The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1897-10-22
THAT AWFUL STRAIN
A RAILWAY ENGINEER WHO SAYS IT
is ONLY A MYTH.
The Man at the, Throttle Hasn't Time to
Worry About the Passengers-He Is
Kept Too Busy Trying to Get His Train
Through According to Schedule.

Kept Too Busy Trying tn Get His Train
Through According to Schedule.
Old Jim Clark was seated in front of
the Eagle hotel, Salamanca, n. Y. His
chair was tilted back and his cigar was
tilted up This was the precise pose that
Jim Clark had taken every other evening
in front of that hotel for ID years On
the other evenings he posed in a similar
way at n similar hotel in Meadville, Pa,
the other end of his run" and some thirty
odd miles away
If any one ever earned the right to his
affectionate and venerable title, Old Jim
Clark had. He was old in years and old
in tho service For 80 years he had been
in the employ of the Eric road, and he had
served in every capacity in and around an
engine from rubber" or groom in the
roundhouse TO the driver of the Chicago
limited.
1t is as driver of the Chicago limited
between Salamanca and Meadville that
Old Jim is known now both officially and
among his friends. He has pulled the fast
train over the single track division until
he knows the scars in every milestone and
the rise in every grade.
1t is when seated in front of the hotel,
with his chair tilted back and his cigar
tilted up that Old Jim is given either to
philosophizing or to "reminiscences. On
this particular evening he INDUCED in
little of both.
ut does beat the devil" he remarked,
"how the public clings to that old fash
toned, wornout notion that every railroad
driver lives about six years and then, if
he amt killed on the road, dies of nervous
Np cnI d hn
terrible strain he is under and the awful
thought that the next minute he may be
waited into the beyond along with 400 or
800 passengers at his back. That notion
is as old as the first locomotive ever built
and is just about as much played out
You never read a story about rail
road engineer in your life that he wasn't
just everlastingly shaking in his overalls
at the thought of his terrible responsible
ity' and of the thousand souls or the
precious freight that is entrusted to him.
Now, I'll admit that it S all pretty and
sounds nice and brave, but the only trou-
BILE with it is there is nothing in it,
% have no doubt the engineer would
think about the responsibility and worry
some about the women and children be-
hind him if he only had time and didn't
have to hustle so all fired hard every min
ute to pull his train in on time.
But you see he hasn't got the time.
From the minute he jumps into his cab
and pulls open the throttle he is kept
guessing to keep his old machine going
fast enough under him to make the dis
lance within the schedule time. Nova
days the railroads don't allow many min
utes for the passengers and crew to get off
and shoot jack rabbits, and the driver of a
fast train over division has his mind full
all the time without going behind the tend
er and worrying about what is going to
happen to the passengers If there is
smash up.
Then there is the mechanical part of
the game to keep your thoughts off the
passengers. How much coal is your fire.
man burning? Gould we pull up that
hill If burning less coal or save time by
crowding on the steam going down hill?'
Every engineer wants to get the maximum
amo ant of speed out of his engine and
burn minimum amount of coal He
can't think about that and the passengers,
too, and so he lets the passengers slide and
take care of themselves
"You will hear them talk about the
drawn, set face of the engineer as he
climbs into his cab. Does my face look
drawn or set? l guess not And l have
been pulling railroad cars for the last 30
years. Do you know the thing that wor-
ries me when / crawl up into that old
jumping jack of mine? It's how 1 am
going to start the last coach
Il can get the baggage car started all
right and the smoker, and after consider
able yanking the two day coaches move
along all pleasant and friendly, but it does
seem as If / never could get that onery old
sleeper coming. She just says back and
refuses to bulge. That's what's turning
my hair gray when the passengers back
there arc plying me so much because
am having nervous prostration about
them.
Il do not mean to say that an engineer
who Is true to his duty does not worry
when there is actual cause for it, nor that
he will not hang to his post until he has
had the life mangled out of him, If he
thinks it will do any good. There are too
many cases on record where locomotive
drivers have sacrificed their lives, but /
mean to say that the popular notion that
engineers stay awake nights dreading the
responsibility before them is all wrong.
They get just as hardened to the work and
callous to the dangers as circus per-
former, and they think no more of the
risks that they are taking.
Il know of drivers now hauling freight
trains who regularly go to sleep over GER
tain sections of their run Most of them
are worked overtime, and when they come
to a hill they let the machine run down
and snatch a wink or two of sleep before it
strikes the level That's the only way
they can catch up, and III bet dollars to
doughnuts there are dozens of men on this
road who have slept in their cabs today"
New York Press