The silver messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1890-1912, 1899-11-14
ALWAYS AT SCHOOL.
Railway Employees Continually
Learning Something.
Practical Instruction in the Uss of
New Appliances Is Given by Lee
lures In the ye<naeuIar OF
the Road.

On the railroad, men go to school all
their lives. They never get too old to
go. Whenever there comes into use
any innovation that requires technical
knowledge, su- as the airbrake, or
whenever there is a change in any of
the commonly used codes, such as the
hand signals used by trainmen, the men
are divided into squads and sent to di-
vision headquarters for special instruc-
ton. There places are known among
railroad men as ''schcols." The meth
DDS employed combine those in use in
the kindergarten. the primary depart
ment and the high school
Perhaps the most interesting railroad
school is the IN sent out by the West
inghouse company to confer upon rail-
road men the final degree in the proc
ess OF learning the airbrake. This
school is on wheels, and in the three
years that il has been in service it has
Travelled than twice the distance
of the circumference of the world, and
has granted certificates to nearly
21s,oCo railroad men. The instruction
car is packed full of every kind of APP
pliance and fitting and model that will
be found in any train of 30 cars. The car
is in charge of competent lecturers, and
every railroad employee who has any
thing to do with the actual handling of
engines or cars is required to attend.
Engineers, fremen, conductors, train
men, g%alyanizers and hostlers all have
their separate classes, and the condi-
tions in the car are as nearly as possible
like those they meet every day. Here in
the car, however, the different parts are
so arranged that they can be taken
apart and viewed in section and used to
illustrate the lecture.
The men who conduct these lectures
speak the v~ernacular of the railroad,
and their talk is not always a model of
good grammar and rhetoric; but, what
they say is practical and easily under
stood. Moreover, the men feel that the
lecturer has actually sat in an engine
and gone down a long grade with a
heavy train, or that he has crawled
around on the ground to fit hose. After
the lecture is over the class passes into
another car and is examined. There is
something strangely familiar about the
way these ~big-bearded fellows hitch
their shoulders and wriggle when they
are called upon to recite. This school,
BY the way, has engagements that will
require three years to fill. There is now
on its way to this country a band CT Ger
man mechanics who are coming over to
learn the airbrake, and it is probable
that they will take their degrees here.
In an item headed "Murphy's Ian
tern the Lexington (Ky.) Leader tells
how Superintendent W. j. Murphy, of
the Cincinnati. New Orleans G Texas
Pacific examines his trainmen on their
proficiency in the train rules. lie uses
a stereopticon to show pictures of life
size signals of all kinds-semaphores
and other fixed signals, trains with
markers, classification signals. and in
fact almost anything else that the men
will ever be called upon to translate.
Various men have various methods, al
though it is doubtful if many superin-
tendents go to the length of helping the
men out with lantern slides. When it
comes to examining the men in hand
signals the superintendent usually calls
in a subordinate and says: "Here, Jim,
take these men out to school," Then
Jim takes them out in the yard, gives
them a train to break up in a dozen diff
ferent switches, and soon has them
waving themselves wild. Their engineer
is extremely literal: he keeps his eyes
glued on them, taking nothing for
granted. The men get no help or SYM
pathy from Jim, and altogether the test
is apt to be more severe than anything
they will ever run up against in actual
service.
Almost all of the operators of the
block signal service, which has come
into use on most of the big roads, are
youngsters, and wherever one of them
happens to be stationed he manages to
attract q considerable body of youth
full admirers. A bright boy in a tower
viii pick up telegraphy in a short time,
and it is from these that the ranks of the
tower operators are kept filled. AS a
matter of fact, almost all of the opera
tors in the country to-day have picked
up telegraphy themselves. Before a
boy gets a chance. however, he has to go
TO school at division headquarters,
where the chief of the service examines
him in telegraphy on the electric bell
code, and tries to stick" him with
original problems.-N. Y. Sun.