The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1904-03-06


open door OF the car. There is a sig
nal 70 the engineer and the fast mail
l IS moving out of the sheds and oven.
: the north branch Of the river with an
( aDandon ana ease that would be new
70 the passengers on a day train.
Inese cars are sixty feet long and
OF the mule end" type-that is. with
} out platforms. Close up to the en-
CINE tender with its mighty weight
I or steel and coal and water is the
/ letter car. and in the blind forward
( end of this forward car are the racks
/ ana pigeon-holes and tables for the
/ SOrung and Sacking OF the first class
mail matter. Three fourths Of the
/ rear portion of the car are given over
4 10 the racks for the bags into which
1 the paper mail is shot, ready for the
| christening. the tying, and. at the
! proper station. for the swinging open
! OF a damned door. the careful sight
/ ing into the dark for the station and
/ its platform. and then. with the train
] moving sixty to seventy miles an hour
/ Tor the clerk to swing the bag out into
/ the night, trusting that he has struck
! az least within the corporation bounds
/ OF the village.
/ \ postal car, from an interior point
! or view. is not reassuring. With a
! cross continental portion Of the mail
/ from the east that has to be worked
| in 500 miles, together with a Saturday
! night grist of the local postOhiee and
I o. the Chicago newspapers. a postal
/ car such as is coupled close up to
/ No 1891 on the borderline of telescop-
I ing at the slightest collision. is breast
/ high with pouches and bags at the
; side doors For half an hour prob
ably not a single door could be slid
back because of the jam of the mail
At least one end of the car is as blind
| as a rat trap and down the sides of
r-sasI cI rI,-.-
which it would be impossible for a
full grown man to squeeze in case Of
accident
There are bottles of fire extinguish-
/ ing liquids, the ak, saw and hammers.
OF the regulation railway emergency
! box, and overhead on each side of the
| car just under the ventilators are
swung the life rods"-high enough
for a clerk whose car is making sew
enty miles an hour to jump and seize
one Of them, hanging suspended till
the crash comes-provided he has any
knowledge of the crash before its does
come.
Heads Of departments in the railway
! mail service will tell you of the time
when they worked in stuffy cars only
| forty feet long, heated by dangerous
stoves. and using coal oil lamps that
smoked and sputtered high up under
the car roof Now they speak of the
steam heat. the Pintsch gaslights and
the siX-truck cars built the 'reguIa-
ton sixty feet in length.
1T is well enough to bear in mind
that the average postal clerk in the
service is unduly pessimistic," was the
comment of one of these department
heads who had grown white haired in
the service. His work makes him
So"
On the other hand, however. admit
M &C q.
years ago, the postal clerk today win
ask you in reply If any of these old
time men in the service ever tossed
mail in a car making seventy miles
an hour? If you suggest to him that
there is a lessened danger from fire
in case of accident, you get the an
SWer that to be Scalded to death bv
steam is hardly to be chosen before
death by fire, while, as a matter of
TACT, was a fast mail train leaving
the track or colliding head on with an
other train, there is little else left for
either steam or fire to do.
You may even remark that the tyne
writer must have made the work of
reading addresses much easier. but
even here you will meet the inevitable
reply that While it has done so il
has made ten times as many addresses
10 read.
Looking about the train for the
causes for pessimism in the work, they
are easily to be guessed. To have
worked nine hours before the train
starts is something toward the end;
at o'clock in the morning to be
whirled out into the teeth of a. biz
zard at a rate that scarcely allows
the clerk to keep his feet without an
effort, and there for another four hours
and a half to toll harder than ever
TO diminish the heaps of bags and
hnF
higher at the last moment of start
ing; and I'm every moment Of these
dark plungingS and Feelings of the
cars TO know that a snapped rail- a
turned switch, crippled train ahead
any one of a dozen mistakes may
mean eternity in a moment.
Is IT strange if the railway postal
clerk at times is disposed to brood?
Save for the swing and sway of the
car, there are slight indications of the
speed TO be marked by the novice. The
windows into the dark are beyond the
possibility of an outlook. Only by lis
tening may one get an intimation of
the rate at which the train is NOV
ing. The ordinary river bridge is q
short, harsh. hollow note of sound that
is lost in the fraction of a second: a
culVert seems discordant blow struck
as If by hammer; passing another
train under full head on the other
track leaves meteOr-like trail and
the Shrek of the contending suctions:
a sleeping village in the track is a
mere echo that is gone in a second.
One may look for the reassuring con-
hdences in the air brakes. These
heavy postal cars are fitted with a new
type of brake, which, under emergency
application, closes upon the wheel at a
pressure of 10 pounds TO the square
inch. This Is the first grip; as the
speed slackens from il the pressure re-
duces automatically until the normal
sixty pounds is reached. Ordinarily
anything above sixty pounds will slide
a wheel and fiatten il, but with the new
brake applied TO wheels running at
sixty miles and over it's tension re-
lakes before the sliding point and from
these high speeds it relaxes still as
they are reduced until the train moving
at sixty miles an hour on a level track
may be brought TO a standstiu in 400
yards.
But practically the mail clerk is al
most as much afraid OF the application
Of the emergency air" as he is afraid
OF a head-On collision. The first lurch
caused by the emergency brakes win
throw a heavy man half the length of
the postal car If he be working in the
rear end OF it. II his letter racks be
In the front end Of the car. he NAV not
be surprised If he goes through the
mule end of the vehicle racks and
all. Working rapidly blind as a mole
as 20 all indications of danger that may
be ahead, conscious that a collision
means a telescOped train. his feet cold
from the icy floor of the car. and the
dust in clouds at times making the car
II