The times., 1890-07-04
THE FREIGHT Can.
n IL Could Talk IL Could Tell Many Tn
tcresting Stories

There is something romantic about
. freight car, although you might
hardly think it. To an observant
mind, the long lines of box and fiat
cars lying congenially on the side
track of some great railroad. with
their letters of introduction pinned on
their breasts, as it were, in the shape
of more or less artistic lettering, are full
of neutrality-suspicious. Here and there,
too, will be seen cars in isolated posi-
tons, seemingly reaching out for
sympathy in their temporary loueli-
ness. Cars from the north, south,
east and west; cars from the great
| Trunk lines; cars with signs telling
whom it may conceml that they belong
| to the army of freight cars that rum.
BILE bus .lv to and fro on the 'Sunse.
Route" or tue 500 line, or the ro-
mantle and rugged canadian Pa
cific." Here will be battered and
weather worn car from the great west,
hobnobbing, and, as it were, shaking
| hands, with an iron grip, with u
Maine Central, or blue nose car, if q
car from the country of our loyal
neighbors can be given the same name
as the inhabitants. There are red,
blue, white, brown and crushed
strawberry freight cars, and parti
colored freight cars-harlequins OF
their respective roads.
A freight car is an innocent looking
affair. 1t looks as though it was work
ed too hard to have life enough for
anything else, and yet freight car
sometimes goes off on tangent. So
frequent, indeed, is this weakness on
the part of the freight car that man
called tracer" is constantly employ
ed by all railroad lines to hunt them
down, and bring them and their con-
tents back to their legitimate stopping
| places. A car tracer knows some
thing about the peculiarities of a
| freight car. He knows something about
freight cars romantic longing to be
out and away A genial gentleman OF
Boston, former car tracer, said the
| other day in conversation with the
| writer, that he had been all over the
| country after recreant cars of the
| freight persuasion, and that he had
known instances of car being lost
for three years, and finally turning
up Unexpectedly, like a sort of rail
road prodigal son, ready to be for
| given. The person whose duty it is
to ferret out, or over, or up the truant
cars has his hands full. Telegraph,
telephone and the mail are all in.
voked, and if these fail, he goes per-
sclally and acts the part of freight
car detective.
| If car could observe, and then
speak, it would have much to tell.
The unimportant, dusty, greasy look
ing cars that huddle by wharf and
storehouse, and between immense red
walls in a sitting air, have seen the
Little Juanita cleaning in the moon.
light, pensively, or the slumberous
Niagara drop rockward and bedew the
night. They have seen, or would
have, could they have observed, the
rock heights and the moist depths of
the rugged and wild country through
which the Canadian Pacific threads
its way. In fact the scenes business
like and viciods looking freight car
has passed through would furnish
sketches by pen and pencil for the
worlds press in a liniitless series Of
articles.
Besides its more prosaic Office, the
freight car is the drawing room, the
sleeping car and the buffet, to a cer-
tain extent, of the gentry in rags and
tatters. He, the member of the tat
tered gentry in question, hangs to the
inside or the outside OF the freight car,
and, if he is not suffocated or other
wise annulled in the former position,
he is quite likely to let GO his hold in
the latter and the next section man
that comes along finds the maugled
and last remains of some grievous
"hero of the late civil war" The
risks the tramp takes in appropriating
rides on the freight train are many,
and almost any casualty occur
ring to any train contains the name
of some wretch, ''to fortune and to
fame unknown" who left for his
long home on the freight train.
One method. taken by tramps in
riding is to stand with each foot
planted on the two "bunters" of
the car, and thus they measure out
mile after mile, in q sort of paralyzed
pair-of-dividers style, instead of fol-
lowing out the comforting suggestion
to pedestrians-''ones step and then an
other, and the longest walk is ended
A good, strong, modern freight car
| 10 WOTbu SOUU. OOIllc are Ndlueu aU SOOU
and $3.50. The cars used to be % feet
long, but now they are usually 80 feet,
and there is a movement to secure 80
feet cars for lumber, etc.
To conclude, did you ever think of
how thinks inanimate are often in
vested with almost human attributes2
So it is with freight cars, as with
many other things of much interest
and more worthy of attention Freight
cars are more worthy of notice than
passenger cars, on account of their
very roughness and battered condi-
ton, and their unostenratious freight
yard retirement. So it Is in higher
matters, and when we have to deal
with humanity. The least display
often hides the most worth; and so,
as in other lines of conduct Also, q cer-
tain beneficial lesson may be drawn
from the wandering freight car
Bonneville Journal.
Domestic Service.
\ t. Al \