The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1903-05-06
Need of Three Men to an Engine

engine" revived and strengthened
by the disaster Lear Westfield on the
Central railroad of New Jersey tracks, ;.
find Endorsement among railroad en-
ployes. They cannot be outspoken
publicly OH q quesrion which, though
it affects them directly, is considered
by general managers and division Z
superintendents to be none OF their
business, but among themselves they
point out that almost every disastrous
collision in recent years in all human
PROBABILITY would have been averted
had the engineer had an assistant look
out. n
Enginemen, brakemen, and conduc-
tors, homeward bound after their runs, &
tell tales in the smoker of incidents Of
railroading that, had they been wit !
messed by passengers, would have In
duced nervous prostration. That fa- :
miliarity with ever-present peril
which breeds contempt in the most
cautious of engineers Is insianced by
these men as the chief argument in
favor of the plan of having an assis-
tant engineer, though the danger Of
the man in control of the rushing ma z
chine falling dead or going insane is
given due weight. These latter con- +
tingencies, they say, are exceptional
the carelessness resulting from long
association with danger Is ever pres
ent. ~
A story illustrative Of another source
of peril, fortunately rare, was told the
day after the recent wreck. 1t dealt
with one of the most popular engineers
on a road leading from New York. 7
He was to take out special, on which
were several members of the board OF
directors. The man was obviously
"under the weather." and fell as he
ldescended from his cab to make last
inspection Of the slides and rods. For
an instant he lay as if paralyzed, with
his legs between the drivers, but only
for an instant. The fireman, who bad
been peering apprehensively ups
him from the after deck, was at hist'
side with q single bound, and struck
him q violent blow across the face
with his greasy cap.
Make out we're skylarkingi y he
lsaid, "or our folks'll notice you and
lyou'Il lose your job"
/ Quickly he raised his mate to his
fleet. Then be boosted him, laughing
land striking back, up to the footboard.t q
Then he jammed him on his seat at
1.-The lever, struck him one final blow
land agile as cat climbed back to his
lown place with a broad grin on his !
face. None of the witnesses who un-s
derstood the incident interfered, and
1.-TWO minutes later, when the air whiG-st
tie sounded, the special rolled away ofisa'
Iher course to the mountains and: the
forests as though controlled by the s
lclearest brain. and steadiest hand on q
the whole long line.
The engineer Is dead. He did not Y
Idle that day, nor did any Of those Who z
Irode behind or before him suffer as q 1
result of his condition. But 1t was az
long chance. 'lg
They told one story on one train Of
an engineer on another line who was
running at 50-second clip through q
Ito mile stretch of forest with more
than q dozen crowded cars when his Y
lpipe went out. His racing Locomotives,
so the tale ran, was one Of the newest
TYPE, built to meet the requirementsof
modern traffic. Her frebox was the
full width of the widest sleeping eat,
so that the greatest volume and press
sure of steam could be developed. This
left no room for the crew to stand ibe-
side It, So the driver stands all alone
lin his cab just back of the roaring 4
|stack, where bis view Of the track is OF 4
1.-The best, and his stokers-for there
often must be more than one--prote otect-
ed by massive steel wind shield, leap
from tender to furnace on q narrow Z
firing deck set low down at the rear 9f {
the whole machine.
i nb;o 0i ofrs1ok oouoro1 M q f0f1.,se
es, but be couldn't hold the fire. y
Then, so the story went, he climbed {
out of his cab, back along the narrow
running board, through the wind Il
shield to the firing deck, lit his pipe,
spoke to his subordinate, and them
slowly wended his way back to where &
he belonged. A casual observer with {
frightened face glued to the pane 1f Y I
the forward car, did not compute the
time all this took, for he was glad
only to know that he was alive. This
story created not even surprise In the
little group that heard it. e
"Well, be couldn't have stopped II
he'd had to on that grade,n was one
comment. "He'd "a been killed quick &
er than anybody else," remarked e..
second listener.
Another story dealing with an In q.
cident fraught with even greater pos-s
sibilities Of q dark and dangerous
stretch of rails close to q great termi-
nus. 1t was guarded by every me-
chanical safeguard that ingenuity
could devise, for Its evident perils have
had costly demonstration. Engineers +
there, it was whispered, through long
Immunity come to regard this as &
about the safest part Of the whole
long line because of the appliance, and
at times, when they have dinner en-
gagement or other personal reason for
hurrying away from their labor, they
have been known to leave the train s
| In charge of their fireman and wash up
at the tender tank. They had bad Z
wreck there once and 1t cost much
money and many human lives.
A grizzled engineer who has spent
the greater part of his life at the lever
put the proposition this way:
"By law it is required that every
ferryboat shall carry two men in her
pilot.house. The law is obeyed, too,
except in emergencies. River pilots
come cheaper than locomotive engf-
neers, but is 1t not strange that the .
great transportation companies do not
find it to their own best interests, in
the light of go much past experience 4
to urge the passage of measure pro- 3
vided that on all fast passengers trains
there shall be pilot engineer?. What Z
comparison can be drawn between the
horrible possibilities of wild steam
boat and runaway engine? The pl-