The Lake County times. [volume] (Hammond, Ind.) 1906-1933, 1907-01-14


other times they let the stockholders
carry it-until they want it again.
''We'l do what we can, Peter" re-
piled the president, desperately anna
bIe "Goodby."
l am giving you only an inkling of !
how 1t started, not a word as to how |
countless orders were issued and /
countless schedules were Cancelled, not |
a paragraph about numberless trains |
abandoned in toto and numberless 9th
ers pulled and hauled and held and |
annulled. The McWilliams Special in
twinkle tore a great system into great |
splinters.
1t set master mechanics by the ears
and made reckless falsifiers of previ-
ously conservative trainmen. 1t made
undying enemies of rival superintend-
ents and incipient paretics of jolly
train dispatchers. 1t shivered US from
end to end and stem to stern, but it
covered 1925 miles Of the best steel in
the world in rather better than twenty
hours and blaze of glory.
| "My word is out" said the president
| in his message to all superintendent
| thirty minutes later. You will get
your division schedule in a few mo-
| ments. Send no reasons for inability
to make 1t. Simply deliver the goods
With your time report, which comes by
by. NJ. S., want the name and rec
ord Of every member of every train
crew and every engine crew that hauls
the McWilliams car" Then followed
particular injunctions Of secrecy.
Above all, the newspapers must not
get 1t.
But where newspapers are secrecy
can only be hoped for, never attained.
In spite of the most elaborate precau-
tons to preserve Peter McWilliams'
secret-would yoe believe it?-the even
ing papers had half a column, practi-
cally the whole thing. OF course they
had to guess at some of it, but for
newspaper story it was pretty correct
just the same. They had to a minute
the time of the start from Chicago and
limited broadly that the schedule was
a hair raiser, something to make pre-
vious very fast records previous very
slow records. And-here In scoop
was the secret-the train was to con-
vey a prominent Chicago capitalist to
the bedside of his dying son, Philip
McWilliams, in Denver. Further, that
hourly bulletins were being wired to
the distressed father and that every
effort of science would be put forth TO
keep the unhappy boy alive until his
father could reach Denver on the spe-
cial. Lastly, 1t was hoped by all the
evening papers Ito fill out the half first
column scarce that sunrise would see
the anxious parent we'll on toward the
gateway Of the Rockies.
OF course the morning papers from
the Atlantic to the Pacific had the
story repeated-scare headed, in fact
and the public were laughing at oul
, peoples logged refusal to confirm the
r report or to be interviewed at all or
j the subject. The papers had the story
: anyway. What did they care for oul
, efforts to screen q private distress
3 which insisted on so paralyzing a time
card for 1,O26 miles?
2 When our own, the west end of th'
schedule, came over the wires ther'
|
t Dispatchers, superintendent of motiv'
power, train master, everybody, pro
tested. We were given about sever
hours to cover 400 miles-the tastes
percentage, by the way, on the who'll
run.
''This may be grief for young Nc
Williams and for his dad" grumbleC
the chief dispatcher that evening a
he cribbed the press dispatches goinl
over the wires about the special, "bu
the grief is not theirs alone"
Then he made a protest to Chicago
What the answer was none but him
self ever knew. It came personal, ant
he took 1t personally, but the name
In which he went to work clearin
track and making a card for tie Nc
williams Special showed better spec
than the train itself ever attempted
and he kicked no more.
After all the row it seems incredible
but they never got ready to leave Oh
cago till o'clock, and when the Nj
williams Special lit into our train syf
tenn 1t was like dropping a mountai
lion into bunch Of steers.
Freights and extras, local passenge
trains even, were used to being sid'
tracked, but when it came to layin
out the hiers and q whisper this) tn
White Mail and the Manila express th
oil began TO sizzle in the journal boxe
The freight business, the passsngt
traffic, the mail schedules of a whol
Il railway system were actually knocl
ed by the McWiiIiams Special into
cooked hat
= From the minute it cleared Wester
> avenue it was the only thing talke
of. Divisional headquarters and CT
?. tink shanties alike were bursting wit
excitement.
?. On the West End we had all night
: prepare, and at o'clock next morniI
70 every man in the operating departmel
7, was on edge. At precisely 1858 a. I