The Russellville Democrat., 1880-08-12
FAST MAILS.
Papers and Mail Bags Delivered on the
 Fiy-seventy Miles an Hour.

Fiy-Seventy Miles an Hour
 Rochester telegram to N. Y. Herald.
 The first fast mail train from New York for the West over the Hudson River and New York Central road tray. elled 400 miles in thirteen hours. The time IS not fast taken as a whole, but the schedule makes it so fast in some places and so slow in others that to travel on 1t is like q journey over the rocky road to Dublin-there are varieties of speed. Because of the day being eele- brated as the fourth the enthusiasm along the line of route was as Varied as the speed of the train. In some places 1t received an ovation, while at others a few people gathered and gazed at it stoiidly, making no sign. At Hudson, Peekskill and Fonda there was crowd on the platform to greet its arrival. The welcome they extend was harty and noisy. Atica, Amsterdam and Little Falls and few other half dead and half alive places, it's coming was not greeted with any demonstration W whatsoever, and the people who were at the depots would not look at the New York morn Ing papers that were put in their hands J through the agency of the new train eight hours in advance of the time they ever received them before. At Syracuse, however, there was generous reception and the people of that salt enyironed l city made great haste to possess the Heraids that were brought to them in time for monday lunch. So too, at Rochester, where the morning mails 1 from New York have been received | hitherto at 10 o'clock at night and where { they are now brought o'clock in the afternoon. Buffalo, Batavia, Niagara Falls, Dunkirk, Erie and Lockport share In the general benefits thus liberally distributed, and as the fast train dropped its load of news and letters eight or ten hours in advance of what these cities had been accustomed to receive them, the appreciation, like the benefits, be- came general and pronounced. The train was very fast from New York to Poughkeepsie. From there to Albany | the mail cars were hooked on to an ac- commodation train that stopped every where it could get a chance. From AL bany to Syracuse, the speed was such as | justified the train being called a last mail train, but arriving there 1t relapsed into an accommodation spirit, and made slow work of it to Rochester, where it again went upon fast schedule and reached Buffalo, Niagara Falls and places | further west in short order. g
 The train left the Grand Central depot in New York at twenty-five minutes of l five o'clock. It was made up of mail car No. 2, baggage express car, engine No. 7l and an old Danforth & Cooke machine, rebuilt in the Hudson River railroad shops, furnished the motive power, while Engineer Farrel, driver | of fast trains, had his hands upon the throttle. At twenty minutes past three o'clock the first wagon from the post office had rattled up, bringing the crew of the car, and alf an hour later the wagon with the letter-mail began to ar rive. At the postoffice, Assistant Post master Pearson and Superintendent of Railway-Mail-Service Jackson had been experimenting the makeup of the mail, and when the morning newspapers came piling in at few minutes past $40 o'clock everything was out of the way. There was no delay in receiving and sending them of. At 3:55 the first wagon with the newspaper mail was 1 flashing toward the Grand Central de- pot, and exactly at four o'clock the last load was on its way to the train. Thirty minutes later the cars were loaded and ready for the start. Engineer Farrel leaned out of his cab and nodded to | Conductor OConner who stood at the mail-car door, The condu.or said, Let her go!" and the engine, with a splutte, and puff dragged her load off the side track and darted into the tunnel. In the car, beside the Herald correspondent were Messrs. Wm. Warning, assistant general superintendent New York post office; c. D. Sandford, chief head clerk of the railway service; Charles H Lyon. chief clerk second division of rail way mails; Wm. Morris, head clerk o the car; D. NJ. Martin, George Reynolds Wm. H. Evans and Abram Bogardus composing the crew. Six minutes later the train was out of the tunnel ano rattling over Harlem bridge, and di rectly attcrward, with twist that sci everybody out of his place, it passed the Harlem junction. s
 It was just daylight; there was fog resting on the marshes of Harlem river and the silence of early day allowed tho echos from the fast morning train to bt brought clear and ringing. The tai plers of High bridge loom up like ghosts out of the morning mist, but only for z moment, for Farrel has cut off the stroke very short and his throttle valve was wide open. Old Fl was making the fas trip of her life, for the watch showed that she had come to Spuyten Duyville (ten miles, in twelve minutes. She mioht have done better, perhaps. but tn, road is made of reverse curves, sharT ones too, that handicap her going pow
 CTS, but now her way skirts the bank o the Hudson, the road was level and tho curves gentle and easy. Farrel looked back from the window of his cab ant bowed gravely to Agent Morris, who held out hIs watch and indicated the number of minutes with his fingers Then he leaned out and looked forward and the fast mail was fast mail indeed for the watch and the mile posts showed that it only required three and hal
 minutes to cover three miles,
 In the mail car there was scene O. activity consistent with the mad rate O speed at which the train was moving The great packages of Heraids were thrust into the car in what appeared tC be inextrIcable disorder. They wer, heaped in confused piles with othe
 morning papers. One bundle contained one paper, the single contribution of tn, metropolitan press to some wayside flag station; others containd score o papers and others held thousands. Be fore the steam had been let into tn, cylinders at the Grand Central depot tn, mail men had gone to work and tn, great pile was seperated into little piles l and order came out of the confusion. s,