and the forward part of the express-car and the train came to an abrupt stop.
Engineer William Morse saw in an instant the damage that had been done.
He cut loose from that penned baggage-car and made record speed up the line to Cornwall, the nearest station. From there he a sent a wire post-haste to the despatcher up at Kingston, then the headquarters of the line.