The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1907-10-03
THE RAILWAY PAY CAR
Romance That Hung About 1t In
the Good Old Days.
WATCHING FOR THE YELLOW
The Appearance of the Brightly Var
nished Gold Colored Palace on
Wheels Always an Event on the
Road-The Present Check System.

Road-The Present Check System.
"Railroading isn't any fun any more.
Sordid commercial folk in Wall street,
with never an idea in their noggins but
to invest money and make it pay divi-
dends, have improved all the romance
out Of life on the rails" writes a cor
respondent of the American Magazine
in commenting on the present system
of paying off railway employees.
"Ah, no! Railroading isn't what it
used to be. But if those Wall street
money grubbers had only left us the
pay car all else could have been for
given. Do you remember how in the
good old days the decrepit jokes about
what was to be done when the pay car
came were taken out of the moth balls
along about the 10th of the month
and busted off and put through
their PAGES? How, toward the 10Th a
feeling of sprightliness gradually
stole over every one from the wipers
in the rouHdhouse to the lucky dogs
who had passenger runs? How this
cAuDeEduCo S"ellcu Ill NOluuc us du-
ticipation became more keen until to-
ward the 18th everybody went about
with a broad grin and nerves all
a-tangle, the way you feel when the
orchestra Is playing the creepy music
to accompany the villains midnight
assault with intent to kill? How,
still later, everybody drifted down to
the depot about four times a day to
ask the station agent If he had heard
anything about the pay car until he
grew as grabbed as a sitting hen?
How, about the 22d, the waiter
girls at the depot hotel would give
you a saucy wink and bring you
a great, juicy, melting, extra special
wedge Of pie you didn't order for des
sert, along with the ice cream and nuts
and raisins and fruit and pudding and
shortcake you did order? Those girls
knew how to work a fellow for tips
about pay day, didn't they?
''At last, one day as you were letting
'em down the hill into the junction, the
operator pulled his train order signal
on you. Your heart leaped into your
throat because you knew-well, you
just felt it in your bones. You went
down the side Of the car without
knowing how you did it and sprinted
for the switch to head 'em in on the
passing track and then flew to the
station on winged feet leaving the
engineer to hold 'em with the driver
brakes or let 'em run out at the lower
end, as he chose. And the grumpy
old curmudgeon stopped 'em beautiful
ly, without SO much as saying boo
when on any other occasion he would
have Embossed n torrent Of vitupera-
ton that would have set the ties on
fire, and would have followed it UP
by heaving a monkey wrench at you
if you had been in range.
There behind the counter was the
old man, looking over the shoulder of
the operator, who was spelling out the
order without breaking oftener than
every second word:
Train No. Z, Conductor Flatwheel
Engineer Poundem. will meet pay car
special, Conductor Linkenpin, Engi-
neer Moriarty, at Emerson
Such an air Of nonchalance as Old
Man Flatwheel did assume as he turn
ed away to discuss with the hind man
the ACCESSIBILITY Of making a switch of
that through car Of corn next the en-
CINE, to get it behind the way cars. so
we wouldn't be bothered with it at
Lyons in doing our work on those
heavy grades, and affected to forget
that he was getting orders until the
operator called him over to sign them.
He was so slow about his signature
that before the dispatcher's o. K. was
received you looked out of the big bay
window and saw the section gang that
ives working Just beyond the Y throw