Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-12-21

coach is so warm and cozy that the traveller !
is apt to regard the passenger brakeman as a |
fair specimen of the comfort of winter rail
roading. But that is not fair.
NOTHING CERTAIN ABOUT TIME.
Freight brakemen are either paid by the
day or by the trip. In either case the
length of time to be occupied in trip is not
known beforehand. His train is running
''on orders and may be side-tracked 20
times before it reaches the station where
crews change. There may be wrecks ahead
or DELAYS from other causes. These DELAYS
are most common in winter, and therefore
the labor of running a freight train is
greater In cold weather than in the midst of
summer. To every regular through freight
train there is attached a caboose, in which
there is good stove and hunks furnished
with sufficient bed clothing. But the
caboose is nearly useless sometimes. There
are frequently freight trains between Pitts
burg and Derry, and between Derry and
Altoona, on which the brakemen never see
the inside of the caboose. The tracks have
been unusually crowded, or from various
causes there have been larger number OF
stops than usual, and the crew has been
kept on top of the cars the whole time.
II this happens to be in thu midst of cold
weather the stove in the caboose is of little
value. Alter an hours steady service at
the brake, side-tracking or shifting, the
brakeman has gone back TO the rear car
with his hands numb, ears frozen and feet
about Efeless.
CLEARING THE TRACK OF FREIGHT.
At some time or another the train to
which your warm and luxuriant car is at
tached has been delayed along the route
As the minutes have sped by in fves and
tens, and still your train was held there,
you have grown impatient, and commenced
complaining about the loss of time. The
WINDS are whistling a perfect hurricane
around the train, and the cars almost rock
with their violence, but there is a comfort
able rattle down the chimney of the big
stove IN the corner of the car, and you feel
none the colder for the storm which is rag
ing without. Perhaps the snow is scurrying
past the windows In such fine, binding
sheets that the landscape is hidden from
view, but you are just as coy for all that.
The passenger train may lay there for two
hours, and you would be N no danger of
suffering from the cold.
But at last the four short toots of the
whistle on your locomotive call in the flag
man from the rear, and then you start on
the journey again. The interruption Is
over, and you breath q sigh Of relief.
Slowly your train pulls past labyrinth of
switches ana slQe-trdcks on either SIDE, and
even yet you have faint recollection of the
long lines of freight trains lying there, with
their ponderous black locomotives painting
as though impatiently awaiting your pass
age. Yes it was those freight trains which
had blocked your. pathway for so long, but
YOU have no conception of the tremendous
amount of labor expended on top of their
cars to get them quickly out of your way.
You just caught a glimpse of the red-fAced
brakeman through the snow, all muffed up
in greasy clothes, but you did not think that
for well'on to an hour he had been out there,
running along the roofs OF those cars, work
ing to get the main track clear.
SOME ONE MUST SUFFER.
Perhaps if you had calculated the number
O.! times he had to climb down to the snow
drifts and crawl between the cars to un-
couple and then couple up again. in order to
Eplit trains where they were too long for a
single SWITCH or if you had seen the way he
WINGED every time he grasped a cold iron
brake wheel, and held on to it until the 10
romotive whistle gave him privilege to let
go: and then if it had been possible for all
The passengers to see the risky way he recov-
cred q slip on the icy car roofs as he ran
swiftly from brake to brake along the train
had all these little facts heen known inside
vour well-hested parlor coach there might
have been less complaint about the delay.
For of all hard jobs in winter for the brake.
man there is none that he breads so much Of