Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-08-26


one detail and another of dressing himself
for his part he was finally ready to toy
with his levers and brake.
But. you say, how does one knew the
engineer running your railway train is any
more seriously impressed with his duty!
Nobody is watching him, and who can tell
what chances he takes?
This sort of argument Is made to me by
the superintendent of street railway cor
porations with whom l have talked, and
the answer that appears to me Is this:
Railroad companies insure safety OF lives
intrusted to their care by the wages they
pay their engineer. Street railway COM
panies, on the contrary. invite carelessness
and casualty by putting their trains under
control of cheap men. Motormen receive
only 50 per day and work ten hours day.
They allowed no time for meals, which
they take on their cars, either While the
unskilled conductor is running the motor,
or by stealing time from the schedule, in
crcasing their speed on trip. Moreover,
the position of motorman is one fraught
with great danger. The superintendent or
one of the car companies told me they are
obliged to reject a large number of men
who apply for position of motormen be-
cause they lack the nerve necessary for the
place. All this being true, it follows log1-
cally that to attract to such work mon
serious-rn minded and capable. wages must be
something more than a trifie in excess of
what a depraved dullard earns digging dirt
in the road.
Training NOtOrmen.
The public plays the dogs part in the
training of a mntorman. He is tried on
the travelling public under the surveillance
of an old hand. for six or seven days; then
he is taken inside the barns n week and
taught what he can learn in that time OF
the mechanical continuance of the car he is
to operate Following this. he is put on as
an extra" The superintendent of the
trust assures me these green extras are
closely watched by the company-whether
by a searchlight or through a telescope l
was not informed. They are put out
on suburban lines first. the idea seeming
to generally prevail that human trathc on
suburban lines is a mere incident of their
existence. Aside from running schedules
and serving as means of educating motor
men, they also have a sort of penal charac-
ter in the organization of street railway
systems. | heard motorman OF a city car
say the other day that for certain lapses OF
duty the company Furnishes a motorman by
sending him to serve as an extra a GER
tain number of days on a suburban branch
of the road
1t may have been an untrustworthy
motorman serving time, or student motor
man. working for his postgraduate degree.
that a man told me about in the course OF
my recent excursion. 1t was on the Great
Falls division of the trust lines The car
stopped suddenly with a hang. The motor
man was greatly excited. was the con-
ductor. and the people even more so. for 1t
was in the middle of a wooden trestle over
gested telescOping by the incoming car. The
motorman looked at the box the wheels
and the machinery everywhere. He tinkered
a bit and tried to start, but the wouldn't
bulge, and finally. to everybody's horror.
the other car appeared rushing toward
them Then the man who told me the Incl
dent, who is a skilled electrician, stirred
himself to see what the matter was. He
got off the car and cast his eye aloft.
The trolley was off the wire
Such is the knowledge of his craft the
extra may have when he is put in charge
Of car and hundreds of human lives
The motormen of the Chevy Chase line
are principally youngsters, and they there
fore shoulder their responsibilities with
with especial clea,ness how lightly subur-
ban railway companies consider the impor-
lance of properly manning their cars.
One loses sight of the motormen for the
terrors of old cars and dreadful engineering
that are particular feature of the Tenley- |
town and Glen Echo line and of the Great
Falls.
On the Tenleytown Road.
Taking Tenleytown car at Georgetown,
at the foot of 32d street, I involuntarily
begin to arrange in my mind just how
rews of the accident is going to read in
print. This is not so much because of nv |
spontaneous journalistic sense as because
the accident that always threatens has
happened so many times The grade from
the observatory down to the river is so
steep as to make a Chevy Chase motorman
feel his work is not half the lark it might
be The majority of the Tenleytown cars
are old and numbering, and people along
sd street never know when these suburban
cars Will come knocking at their front door |
They have got started down hill and never |
stepped till they ran into the boathouse at |
the edge of the river, and I stood by one |
day while one came tearing along finally |
veering off to one side and breaking into a |
store After this grade is safely passed on
the way to Glen Echo, just sit and endure |
all the horrors of a trip at sea, with none |
or the compenSations. / am told that
Georgetown doctors who feel their patients
need the benefits of sea sickness, and know |
they cannot stand the expense, prescribe a |
trolley ride to Glen Echo by way of Ten
leytown. The car sways from side to side
and when we go at a laundering pace down |
q long hill to the Glen Echo junction / am
so frenzledly clinging to a seat 1t would be
almost a relief if we should run into the
ditch and be killed and have done with it,
From the junction on this road reminds |
me of the wild and woolly engineering ! |
have seen in railroads out west. where hus-
Ting humanity has but one problem in all |
things-to get there, get there cheap and
quick. 1 am particularly reminded of a |
criticism / once heard a man make riding !
over certain new railroad in Minnesota |
The president of the road was exhibiting it.
ana nearing the end, he asked, What do |
you think of it."
Il don't see but one thing you have over
piece l saw place where it seemed to me |
you might have made another curve and |
You didn't"
The Glen Echo road is not omen to this |
criticism. | am sure a snake couldn't cover
the distance in more curves than this line |
makes. 1t curves along gulleys, curves |
through the weeds that grow thick and high |
between the tracks: ii curves over trestles
and our ramshackle old car rushes along
laboring with this sinuosity like an ele-
phant keeping up with skirt dance
The superintendent of the trust has told |
me that motormen have orders to slow
down and bring their cars under perfect con-
troll approaching a curve, whether in the |
city or suburbs. l don't know how this or |
der is possible of execution on the Glen |
Echo division. where 1t certainly Is not exc
cuted, because there isn't a chance between
curves to slow down. without setting a |
snaifs pace for the trip not up to the re- |
quiremcnts of a rapid-transit schedule
On the Great Falls Line
When l start back from Glen Echo on |
the Great Falls line I'm feeling desperate
enough to be a cheerful motorman myself. |
I'VE whizzed down hills roared over
bridges and whipped around curves, at the |
mercy Of rusty, rotten old car and I'M
certain track, until I'm getting motor
mans point of view. Life is all a lottery
anyhow, and whether the brake works or |