The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-10-07
WHAT OUR RAILROADS
 FORMERLY WERE In 1850 a Horse Was Able to Beat a Loco
 motive. ADOPTION BARRIER CAR Slaves Helped to Stop Train By Grabbing Hold and
 Pulling Back.

talned for railroad in the United | States. It was for line from Ph1ladel- phia to point on the susquehanna river, but was never built. On the an- norrcement of the project some one asked one of the Baltimore newspapers, "What is a railroad, anyhow"
 The editor was forced to reply that | he did not know, but that perhaps 1 some other correspondent can tell"
 Seven years later on the little wood- en track along the Lackawaxen Creek the first locomotive had its trial The experiment was far from successful and for number of years afterward continued to be drawn by horses.
 The first locomotive on the Balti- more and Ohio had sails attached! So did the cars These sails were hoisted when the wind was in the right direc- tlon so as to help the locomotives. The rivalry between the railroads using locomotives and those using horses was very bitter. In August, 1880, an actual trial of speed was held be- tween a horse and one of the pioneer l locomotives, which did not result in fa- vor of the locomotive The race was on the Baltimore and Ohio, the locomotive being one built by Peter Cooper, who 1 also acted as engineer.
 The horse. a gallant gray, was in the habit of pulling a car on track parallel to that used by the locomo- tive At first the gray had the better of 1 the race, but when he was a quarter of a mile ahead Mir Cooper succeeded in getting up enough steam to pass the horse amid terrific applause.
 At that moment a band slipped from pulley and though Mir Cooper lacer- ated his hands trying to replace it, the engine stopped, the horse passed it and came in the winner
 As there were no brakes on the early trains they used to stop and to start with jolts which threw the passengers across the car. The coupling was with chains having two or three feet of slack which the engine in starting took up with a series of fierce jerks The shock on stopping was even worse and never failed to send the passengers flying
 There were no whistles in the old days Signals were given by pushing up the valve on the dome by hand and letting the steam escape with loud hisslng noise. On the Newcastle and Frenchtown railroad when the signal was heard the slaves around the sta tion would rush to the arriving train, seize hold of it and pull back with all their might while the agent stuck a piece of wood through a wheel.
 There were so many collisions and explosions that some southern railroads introduced what they called barrier car between the Locomotive and the passenger coaches of the train. This barrier car consisted of platform on wheels upon which were piled.six bales of cotton, and 1t was claimed 1t would safeguard the passengers in two ways -it would protect them from the blow l ing up of the locomotive and would form soft cushion upon which the passengers could land in the event of a collision There is no record of how this experiment worked out.
 Horatio Allen states that when the South Carolina railroad was com pleted, with it's 100 miles of track, op- eration over such an extensive line was then unprecedented Tn making ar engagements for this unusual undertak
 ing one of the first things that occurred to him was that the locomotives would have to run at night as well as day and in the absence of headlight he built on an open platform car, station- ed in front of the locomotive, a fire of pine knots, surrounded With sand, which furnished the requisite illumina- tion of the route traversed.
 On most of the other lines no sub stitdtes for headlights were used. The trains travelled slowly through the dark. Night trips, however, were avoid- ed as much as possible. The first head light on a locomotive was used by the Boston and Worcester in 1S40.
 The original American locomotives were nearly all wood burners, and dur ing a protracted period, before the in- vention of spark arresters, the flying sparks caused great amount of dam age and annoyance. Interwoven with this difficulty was necessity for us- ing smokestacks many times larger than those now in use-too high indeed to pass under overhead bridges or the roofs of covered wooden bridges.
 To overcome this difficulty the snokestacks of many of the locomotives were jointed or hinged so that they could be lowered when trains were pro, ceeding over or under bridges. This naturally greatly increased the danger of setting fire to the wooden bridges and it was customary for aswatchman
 to follow every train over or under tht
 bridges, carrying a bucket of water fol
 the purpose of extinguishing fire. Not. withstanding this precaution the burn. : ing, of bridges was common occur 3 renee.
 On most of the early railroads tn,