The first schemes of automatic switch systems eliminated the necessity of employing an army of switchmen. A cluster of levers, in a tower of commanding location, was connected by steel rods with the switches and the signals which protected them. A man in the tower operated this group of levers. In this way, the control of the yard was simplified, and responsibility was placed upon a better paid and better trained man than the average hand switchman. The margin of safety was considerably broadened.
Then came an amendment to that first system. Some genius of a mechanic built an interlocking switch machine, a thing of cogs and clutches, by which a collision in a railroad yard became almost a physical impossibility. In these mechanical interlocking devices the tower levers are so controlled, one by another, that signals cannot be given for trains to proceed until all switches in the route governed are first properly set and locked; and conversely, so that the switches of a route governed by signal cannot be moved during the display of a signal giving the right of way over them. By installation of the interlocking, some of the responsibility is taken by mechanical device from human brain and the margin of safety broadened still further.
This "piano box" represents still further condensation of the switch and signal control and interlocking devices. The men who designed this particular city gate designed it to accommodate more than a thousand outgoing and incoming passenger trains each twenty-four hours; they had found that the condensations given by earlier systems were not sufficient for their purpose. After bringing several switches, designed to act in concert, upon a single lever, they found that they would have a row of 360 levers. Set closely together these would require a tower about 160 feet long. It is roughly figured that it is not desirable to assign more than twenty of these heavy levers to a single towerman and that meant eighteen men, working at a shift. Moreover, the throwing of a heavy switch half a mile distant from the tower is not a slight manual exercise.
Then the "piano box"--electro-pneumatic--was installed; 150 feet of levers was reduced to 30 feet of small handles hardly larger than faucet handles and quite as easily turned. The control of a great terminal was brought down to three towermen, acting under the direction of their chief, the shirt-sleeved keeper of the city gate.
"We've got to keep them hustling," he tells you. "There's the morning express in from New York. She's heavy this morning. That train over there, coming across the swing-bridge, is the millionaire's special. She's all club-cars, comes in every mornin' from the seaside. Her wheels'll stop on the same nick as the express. Watch them both, carefully."
"Isn't it quite a trick handling those trains simultaneously?"
"Not much," a smile fixed itself upon the chief towerman's features, as he fingered his greasy timetable. "Here's four trains pulling out here simultaneously at 5:40. On top of that we get a Forest Hills local in at 5:39, a Hudson Upper local at 5:40, an Ogontz at 5:42, a Readville at 5:43, all incoming, and pull out two more at 5:43. Ten trains in just four minutes isn't bad, and we haven't begun to feel the capacity of this terminal yet.
"That isn't all of it. We get the whole thing criss-crossed on us sometimes; and perhaps they'll put on an extra getting out of here at 5:40, and that'll bother us a little, for we have regular tracks assigned for all our scheduled trains. If they don't run in the extras on us, or we don't get a breakdown anywhere, it's pretty plain sailing. Ring off your 10:10, Jimmy."
Jimmy, the assistant at the far end of the tower, touched one of the little handles, a blade on a signal bridge opposite the end of the train-shed dropped, a big locomotive caught the rails instantly and cautiously led a long train of heavy cars out through the intricacy of tracks and switches until it was past the tower, over the "throat" of the yard, and, striking on the main line, was gaining speed once more.
"It's as easy for him as unbroken rail off in the country," said the chief towerman to me, as he waved salutation at the engineer passing below him.
Then he fell into a detailed and wondrous explanation of the intricacies of the "piano-box" mechanism. On the lower floor of the tower were air condensers, and through the medium of electricity and compressed air heavy switches and signals a half-mile off are worked almost by finger touch.
Each switch is guarded by at least one signal, possibly two--home and distant--and these blades show an open or a closed path to the engineer.
They are so arranged that normally they stand at danger and in case of breakdown they return by gravity to danger. At night the blades, which in various positions show safety and danger and caution, are replaced by lights--red for danger, yellow for caution, green for safety--according to the present standard rules.
This physiology of the passenger terminal has dwelt so far upon its brain and its nerve structure; the anatomy is hardly less interesting. Almost every great passenger terminal in America is built upon the head-house plan. In this scheme trains arrive and depart upon a series of parallel tracks terminating within some sort of train-shed. It is the ideal scheme from the standpoint of the passenger, for no stairs or bridges or subways are necessary to reach any track. The tracks are generally laid in pairs, and between each pair a broad platform is built, which is in reality a long-armed extension of a common distributing platform or concourse extending across the head of the tracks. Sometimes these extension platforms are laid on both sides of a single track for greater facility in handling baggage and for the quick unloading of heavy trains.
But in case any number of trains are to be operated through the terminal, the head-house scheme becomes impracticable and an abomination to the operating department. It makes necessary all manner of backing and turning trains and a tremendous amount of energy and time is spent in so doing. So we find the head-house stations--the real terminals of America--for the most part along the seaboard or at the termination of really important railroad routes. They are an expensive luxury at any other point.
At the outer end of the train-shed, its tracks begin to converge. They are in rough similarity to the sticks of an open fan and at the handle they are reduced to anywhere from two to eight main tracks, the connections with the through tracks that serve the station. The point of convergence is known to the towerman and all the other workers as the "throat" of the yard. It is by far the most important point of the terminal, and is the usual location of the control tower, with its authority over several hundred switches and signals.
Upon the number of main tracks in this "throat" depends the capacity of the terminal, quite as much as the number of tracks in the train-shed or the size of any other of its facilities. If there are as many as eight tracks in this "throat"--an unusual number--the signals and switches will probably be arranged so that in the morning five tracks may be used for the rush of incoming business, and three tracks for outgoing business, while in the late afternoon conditions are exactly reversed, five tracks being used for hurrying the suburbanites homeward, three for the lesser business incoming to the terminal. With four tracks in the "throat"--a usual number--three may be used in the direction of the volume of greatest business. Each of these tracks is like a separate entrance to the terminal, and when five are open from the train-shed simultaneously, as in this first case, five outgoing trains may be started simultaneously from as many tracks.
In this connection, a comparative table of the capacity of several of the largest American passenger terminals may not be without interest:
Approach Station Tracks Tracks Broad Street Station, Philadelphia 4 16 Market Street Station, Philadelphia 4 13 North Station, Boston 8 24 South Station, Boston 8 28 Union Station, St. Louis 6 32 Union Station, Washington 6 33 Northwestern Station, Chicago 6 16 Lackawanna Terminal, Hoboken 4 14 Pennsylvania Station, New York 2 21 Grand Central Station, New York 4 32
But the approach and train-shed tracks are only a part of the yards that are necessary at every large passenger terminal. Certain provisions are necessary for mail and express service (freight of every sort is handled as far as possible in separate yards and terminals), and extensive provision for the storage and care of cars and motive power. In the last case, it becomes advisable to have the roundhouse, or roundhouses, for locomotive storage within short striking distance of the terminal station.
These are vast structures, their very form requiring large tracts of land.
The American plan of radiating engine-storage tracks from a common centre, occupied by a turntable, has never prevailed in England. Some few attempts have been made in this country to build parallel storage tracks, with the transfer table for an operating arm, but almost every attempt of this sort has been induced by a necessity for unusual economy in land-space. We shall need the turntables as long as we continue to use steam as a motive power, and the early method of grouping storage tracks and radii from the table has never lost its favor with operating officers.
A full-size roundhouse, with a diameter approximating 300 feet, has as its necessary accessories, facilities for coaling the locomotives--several at a time--as well as supplying them with water, sand, and other necessities.
Possibly the terminal will be big enough to demand shop facilities for trifling repairs and maintenance of both cars and motive power. A big passenger terminal is a much bigger thing than that gaudy waiting-room in which you sit, whilst your train is being made ready to take you out from the city.
Great as the room assigned to locomotives, greater must be yard-room for car-storage, in rough proportions, as the length of the locomotive to the average train length. It takes something approaching a genius to lay out the car-yards, particularly in the case of passenger terminals, which are almost invariably in the heart of great cities where land values are fabulously high. These yards, in order to earn the appreciation of the men who must operate them, must be easy of access and be of sufficient size to meet the heavy demands that are to be put upon them. To appreciate them, let us consider them in daily use.
The heavy express which has discharged its baggage and passengers in the train-shed is hauled out to the yards by one of the sturdy little switch-engines that are eternally poking their way about the yards. The engine that has pulled it in from the road backs itself down to the roundhouse, without another thought of the train. Its responsibility ended as soon as the run ended in the train-shed. The engineer simply has to see that his locomotive is carefully put away in the roundhouse; and, on some roads, that his fireman cleans its upper parts before the next run out upon the line. The roundhouse crew is then supposed to take care of the rest of the engine.
In the meantime, the stout little switching-engine has hauled the cars out to the yards, separating the Pullman equipment and placing day-coaches, baggage cars, and the like in a position by themselves. An effort is made to keep the equipment for the heavy through trains reserved, allowance being made for occasional changes for repair and maintenance. In the case of the local and suburban trains, their varying traffic requires varying lengths; and it is possible that two or three of the train-shed tracks contain a supply of extra coaches in order that emergencies of sudden and unexpected traffic may be met.
The yards must afford full facilities for storing and cleaning cars. This last is a thorough operation, compressed air being used in many cases and to great advantage. Within, seats are thoroughly dusted, floors swept, woodwork wiped, while the railroad's pride in the outer appearance of its equipment is shown by the scrupulous care with which a small army of cleaners, ladders in hand, wash down the varnished sides of the coaches.
In addition, both coaches and Pullmans must be stocked with linen and ice-water, lighting tanks filled and trucks inspected while in storage yards. Most elaborate provisions are made for the stocking of dining and buffet cars.
Through equipment will rest in the yards from six to twenty-four hours, as an average. The local and suburban trains have a programme of their own, slightly different. The engine that is to make the run will get its train in the first place from the storage yard. It is only a big express run, where the locomotive is privileged to back into the station, to find its train made ready there for it by some fag of a switch-engine. The engine that hauls the local backs its own train into the station, makes its run out upon the line, 15, 25, 50 miles, whatever the case may be, and brings the train back into the station. It kicks the cars out, just beyond the cover of the train-shed and while it is hurrying to the turntable the cars are being hastily swept and dusted. An hour will be allowed the engineer to turn his engine and get his coal and water supply, and then he will start out again on his local run. This performance will be repeated one or more times, before the coaches are sent to the yard for thorough cleaning and stocking, and the locomotive housed for a little rest in the programme.
This is not the universal programme, but it is typical. It seems simple; but with the multiplicity of local trains in service, the demands of the regular through traffic, and the special demands that come unexpectedly day after day, that car storage yard has got to be arranged for an economy of operation, as well as with the economy of space in view. Each storage track must be of convenient access and the chances are that a separate tower and interlocking may be set aside for the quick, convenient, and safe operation of the storage yard. In any event, it must be so built as to be worked without interference of any sort on the main line tracks of the terminal.
So much for the terminal, in reference to its operation; now let us consider it for a moment from the standpoint of the passenger. The first point to be considered by the engineers who design it is the point that we have just considered--safety and convenience in operation. A terminal might be, and sometimes is, an architectural triumph and a thing of monumental beauty, but a curse and an extravagance as an operating proposition. The architects, the mural painters, the furniture designers and the like are called in last. It is their province to make the setting for the thing the engineers have already created.
So in considering the terminal station as a building, we must still give ear to the engineer. He must plan for the future, anticipate the number of persons who are to pass through this city's gate fifty years hence, and plan his concourse, so many square inches for each one of those future users of the terminal. Exits and entrances to the trains must be built in order that incoming and outgoing streams of persons shall not conflict.
All these points require careful study. It is possible to design a baggage-room so bad as to make the station all but a failure; a stuffy ticket-office that is almost an impossibility to use under pressure conditions. The good engineer thinks two or three thousand times before he begins the design of a passenger terminal.
The concourse, or head platform, that joins all the different track platforms is the main feature of the terminal building. Upon it some persons congregate preparatory to going through the gates to their trains, and other persons congregate awaiting the arrival of trains--a matter which is carefully bulletined for their convenience. Arriving and departing passengers, with a percentage of idlers, must be accommodated upon it. It must be capacious. Exits to the street should be provided, without the necessity of passing through the station building, and the carriage stand should be close at hand.
The waiting-room will be the monumental and artistic expression of the terminal. It may or may not be a portion of the entrance to the concourse and train-shed, but it is essential that it be conveniently located, that smoking-rooms, women's waiting-rooms, parcel-check, telephone, telegraph, news-stand, and restaurant facilities be close at hand. It is hardly less desirable that the ticket-offices adjoin the waiting-room yet the architect who so places his ticket-offices that the belated traveller has unnecessary delay in purchasing his tickets, will bring down unnumbered curses upon his defenceless head.
The modern station will make provision for numerous railroad offices--be a complete modern office-building in fact, although not emblazoning that in its architectural design--and will have lunch-stand and restaurant facilities, with their necessary addenda of store-rooms, refrigerators and kitchens, as complete as those of the largest hotels.
The baggage accommodations deserve a paragraph by themselves. Americans, due to the liberal baggage provisions of our railroads, travel each year with increased impedimenta. Each year the task of the baggage-handlers multiplies. Making room for trunks has come to be an important terminal provision. In the large terminals, this traffic is divided, an in-baggage room receiving from incoming trains and distributing to various forms of city baggage delivery and an out-baggage room receiving and checking baggage for outgoing trains. The in-baggage room is always much the largest, because of the delays that almost invariably hold trunks for a time--short or long--upon their arrival at a terminal.
It is desirable that baggage be handled with as little inconvenience as possible to passengers; and for this reason almost all terminals have subways extending from the "in" and "out" rooms beneath all train-shed platforms and connected with each of these by elevators, large enough to receive a full-sized baggage-truck. In this way annoyance and delay to passengers is minimized. In the case of heavy through trains, where baggage runs unusually heavy, the baggage-cars are frequently detached and switched in upon special tracks that run alongside the baggage rooms.
The passenger terminal must also provide mail and express facilities among these structures, but these, as has already been intimated, are generally apart and quite separate from the passenger facilities. A power plant is another necessity. The buildings must be heated, cars warmed in freezing weather long before the locomotives are attached, ice-machines operated for the station restaurant, power supplied to elevators, dynamos, and lesser mechanisms about the terminal. This is a feature that is not radically different from that of other large commercial structures.
The capacity of a modern railroad is measured by the capacity of its terminals rather than by that of its main line tracks. The railroads were not quick to realize nor to appreciate this fact at the first. It was finally forced upon their attention, and in that way became one of the fundamental principles of American railroad construction and operation.
The terminal became recognized as one of the most efficient possible solutions of the congestion problem, a little more than a quarter of a century ago. It was then that the double-tracking and four-tracking devices were found to measure all out of cost with the relief that was to be derived from them. It was then that the engineers were told to meet the situation with a relief that should be measurably low in cost.
The result of their work has been to put America foremost with her railroad terminals. The engineers have worked against great odds in many cases. The railroads in the beginning took little or no forethought for their terminals. They neglected rare opportunities to buy land for these facilities in the beginning, when the cities were small and the land cheap. They have paid in millions of dollars for this neglect. In some cases, the early railroads had little money to expend upon this city real estate; but in few cases did any of their managers have the gift of prophecy that made them foresee the great cities of to-day or the great tides of traffic they would be called upon to move.
Nor has this phase of the situation improved within recent years. A great railroad rebuilt its passenger terminal in an important city ten years ago and blindly imagined that the increase in facilities would carry it a quarter of a century at the least. To-day it is carrying off the remnants of that station improvement to the scrap-heap and trying to see far enough into the future to build a station that shall last it fifty years at least.
There is not an engineer employed by that railroad who will assert himself as possessed of the absolute belief that the new station will be adequate for the traffic of a half century hence, if indeed the great spreading palace of steel and marble be in existence at all at that time.
All that they will tell you is to point to the fact that another one of America's greatest passenger carriers has doubled its traffic within the past ten years.
"How can we gamble with an unknown future of such dimensions?" they ask you in return.
When the Park Square Station of the Boston & Providence Railroad in Boston and the Grand Central Station in New York were built, in the early seventies, they were the first railroad passenger terminals of size that the country had seen. It was thought that _they_ would stand a hundred years as monuments to the genius of the men who designed them. To-day they are both gone, each supplanted by a station that both together might be packed within.
Do you wonder then that railroad operator and engineer alike stand appalled at the tremendous terminal problem that our great cities, growing awesome overnight, are constantly presenting to them?
In the beginning, there were no passenger or freight terminals, nor, indeed, a traffic that demanded them. The passenger cars were apt to be hauled by horses from some downtown depot through the centre of the street to an "outer depot" at the edge of the town where the locomotive replaced the horses. When the cars became heavier, the trains longer and more frequent, the railroads were gradually forced in most cities to remove their rails from the streets and the use of horses was generally abandoned. Still, passengers crossing Baltimore, for some years after the war on their way from the North to Washington, noticed that the trains were broken into cars and drawn one by one by horses across the city, through crowded streets, from one outer railroad station to the other. A venerable white horse was the switching-engine in the Rochester depot until the beginning of the eighties.
When the passenger traffic on the railroads had become a business of extent--about the middle of the past century--the construction of sizable railroad stations began. The Fitchburg Railroad built its stone fortress at Boston, which still stands and was for many years regarded as a marvel of its sort. Down in Baltimore, the Susquehanna Railroad--afterwards the Northern Central--built Calvert Station, and stanch old Calvert is still a busy passenger gateway of the Monumental City. A few years later the Baltimore & Ohio built Camden Station there and Camden Station was regarded as something rather unusually fine for a number of years.
In the sixties, the railroad terminals grew in size, and the old custom of having separate stations at the far sides of important towns was disappearing, as the American began to see and to demand the advantages of through traffic. So Cleveland built at the close of the war a stone Union Station, of such size that Cleveland folks bragged of it for many years.