Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1910-07-31
HARTMAN ROAD
HOST TO OMAHA
Thousands Visit the New Union
Pacific Shops as Guests Of
Road
EVERYTHING Is THROWN OPEN
Throngs of Visitors Accent the Union
Pacific Invitation.
M'KEEN SHOPS ALSO VISITED
Great Interest is Shown in This Big
ENTERPRISE.
VISIT A LIBERAL EDUCATION
Affair Takes the Nature of University
Extension work, with Chance
for Practical study of the
Great Plant.
Throngs of Visitors Accent the Union
Pacific Invitation.
MKEEN SHOPS ALSO vIsITEl
'IsIT A LIBERAL EDUCATION


university extension work, to which the
Union Pacific and McKeen Motor Car
companies gave lessons In practical mechan-
les saturday.
From o'clock, the hour announced for
the opening Of the inspection by the citi-
zens OF Omaha, men and women ana many
children poured through the gates at Cass
street and proceeded to march through tho
great shops. That the actual journey was
no joke win he realized when it is stated
that the ground area covered by the build
ings totals 1903 acres. Yet 1t is doubtful "
even the most delicate woman or child In
the throng ever gave u thought to the
distaoce covered on every side and at every
turn was something of patent instruction,
often of intensest interest. The educational
features held all thoughts.
In these shops men handle locomotives as
children handle playthings; and mastery
products of one branch of the plant were
! but yesterday regarded as playthings by
men who today consider them as marking
| a new era in railroad building, namely, the
| Mckeen motor cars.
! Tremendous looking steel airships were
whzzing and sailing overhead in the loco
motive repair shop with jaunty looking
young aviators perched In little boxes and
/ directing the powerful carriers in their
cycle on the street Ever and anon these
airships, technically called moving cranes,
| would shoot from one point to another with
a surprising velocity, pick up q load fit to
break the back of a understanding Atlas
and whirl it away to some other point for
further manipulation by workmen.
Machinery Does the work.
Underneath the cranes were machines
punching holes in heavy steel as readily as
a tooth pick goes through butter while
others were boring holes and shaving sur
faces to the exactness of q thousandth part
of an inch. The mighty NAV of one ma
chine would crunch through an inch-thick
piece of steel without even pereeptbe
jerk, while alongside would be a machine
IN which a great crank shaft was being
manipulated a squirrel plays with a
nut.
Further up the line dazzling fires we're
heating big sheets of steel TO a blazing
white condition. And workmen were con-
tinualy pulling these pieces out, laying
trem on q solid anvil as big a wagon,
fixed in the ground Then these industrial
fire-eaters ach seized wooden maui like
unto the head of a beer barrel and sailed
in to pound the sizzling sheet into order
They went around It. indeed. like cooper
T around a barrel" and shortly the wooden
mauls were thrown aside for heavy steel
3 hammers with long handles. By swift,
q swinging strokes, with never a miss, the
e perspiring imps of industry very quickly
Q brought the clumsy looking, shining ar
ticles into the shape called for by the place
l It is to fill, Then up it goes into tlc air,
e dragged by the aforesaid airships. and
y away to the or men wno perform the
e next operation. Here was opportunity for
t a liberal education la the best
z methods Of handling, heating shaping
( and forwarding inanimate articles
j. soon to thrill with the life that men put
d into a mass of scraps they have with keen
J., intelligence shaped TO respond to power
: to run, to stop, to start ana run again. as
f the master hand may direct.
!, Away at the north end Of the enclosure
!, locally known as "the U. p. shops" stand
t, the buildings OF the McKeen Motor Car
l. company In these buildings the visitors
= saw all the material in the rough, and
then after the first touch OF the mechanic
has started 1t toward service; on and on.
from man to machine and from machine 10
still other machine, until the floor OF the
car 10 be is laid. A few steps away the
steel sides are being put on; then comes a
car with the roof on. and one with the
. front and rear in place; then one entrelN
, enclosed and the woodworkers busy inside
and stl little further along a finished
car, except for the engine, while lust out
side the door is finished car ready 10,
| passengers TO step into. The engine has
not been tried until today, but when a man
lays hands on tho levers and pulls them
off she goes 10 the other end OF the vard
as smoothly as could be desired
In the Mckeen shops the visitors not orIv
saw the cutting and shaping of steel ths
making and assembling of engine parts the
acme OF the machlnist's ART IN speoIai coD-
struction, but also the combining of n,.
per-like sheets of wood into shapes mos,
graceful and of tremendous resisting power
. Any person having gone through these
shops, afterward seeing a McKeen car
4 will be fairly we'll equipped to tell iust hov
] 1t Is built into beauty and power sesino
4 the actual process from the rough 10 M
1 perfect product surely surpasses any learn.
i ing from books.
Many Were Guests.
Having decided to entertain every n...o.
in Omaha anxious to see and learn. IN,
II officials Of the two companies went abou
the business In proper form. Alert wei
Informed guides met all visitors ar b,
main gate and escorted them in pronn
through the office building, the 80
house, oil house power house. machIn,
shop. blacksmith shop, boiler shop, patter,
shop. car shop, paint and wheel shop an,
n the motor shops.
Il Conversation Of a polite, well moduIated
social character was not very popular II
most Of the shops and could only be con
4 Quoted with difficulty; but there wer
sights 10 see and lessons to be learned a
every step. Much eagerness was evince
er to learn all the guides had TO tell. and II
n safe TO say the people OF Omaha, TO a yel
n large number are much better informe
ne on and have a higher conception Of the yas